Viktorija Adelyte Kazlauskas

Chapter Thirteen

“Now brats, listen to me,” Hardouin shouted after everyone had taken their seats, a small booklet was being passed around the room. He loved his job, but there were times that he hated being the head of the Sekti Unit. This was the part that he hated, since newbies had a higher chance of dying while being the group that thought they knew everything about the field they entered.

Information gathering, Viktorija thought to herself.

“Now listen, my word is law. You’ll start with one hundred points and each wrong answer will take ten points from your overall score,” Hardouin told them glaring at each person, Viktorija grinning at him as he did so. “Each time you’re caught cheating; you’ll lose twenty. If your caught five times; you’ll be forced to leave and never again try to enter this Nestanha’s Tournament.”

I see, Viktorija thought to herself. Unlike the rest of the room; she knew Hardouin since she was eight years old. She knew how his thought process worked; somewhat. She saw him each time she brought her kills to her sœur aînée and to the Espionner Unit.

“You have forty-five minutes to answer the first nine questions.” Hardouin knew that the last time he had taken this; none of them had gotten past the first round; so, the other villages started sending their brightest to Nestanha to see how many would pass. “Start now.”

Ismay looked smug as she looked at Viktorija, sure, she would embarrass the village. But there was no way she was going to pass this test; she was the dead last and couldn’t pass Academy level tests.

Let alone test for those in the Espionner Unit. A History test about Nestanha, about different tecnqiues and how to use them. Weapons; for ten question it did cover a lot.

Etienne, on the other hand, knew that Ismay would only pass this section. She might have had some book smarts, but without street smarts or basic common sense ; she wouldn’t last long. Viktorija, he didn’t know about, she had hidden her abilites from them for the last six months and he didn’t know how smart she was.

Apoloniusz had shown them a different story then the one that Etienne knew; painted a picture he had been looking at wrongly for years.

Viktorija was carefully watching Kosey who was sitting next to her. He was looking at her piece of paper, but she guessed being able to use Lava wouldn’t help with spying, or even basic information gathering, off all things. He was trying to look at her piece of paper, since she was stuck in the middle of the table.

Jakoba was next to her, so they had double checked each other’s answers to make they were copying from the obvious moles from the crowd. Well, obvious to Viktorija since she knew the man in front of her and knew for a fact that he was in the Espionner Unit.

When she spotted one of the guards looking at them, she put her arms around her paper and continued drawing in the margins. When he looked away both she and Jakoba quickly swapped tests before checking the answer, when it turned, they had written the same thing; she quickly took swapped it with Kosey’s and quickly wrote down the answers before swapping tests with him again.

Before she and Jakoba swapped tests again. All before any of the adults along the sides saw a thing, since someone had stood up at the make and screamed, he wasn’t going to continue anymore and that he didn’t care about the answers to some shitty village that didn’t know west from east.

The man, Acel, in front of her would drop out five minutes before the tenth question was asked, maybe just after it was asked. But he would drop out, no doubt; Acel knew better then trying to get into the second round of the Soldat’s Tournament.

Kosey only looked at the brunette, before looking at the paper in front of him. She had written down all nine answers, the same ones that she had on the piece of paper that she had traded with his before taking it back.

He didn’t know what to make of her; she was known as Asiņaina Pirmslaulību. Kosey didn’t know what to make of her, since she admitted to being the Holder of the Snake of Envy, along with being in the Target Book.

He and Kanika had looked her up once she had shown them to their hotel, the Sashan team following behind her. Dragons glaring at him, more so, the one that was wrapped around her like it was normal for it to be there.

She had a higher kill count then Kamuzu did, it was twenty high. The thing that scared him and Kanika was that, Kamuzu’s kill count was nearly in the hundreds and hers was well above that; and that was the ones that they knew about.

--

Viktorija smiled at Jakoba as they waited for the tenth question to be asked. Kosey was kept looking at her, but since they were done. None of them would have pointed taken from for cheating, as they had turned over their papers a few minutes ago.

“You know him,” Jakoba whispered to her.

“I do,” Viktorija told her. “He’s a giant teddy bear, he’s messing with us.”

“Thought so, can’t ban anyone from entering,” Jakoba told her.

“How many people do you think know that?” Viktorija asked her.

“And now the tenth question,” Hardouin said pulling Jakoba and Viktorija’s attention to him, both looking at him with blank faces. “If you wish to drop out, now would be the time do so.”

“I can’t do it this time,” Acel said putting his hand up, Viktorija knew he would leave; along with another six people in the room. All of them were put there so that someone would have the right answers in the group.

“You pass,” Hardouin told those who were left. Twenty team’s worth of people, when Hardouin counted. As usual if one member of a team dropped out, usually the rest of them followed to make sure they were okay.

Too bad, no one from Nestanha did that. In the second round, they usually stuck whoever was by themselves in with other members of Nestanha Village.

Both Viktorija and Hardouin knew that Xavierra was going to whin about too many people being left, but they also knew; that she’s whine if there were too little for her to play with. Hardouin was starting to think she just liked to complain about anything and everything.

“What about the tenth question?” a brown-haired male asked, the symbol on his necklace saying that he belonged to Wittenin Village. Kosey just nodded his head at his question, he had been wondering the same thing.

“The heck?” Kosey asked.

“It was a test; to see if we could use basic methods of collecting information,” Viktorija told him, Jakoba nodding her head. Viktorija didn’t know if that would make sense to a lot of people, but it made sense to her.

Before Hardouin could answer any of their questions, a large ball crushed through the window and he could only sigh at the broken glass. Duron was going to kill him; this was his classroom and Duron already had students who’d destroy things by accident without adding Xavierra breaking through the window.

A blonde-haired woman stood in front of the banner with bright blue eyes. Viktorija looked at her, before writing a number on the back of her test. Before her adopted sœur aînée her score on her entrance.

Xavierra pouted, “a nine? That entrance was a ten!”

“Nine, Xavierra, a nine,” Viktorija told her. “I’ve seen you do better.”

“Twenty teams, Hardouin? Twenty teams… that teams…” Xavierra said as she looked at Viktorija; she was the older sister and it was her duty, and pleasure, to annoy Viktorija. Like it was Viktorija’s job to be a complete pain in her backside; math just happened to be sore spot for the both; along with other things they had no control over.

“I think it’s sixty; don’t you think so; chère sœur aînée,” Viktorija told her, Jakoba looking at her.

“It couldn't be, my team has five people on it,” Jakoba told them.

“So, sixty-two?” Viktorija asked her.

“I think you’re right about that one, Vik Vik.”

Vik Vik? Ismay thought looking at the two of them. She didn’t know how to take Viktorija joking around with someone so high up in the line of command. Maybe she should have been happy that Viktorija had an older sister to look up to.

Or to be terrified of the woman standing next to Hardouin; since she was bound to be just as much of a cold-blooded murderer as Viktorija was.

“It was a tough crowd this year.” Hardouin could only sigh at the two of them; he had been on the receiving end of their harmless combined pranks for years; they were only meant to get a smile out of him.

He had a feeling that it was Viktorija who put the blue glitter-covered feathers into his desk, but Xavierra could have done it as well. He knew Viktorija was the one who put a shower melt into his shower; mint to clear his nose when he had a cold and refused to take time off. Xavierra point blank refused to go near mint, telling him it reminded her of toothpaste too much.

Thinking about their other pranks; he had to shake his head. He never told them, but he always laughed at the misfortune of their targets. It also showed him who was ready to join the Espionner and Chasse Units.

Since most of their pranks left even some of the strongest enemies screaming or scared for the rest of their lives; some of them babbled or cried. Before trying to get back to normal if they felt merciful and let them go.

Trying to forget the torture they went through, even if they didn’t who did or how they were caught in the first place.

“Tough? Doesn’t matter, Hardouin,” Xavierra told him, running her hands together as she looked at her new victims. “By the time that I’m done, they’ll be cut in half; at the very least. Huh? Vik Vik.”