68 Did I Make It?

"Six minutes and twenty-seven seconds."

Watching the latter half of the spar and hearing the leader announce how long is brother had lasted, Rykar's competitive spirit had been sparked. However, knowing that the focus was on his brother rather than him, he couldn't get past his fear of the man sitting on the throne and ask to take part in the test.

"Haah, haaaah, haaaaah." Panting on the ground, Loki looked up at Marcel's face with eyes which were stinging due to his own sweat. His eyes through his half-mask still revealed nothing to the boy, but his mouth was twisted in a half smile as they made eye contact.

Despite how tired Loki was, Marcel hadn't even opened his mouth to take a slightly deeper breath throughout the entire six minutes. Even now, standing there, he didn't show a single sign of fatigue as Loki listened carefully only to find he couldn't even hear his breaths. Thinking back, besides the collisions of their bodies, Marcel hadn't seemed to have made any sounds at all through the entire event.

"Not bad. Oi, number two. Step forward." The leader shifted his gaze from the boy on the floor and gestured towards Marcel.

Number two?

Confused by the turn of events, Rykar hesitated to step forward when he remembered Marcel's initial dismissal of his presence. Taking the first step towards his soon-to-be sparing partner, he stopped moving just as quickly as he had started when he saw Marcel swivel around and bow at the waist to the man on the throne.

"Hm? You may speak." Almost annoyed at the intervention, a dark glow flared up next to Marcel's ear where the butterfly had disappeared previously.

Releasing a drawn-out breath, Marcel spoke his mind without any delay. "Loki is the only one that showed an affinity with darkness. The device didn't show Rykar as having any potential despite his weird body type."

Silence reigned for a moment while Rykar's mind was buried in disappointment. Even after building up a slight feeling of friendship with Marcel during the journey here, he was surprised not only by the immediate dismissal, but more so by the way he was referred to as inferior to his own brother.

All of a sudden, he was back in the camp. Stood in front of him was Sir, along with is goons on the sides. "So, which one are you? The demon or the smart?"

He was feeling it more and more lately.  As though there was a gulf between himself and his brother which wasn't necessarily in terms of ability. But the way that they were differentiated between. Especially when it came to being useful to the group, rather than themselves.

The one who was first to get his powers.

The one who was first to get acquainted with Chance.

The one who got them to escape the camp.

The one whose powers were useful for more than just being a convenient backpack.

The one who replicated the complete version of the meditation technique.

The one who played the biggest part in ascending to Grace.

The one who had talent.

Despite there being mutual contributions to these things, Rykar felt as though he was constantly being buried under his brother's shadow.

Under his mask, Rykar closed his eyes as he tried to calm his feelings of disappointment. As the darkness greeted him, his subtle trembling came to a halt while a soothing feeling reached out to him.

Like following the smell of delicious food, this cooling stream led his consciousness all the way back to his fragment where the mass of earth was slowly rotating with numerous belongings and supplies covering it. A small field of foods. A small pile of equipment and supplies. A field of Essence Fruit plants with a pile of fruit within its centre. And, finally, a small circular clearing with the decayed bodies of Robin and the others.

The soothing flow was actually coming from this area. Venturing over to that side with his mind, the view quickly magnified as he saw the remains in more detail. The bodies weren't completely dry yet, still in the process of decomposing yet, as there were no other lifeforms in this space, it wasn't a gruesome sight filled with maggots and insects.

The initial stream of energy which had initially been coming from these bodies had slowed down to a trickle, yet was still present and being distributed to the many nodes within the field of essence plants. However, another node had been connected to this desolate patch, boosting the energy being absorbed by a small amount.

Just to the side of the three bodies, a fourth had unassumingly joined them and was laying there in silence.

With fluffy ears, a short tail and eyes which remained to shut, a puppy of only a few months of age was laying prone with a patch of fur missing around its neck.

'Looking' over the puppy's body with his consciousness, Rykar felt deeply conflicted. The mournful scene of the dead puppy lying next to yet more corpses, paired with the calming sensation it was giving him, completely contradicted each other.

While still stuck between feelings, the temperature of the hall dropped a few degrees as Marcel was berated. Woken from his reverie, he listened intently while hoping he would get a chance to show his worth.

It was no longer about whether he wanted to join the guild or not. Instead, he was simply intent to show his worth in comparison to his brother.

"Do you think I need a device to babysit me? Or that it's more discerning than I am? His affinity with darkness exists, its simply mixed with other attributes. Not to mention, I expect they have been together the entire time. It's looking for stars at noon, of course the stronger reading will cancel out the latter.

"…"

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Unsure of what to say, Marcel didn't even have time to think and reply before the black light shone again, prompting him into silence.

"Start."

As soon as the leader affirmed his decision, Rykar stepped forward until he was only a metre away from Marcel. Staring at him with eyes which were blatantly withholding anger, he lifted his arms and crouched slightly, lowering himself into a fighting pose with a million and one flaws.

And thus, it began. Starting off slowly, Marcel threw punches down at Rykar's chest level and arms, allowing him time to adjust to the pace. However, this seemed to be anything but effective.

Rather than easing into it slowly, Rykar was always a step ahead of the pace which had been set. Each and every one of his return strikes were over-compensated in terms of speed and power.

Compared to the smooth initiation that Loki had, this was full of fumbling, with all of the blows coming to a shaky stop instead of a balanced finish. Every time, Rykar would push Marcel's arms farther off course than need be.

"Stop."

Just as abruptly as the round started, it came to a stop after 43 seconds.

"If you can't control yourself, don't waste my time. This is a spar, if you don't understand that its not a time for you to be throwing your arms around then get out." Annoyance could be heard in his voice as the leader paused the fight. Even this small concession was only something he decided to give due to his favorable impression of Loki.

"Begin."

There hadn't even been 15 seconds between the stop of the previous spar and the start of the current. Without even giving him time to calm down, Marcel reset the pace and threw a punch at Rykar's chest once again. Like clockwork, this was exactly the same blow that he had used to open up the two previous bouts.

Rykar was literally shaking. He could barely focus as his frustration overrode his bodily functions but luckily, at the bare minimum, he managed to slow down his movements to match the pace of marcel despite the tension that was turning his body to stone.

No sound came from His opponent. Even his mouth, which was usually weirdly over expressive, was now stone cold as he threw fist after fist at Rykar. The time seemed to pass by in a blur. After a short while, Rykar was too lost in his own thoughts to even notice that the blows were quickly increasing in intensity.

Humiliated.

Frustrated.

Cast aside.

Irrelevant.

He was basically a human shaped cocktail of all these emotions. His thoughts strayed all over the place as he thought about what had just happened.

From Loki's perspective, his brother had been given another opportunity to simply calm down his nerves. The chance they were being given had basically been forced upon them, but it still seemed like something very interesting to say the least.

Not to mention, when put into a situation where they were being tested, who wouldn't want to pass, even if it wasn't in order to get the reward?

However, when looking at it from Rykars mind… The leader had stopped the spar because he was making a fool of himself. At no moment within Loki's match was a comment made, much less a stoppage! There was even an interested feeling coming from the leader as he had leaned forward in his seat.

Once again, he was the side character.

*Bang*

It was like a hammer slapped him on the head. His ear had been struck and he went reeling.

As he came to, his body felt battered and broken as Marcel struck him with a flurry of kicks and punches. He didn't even realize when it was that he could no longer keep up with his movements, and even those he could see, he wasn't able to dodge completely.

Block. Block. Then block again. That which he couldn't block? Take the hit with a part of his body that he hoped wouldn't hurt as much.

He was being pushed farther and farther backwards with each attack. Even when holding his ground, his feet didn't have enough traction with the ground to prevent him from sliding back on the stone below him.

'It hurts.'

'How long has it been?'

'have I held on longer than he did?'

'Can I stop now'?

The constant low kicks to his thighs left his legs feeling like jelly. His knees were on the verge of collapse, holding only because he was no longer raising them to take steps backwards of forwards. He was like a statue being pushed backwards bit by but along the ground.

Apart from the one blow that connected to his ear, seemingly to wake him up, Marcel had been generous enough to not attack his face.

Despite this generosity, Rykar crumbled to the ground after another kick to the leg.

'Did I make it?' He thought as he stared at the vaulted ceiling above him.

"Five minutes fourty two seconds."