"I'll go next." Rogue stepped forward before Xenon could open his mouth, her newly braided, waist long, black hair swaying behind her.

Rogue stood at the open space dedicated to sparring the mannequin, and for the first time ever took off the black gloves that had always been seen on her hands.

Ever since Rogue appeared for the entrance examination till date, nobody had caught even a glimpse of what both her forelimbs looked like. Her brown – House Phryne – shirt sleeves had always been buttoned up and her hands were always in the same black gloves.

Rogue took of both gloves on her hands and tossed it on the floor, a few feet away from the sparring area. She rubbed her palms together, stretched her fingers and cracked them.

By the time a new mannequin was made, Rogue was ready and standing still with her arms outstretched. With her arms outstretched, the reason for her keeping her arms closed was soon apparent to everyone.

There were black markings that cut deep into her skin and ran a ring around her hand. The marking on her palm looked like a horizontal 'I' with a dot in the middle and a line coming out of the ends and went around the back of her palm - forming ring around her hand.

The was a vertical line on each side of her palm, starting from the base of her middle finger, cutting across the horizontal markings and extending down her wrist, and probably the rest of her arm. Her shirt sleeves were completely covering her arms and so it couldn't be ascertained if the markings continued.

The second Herman approved for the spar to proceed, the mannequin rushed toward Rogue. Eyeball was still determined to take the students out as quickly as possible.

Rogue on the other hand brought her hands closer to each other. Her arms stiffened, the veins in her arms tensed, the markings on her hands turned a very deep shadow of red, secreting thick red liquid.

Blood streamed out of the markings on Rogue palms, gathered together and started to form balls on each of her palm. The balls grew to the size of a tennis ball and stopped growing, the surface of the liquid balls rippling slightly from time to time.

Rogue – with a ball of blood in each palm – ran forward to meet the mannequin. Just a moment before they collided into each other, Rogue jumped and flipped forward mid air.

She landed with each palm on the mannequin's shoulders before launching herself up again and twisting on air before landing. Rogue wasn't holding two balls of blood anymore but a rope of blood in each hand of which the rest was around the mannequin's neck – it would have been choking had it been a living being.

The mannequin planted its feet into the sand, grabbed the rope of blood in each hand and bent forward pulling the rope, while moving its front feet forward at the same time.

The force from the pull jerked Rogue off the ground and over the mannequin. Contrary to everyone's expectations, Rogue landed on her feet and pulled on the red rope – I will be using red and blood interchangeably with Rogue :)– simultaneously, causing in the mannequin losing its footing.

Seeing the mannequin stumble, Rogue immediately applied more force and swung the rope, which was still on the mannequin's neck around like a shot putter, the mannequin on the end scraping on the ground.

After a few seconds of swinging the mannequin around, Rogue inadvertently relaxed her force on the red rope. The mannequin took advantage of this and dug its hand into the ground and planted its feet into the floor.

The mannequin slid a few feet but shortly found a firm footing. Immediately it stood firmly on the feet, the mannequin grabbed the rope and pulled with all its strength, yanking Rogue off the floor and towards itself.

Rogue was on a straight course for the mannequin's outstretched fist, if the fist hit her she was most likely to break a rib. Knowing that, Rogue stretched her palms out, and when she was about to collide with the mannequin's fist, a concentrated jet of blood came out of her palms.

The jet of blood hit the mannequin's fist and managed to repel her sideways, just enough for the mannequin's fist to graze past her right shoulder. She fell and rolled forward a bit before getting up again.

The rope of blood around the mannequin's neck lost their form and fell to the floor. The mannequin turned back to face Rogue and stood with its clenched fists outstretched.

Blood streamed out of the markings on Rogue's hand once again, but this time the blood wrapped around her hands and coagulated, forming a pair of dark red gauntlets.

The mannequin and Rogue ran towards each other and attacked with their fists. Rogue dodged the mannequin's first blow and landed hers on it chest. Rogue felt like she was striking iron.

'This is going to be troublesome, but luckily my coagulated blood is strong enough to hit the mannequin without falling apart.' Rogue said to herself while she continued attacking and defending against the mannequin. 'I'm faster than the mannequin, I just need to keep dodging and land a few more hits till I manage to puncture it.'

The trading of blows continued for a while till suddenly the gauntlet on Rogue's left hand dissolved, attached to the one on the right arm, and formed one large spike at the head of the right gauntlet.

Rogue punched with her right arm and the spiked part punctured the mannequin's chest. Rogue, as if exhausted, rested on the mannequin with her right hand in its chest for a little more than fifty seconds before she was kicked away by the mannequin.

The mannequin retreated a few feet backwards before the hole in its chest started to close slowly.

Rogue lay on the floor where she was kicked at with a smile on her pale face. She rested on her elbows and seeing that the hole in the mannequin's chest was almost closed off let out an unprovoked laughter.

'No, not yet, I can't laugh yet.' She said and forced herself to stand up. She was pale and weak from anemia.

Eyeball seeing her weakened state immediately made the mannequin lunge forward at her. The mannequin dashed toward Rogue, but as it closed in she suddenly raised her left arm and the mannequin stopped.

The mannequin tried to move again but something was pulling it back, something inside of it. Rogue's mouth widened in a very toothy grin – she was too weak to laugh – and she raised her other arm.

The mannequin started to vibrate as its body wanted to go in all directions and it was trying to stay rooted to the spot. Inside the mannequin, a large amount of a thick red liquid was swirling furiously like a tornado.

That was Rogue's blood, that was why she suddenly became pale. When her fist punctured the mannequin's chest she had deposited a large amount of her blood in it.

This had been Rogue's plan all along since she found out the mannequin was hollow from last class spars, only the neck and head and its joints weren't hollow.

Naturally, she should have been at a disadvantage against the mannequin due to the nature of her abilities. She was used to bleeding her opponent and then using their blood against them, but with the mannequin that possessed no blood, she had to resort to the only solution she could find, be it drastic.

Rogue raised both her arms towards the mannequin and concentrated. The blood in the mannequin continued to swirl, becoming more and more violent with each second till Rogue spread her arms wide.

The swirling blood in the mannequin shrunk momentarily for the fraction of a second then expanding rapidly that it exploded and the mannequin with it.

Rogue staggered back into the crowd of students and stopped in front of Xenon, both of her palms landing on each of his shoulders as she rested on him.

"Could you please help me get a 'Haeplever' from the infirmary?" Rogue said to Xenon in a low voice, she was trying to conserve energy.

"Uh..." Xenon looked at her, he was speechless. 'What the fuck!? We don't even know each other and she's suddenly sending me on an errand.' Xenon thought to himself.

"Yeah, Xenon, go get one for her." Herman who had overhead what Rogue said persuaded Xenon to go.

A haeplever was a potion that was like an energy drink and it could also help recover blood in case of bleeding. Herman, not wanting another student to collapse on him again told Xenon to go get it as it was the very thing Rogue needed to recover.

"Okay, I'll go. But nobody should spar with the mannequin while I'm gone 'cause I'm next!" Xenon said as he dashed away.

Everyone looked at the ground where the scattered bits of the mannequin lay and wondered what exactly they would they spar with even if they wanted to.

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