Scarlet

The second day of the Primary tournament draws to a close about an hour later after the last battle ends with Lost being victorious, following which all of the remaining participants – me included – appear on a large tower at the center of the stadium. And then Black’s voice begins to echo across the stadium, “And that make for our nineteenth participant moving onto the fifth round! But before we close out for the evening, why don’t we have a little looksie at the brackets for the next round!

The brackets for the round suddenly appear in the center of the stadium above us, with the screen seemingly changing its orientation for every single person depending on where you’re looking at it. A much nicer feature that is only used for the third day Primary tournaments brackets and rules for some reason.

“If I had to guess, it’s because it should cost a large amount of mana to keep it running,” Tar suddenly answers my thoughts. “After all, they’re basically overlapping millions of realities for the screen to show each and every person a different orientation of the screen for them to see it clearly at whatever angle they’re looking at it from.”

Oh. Interesting.

That makes sense.

My thoughts come to a halt when I find my name on the brackets and the person I’m fighting.

The Blind Prophet.

Okay, this could actually be a problem.

“Why?” Tar asks, sounding curious.

Because the Blind Prophet uses time magic.

“Oh,” he mutters, making me frown in response.

Oh is right. From what I watched him do during the last round, he uses martial arts and was big on them even before becoming a Guardian. And his magic in particular has a large focus on foresight and somehow seeing a few seconds into the future. So it’s incredibly difficult to actually hit him.

In addition to that, he also has some typical time magic spells like making his opponent’s skills lose time left on their usage, slowing or speeding his opponents up for a brief period of time, and other skills of that type.

Overall, a pain to deal with.

“Now that is all for tonight! To our extraordinary competitors, sleep well tonight! Because you will need all the rest you can get for your battles tomorrow!” Black shouts before the screen showing him vanishes and all of us competitors are teleported back to our private booths.

I quickly find Allen sitting in the chair next to mine already looking at me when I return.

“We’re going to the training hall at the base,” Allen says, not even giving me a chance to speak. “Because you need to work on your martial arts.”

My eyes widen with a hint of fear.

“And more importantly,” he says, his eyes narrowing. “You need to work on not getting impaled.”

Tar immediately starts laughing in my head at that.

“It’s only happened three times, so it-” I begin, only for Allen to cut me off with a glare as he asks, “Three? I only remember two. When did this third one happen?”

My mouth opens for a second, only to close again.

Oops. I forgot that at the time my heart was cut in two, the emergency power was out.

Wait, it was cut in two! Right! Not impaled!

Tar snorts.

“No, no, I was only impaled two times,” I say while nodding my head and correcting myself.

His eyes narrow and he simply repeats his question, “When did the third one happen?”

I avoid his gaze for a moment before debating the success rate of me escaping this conversation in my head and finding it to not be very high.

Tar suddenly appears in the air next to me and lands on top of my head, making my ears twitch when he brushes against them. But before I can complain about his choice of landing, he answers Allen’s question, “It was during that Class II Fracture she was in over a month ago. One of her hearts was cut in two.”

I quickly shake my head to fling him off before glancing at Allen to find his eyes narrowing with a dangerous glint to them.

“Oh really?” he asks while standing up from his chair and towering over me in height. “Before we start this training, how about we go over the fact that you conveniently left that bit of news out when we arrived to save you that day?”

I purse my lips, trying very hard to not send a glare the tanuki’s way because I know that won’t help my situation. Plus I can do it later.

Something to distract him… come on, there has to be something…

Oh right!

“So what about that dinner? Are we still going?” I ask trying very hard to change the topic.

And failing.

“Yes, after our training,” Allen says, “now please tell me why you thought having your heart cut in two wasn’t an important detail during your debriefing back then.”

Well, shit. That didn’t work.

And Tar is a traitor. A filthy furry traitor.

Tar just laughs at that while flying around my head with a smile on his tanuki face, clearly enjoying my situation.

That’s it. You’re not allowed to lie down on me or sit on me for three days.

He stops flying immediately at that before giving me puppy dog eyes – err, tanuki eyes? Sad tanuki eyes.

“I’m waiting,” Allen says, bringing my focus back to him to find the man standing just half a meter in front of me, the man being nearly five inches taller than me and looking rather intimidating as he stands there with his arms crossed. But then a frightening grin creeps its way onto his face as he adds, “Why don’t we have a nice talk about this during training, young lady?”

I gulp at that.

“Oh, and we can invite Cynthia while we’re at it! I’m sure she’d love to hear about this as well,” Allen says, making shivers run down my spine.

“It was nice knowing you,” Tar says somehow sounding smug.

Remember. No more using me as a pillow or a bed for three days.

I immediately feel his sorrow at that flash through our bond before he cuts the bond off somehow and says, “Why would I care about that?” and harrumphs.

This is not going to be a fun night.