The confrontation with Leon simmered for two days, a low-grade fever in the cold hallways of Blackwood. Niles viewed Leon’s rigid adherence to the rules was a mere cowardice disguised as principle. On the other side, Leon saw Niles as a unstable virus, arrogant and reckless.
Later, their argument in the corridor, with Alice as the unwilling fulcrum, had made the tension official.
Niles was filled with a personal rage, he needed to think and the only place he could think of was the old fencing salle.
At night after dinner, he had gone there to think, to calm himself down. The scent of metal and old wood usually calmed him. But now the silence felt charged. He was tracing the worn grain of the practice floor with his toe when the door creaked open.
It was Leon.
“I had a feeling that I’d found you here, Fulgencio,” Leon stated, his expression grim.
”It’s a public space,” Niles didn’t even bother to mask his irritation.
“Is it?” Leon stepped inside, letting the door swing shut with a heavy thud. “Fulgencio, let me tell you something: your idea of freedom keeps encroaching on others!”
“Do you know Alice was questioned by Professor Crawford for an hour this afternoon? He was very interested in her new ‘friend’.”
Niles straightened up. “Because of what I did?”
“Who else?” Leon’s voice was cold like ice. “Your ‘systematic corrections’ have a ripple effect. I bet you just enjoy making more splashes.”
“Oh yeah? And I bet you just enjoy polishing the boat while it sinks,” Niles shot back, his hot anger rising to meet Leon’s cold fury. “You’d rather everyone sit quietly in a flawed system than let anyone fix it. What are you so afraid of, Collingwood? That someone might prove your precious rules are worthless?”
“Quiet you!” Shouted he.
“I’m afraid of what would happen when you break the rules !” Leon’s composure finally shattered. He took a step forward, his fists clenched at his sides. “You think this is a game? A logic puzzle? No! The rules here are all about containment.”
“Containment of what?” Niles demanded, closing the distance between them.
“You asked too much! I am warning you!”
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Leon didn’t answer with words. The accusation and the pressure was too much for Niles. Leon shoved him, hard, in the chest, causing him to fall onto the ground.
It was a clumsy, emotional move. But that was enough. Niles stood up promptly, shock flaring into raw, blinding anger.
Niles surged forward, and the two boys crashed together in a tangle of limbs, grunting and shoving amidst the fencing gear. Niles, being lanky, was pushed towards the salle wall.
It was never a skilled fight. It was an ugly and messy adolescent scramble. A metal stand clattered to the floor, foils scattering on the ground like fallen twigs. Niles felt a sharp pain as his elbow jammed against the hardwood, and Leon grunted the moment Niles kicked his left knee.
They were a ball of messy fury and frustration, rolling across the very floor where Alice moved with such lethal grace.
That’s how she found them.
The salle door opened slowly and Alice stood frozen, her practice bag in hand. Her eyes widened and full of shock, she saw the two boys—a prefect and a troublemaker—grappling on the floor like common thugs.
For a moment, she looked utterly horrified. Then, a different expression settled on her face—a weary yet determined resolve that erased any trace of the shy girl. She dropped her bag and marched towards them.
“STOP IT!” Alice screamed, cutting through their grunts and scuffles. “Have you both lost your minds?”
She didn't pull them apart. Instead, she placed herself directly in their line of sight, forcing them to see her. Niles, who had his right knee pressing on Leon’s left leg, froze at the moment. Leon, whose right arm was drawn back, slowly lowered it.
They released each other, panting and glaring at each other over her shoulder. The silence was heavy, broken only by their ragged breaths.
Alice watched from Niles’s bloody lip to Leon’s disheveled prefect’s pin, her eyes blazing. “Do YOU have any idea what you’ve done?”
“He started it,” Niles pointed his finger to Leon, while wiping his mouth.
“And I don’t care!” Alice refused to hear their useless excuses. “Leon, you ARE a prefect! If anyone walks in… this isn’t going be a simple detention. This is a tribunal offense. Professor Crawford would have stripped of your prefect position instantly!”
”You two were lucky that I was the only one who saw this!”
Leon, slowly getting to his feet, adjusted his torn blazer and his prefect pin. His face was a mask of shame and renewed anger. “Alice’s right. This is exactly the kind of volatile, emotional behaviour they would watch for.”
“They?” Niles pushed himself up, his body aching. “Who are ‘they,’ Collingwood? Just say it!”
”You two, clean up this mess, right now!”
The boys, still glaring at each other, started cleaning up the salle. Without another word, Leon moved to right the metal stand, his movements stiff with shame. Niles, wincing at a fresh ache in his ribs, began gathering the foils, checking each for damage.
The three of them worked in a frantic, silent harmony, the only sounds the scuff of their shoes and the clatter of reset equipment. The fight was over, but a new, terrifying understanding had taken its place in the quiet. They were bound together now.
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and then Add to home screen.