Chapter 64.1- Doom Days

“It’s been one hell of a ride, hasn’t it?” Russo said, taking the stage as the applause died down. Now that I knew this whole thing had been engineered to get people to eel as many strong emotions as possible, but was all beginning to make perfect sense. All the showmanship, the bits of the tournament that hadn’t made complete sense.

What did unique elemental environments have to do with showing who the best duelist was? Very little. The environmental additions had probably ended up unjustly favoring or hindering quite a few duelists as things went. But then what did matter when the goal wasn’t creating the fairest or best tournament, but the best spectacle. And this was a spectacle per excellence. Even the final was going to be a spectacle in a way duels rarely were. The rules guaranteed that.

“Yeah, I can just hear how excited you all are. But I wonder if we can get even louder?” He prompted, and the crowd heeded. At this point, it was likely that if there was a ceiling, they would have blown it off already.

“Before we get to the finalists, I have something special lined up for you. It is my pleasure and honour to introduce the Weird Sisters”, he said, bowing to the side as the musical act took the stage. I turned to look at the other box on the other end of the stadium to find her already staring at me. Ifeoma Okonkwo, my opponent. Her hands were running over the totem necklace— a nervous tick, or a feigned one to make me think the totem was more important than it truly was. There were all sorts of magical foci she could be relying on. Each one with its own strengths and weaknesses. She had four rings on her fingers— any of them could be a magical focus. She had a bracelet on as well. That could be it. But the necklace was there largest thing she wore. And it was easily the most unique.

She tilted her head to the side, still observing me from her position. I had a stategy in mind for dealing with her. In truth, I had many strategies in mind. All I had seen so far was prodigious transfiguration and the ability to conjure a magical plant of some sort. It had been able to create flames that had near overwhelmed Cece’s shield with their force and power. Then there were the things that she had in the tank. The small tricks sh would have kept in reserve for this duel. The things she would have learned from watching me fight, and the countermeasures she would have prepared for it. That was the part I looked forward to seeing the most. She would have gotten the chance to watch me the most— To see what I could do, to see what I favored, to study my dueling more closely than anyone else. So what would she come up with to deal with me? What were ym blindspots?