Chapter 25-Battle between Teams

They made their way up towards the school while Itachi sat in silence. He wasn't exactly the most outgoing person, and he was not going to start some pointless conversation when none was needed.

They were heading towards Tokyo university which was overall the most famous in Japan. Situated on a Mesa, which is a flat topped hill, it overlooks most of Tokyo. It's large campus has a large coliseum where students practice and fight each other which is where he was heading.

He didn't know if he should compete. It would probably be over kill if he went up since the opponents shouldn't be too tough. Maybe if their was a very exceptional student he would have a good match.

They arrived in the parking lot, so they hopped out. Awaiting them was a black haired lady who looked to be in her mid twenties. "Welcome students from America, If you would please follow me I will show you to the main gym.

She proceeded to lead them along the path coming across a set of double doors. opening it was a large dirt field that was well maintained with a large set of bleachers to the left where there were two separate areas for the different teams. 13 Students sat gathered on the far right side for the Japnese team. After we all sat down she left while a new lady walked forward.

"I am Hina Sato, one of the overseers of the Japanese national team as well as the headmistress of this school, and I will be overseeing this match" she spoke in a heavily accented, yet understandable english. "We will be doing three matches of 2v2's. The first to win two matches will win. If you lose, you will have to wait the designated week before attempting again."

This was one of the rules for the national competition. Instead of losing the right to win the badge after losing, instead you had to wait a week. If they kept being defeated they would waste a lot of time while other teams. Immediately they began planning out their strategy.

"The most important thing is to use a group of people whose elements complement each others well. Lucas, Grant Do you want to take the first match?"

"uhh yeah sure if no one has any better plan" Lucas responded a bit passively while grant nodded in assent. Grant specialized in defense and support. Moving around with shadow quickly he could cast shadow spikes to pin the opponent down. Also he had good defense magic. Lucas was more specialized in attacking and they would make a good combination.

They signalled to the referee they were ready as Lucas and Grant moved up after they discussed their plans a bit. Walking up to face them was a dark haired boy and girl who each took up defensive stances as they waited for the match to start.

The countdown rang down and the two Japanese students immediately reacted. The girl showed off the summon element summoning an evolving warrior rank Silver Rhinoceros that shook the ground with its powerful steps. The male who was an earth mage immediately rose up the ground creating a large platform that gave them an height advantage while the girl immediately started casting a mid tier fiery fist shooting towards the two.

Grant quickly threw up a water barrier that managed to deflect the blow causing alot of steam in the room form the collision. Immediately Lucas used the confusion to charge up a powerful Lonely Death Lightning strike enhanced a couple times by a spirit seed that cut straight through the smoke throwing the girls contract summon Rhinoceros back into a wall as it came off unable to move from paralysis along with having heavy burn wounds. Luckily it had very high defense and vitality as a strong Rhinocero, so it should recover.

Gritting her teeth, the girl called it back while she sent a few draft animals charging over to distract them. The male seemed to be an ice mage since he used the confusion to use wind track to try to circle around as he sent powerful ice chains shooting out of the ground as fast speeds threating to entrap the two mages. Taken by surprise Grant immediately turned into a shadow dodging the blow while Lucas who had already seen the blow coming quickly used powerful vines of the plant element to meet the attack in mid air resulting in the attack being stopped. The weak draft gate summons were quickly killed by a combination of novice and mid tier.

Right after, grouping back together Lucas and Grant both sent powerful waves shooting across the field crashing down onto the rock defenses knocking the two opponents back into the storming water that crashed alongside the magic barriers of the arena. "Now!" Grant shouted as Lucas sent a lower powered field of electricity to electrocute the two, but it shouldn't be enough to seriously injure them.

They quickly recalled their water magic as they waited for any sign of the opponents. Sure enough as the water receded their were two unconscious bodies side by side. Fearing for their safety, a healer on the Japanese side immediately jumped forward to check upon their condition, but luckily they were alright as they slowly stirred waking up.

"Round 1 goes to the Americans" the referee proclaimed before saying "You have two minutes to pick your next participants. Matt immediately turned to the two twins Aiden and Ethan "Your up next. Be careful the next opponents will likely be a lot stronger since they don't want to lose.

The two twins stepped out on the now clean looking arena that had been completely fixed by a couple of earth mage teachers who maintained the field. Having a dirt field was the most convenient thing because no matter how jacked up it got, you could fix it with a couple earth mages.

On the opponents side this time there was two girls with one girl with dyed blond hair walking up arrogantly "Don't think this one will be quite as easy as the other one. Soon the count down began as the match started. Wasting no time, both of the brothers charged up powerful fiery fists that shot towards the opponent scorching the ground leaving little area to escape. Immediately one girl threw up a thick ice wall to block herself while the other sent a wave of water into the fiery fist that eventually blocked it after the water was pushed back a bit.

Then the blond haired girl sent powerful vine whips with her plant element shooting towards the opponents, while the other girl sent another wave of water to try to distract the two. Ethan jumped forward channeling freezing ice energy into the wave which soon turned a powerful wave into a glacier blocking their views of each other as the icy structure blocked them.

Aiden then sent a destructive whirlwind forward that quickly slashed apart the structure creating much destructive debree that flew crashing into the two girls while they defended with water and light shields respectively. Using this chance, the blond haired girl who had been preparing advanced plant magic thrust her hands into the ground while the two boys seemed oblivious to what was happening as they thought they were about to win.

"Watch out" Mat shouted but it was no use. The barrier blocked out sound while a hidden threat spread underground. Both males were immensely shocked when the previously still dirt field, erupted in a frenzy of vines as they were swallowed by the dense plants surrounding them. The outside was soon blocked as they were completely in cased inside the destructive high tier plant magic that threatened to tear them apart. Flashes of fire magic could be seen through the gaps, but it seemed to have very little effect on the powerful vines that were alot stronger than they looked.

"We forfeit this round" the mat said panicked shouted not wanting his team members to be crippled. "Hmmph they shouldn't be to injured, I did not use the digesting part of the attack otherwise they would have been torn to shreds" she said smirking as she retracted the vines. "Anyone else" she confidently stated as she didn't seem to be tired at all.

She switched out the other girl on the team who was replaced by a cocky looking male on the other side "Finally get to compete, all the other teams we faced so far were too weak to force me to compete" he said arrogantly obviously trying to provoke the others.

Turning to face Mat Itachi asked "Can I go?' which was pretty tough for the boy to answer. Mat had hoped to win without revealing too much of their cards, and Itachi as a space user was definitely one of those cards he did not want to reveal too early. All matches were recorded and sent in for proof of completion and it was public for all the teams to see. This gave teams the chance to make up counter strategies to counter others. Part of the challenge was hiding some of your strength for the finals in Venice so you could catch your opponents by surprise.

*Sigh "Sure but try not to use your space element if necessary" he said as he also chose Catherine Adams who was the daugher of the head of the Liberty university.

Itachi looked at her "I will use wind wings to fly around while I rain down lightning on the two, you attack from the side with your powerful attack elements and this victory should be easy" he said as they moved towards the field taking opposite positions from the side.

Neither pair said anything as they stared each other down waiting for the start of the match. The blond girl had very strong plant magic that was obviously enhanced as it was barely affected by the twins fire magic when they had tried to escape the plant trap.

The male to her side couldn't be weak either since he seemed to be the captain of the defense team. Sure enough right after the match started the male immediately opened up his contract summoning a Four Colored Giant Tiger commander ranked beast that shook the ground eliciting a few shocked gasps from bystanders. Having such a powerful summon at such an age was very rare with Itachi, Xue'er along with a few others being the only ones around or past this level in the summon element.

The Tiger immediately attacked with its powerful legs shooting it forward rapidly towards the two. Catherine who was prepared immediately sent a powerful Nine palaces attack which made 9 fiery pillars that closed in on the beast on all sides. The powerful beast however despite backing up a little took little damage with a few minor burns. Once again it leapt towards the two while the girl going all out from the start activated her strongest plant magic as the entire earth instantly erupted again.

Itachi who was prepared for this leapt up throwing Catherine into his arms while he leapt up with 6 pairs of wind wings showing he was at the 3rd level of high tier. The previously frightening plant magic had little effect on the two now as they flew into the air away from the commander ranked summon as well as the plant magic.

"You should have warned be before doing that" the brunette cutely said with a slight pout as a rosy tint rose to her cheeks. 'he smells so good' she thought pressing her face against his chest as she breathed in deeply taking his manly scent before she immediately berated herself 'this is no time for this stupid behavior, we are in the middle of a match'

She immediatly created a large ice platform on the ground which she quickly dropped on while she began throwing different mid tier attacks including ice and fire keeping their opponents busy. The blond haired girl on the other side casted wing wings as well revealing her last element that she had hidden the previous match. She tried disrupt his flight by sending a whirlwind towards him, but his powerful enhanced wind wings kept him steady as he shot towards her using his wings offensively as his batted her down with his ten meter long wings that packed a powerful blow similar to a rasengan from the condensed wind.

Their captain began shooting off strikes of lightning towards Itachi who deflected them all with his wings. Unless it was high tier lightning, it would be difficult for it to bypass his mobile and defensive wind wings that were so condensed they looked solid. Responding in kind Itachi revealed his second element as lightning while he sent powerful blows that the opponent desperately blocked with earth walls. Even if earth was a natural counter to lightning, the penetrating effect of lightning would break through the barrier, so the opponent had to waste a huge amount of energy to defend while Itachi spent a minimal amount from casting novice and intermediate lightning strikes.

While the commander beast couldn't affect Itachi after Catherine landed it made a beeline towards her crashing into her ice platform trying to knock her aside. She was prepared for this however, as a powerful heavenly flame funeral high tier fire magic caused hundreds of meteor like fireballs to rain down smashing into the commander beast who tried to dodge as it quickly found itself being severely burnt. Finally it made its way out of the attack, but this move had forced it to back up and it was now a good distance away from Catherine who was already casting high tier ice magic. Soon a powerful ice coffin appeared radiating an intense chill that instantly lowered the temperature of the field by several degrees.

The ice magic closed in from all sides encapsulating the powerful commander as it radiated an intense cold inside that would freeze it to death if it remained too long. Realising the threat, the blond haired girl who had just gotten up from Itachi's attack moved forward to help while the captain also moved in to help defend his summon since it would be difficult to escape a ice coffin on its own.

'Getting distracted from your opponent, how fatal' Itachi thought as he prepared to finish this. The entire field glowed an intense purple as lightning arc'd between Itachi's fingers. 'better not use my spiritual seed for this one otherwise the entire building will be destroyed' Itachi thought as he prepared to cast high tier Lonely Death Lightnign. A second later, a purple bolt of energy crashed heavily into the captain boy who barely saved his life with a strong magic shield tool that send him barreling into the stiff magic barrier causing him to cough out blood before fainting.

Catherine recalled her ice coffin as the contract summon was recalled when the user fell unconscious. Catherine and Itachi stared the blond haired girl down threateningly with one holding a red flame in her hands while the other had lightning arcing over his body

"Concede we will be forced to attack" Itachi said coldly before she quickly surrendered. She pretty much had no chance of beating the two alone when she was already exhausted as well as the fact they both had at least two elements at high tier and high ranked at that considering the number of wind wings giving away his level. There was no point of getting herself hurt bad when they would probably have more challengers soon.

Once again the healer stepped in to help out the fainted boy while the headmistress announced the results.

"the Americans won 2 out of 3 therefore they will win the Japanese badge as proof of triumphing over the defense team. She stepped forward handing a a lotus shaped green badge that she handed to Mat the team leader. "The badge is more of a formality since the videos of the match is what counts, but it is still a nice keepsake"

While the competition may seem loosely supervised, videos of the matches were closely watched to look for signs of cheating or fake wins. In the past, some countries had tried to sell their badges, so videos were needed to prove they fairly won the match.

After they were sent in to the head quarters, they would be confirmed before they are made public for others to see. This made sort of a ranking to see how many and who teams had defeated. For such a large international competition, this was the most simple way to do it with the least trouble.

"It was nice competing you all, now- The lady was suddenly interrupted by a crash as the doors were thrown open. Panting heavily stood a young man who seemed to have run quite far "Miss.... There..... The.... Coast..... Is ... Being..... Attacked.... Sea.... Monster.... Invasion" he said struggling to talk as he gasped in between words.

Reacting quickly the headmistress of the school immediately pulled out her phone activating the intercom calling the students of the school to the training ground to prepare to defend the coast.

Turning to face their international guests, she spoke politely yet urgently "If you could help fend off the attacks we would be very grateful" she said a little desperately looking at their captain as she could use all the help they could get.

Mat looked around at his team members wondering if they should risk it. "I'm in shouted Gabriella excitedly who looked like a little girl on caffeine. The rest of the team gave nodds of assent while Itachi also commented "Could use a bit of a fight" he said while he was strangely hoping their would be a strong monarch attacking. He wanted to see how strong using just his magic could be.

They group ran out preparing to face whatever was attacking from the sea.