The water park shimmered, ripples spreading like silk across jade.

A timely breeze brushed the surface like a feather; the float bobbed on the blue mirror.

“One minute to the start! Blue and Green teams to your marks!”

The crowd watched with hearts strung tight like bowstrings.

Will Blue win on raw talent, or Green on clockwork teamwork?

Thousands craned like a field of sunflowers tracking the sun.

The tension swelled like a tide, and each falling second rang like a bell.

“Begin!!”

Boom!

Green struck first, Stephen at the tip like a spearhead, four voices casting Crystal Shield in unison.

Level 2 ward: Crystal Shield, a casing that shatters with a kick like thunder.

It’s poor as a wall, yet fierce as an engine, an exploding shell turned sail.

All four slammed the ward onto the float, and a steady gust rose like a hidden gale.

Like a hovercraft skimming reeds, that air lifted the float above the blue skin.

“Move!” Stephen and another snapped like twin whips; the other two nodded like hammer falls.

They leaped together like starlings, feet light over glass.

Under four bodies the float should’ve rolled like a capsized boat.

But the hovercraft trick held it steady like a stone in a stream.

The pressure kept flowing like a river, so they cast on the next float before the last had settled.

Rinse and repeat, tile to tile, like stepping stones across a green creek.

Green advanced down the channel like walkers on firm ground.

Gasps rippled through the stands like wind through wheat.

Right on the beat, the afro-haired commentator popped up from the central lane like a surfacing seal.

With waterweed crowning his hair and a goldfish flicking like a lantern, he shouted, “What a tactic, what a weave! Is this Warding Class One’s true power? Unbelievable!”

His mike threw the shout like a drum across the arena, and eyes swung to Blue like swallows.

“No way!” the afro’s eyes popped like marbles. “They’re using Levitation! And they’re relaying it! Who spread the lie that Battle Arts Class One can’t sync?”

“Isn’t that awesome?!” he whooped, and the goldfish in his hair leapt like a spark.

Even so, the contrast sharpened like ink in water.

Green moved on air cushions, float by float, steady as a bridge and safe as harbor.

With almost no fear of a spill, their speed stayed flat as a calm lake.

Blue’s Levitation tugged like strings on a thousand bells, demanding surgical control.

They were dancing on blades, the four tight with nerves like frost on leaves.

Because the water kept rippling like a restless beast, Lance, Jasmine, and the others had to wait for stillness like hunters in reeds.

That caution, born of risky technique, slowed Blue like mud on boots.

In the first twenty meters the gap was a hair like a single reed.

But the lane was four hundred meters long, a river unrolling to the horizon.

At fifty meters, Green had left Blue behind like a passing cloud.

The crowd broke into clamor like a flock of startled birds, and the afro yelled, “Unreal!”

“Warding Class One is pulling ahead of Battle Arts Class One?!”

“Will their Blazing Fire Knight allow that?!” he groaned, tossing the question like a stone.

“Victory goes to the first to solve,” Lance cut in, voice hard as steel. “Don’t call it early.”

Heads nodded like grain in wind; the crowd found their center.

Right—first to answer wins, a single spark deciding the bonfire.

If Blue was betting on that, then they had faith burning like a lantern in the dark.

Top-student Jasmine bit down each word like pearls: “My studying will finally help the team.”

The commentator shouted in admiration, “No wonder—beauty from the Library Arts track—her confidence is a charm all its own!”

So even as Green drifted forward on cushions like clouds, Blue had scholars like stars to steer by.

The pressure hit Green like a storm front, and their air-cushions wobbled like loose drums.

But—

“Sorry, we don’t plan to lose!” Stephen called, voice a bell in the gale.

Stephen the Unyielding Knight had stood before Lance like a stone gate, failing every time, yet never folding like wet paper.

His call stiffened Green’s weave like starch, and their rhythm snapped sharp like thunder.

Ten minutes burned away like a fuse.

As everyone expected, Green grabbed the question and turned back like an ebbing tide.

While they started solving, Blue was still fighting upstream like salmon on the return.

Sensing blood, the commentator fanned the flames like a bellows.

“What now? Will victory slip away like sand? Or will—”

“—the Blazing Fire Knight let someone steal his beloved maid?”

“Shut up,” Lance growled, the words a hammer blow through foam.

The commentator splashed under like a dropped oar and came up coughing, comic as a carp.

But duty hauled him upright like a hook. “He’s not willing, sure, but without a win, how does he protect the maid he loves?”

Words needed proof like seeds need rain.

If Lance failed, the road to guard Yuna would twist like a mountain path, wasting time like leaking water.

That wasn’t Fulin’s wish, not the heart she’d held for six quiet months like a candle under glass.

“I’m winning,” Lance said, certainty bright as a blade.

That certainty echoed Fulin’s resolve, a hunger for peace like a moon over still water.

If victory was the fruit, Fulin would pluck it with her own hands like autumn apples.

“Take this—Blazing Raid!” Lance drew breath like a furnace and called his strike.

All four hit the same float as one, feet landing like drumbeats.

Lance packed Battle Aura under the float like coals under a kettle.

The surface shuddered like a startled beast, the aura ready to flare like a geyser of fire.

“Now!” Jasmine and the other two met eyes, sparks flying like flint.

As the underwater aura erupted, Jasmine’s trio threw up Shields, a hard shell like a turtle’s back around the float.

“No way!!!” the commentator shrieked, as the float breathed flame and rose like a rocket through mist.

The stands surged to their feet like a forest of spears as the platform shot skyward.

Lance steered the jetting float like a prow through waves and laughed free, “Remember this—our return route!”

The roar rattled Green’s focus like hail on a roof; Stephen gaped, mouth a round moon. “Impossible—unbelievable! That’s the Blazing Fire Knight’s way back?!”

Seconds later, the float fell at the starting point like a meteor.

The landing hit hard like a mallet, and three pairs of legs went jelly-soft like noodles.

“Your turn, Blazing Fire Knight!” Two teammates, backs aching like bent bows, hoisted Jasmine onto Lance like a sack of rice.

“On me,” Lance said, promise sure as sunrise.

“G-gentler!” Jasmine flushed red as a peony, eyes shut like a shy blossom; it was her first time on another boy’s back.

Lance brimmed with vitality and Battle Aura like a river in flood; he carried her to the answer station as if weight were a leaf.

Under the judge’s eye they cracked the booklet like a shell, then froze like deer in light.

“If there were no air, would light grow dim?” read the question, a single line sharp as an arrow.