Rui opened his eyes, groggy and disoriented. As his vision proceeded to unblur itself, a white ceiling ca into view.
"An unfamiliar ceiling." Rui muttered, taking the opportunity to utter a common trope he heard in ani, before chuckling. His head throbbed as he got up, struggling to rember what happened.
('The spar with Squire Kyrie.') He realized. ('The last thing I rember is Kane using his that Apprentice-level technique...') He closed his eyes, as he struggled to rember.
('And then I woke up here... I see. We failed, and miserably too.') He chuckled self-deprecatingly. Although he knew the chances of success were low, it still wasn't a pleasant outco.
Rui's eyes caught sothing to his right, he turned only to be surprised.
"Kane."
Kane was still unconscious, however he looked perfectly fine physically, lying in a bed not too far away.
"They must have healed us up and allowed us to rest and wake up."
Rui sighed getting back to bed. He imrsed himself in his thoughts peacefully as his headache slowly subsided.
('I wonder what she did to us.') To be able to knock both of them out and hospitalize them in the circumstances she was in was truly amazing. He just didn't know whether it was possible with Apprentice-level prowess.
Could any Apprentice really replicate her feat in those circumstances?
('Probably not.') He felt. Sure, both Rui and Kane were young. But Kane's technique was surely sowhat close to the pinnacle of Apprentice-level as far as efficiency went. It has a handful of rather severe shortcomings in general, which Rui had done a pretty decent job of mitigating. Yet for them to be crushed despite that, Rui wasn't sure it was possible for an Apprentice to replicate that.
('Which ans... She must have used Squire-level battle prowess.') Rui concluded. That would explain how they got crushed instantly. She must have used a Squire-level technique of so sort, allowing to dispel the threat and knock them out.
In a way, Rui felt a bit happy that they were knocked out. If Kyrie knocked them out, then it must have been necessary for her to do that. She never knocked out the students in these sparring sessions, only pushing them to their physical limits. The fact that she knocked them out, ant they had managed to push her farther than she had in any previous sparring session.
Although a loss was still a loss, knowing this made the loss much more tolerable. He even felt a asure of pride well up.
"Ugh..." Kane woke up with a disoriented expression.
Rui waited a few seconds for him to process himself and his surroundings, before calling out to him.
"Hey."
Kane turned towards him with squinted eyes.
"You look like shit." Rui chuckled. "How are you feeling?"
"Where are we?" Kane wondered.
"dical wing."
"Huh..."
"We were knocked out during the fight with Kyrie." He explained. "Do you rember what happened?"
"I recall using Flash Burst at the timing you told to..." He continued, trying to recall. "...But after that, I dunno."
"Hmmm... She must have knocked both of us nigh-simultaneously then." Rui surmised. "Definitely a Squire-level technique."
"That's crazy."
"Right?" Rui grinned.
Suddenly, a nurse walked into the dical room they were in, taking note of their awakening.
"Apprentice Rui Quarrier and Apprentice Kane Arrancar. You're awake. Both of you were rendered unconscious during a sparring session." She dutifully inford. "You have made almost full recoveries physically, however we'll be performing a few check-ups and examinations."
"How long have been unconscious?" Rui asked, he still didn't know how long it had been since the sparring session ended.
"It's been a little over six hours since you were brought to the dical wing." She replied as she prepared so dical instrunts and other items.
She proceeded to wear a stethoscope-like instrunt, and placed one end of the instrunt on Kane's chest. "Breathe deeply." She instructed.
A few more checkups and lines of questioning of various sorts followed until she moved onto Rui, performing them on him as well.
"Both of you are fit to be discharged." She told them. "The headaches will persist for anywhere between a few hours or a day. Be sure to take rest for a day until you have recovered fully. If the headache persists beyond a day then be sure to revisit the dical wing."
After a bit of paperwork, Rui and Kane walked together towards the Apprentice dormitory.
"Next ti we see instructor Kyrie, we should ask her about what actually happened." Rui said. "It's a sha she isn't always free and available in the sparring center like the Apprentice Sparring head instructor was."
"She is a Martial Squire after all, and a particularly powerful one." Kane replied.
"Heh, hearing that just makes getting knocked out by her all the more worth it." Rui smirked.
"That's a weird fetish, you Martial pervert."
"Shut up." Rui retorted lightly.
They bantered a bit before Kane rembered sothing. "Oh yeah, I've been aning to ask. Are you going back ho for the winter break?"
Rui's ears perked when he heard that. "It's that ti of the year already?" He wondered. He'd begun to lose track of ti very easily once he had joined the Academy, especially since rejuvenation potions made it difficult to keep track of the passage of days.
"Yeah, it's in three days. You going?"
"Absolutely, I haven't seen them in quite a while." Rui had gone back ho once after he had beco an Explorer, although it was a brief visit. He didn't want to miss any chance of seeing his family.
"I thought you intended to get into missions the mont you ford the basic foundation of your Martial Art." Kane noted.
"Yeah but, missions can be done any ti. I can't see my family any ti." He replied. "I can just begin missions when I get back. I won't be able to see them during the break if I begin doing missions now."
"I see."
"What about you?" Rui asked.
"Psshht, hell no!" Kane exclaid. "In fact, I'm going to take a longer mission so I have a good excuse for not going back!" He declared, earning Rui's laughter.
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