The crowd on the observation point her the bangs of the magic attacks in the woods and began to cheer.

'Fighting in the forest! Didn't think it'd begin so soon!' a knight said.

'Good,' Catherine said, sitting beside Alois and Shamir. 'I hate it when they all play the defensive game. In my first mock battle the game was over before the second horn sounded!'

Chants of "No emperor, no king, no surrender!" rung out amongst some of the crowd. Alois glanced at them, and then looked at Jeralt.

The Blade Breaker's eyes were fixed on the woodland area where his son was.

"You are incapable of leading us. You are an inexperienced fool who has never taught before, nor do you have the battle expertise to do well, as demonstrated by your performance against Caspar."

"You are out of your depth and do not belong here."

Hubert was silent but his voice rung in Byleth's head as he looked at Dorothea and at Bernadetta who'd started crying.

'Professor, what should we do?' Ferdinand said. 'We'-

Byleth heard a twig snapping. He spun. A ball of purple light surged towards him with a loud, metallic shriek. He threw himself to one side and the magic spell hit a nearby tree and exploded with an ear-splitting bang. The force of the blow catapulted him through the air and he landed awkwardly in a large pile of tussocks. His vision went black for a moment and his ears rung. For a moment, he couldn't hear anything else, and then he could. Shouts came from multiple directions. He forced himself to his feet. He looked around but the mist still surrounded him. He took a deep breath in. His shoulders hurt from the way he'd landed but he was otherwise fine.

But what about my sash?

For a moment he didn't dare look down. He might be fine, but if his sash was broken then he'd be out, and it would all be over. He hadn't been struck directly by the magic attack, as Dorothea had, but it'd been close, and he feared that he may have ripped it from the way he landed.

He gulped and looked down. Thankfully, his red sash was still on him and intact.

'Professor, are you okay?'

He spun and saw Ferdinand and Petra move towards him through the mist. Both of them still had their sashes on.

'Yes, where are the others?' he asked.

'I am not certain,' Petra said. 'The force of that last attack pushed us this way as well.'

The magic attack had sent him flying west from their starting point, in the direction that the ambush had come from, closer to the Golden Deer in other words. He thought about this, and that's when they heard another bang coming in the direction of where they'd first been attacked. Before he could look, however, he hard a branch snap to his left. He spun.

Bounding towards them from the west were two men wielding axes and lances. One was a hulk of a man with blonde hair whilst the other had peculiar purple hair. Lorenz and Raphael charged at them.

Byleth hurled himself to one side, just missing Raphael's extended arm and thick chubby fingers. He crashed into a nearby tree and tumbled over. Petra and Ferdinand both lunged at the lance-wielding man, Lorenz. Byleth looked up.

Raphael, the man almost the same size as Jeralt, stomped towards him.

'Sorry, Professor but it's my job to take you outta the game early on. I'll eat food with ya later but for now you're toast!'

This was, Byleth noted, his first proper fight he'd fought since the battle with Bayen the giant in Remire. In one way, this battle was far less important, yet in another way, it meant so much more.

Byleth gripped his blade.

There would be no deaths today, but the look on the blonde-haired student's face suggested otherwise; his gentle smile had been replaced with a barren stare that could frighten anyone. Raphael raised his axe and charged forward.

Byleth thought of Alain and waited.