As the Blue Lions made their decision to pull back, Byleth and Bernadetta watched them from the trees.
'H-How can we defeat four of them i-if they're out in the open?' Bernadetta whispered in a near squeak.
Byleth didn't respond. His eyes were fixed on the Blue Lions.
Bernadetta waited, counting numbers under her breath.
'The Black Eagles did well to recover from the ambush but there's no way they can win now,' Catherine said.
Chants supporting the Blue Lions began to ring out amongst the spectating students who clearly thought the same.
'Agreed, Byleth and Bernadetta can't take on four of them,' Shamir said.
Alois scratched his chin and flickered his eyes in Jeralt's direction.
Jeralt hadn't seemed to have heard Catherine or Shamir. His eyes were locked on the woods where Byleth was.
'H-How can we defeat four of them i-if they're out in the open?'
Bernadetta spoke but Byleth didn't hear her. His gaze was fixed on the Blue Lions. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw five-winged horses soar into the air from the observation point in their direction, almost certainly to pick up Claude, Ferdinand and Hilda, but also him and the Blue Lions, because by the time they reached them, the final horn would've sounded, he was certain. To win the mock battle, he and Bernadetta would have to somehow defeat Hanneman, Dimitri, Felix and Sylvain. They would have to do it out in the open grassland and do it before the winged horses reached them. Even if time hadn't been an issue, he wasn't sure whether they could win. His fights, especially with Ingrid and Dedue, had exhausted him, whilst the remaining Blue Lions were all still fresh.
Winning was near impossible, in other words, and if (when) they lost, he would have to resign as professor. He felt his shoulders droop and as if waiting in the shadows of his mind for the right time to strike, Hubert's voice echoed.
"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."
'Byleth!'
Sothis's voice vibrated through his head and chest. Once again, she only said his name, but like all the previous times, that was all she needed to do.
Sincerely try my best, he thought. He looked out the trees again. There wasn't much time left, and there were four Blue Lions… but there were only four of them… not one hundred. To most people, four would be too many to handle.
He'd long supposed that he wasn't like other people in a bad way… but at that moment he supposed he wasn't like other people in a good way.
He flickered his eyes up in the direction of the observation point in the distance. He couldn't see Jeralt, but he felt the man's gaze on him.
"You're actually more qualified for this role than you realise. You've travelled all over Fódlan and have survived its different dangers. You've fought alongside some of the land's best warriors against all kinds of enemies and you've played your part in carrying out all kinds of different battle strategies in different terrains and conditions, all the while saving many lives. You can do well with these brats, you just don't know it yet."
He'd been looking at the Blue Lions through the lenses of an ordinary person and through that of Hubert's. That'd been his mistake. He'd forgotten to look through his own lens.
I've be in far worse situations before and won, he thought.
Alain, his old combat mentor entered his mind. He thought of his child self sparing with him. He'd been forced to do so almost every day of his life right up until the day Alain was killed. The man had trained him most days from sunrise to sunset. He'd made Byleth sprint up countless hills and carry endless heavy rocks from one place to the next. The man would spar with him (with real swords) and strike him whenever he made a mistake. Alain would punch and kick him to the ground repeatedly, and each time he would threaten him with a further beating if he didn't get back up. Alain had put him through many tough times.
But my suffering wasn't for nothing.
"He's a lucky one," Alain said in his mind. "He's being trained as hard as I was when I was a kid, as hard as Jeralt was when he was young. He'll be strong, capable of surviving this world thanks to what he's going through now."
"…be it tomorrow or in ten years it will burst and he will have to stand on his own two feet. I'm making sure he's ready for when that day comes."
And the man had done so, because without his training, Byleth knew he wouldn't have been able to fight one, two, three bandits all at the same time on his own in Remire woods a week prior. Nor would he have been able to take on Bayen the giant. He'd floored the huge man whilst being dizzy and weak.
And I managed it when no one else could… Dimitri and Edelgard included.
He looked back up at the observation point a final time.
"So just remember, you can do this, and know that I'm proud of you."
Byleth eyed the Blue Lions again and clenched his fists.
For the man known to many as the Ashen Demon, the mock battle had ended and the real one had begun.