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Extra And MC-Chapter 80 - 76 - Bryan White
-Pang!
-Swoosh!
The figure of two youths could be seen sparring on a fairly wide elevated platform, the backdrop of the evening sun and a dorm designed like a small mansion in the backdrop.
Bryan thrust his gauntlet-clad fist forward, the force of it carrying along a fairly powerful pressurized wind to attack his sparring partner with a direct forward hook.
Flynn in response to this, lightly parried the incoming metal fist with his katana, displacing its strength to the left, causing Bryan to slightly lose control over his center of gravity.
Taking this moment that left Bryan slightly perplexed at the skillful parry from him, Flynn twirled on his feet, slightly spinning to his right and descended the steel blade of his katana in a diagonal arc towards Bryan’s opened right side.
In an effort to quickly evade the incoming strike, Bryan slightly dashed backwards in an instant, narrowly evading the incoming attack by a hair’s breadth.
However, Flynn reacted almost instantaneously to the evasion from the brown-haired youth and without any unnecessary movements, took one step forward and transitioned into a thrust of his katana, directly aiming for Bryan’s neck.
The brown-haired youth widened his eyes at this but almost immediately, as if his instincts kicked in, he put up his arms in a cross guard manner, hoping to stop Flynn’s skillful attack.
Upon watching the green aquamarine-eyed youth’s attack coming in contact with his titanium red-colored gauntlets, Bryan inwardly heaved a sigh of relief.
But, as if to crush his sense of relief, the moment the tip of the blade of Flynn’s katana connected with his gauntlet, Bryan felt himself lifted up and back into the air by a few centimeters, his body landing with a graceless roll on the granite pavement of the fairly large sparring ground built by the academy for their dorm.
"What the hell?" Bryan asked himself while trying to get up quickly, his mind still unable to comprehend how Flynn’s seemingly normal thrust carried so much force with it.
Before he could actually get up though, the cold steel blade of Flynn’s katana pressed lightly against his neck.
Flynn stared at Bryan from above, his indifferent eyes seemingly asking him if he wanted to surrender despite knowing fully well the youth below him had no other choice.
"Fine. I give up" Bryan answered while raising both of his gauntlet-clad hands into the air in defeat.
Flynn in response to this, just nodded his head slightly and sheathed his blade slowly into his saya, almost like a seasoned samurai who had spent years perfecting his craft.
As Flynn did this, Bryan just gazed at him while inwardly thinking.
’This guy… he’s immensely talented… Not just with his core rank but his skills as well…’
’And not just that… he seems to have next to no hatred for me despite having a good reason to… he seems almost apathetic to say the least…’
-Clang!!!
Following the loud clashing of weapons, both Bryan and Flynn turned their head to the sides and watched as Adrian and Aiden clashed in the middle of the other sparring ground that was right beside theirs but separated by a small gap in the granite pavement.
This evening, just a day after enrolling at the Academy, Adrian had suddenly challenged Aiden to a duel in their dorm’s living room where all four of them had coincidentally been at, much to Flynn and Bryan’s surprise.
Aiden had also immediately agreed to it upon remembering how after the aftermath of the failed attack at the annual royal banquet by Obelisk, the crown prince had requested to be the first to spar with him once they got to the Academy.
Despite everyone seemingly almost forgetting that Aiden had awakened with a low-tier B rank even after he stopped coming to royal events, Adrian for one moment had never forgotten about that fact.
He who was the future king of Arcadia had realized at a very young age that if he was not the strongest, all he actually needed to do was have the stronger people be loyal and ready to work under him, as opposed to trying to use dirty methods to subdue them like most other nobles would.
As a result, when he had seen both brothers at the banquet just a few months ago, he had originally tried to make connections with them again, Aiden specifically.
However, after the crazy events of that day, Adrian had realized that just making connections with them was not enough and had instead decided to befriend them properly by also requesting for a spar from Aiden following the aftermath of the banquet.
Following Aiden’s reply to Adrian this evening for a spar, Bryan had also requested a spar from Flynn immediately, something the silvery green-haired youth had cocked his eyebrow questioningly to.
But after seemingly thinking about it for a few more seconds, Flynn had realized that it would make for a pretty good learning experience to fight someone with a different weapon type.
"Are you perhaps going easy on me Aiden?" Adrian suddenly shouted, excitement in his voice.
"Now why would I do that?" Aiden responded calmly, his expression completely relaxed.
As both youths watched from the sidelines, Flynn casually turned his glance away after gazing for a few more minutes and slowly began to walk off the platform.
Bryan who watched him do this, suddenly threw a question at him.
"Do you not resent my sister? Or even me?" he asked calmly, causing Flynn to pause in his steps.
"You have every reason to you know? I just don’t get how you can be so calm about everything" Bryan added, his eyes locked onto Flynn’s back.
"She literally never gave you a simple explanation as to why she stopped contacting you, and neither did she try to stand up for you despite also knowing all that you faced" Bryan continued.
"And as if to rub salts on your wound, she took that piece of shit who put you through so much pain and made him her fiancé!"
"If you decided to lash out at either me or her a hundred times, I wouldn’t even get mad. We deserve that much" he voiced out, frustration and annoyance seeping into his tone, almost as if he expected Flynn to be annoyed at him.
Flynn on the other hand just had a few thoughts running through his mind upon hearing Bryan’s words, the clashing of Aiden and Adrian’s weapons ringing in the background.
’What do you mean ’we’? Is he trying to get me to lash out at him when he’s not even at fault?’
’And that tone… does he by chance dislike Lucas?’
’Besides, even if I found out the reason why, would it change anything that has already happened over the past few years?’ he rhetorically asked himself.
After a few seconds of not saying anything and just thinking to himself, Flynn let out a few words while turning to face Bryan.
"It’s just not worth my time…" Flynn calmly replied, his indifferent gaze locked onto Bryan’s brown eyes.
"That’s the thing! How can you just…" Bryan responded again in frustration, his voice a few volumes louder but upon gazing into Flynn’s eyes which just seemed to house an apathetic look, the brown-haired youth stopped talking and just let out a sigh while speaking again.
"I was rooting for you two you know? Back when we were still kids…"
"At the very least, considering how close you and Amelia were, I feel like she owes you an apology…" Bryan continued, his voice quiet.
"Even if the nobles decided to treat you horribly, Amelia should’ve never added to your pain…" he said.
"That’s why, even if you don’t want it, I’d like to apologize on her behalf. You don’t even need to accept the apology but it’s something I feel must be done" he concluded, his words carrying just how genuine he was being with Flynn.
Flynn on the other hand, just kept staring at Bryan for a few more seconds, wondering how he was even supposed to respond to this.
The youth before him seemed to have been feeling very guilty over something that was not even his fault.
Never had he wanted an explanation or wished for an apology from Amelia.
Okay maybe he did want an explanation but that was previously before his memories returned.
Upon being thrust into a world that was eventually heading for doom, Flynn along with Aiden had set their priorities straight ever since the day they realized they had been reincarnated.
They had no time to deal with things that had happened in the past, much less dwell on it.
This illusion of peace they were having now would probably only last for a good while before things finally went south.
That was why, the major things circulating in their brain was none other than to get even stronger, protect their loved ones and in the process, ultimately save this world.
After a few more seconds had passed and Flynn had kept staring at Bryan, the youth then sighed while moving over to Bryan, outstretching his hands to pull him back up, a gesture that had greatly surprised the brown-haired youth.
"You wanna get up or not?" Flynn casually asked him with one of his eyebrows arched up.
"Thanks…" he replied as Flynn pulled him up from the granite pavement.
’It’s not like I can tell him the world is heading for doom is why I could care less about trivial things like this but…’ Flynn thought to himself while staring at the brown-haired youth before him.
The youth then let out a small sigh from his lips, after which he then began to speak to Bryan.
"Look Bryan, I don’t have anything against you. I probably also won’t for the foreseeable future… well that is unless you piss me off, which to be fair, is a very hard thing for anyone to pull off…" he stated, his head slightly tilted, almost as if he was trying to remember the last time anyone actually got him angry.
’Maybe two and a half years ago when Ivelia was kidnapped?’ he thought to himself.
Bryan couldn’t also help but just watch with a slight confusion at Flynn’s sudden head tilt gesture but almost immediately, Flynn waved his hands as if to clear away his thoughts and then spoke again.
"That’s beside the point… but, in all fairness, I think it’s important to remember that the fiancé thing was a deal between our families, not something Amelia and I decided on ourselves…"
"I don’t know why Amelia changed towards me and frankly, neither do I care anymore. That’s her shit to deal with…"
"I know you think I have every right to be pissed, and maybe I do. Maybe I should?" he spoke questioningly, but continued immediately, almost as if he instantly gave up on the idea.
"But even if I did find out why she did what she did, it wouldn’t really fix anything now, would it? What’s done is already done…"
"That’s why, it just really feels like a waste of time and energy to actually be resentful…" Flynn concluded, his tone of words indifferent.
"So that’s how you see it…" Bryan released a few words quietly from his mouth after which he then added, a bit louder this time.
"You’re awfully mature for your age though Flynn. Anyone ever tell you that?"
"Hmmm… I think it’s the first time anyone has actually told me that..." the silvery green-haired youth responded with a thoughtful expression on his face.
’But it’s not too surprising if that seems like the case, this is my second life after all…’ the youth thought to himself.
After a small wave of silence passed between both youths as they stared at each other, Bryan took in a deep breath and suddenly spoke up once again after a few seconds had passed.
"So, do you want to spar again?" he calmly asked.
"Sure" Flynn affirmatively replied, his hands placed on his saya and ready to unsheathe his katana.
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Unknown to both youths though, just behind one of the wide rectangular pillars of their dorm’s small mansion that directly faced the sparring grounds, Amelia stood behind it, listening to their entire conversation.
Upon hearing Flynn’s words to her brother, the young brown-haired lady sighed and had her back slide against the pillar downwards while thinking to herself.
’Haaa… I really am a shitty person, aren’t I?’
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(About thirty minutes later after multiple spars…)
In the dorm’s living room, Adrian and Bryan could be seen having downcast looks on their faces while seating on the sofa and muttering a few inaudible words.
’I didn’t even win once…’ Adrian muttered, his eyes almost devoid of life.
’I was utterly destroyed over and over…’ Bryan mumbled, his spirit almost completely broken.
"So are you guys going to keep sulking or will you get off your ass and come help us" Aiden called over to them from the kitchen.
"Wait, do you guys even know the first thing about cooking?" the black-haired youth suddenly asked himself, a moment of realization hitting him.
However, both Adrian and Bryan just kept sitting on the sofa without even responding to Aiden’s words, their expressions akin to a person who had everything taken away from them.
Flynn however just placed a stainless steel bowl from the cupboard and onto the countertop with a sigh, hoping that both youths would recover from their sorry states very soon.