They began flying around the lake following the shore, since they could not fly over it due to the barrier which covered almost the entire lake. On their path, they picked up the remaining class 1 students, and now Yamato, Yuki and the entirety of class 1 were moving towards Maruyama. Though the twins seemed surprised to see Yamato and Yuki in this situation, they kept their cool and acted as if they did not know each other. Yuki insisted on holding hands while flying, arguing it would make their motives seem even more believable. They also flew a little behind class 1, for privacy, though it was active so they could talk freely.
"Master, when are we there?"
"Soon…"
"One minute soon? Or like ten minutes soon?"
"Soon soon."
"Ugrh… Then we see the hive mind people again… My sworn enemies!"
"Isn't almost everyone your sworn enemy…?"
"But they are in the category of flamethrower extermination!"
"You have categories now?"
"Yes, now~ As in, starting from right now!"
"What an advancement…"
"I know! Anyway, when we get there can we hug?"
"Why do you want to hug all of the sudden…"
"Because I'm in desperate need of physical attention!"
"Ah…"
"That's a yes!"
"Sure it is…"
"Anyway, are you sure you don't want to get me involved? Wouldn't it be best if Shin wins?"
"Yes, but I want to see who actually wins. If Maruyama is someone interesting or not will be revealed through his performance in this fight."
"Mhm… Okay~ If you change your mind just tell me~"
Yamato noticed that with Shin, there were only 13 class 1 students, even though it should be 14, so he flew towards him to ask.
"Oh, that? I decided to leave one at the shrine after all. You don't mind, do you?"
"No… It's just that you might need them."
"I doubt that very much. Brute force is enough for these guys, it worked once already after all. And even with just 13, we have enough to crush them. After all, we have you two as well, right?"
"Right, of course you do."
As they arrived at the shrine, there were ten class 2 students, one of which was Maruyama. As they saw Yamato and class 1 coming, they immediately shot heavy long ranged fire attacks into the air, forcing them to land and continue from the ground. Shin gave his class instructions, as they spread throughout the bushes.
"Alright, we should split up and surround them since we outnumber them."
"Yuki and I will cut off their escape path."
"Alright, go!"
In reality, Yamato knew Maruyama would not retreat, which was why he positioned himself somewhere where he could watch without worrying about being attacked, although he was probably safe everywhere since Yuki was with him, like he said, he wanted her to not influence Shin's and Maruyama's battle.
"What a feeble attempt, though it comes expected. I dare say, I expected more of you, Yamato. You only have ten minutes left before this shrine is deactivated, so you better hurry. But please, don't feel pressured! Because this isn't all. I already have one completely deactivated by now, so if you want to get me disqualified by a lack of deactivated shrines, you only have this last chance! Now, you can feel pressured."
Shin stepped forward, followed by two of his classmates.
"We will only need two, five tops."
"Oh ho, we shall see…"
"You won't see anything in a moment! Attack!"
All the class 1 students charged at them with high level magic, including the flood of flames that cannot be extinguished they had used in the competitive exam before. But to everyones surprise, Maruyama just stood there unphazed. Even more surprising was that the next moment, two class 3 students were able to extinguish all the flames, while two more blocked all the other attacks.
"What?! How could you-"
"-Ah, where's the fun in telling you before you lost the will to fight? You should know better than to spoil your own surprise!"
"Second wave!"
The second wave was the same attack, hiding an ambush of close range attackers such as the two people that moved in sync against Yuki during the exam, though all their advanced were shut down and they even had to fall back again.
"Are you really that predictable? You should really use telepathy spells instead of communication that announces your attack to the enemy. Here, check this out!"
They shot back at Shin, focusing all their fire on him in a perfectly synchronized attack of raining fire arrows. Shin was protected by a shield two classmates formed just in time, but they retrieved a little in response regardless.
Meanwhile with Yamato in the bushes…
"Stop clinging, Yuki, I can't see anything if you move the leaves infront of my face the entire time."
"Can you watch upside down?"
"What? Yeah, I guess? Why would I be upside down…"
She rolled him over on his back and began straddling while tightly hugging onto him. Now lying straight on top of him.
"What's that supposed to be…?"
"The hug you promised!"
"I didn't, though…"
"Whatever… Just look up and you can see them all you wanrt. I will only stay still in this position~!"
Though from the outside it looked like a rather odd way to spy, it would work for him. He had no problem following their actions while being upside down.
After Shin fell back a little, three of the nine class 3 students moved on the offensive, targeting those apart from the larger group that were meant to surround class 3. They were quickly knocked unconscious and got their armbands taken off, resulting in their disqualification and thus removal of the area. By now, only eight students were left of class 1 including Shin, and he was about to call a retreat, when all the class 3 students suddenly laid flat on the ground except Maruyama. Yamato immediately pulled Yuki down onto him, which made her let out a happy squeal as her body got squished against his, despite it only being a preventative measure for what Yamato expected to be a attack from Maruyama. A single ring of wind shot from him in all directions, barely strong enough to move the branches of the trees hanging low enough, but nothing above or below. Shin then suddenly began to stumble over. Everything was spinning and all the people around him had no face. All class 1 students behaved like that and were knocked unconscious shortly after by the class 3 students.
"Ooh, Master, did you see that!"
"Yes…"
"What was that!"
"Shh…"
After Maruyama took of the armbands of all the class 1 students, the shrine had been deactivated. As the light reached the top corner of the triangular pillar, it then turned off and the pillar crumbled away. He then took of in direction of where Shin came from, leaving Yamato and Yuki in enemy territory behind.
"That was interesting…"
"I couldn't quite determine what it was, but it seemed to have an hallucinating effect on everyone that wasn't lying down, making them vulnerable to all forms of attacks afterwards."
"Now the question is if he could do that from the beginning or if he had to charge it up first… So either he played with them or stalled time… In any case, assuming he had to charge it up, from the moment he first saw us, to the moment he used this attack, exactly 11 minutes and 17 seconds passed."
"Hm… That would be an odd charge up time, but maybe he didn't start directly when seeing us. So it has an estimated range from that down to 1 second, if at all. That's not much to work with…"
"We should just try to end any confrontation as quickly as possible… Maybe he can't move while preparing this attack, which is why he did not do a single thing himself up until then. But that's speculative and we shouldn't act with that in mind…"
"What do we do now, though? Do we go after them, or the other way around?"
"The other way around. We fall back to Arina and Elara, the group at the shrine Maruyama is moving towards should be done by then. But the group of five that remains of the class 3 students in that direction might have disrupted our progress on our second shrine, in which case we need to hurry there and complete it before it's too late. Maruyama now has enough recources to get control of four shrines, and already has two secured. If he gets any of our two it's over."
"Understood! Let's hurry then!"
She got off Yamato and they flew clockwise around the lake, while Maruyama and class 3 moved clockwise. Maruyama's was would take a while though since he had to go over four three shrines to reach the possible incomplete one of Yamato, unless he does not deactivate those shrines yet and skips over them. In which case he might make it just in time before Yamato can restart the deactivation process and finish it, but it also leaves more shrines as options to deactivate. Twenty minutes later they arrived at the shrine, which was fought over at the moment, but still under class 2 control. Though it seemed to have reset at some point since the progress was only halfway finished, even though it should have long been completed by now. Arina barely managed to hold her own, and so did Elara, but the rest had to form groups of two to fend off one class 3 student, and they had to remain in the circle of the shrine so the process wouldn't be interrupted again. Though since they were eight, three could always get a little out without a problem, though that was still dangerous as then if only one more gets pushed out, it would reset as well. Even though Arina and Elara managed to break their defenses every now and then, they somehow managed to just fall back and get back into formation before Arina and the rest could do the same, so they were slowly bleeding class 2 out of the circle.