Yuki looked down at the contested shrine with little to no interest, as they hovered above. Then looked at Yamato whose eyes looked the same, filling hers with love and making her heart race.
"Master… I wanna do something."
"And what would that be?"
She flew in front of him and grabbed his hands and pulled them to her chest.
"Master… Let's not follow plans of the other. I want to do it with you, as one. Just this once, acting in complete harmony, would that not be beautiful? Let's work together..."
"Okay."
"Ah… So easy… I love you. Say, do you trust me?"
"Should I…"
Yuki just smiled at that, remembering the time she taught him how to fly the first time. He responded the same then. She locked her arms behind his neck and pushed him over so they were falling upside down together towards the battlefield.
They spun around and dodged the trees before catching themselves just above the ground and flying in a straight line into two class 3 students, who were knocked out instantly upon impact. Yuki cast a barrier around them so they would not get damaged by the impact as well. They then hovered back to back and shot purple flames at them from all directions which exploded on impact. Soon the entire area was covered in impact craters and devoid of trees and any vegetation. Though immune to damage, the repeated shockwaves threw the class 3 students back and froth from one explosion into the other, knocking them out for good.
Yamato and Yuki landed together and took the armbands, disqualifying all five class 3 students. Yuki was smiling bright and innocently the entire time, though no one besides Yamato saw that because of the smoke. Everyone just stared at them, never having seen such casual level of mass destruction that at the same time looked quite beautiful too.
"Yuki and I will go to hold off Maruyama, you just finish this shrine and then follow us."
"O-okay…"
And off they went, on their way to support their second group.
"Yuki, can you do something for me?"
"Of course!"
"How long and accurate is your range with an attack approximately ten times as strong as one of the fire balls we just used?"
"As long as I can see it and it doesn't move, it's not a problem. Why?"
"I need you to shoot at the shrine where we teamed up with Shin."
"Okay~"
A blue glowing bow appeared in her hand and she pointed it up into the sky. Using it seemed to be very difficult, as it took her almost a minute to fully draw it back all the way, but once she did, she let go and a singe, ordinary arrow appeared and flew at an really slow speed, though it seemed to start accelerating exponentially.
"And that works?"
"You just wait and praise~ I did all that while moving through the air at high speed, y'know?"
"Praise what exactly…"
The arrow flew over the barrier and was now on its way down again, accelerating more and more, and just before it landed, it reached the speed of light and released a massive explosion, but only for a split second as it then collapsed into itself as a blackhole, sucking up all the trees in the area in instant and then disappearing in less than a second, leaving a crater the size of a mountain behind with only the shrine surviving the attack.
"…"
"What? Yeah, it was a little stronger than I thought but it worked!"
"The goal was to knockout the class 1 student that Shin left at that shrine…"
"Oh… Well, I'm sure the armband saved him and he is now disqualified."
"Let's hope so… Maruyama should not have been hit by that if I calculated his path correctly, but it's hard to imagine he did not notice that. He will now assume someone is behind him, and probably not retreat into that direction and assume our main force is behind him, making him push forward even more than before."
"Our shrine should be completed now, so we don't need to worry about anything anymore, right?"
"Well, we still have to make sure the remaining two are activated before-"
Suddenly a voice echoed through the land.
"Dear students, all shrines have been deactivated. Due to insufficient shrines deactivated by class 1, they are therefore disqualified. Class 2 has two shriens and is therefore not disqualified. Class 3 has four shrines and is therefore not disqualified. The barrier will be lifted at a random time tomorrow!"
Yamato stopped mid air and Yuki did the same.
"Random time tomorrow… That's not what he said when he explained the rules, but it doesn't matter. It's getting dark anyway, so maybe that's why. We should find a place to sleep."
"Yay, camping!"
"Let's get away from the shore as far as the exam allows and then get back to the others first thing in the morning."
"What if Maruyama attacks at night?"
"He has no reason to focus on the shrines anymore… Besides, he will prepare to use his remaining forces to take control of the center tomorrow, so we all need to rest. We only get supplies tomorrow morning as well, so he will wait."
"If you say so~"
They went to the outer barrier of the exam, and build a tent there with a campfire. Since they were alone now, Yuki did not hold back with affection and after that they slept cuddled up together.
The next morning, they checked if the barrier was still active, as it was unclear it there would be an announcement or if it would just turn off silently. It was still active, so they would now move to the rest of class 2.
"Master, I hate Maruyama."
"Yeah, I got that."
"Like, really hate him!"
"I know."
"I wish he would be dead!"
"We are not killing him."
"But I really waaannaaaa…"
"If he dies I won't let you stay over anymore."
"Argh, curse you, Maruyama!"
"Not willing to make that sacrifice, huh?"
"Never!"
"Then that's settled."
"Yes…"
"Good. Now focus, over there is the rest of our class."
They landed by the others, which meant the whole class was now together and it was 10 against 15, though they did not have a good way to counter Maruyama yet, and even at just ten, their strength was not to be underestimated. They moved to the water, since they would have to move as quickly as possible once the barrier was down, and just waited. There were only two viable strategies left. Racing to the island, or having one last showdown on the island and the winner just goes to the island without a worry or pressure. Yamato was sure Maruyama would pick the latter, so he was on alert for any kind of attack which might happen. But what ended up happening was unexpected even for him. A single rock flew towards them, from behind some trees, out of their view. Yuki just shot at it once and it shattered into pieces. What followed next was not a rock, but a hundred or more arrows out of pure blue flames. Even though Yuki casted a shield around them, she was surprised by the force behind each arrow. Realizing she would not be able to cover such a large area for long, she ordered everyone to split up while she reduced the size of the shield down to her and Yamato, which made it manageable since most did not even hit them and it also required less energy to maintain. As everyone moved towards the origin of this arrow wave, they were suddenly attacked from the side by the entirety of class 3, and were only able to evade their attack due to Arina noticing movement in bushes close by. Now a full battle started in the trees, which Yuki tried to join but was stopped by Yamato, who ordered her to stay with him, which of course there was nothing she would love to do more. Meanwhile Arina and Elara were fighting side by side, struggling with the amount of ranged attacks coming at them, as Arina blocked as many as she could with her sword while Elara was casting fire attacks of her on onto the ground in front of class 3, trying to block their view through the smoke created by the burning grass and bushes on the ground. Each time Arina's sword blocked a fire attack, it began charging up again, though this time she noticed it and tried hitting even more of them. When it was almost full, she charged forward and hit the ground as hard as she could, unleashing a massive shockwave that threw everyone close by away. Even though she was thrown back as well, it was not as far as last time and she even managed to land on her feet, immediately rushing towards the sword stuck in the ground and pulling it out to continue fighting. Though to her surprise, her attack only managed to knock out two class 3 students, and the rest pulled them back so she could not take their armbands off. And their attacks continued to reign on them as she had to fall back again. To her class which seemed to have been more effected by that attack than class 3.
"I'm sorry… I thought that would do more."
"It's alright. It might have created the distraction we needed…"
While class 3 advanced again, they did not notice that two of class 2 had separated and started sneaking up on them from the side. Mikio was one of those two and able to use his fast movements to rush in and steal the armbands of three class 3 students, before they started flying and burning the ground completely, forcing his to fall back as well. But with two knocked out by Arina, and three disqualified, only Maruyama and four other class 3 students were left.
But that was also when class 2 would start having casualties, as Maruyama used his special move, though the range seemed limited, it still hit Arina, Elara and six more class 2 students, who were all quickly robbed of their armbands by the remaining four class 3 students. All except Arina, who managed to fly up, though tumbling in the air, and swing her sword in a way that barely prevented her armband getting stolen.