“A formation?” The headmaster and many teachers frowned. “What kind of formation can stop those meteors?”

Azusa held the same doubt. Atop her falling meteor, she scanned the rods, but her doubt persisted.

Himo chuckled. “This is second out of the three special formations I created in this month."

“Created?” the headmaster muttered.

And Himo snapped his fingers. “Its name is… exploding cannon formation!”

As his words spread, the rods on the ground gained a brimming red. The ground shifted toward the center of the formation, forming a depression. And, just as quickly, everything reversed.

Azusa widened her eyes and jumped away from the meteors.

A roaring noise escaped as a blast of flames that engulfed the meteors and turned them into cinders. But it didn’t stop there. It darted higher, higher, and higher. It pierced the water-like dome—expecting it, Himo undid the illusion realm to avoid a backlash—and reached the ceiling of the stadium. Once again, it didn’t stop—after a moment of stalemate, the pillar of flames pierced through the ceiling to rise even beyond.

“Impossible!” The headmaster sprung up from his seat and grabbed the stadium’s handrails. “A formation has exploded?!”

As teachers and students stood with mouths agape, Azusa freefell beside the pillar of flames. Her eyes lit up as the scorching heat brushed against her from a few meters away. She laughed and, with a kick of her boots, stopped mid-air. “Not bad!”

Himo grinned.

Moments passed before the pillar of flames vanished, gifting to sight the massive hole it left on the ceiling. The headmaster sighed—he was the one that had to fix it up.

Himo walked up to the rods and stored them one by one. While the explosion had damaged them heavily, they were still usable a few times.

His actions stunned the onlookers, but Azusa didn’t mind the wait. Once he had stored all of them, she smiled. “Now it’s my turn. Since you've proven your strength, I shall prove mine.”

Raising her hands, she chanted, "Black light of chaos, vanquish thy dark and warp anew to reclaim thy former splendor. From the unknown thee come and the known thee take away."

Black streaks of mist protruded from her surroundings. They swirled and approached her hands as they gradually whitened.

"Reveal thyself!"

They condensed into a white, luminous small sphere. Just like the sun, it seemed ordinary, quiet, and still. But its depths revealed a hint of instability. A hint of unrest.

"The resplendent sun, the ending star—Orbytalia!"

Azusa tossed down the orb. It fell slowly, looking as though it cared not of gravity. Meanwhile, she flew far above, up to the ceiling. Smirking, she looked at everyone’s reaction.

The headmaster widened his eyes. He stared at the orb for a second before snapping his eyes to the students in the stadium. I have to bring them out of there! 

Himo, meanwhile, didn’t take the orb lightly. He took several rods and thrust them into the ground, each put at the same distance from each other. Much to the confusion of the onlookers, he didn't spare a glance at the qiclock—he had already checked it before the fight. Put in a race against time, he darted left and right, but, before he could get the last in, the falling orb brightened into a flaming red—it was about to explode.

And yet, he smiled. This might’ve troubled me before, but… I’m not the same as when I had missed that beehive! He tightened his grip on the last rod. As though he held a spear, he made a grand gesture and launched the rod to the last spot.

A few students gasped. You’re even throwing it?!

The light of the orb intensified and stretched to cover the whole stadium. The students squinted their eyes to take a glimpse of the scene.

The rod plunged into the ground. A transparent dome sprung up from the formation and stopped the red light just before it consumed the child, who smirked in success as the red clouded everything.

The orb burst apart. Its sphere-like fire expanded and engulfed anything it touched. The headmaster teleported the students away from the stadium and threw them on the stands without pause—if he stopped for an instant, the remaining ones would die.

The whole stadium quaked as the burst crashed on both ground and ceiling.

Students and teachers alike stood with mouths agape and eyes frozen. The ones just teleported on the stands trembled at the sole thought of it. That was no normal spell. That was a device of mass destruction. Even once the light quelled into nothing they stood in shock for several seconds. Silently, they stared at the devastation it brought.

The ground was no more, swapped instead for a humongous black crater surrounded by the cracked stands' walls. The ceiling held countless cracks, with many chips crumbling as they fell to the ground. Despite that, in the middle of all that destruction, a small land of green remained. It was a small yet conspicuous location, for a single student stood in there.

Himo, within the dome, looked in marvel at the destruction caused by the spell. He patted the walls of the transparent dome and grinned. "It looks like the shield formation has worked!" He fetched the rods and stored them, then, he turned to gaze at the flying Azusa. “Your spell was pretty good!”

She opened her mouth for a second and said, “I’m surprised. I didn’t think you’d stop my spell with a formation.” The whole situation gifted her a chuckle. “And it was an improvised one, at that!” She let herself drop and stopped just short of reaching him. "While short, this was fun."

"Indeed." Himo smiled.

The headmaster appeared in the middle of the stadium, flying above everyone. "Since everything got destroyed, this exam is over." He threw several glances at the culprits, fearing they'd resume breaking the stadium. "Aura Azusa and Shu Himo will pass to the A-class, and, considering this is a special occasion, we'll hold a second exam tomorrow to fill the remaining twenty-eight spots. Therefore, the exam to the S-class will be postponed to two days from now."

Hearing the headmaster's hurried tone, Himo and Azusa looked at each other and broke into a burst of laughter.

[This is a new discovery. The system didn't expect that the user was a sadist.]

I'm not!