Max watched the match of Asiva vs Sebastian in silence, his eyes were slightly moist and his ego felt a little bruised.
' I wonder what big brother will think of me? ' Max wondered as he balled his fists.
For Max, the most important thing in the tournament was to showcase to his brother how strong he had become. He just wanted to make him proud.
Max was happy for Sebastian, his friend truly deserved to win, but Max could not resolve the knot in his heart that maybe, maybe if he did not give up control he could have pulled it off.
As Max saw Asiva win easily over Sebastian, his mood improved considerably as his heart warmed up to see her shine like this on the grand stage.
While others did not know what Asiva went through on a day-to-day basis, Max knew very well that her struggles to improve were no less compared to his.
Asiva had worked extremely hard to improve her dagger throwing proficiency from Intermediate to Familiar, and it showed when she made accurate and deadly throws in the match.
She was an assassin and a creature of night through and through so one vs one battles were not even her strong suit, but despite all disadvantages she stood as one of the top 4 contestants of the tournament.
Soon, The final battle started as Asiva faced ' Zeref ' the mage in an epic battle to seal the finals spot.
Max watched in awe as he saw Asiva weave through attacks accurately all the while maintaining pressure on the enemy by throwing daggers at critical organs like eyes and neck.
The biggest advantage of Asiva going into the battle was her speed, as no matter how hard Zeref tried he could just not catch her with an attack, while Asiva managed to get a few shots on him.
Finally the kicker came when the poison effect of her daggers was triggered and zeref began losing 15 points in HP every passing second.
From there on, it was only a game of dodging and playing defence for Asiva as her opponent had no means to cure his condition, as he eventually fell short and died.
Max stood up to clap as Asiva was crowned the winner of the match and the first finalist of the tournament.
Cheers from the crowd adored her, many selectors and high level officials took notice of her performance and tried to probe into her background.
As she walked towards the dressing rooms, the camera caught a shot of her beautiful Amber colored eyes and for a moment even Max became breathless to see her beauty.
" Student, you need to vacate the locker room now ... ". A staff member came to inform Max, as Max nodded towards him and prepared to head out.
But before he could head out of the room, he found a panting Asiva blocking his way on the door as she looked intensely towards Max.
" Congratulations ". Max said with a happy voice as he looked amiably towards Asiva.
Asiva said nothing but gradually closed the distance between herself and Max until eventually the two were mask to face.
" I wanted to fight you today ". Asiva said, looking straight into Max's eyes
" Yeah me too, unfortunately I was not worthy enough " Max replied, his voice containing a hint of sadness.
Asiva bit her lip at this moment, as the sweet scent of her blood tantalized Max's nose buds.
Her blood smelled incredibly sweet, and Max felt nearly intoxicated by the smell.
Max wanted to kiss her and suck on her wound at this second, but not knowing whether or not it would be appropriate and not wanting to risk his friendship with Asiva he controlled his instincts.
Eventually after 30 seconds of awkward silence, Asiva said " cheer for me from the stands .... Okay? ".
Max nodded and said " For sure "
Asiva moved aside for Max to leave, and Max did so with heavy steps.
Asiva waited a full two minutes before sitting in the locker room and folding her legs as she finally let her true emotions shine through.
" You should have kissed me .... Idiot ". She said in a soft voice as she finally accepted her own emotions.
Asiva always knew that Max was special in her heart, his funny yet genuine nature coupled with the secure feeling that he gave her made Asiva slowly fall in love with him, but she did not realise this fact until she saw him die at the hands of Sebastian.
She had always classified her possessiveness and admiration for Max as just friendship, but when she could not calm her rage upon seeing him die in a fair duel against Sebastian who was also her friend, she understood that Max was her reverse scale and someone she genuinely loved.
She had no mercy in her heart for when she faced Sebastian as the only thing she could think of was how he killed Max.
Even when she won, and was supposed to celebrate her moment, she rushed back to the locker rooms running as the only thing on her mind was to check and see if Max was fine.
Seeing him alive and with both arms intact brought a lot of calm to her heart as she realised that her most precious organ was no longer under her own command.
She tried to give Max the signal as she seductively bit her lip and stared into his eyes, just like she thought women did when they wanted a male to give them attention, but unfortunately Max was a musclehead who failed to pick up on her hints.
She was slightly sad when Max took two steps away from her as if she was contagious when she bit her lips, but looking into his unfocused eyes she understood that the bozo did not even realise what he was doing.
" Agh, fuck it, I'll just focus on the tournament finals for now " Asiva said as she tried to supress her thumping heart.
