First Exam & The Harvest Festival

The Two Announcements
It has been a month and a half since school started. Nothing has really changed, in terms of the attitudes of most towards Tolbert Boese, but an announcement had gone out that no one was allowed to start a fight with him under penalty of expulsion. So the physical threats had decreased, but the verbal threats and the 'harmless pranks' skyrocketed. Tolbert's dorm room was regularly ransacked and destroyed, his lockers were permenatly grafitied with things like "Go home Boscan" and "Die". Overall Tolbert's entire experience at the Fiore Regal Academy of the Combat Arts was rather miserable and if it wasn't for his two friends, Miki Hirosen and Ryūgamine Shindo, he may have dropped out after a couple of weeks. Them, and a reason from home he refused to talk about even with his two friends.

If that wasn't enough to deal with, another announcement went out that the first major exam of the year was coming up. The only thing that sounded like it would be even remotely relaxing was that the Harvest Festival was also coming up, right after the first exam.

"I hate exams..." Ryūgamine complained. They had lost count how many times he had said this since the announcement, and it had only been announced a few hours ago.

"We know Ryūga, we know." Tolbert sighed. They were sitting on the roof of one of the many buildings.

"Odd how no one else ever seems to go to the rooves." Miki pointed out, changing topic as he looked out towards one of the lakes and watched everyone below enjoying their luch break.

"Typically only delinquents hang out on the roof." Tolbert replied.

"Aren't they all still recovering in the infermary?" Ryūgamine asked. Tolbert and Miki nodded in response.

"Pretty much all the delinquents came and challenged us before that ban was officially announced, and other than the few that you actually got to beat up, Ryūga, the rest were all beaten to a pulp by either Chitsume-san or Asuna-san." Tolbert answered, then they all shuddered at the memories of Akage Chitsume's Hair and Claw Magic and Misaki Asuna's swordsmanship and her Blood Magic.

"I'm glad they're on our side." Miki replied. "Ryūga's probably the only one of us who might stand a chance against either of them, for a few seconds at least."

"I don't know about that..." Ryūgamine said.

"What do you mean? I can't reliably use my magic often enough." Miki said.

"We've never seen Tolbert use any magic." Ryūgamine pointed out.

"True..." Miki said and they both turned to face Tolbert.

"What magic do you use?" they both asked. Tolbert started stammering and was scratching the back of his head and doing everything he could to avoid answering the question.

"Well?" Miki pressed.

"Isn't that what the first exam is for?" Tolbert asked finally.

"What do you mean?" Ryūgamine asked.

"Right..." Miki sighed. "The first exam is some sort of sparring isn't it?"

"I believe so." Tolbert said.

"I'm starting to look forward to the exam now!" Ryūgamine said happily. "If we're fighting then I might stand a chance!"

Then the bell rang, letting everyone know that the lunch break was over and to get back to class.