After six months of training not much had changed in terms of rankings between students. Gary was still ranked in 1st place while 2nd place was held by some guy from another school.
I didn't bother paying much attention to it because I didn't care about the rankings so much. The only reason why I knew what I did, was because Kyle had become obsessed with them.
He was like our own personal bulletin board. Every time after our special black knight training finished, he would update us on the latest situation with the rankings.
We currently had just finished a session of training and were resting in the accommodation at the mansion. It became routine for us to talk before heading back to our dorms. Each of us was lying down on our bed.
"Did you here Slyvia just beat Peter to take the third spot, everyone talking about how she could be a challenge for you Gary. How our King will turn into a queen." Kyle said with a sparkle in his eyes.
"I'm not too worried, there's only one person who can beat me here anyway." Kyle looked over in my direction, luckily no one noticed and even if they did, I don't think they would take him seriously.
My current ranking went from 300 to 280, I decided to fight students using the black night skills I had learned. The students found it difficult to deal with but at the same time, it was hard to use the skills to their full extent since most of them were meant to be used when hidden or hit kills.
After testing out the new skills I learned, I started focusing on controlling my power. While sparing different students I would control my power output to match theirs and just lose the fight by a hair. This was a very tiring thing to do but helped improve my control greatly.
"I wish I was staying in your monster dorm you have most of the top 10 people in there. Gary ranked 1st, Slyvia 2nd, Ian 5th even Dan and Martha have a good ranking for not being white knights. Heck, even Monk managed to move to number 50."
Monk started to blush a little at the compliment made.
"It's all thanks to the special training we've been doing."
"That useless garbage I haven't been using it and still managed to stay on top," Gary said.
Gary was still reluctant to use the skills we had learnt, he just couldn't get the hang of it and eventually gave up using it.
"It's not useless, just cause you're bad at it doesn't make it useless." Monk had now stood up and was staring at Gary in the face.
I had never seen Monk get like this before, but he had been more dedicated than anyone to the training. It was as if he had become an entirely new person after the training.
Kyle stood up and got in between the two of them.
"Calm down you two, we're all fellow black sashes so we need to stick together."
Gary went to grab the sash that was around his neck and there it towers the floor.
"This useless thing I don't even need it."
While Monk had changed for the better after getting the black sash, Gary was the opposite. Every day he seemed to be getting more and more frustrated at training perhaps, he had hit his boiling point.
"Pick it up," Monk said in a heavy tone.
Monk looked furious at what Gary had just done.
"Make me," Gary replied now pushing against Kyle's hand.
Kyle then looked towards me.
"Ray can you help out here, I don't think I can hold them back any longer.
I had been sitting at my bed the whole time not wanting to get involved. Their business was their business after all. There arguing was annoying me so I came up with a simple suggestion.
"Why don't you two just have a rank battle?"
Kyle's eyes looked as if they were going to pop out of his head as if I had just made the worst suggestion possible.
"Fine tomorrow after basic training well duel and see if you're black knight skills are as good as you say they are."
Kyle was just shaking his head at what just happened as Monk and Gary went back to their dorms.
"Why would you say that?" Kyle said coming up to me.
"Did you forget that you all live together, what are you going to do if they carry on fighting in your room."
"If they carry on doing that I'll step in and teach them both a lesson."
Kyle laughed at the thought.
"I know we're both black knights but me and you are miles from them, I'm ranked at 160, and you're even lower then me, how could you stop then two."
I simply walked off and headed back to the dormitory, I couldn't be bothered to give Kyle his answer and he wouldn't believe me anyway.
I got back to the room later then Gary and Monk. When entering the room the atmosphere was tense between the two of them and they both were keeping silent.
Sylvia came over towards me.
"What happened to those two, they've been like this since they entered the room?"
"They had an argument." I didn't really want to explain much it wasn't my place to say anything.
Just then Dan came barging into the room all excited.
"Is it really true? that Monk and Gary are going to fight tomorrow!?" Dan said.
The whole room was in shock at what they had heard. It wasn't a normal thing for someone of high rank to accept a match with someone several ranks below them unless they had a personal grudge. But that wasn't the only thing, this was between two people that we all knew well.
"From the looks of things, I think you hit the nail on the head," Sylvia said.
Seconds later it seemed like the whole school was talking about the upcoming fight between Gary and Monk and I could only guess who it was that spread the news so fast.
Kyle.