The session started well.

Kai in the center of the yard. Lira on the left correcting the resonance Qi. Serah on the right watching with her arms crossed.

Kai’s resonance Qi was at eighty-two percent — three points better than the previous session.

Lira adjusted his hip axis.

"If the hip is here, the resonance Qi flow concentrates in the torso instead of distributing." She moved it two centimeters. "There."

"That’s incorrect," Serah said.

Lira looked at her.

"The hip at that angle blocks the active Qi flow," Serah said. "If Kai needs to switch from passive to active resonance in real combat, that angle costs him half a second."

"We’re working on passive resonance, not active."

"They’re not separable in combat."

"We’re not in combat."

"Training is for combat."

Lira let go of Kai’s hip.

"You’ve been teaching resonance Qi for weeks," Serah said, "and Kai still can’t consciously sustain it for more than forty seconds at a time."

"You’ve been sparring for months," Lira said, "and Kai still can’t read your full primordial aura."

Silence.

Both were right.

That made it worse.

---

[DraconicLegacy: both are right and both know it]

[Udo_Ehmen: "they’re not separable in combat" / "we’re not in combat" — technical argument that’s not really technical]

[Per_sudin: viewers: 1,400,000. the loyal ones watching the training.]

[Kalgarth: I’m here. what did I miss.]

[Jack_Moore: @Kalgarth Serah and Lira arguing about Kai’s hip. welcome.]

[Kalgarth: understood. I’m staying.]

[Warwolf: Kai in the middle processing that both are right and that saying so will make things worse]

---

Kai looked at Serah.

Looked at Lira.

"Both of you against me."

Both looked at him.

"If the problem is that both styles don’t integrate, the way to see it is for both to work at the same time." Kai set his stance. "You attack me together. I handle both styles simultaneously."

Serah considered this.

Lira considered this.

Both arrived at different conclusions about what the result would prove, but both concluded the result suited them.

"Fine," Serah said.

"Fine," Lira said. 𝐟𝗿𝐞𝚎𝚠𝐞𝚋𝕟𝐨𝚟𝐞𝕝.𝕔𝕠𝚖

---

The first minute worked.

Serah attacked from the left — side kick at seventy-five percent, the sparring speed they’d established. Kai blocked it with his forearm.

Lira attacked from the right simultaneously — blood magic current at twenty percent intensity, enough for Kai to feel it without real damage. Kai deflected it with Penetrating Strike.

The second minute also worked.

Serah to the flank. Lira to the front. Kai in the center reading both vectors with Field Priority active.

The third minute started getting complicated.

Serah launched a wave of primordial ice at ten percent — not for damage, to force Kai to reposition toward the right where Lira had a current ready.

Lira launched the current.

Serah’s ice reached the edge of Lira’s current.

The two energies met in the space between Kai and Lira.

The primordial ice absorbed the blood current — not by design, by the physics of two energies of opposite nature in direct contact.

Lira looked at the point where her current had disappeared.

Looked at Serah.

"That was deliberate."

"It was tactical."

"My current was going to Kai."

"And my ice was in the way."

---

[Drakeking: HAHAHAHA Serah used the ice to cancel Lira’s attack]

[Dr_snow: technically it was tactical. practically it was Serah telling Lira something.]

[Kalgarth: "that was deliberate" / "it was tactical" — same thing, different name]

[Chris_Murray: Kai still in stance in the center. no one’s attacking him anymore.]

[DraconicLegacy: the training lasted three minutes before turning into something else]

---

The fourth minute wasn’t training.

Lira launched a current at forty percent — not toward Kai, toward the space where Serah’s ice was going to materialize according to the pattern of the last three minutes.

The current arrived before the ice came out.

Serah saw it.

She launched the ice anyway — with enough concentration to pass through the current instead of absorbing it.

Both energies met in the center of the yard.

The impact made the ground vibrate.

---

Kai left the yard.

Aldric was beside the door with a bag he had brought before the session started — northern sector fruits, the kind he had learned Kai liked for training.

Kai took one.

He sat on the edge of the path with a view of the yard.

"How long do you think it’ll last?" Aldric said.

Kai bit the fruit.

"Twelve minutes."

Aldric drank his coffee.

"I’d say fifteen."

---

[Udo_Ehmen: KAI LEFT THE YARD AND SAT DOWN TO WATCH]

[Per_sudin: ALDRIC IS ALSO WATCHING]

[Jack_Moore: Kai and Aldric betting on how long the fight lasts. this is the best content on the stream.]

[Kalgarth: "twelve minutes" / "I’d say fifteen" — Aldric and Kai have experience with this]

[Warwolf: viewers: 2,100,000. went up when the real fight started.]

[Drakeking: ᕦ(ò_óˇ)ᕤ SERAH VS LIRA ROUND 2 ᕦ(ò_óˇ)ᕤ]

---

In the yard, Serah and Lira weren’t holding anything back.

Not at the guild level — there they had external reasons to escalate. Here it was different. It was the kind of fight that happens when two styles that are incompatible in the same space meet in the same space for long enough.

Serah with primordial ice in her claws — not the structural kind that consumed aura, the combat kind. Fast, concentrated, the one she had developed in the labyrinth when structural ice wasn’t enough.

Lira with blood currents at sixty percent and the fill mist in the area around her feet — the technique she had developed in level 2 of the labyrinth against the armored creatures.

The first real exchange lasted four seconds.

Serah to Lira’s right flank — claws toward the left shoulder, the point that still responded differently since the fight with the administrator.

Lira dodged with the SS lateral step and launched a current at Serah’s side.

Serah absorbed with her primordial aura and counterattacked with her elbow.

Lira blocked it with her forearm.

Both stepped back two paces.

They looked at each other.

They continued.

---

Kai ate the fruit.

"Lira’s mist is limiting Serah’s movement radius," he said.

"Serah knows it," Aldric said. "That’s why she’s not moving more than three meters in any direction."

"And Lira knows Serah knows it."

"Then she’s waiting for Serah to break the pattern."

"And Serah is waiting for Lira to use the mist for something specific before breaking it."

Both looked at the yard.

"Fifteen minutes," Aldric said.

Kai bit the fruit.

"Twelve."

---

[Dr_snow: Kai and Aldric commentating the fight like it’s a sport]

[Chris_Murray: the tactical analysis is correct. both read the fight perfectly.]

[Kalgarth: "and Lira knows Serah knows it" — levels of meta tactic in an inn training session]

[DraconicLegacy: Serah and Lira have been in the yard for five minutes. neither has the advantage yet.]

[Udo_Ehmen: ᕦ(ò_óˇ)ᕤ ᕦ(ò_óˇ)ᕤ NEITHER GIVES IN ᕦ(ò_óˇ)ᕤ ᕦ(ò_óˇ)ᕤ]

---

The eighth minute was the most intense.

Serah broke the pattern — instead of staying within the three-meter radius, she launched herself outside the mist area diagonally, using the angle Lira hadn’t covered because Serah hadn’t used it in the previous seven minutes.

Lira responded by expanding the mist — faster than should be possible at sixty percent, which meant she had been accumulating energy for that specific response from the start.

Both had anticipated the other’s movement.

Both executed it at the same time.

Serah’s ice and Lira’s mist met in the center of the yard with the impact of two entities that had been building toward that moment for eight minutes.

The yard floor was covered in frost within a four-meter radius.

The mist solidified at the edge of the ice’s radius.

Both stood three meters apart with the yard between them covered in solidified frost and frozen mist.

No victor.

No possibility of one without escalating to something neither had decided to escalate to.

---

[Per_sudin: DRAW]

[Jack_Moore: both anticipated the other’s movement. both executed it perfectly. draw.]

[Warwolf: viewers: 3,800,000.]

[Kalgarth: SSS vs SS with centuries of history ending in a draw. correct.]

[Drakeking: the yard is going to need cleaning.]

[Dr_snow: ᕦ(ò_óˇ)ᕤ TWELVE MINUTES ᕦ(ò_óˇ)ᕤ KAI WON THE BET ᕦ(ò_óˇ)ᕤ]

---

Serah and Lira looked at the yard between them.

Then at Kai.

Kai finished the fruit.

"It was informative."

Serah’s markings rose.

Not the warmth of when Kai did something that raised them. The other — the one when something annoyed her specifically.

Lira crossed her arms.

The temperature of her crossed arms was two degrees higher than usual.

"Informative," Lira said.

"Yes."

"That’s all?"

"It was also twelve minutes."

Aldric picked up his empty cup.

"I would’ve said fifteen."

---

[Chris_Murray: "IT WAS ALSO TWELVE MINUTES" HAHAHAHA]

[DraconicLegacy: Kai resolved the tension with the bet. perfect.]

[Udo_Ehmen: Aldric conceding the bet with complete dignity. respect.]

[Kalgarth: Serah’s markings and Lira’s temperature rose at the same time in the same direction. first time.]

[Per_sudin: 😂😂😂 "I would’ve said fifteen" 😂😂😂]