23 Their Motivation

[A Fully Seated Wooden Arena]

The sounds of the croud could be heard for miles around and there were even some powerful figures who had come, whilst none of them at the level of Yuin's power, they were still much more powerful than Sora, Rin, Del or Rez. Selica and Rayn had been present and even Seiju had come out to watch. Many of the hunters filled the crowd and even some hunters from other villages came, the rest of the seats were filled with the villagers from both Sora's village and villagers from other villages. Many of the people who were present were normal, ordinary people and only a select few were like Sora and the others.

The arena looked like a colliseum made of a mix of wood and stone, it was impressively built for the fact that the mages and builders doing it only had 2 days to finish. Above the seats were podiums where the most powerful people would sit, these were taken by Yuin and anyone else near her level. The middle of the arena was a wide circle of stone, made to allow the ones fighting to have a wide enough space to fight freely. Yuin also wanted to capitalise on this and not just have Sora and Del fight, but allow anyone in the arena who could fairly fight eachother to fight, this was a voluntary system, this made it so that more people came if they knew others were going that had bad relations with eachother. There were two gates in the arena, one to the far right and one to the far left, these were where the competitors would come from.

[Behind The Left Gate]

Del and Rez were sitting down on a bench together, hyping themselves up for the big fight. These two had gotten to know eachother more since the fight in the forest as a result of wanting to get stronger than or at least be on the same level of strength as Sora, whilst they had a good enough relationship before, now, one could easily misunderstand them as a couple. Rez was dense to feelings of love and Del knew this, she still didn't really know how she felt in that way towards him but knew that they were too much of an inseperable duo now anyway, so she got used to him. Some of the things he said made her blush and embarassed at times but she knew that he didn't mean it in that way, it was more of her taking it the wrong way.

R: "Ready Del?"

D: "Yeah"

R: "Man. It's only been a week and we already get to test our stuff"

D: "Mhm, hey, Rez..."

R: "Yeah?"

D: "That offer from the master..."

Rez was about to respond but hesitated, he didn't know that to say. After a short silence.

R: "Well... I already told you... I'll go if you go. It kinda happened by accident but I work really well with you now, leaving to go solo just wouldn't make sense to me..."

Del blushed slightly, but she knew what Rez said was sincere.

D: "Hm, yeah, I guess so"

Del looked towards the ground, she took this offer extremely seriously but didn't know if she wanted to leave the village she had callled her home for so long. The fact that Rez had been offered it aswell and left the decision to her only doubled what she felt she had to think about.

D: "How about... no... umm..."

Rez looked at her.

R: "This isn't like you, you're usually all serious and stuff, it's weird seeing you like this"

Rez lay down on the bench.

R: "Just stop thinking about it so hard, be more laid back, like me"

Del snapped out of her thoughts and got slightly irritated.

D: "And why do you think I'm thinking so hard huh?"

She looked at him as she pouted, Rez quickly crawled away and smiled, whilst he viewed Del as his best friend now, he was still scared of her serious, annoyed side that he knew from before they really started to get to know eachother.

R: "Haha... sorry about that..."

Rez looked to the side, avoiding eyesight. Del quickly calmed down and once again looked straight down at the floor, twiddling her thumbs.

D: "Rez... I have a serious question..."

Rez noticed the change in her tone and realised that she was serious. He moved back to sit next to her and waited for the question.

D: "What... what motivates you?"

Rez was surprised by this, he thought he knew his reason, but when directly asked, he truly didn't know what motivated him to get stronger.

R: "Well... It's... to get as strong as Sora, right?"

Del stayed silent for a while.

D: "Yeah... that was the initial reason wasn't it? But... something changed along the way... I don't feel that way anymore..."

Rez was taken aback by this, it was exactly how he felt. There was an unbroken silence between the two for a while.

D: "I'll... I'll ask you again, Rez. What really motivates you now? Cause, I still wanna get stronger but... it's not for the same reason..."

Rez thought about it for a while before laying back down on the bench.

R: "Well... if I had to give the most honest answer, it'd be you I guess"

Del's face immediately went red, the awkward tension between the two was immediately broken, whilst Del was definitely used to him by now, such a direct declaration wasn't something that could be easily ignored.

D: "Wh-wh-wh-wh-what?!?!"

R: "Yeah"

Rez was still as calm as ever. Seeing this, Del guessed that he meant something else, her face was still red but she was significantly calmer.

D: "What- What do you mean by that?"

R: "Well, it's fun being with you now, after a week of working together constantly working towards the same goal. I can't think of anything fun to do besides hanging out with you"

D: "Oh"

Del now knew what he meant.

R: "I guess... I'll get stronger, so I can stay with you"

D: "So... it's fun to hang out with me?"

R: "Well, yeah"

Rez stood up.

R: "Let's keep getting stronger, together. Kay Del?"

Rez raised his fist and put it in front of her with a smile on his face. Del's face was still red but she was satisfied with his answer, and bumped his fist with her own.

(T)D: "I guess I'll get stronger to stay with you too, Rez"

The two returned to the idle chat that they shared as they waited for the fight to begin.

...

R: "Hey, why is your face red?"

D: "Huh?! Is it?!"

...

[Above The Seats On The Podiums]

Yuin was seated at the top of one of the podiums talking to some of the people that she invited herself, one of of them knew of her status as a Legend whilst everyone else did not. The most important person she invited here was a man named Michael. Michael was an interesting man, he was one of the leading figures of the school that Yuin was planning to send Sora, Del and Rez to, he had a good relationship with her and knew of her status as a Legend, naturally, he would make time for her. He was here to check up on the strength of the kids he would soon accept into his school, whilst he was more powerful than Yuin when looking at it from the village's standpoint, he knew that Yuin was constantly holding back and that he was significantly weaker, whilst he was indeed strong from an objective standpoint, he was far from the strongest in his school, some students were even more powerful than he was, what was important was that he managed who got into the school, his job was to go around and find potential students. He had an important role to play but he didn't need to be overly powerful to do it.

Y: "The fight's starting soon Mike."

M: "Mm? Oh, yeah, the fight. Sorry, I've kinda been working alot recently, it ain't fun"

Y: "Hm? Why?"

M: "Gotta build up my money, I'm going to the Underforge with an... extremely 'specific' design in mind"

Y: "The Underforge? What kind of thing do you need that you need to go there to have it made?"

M: "Ugghhh... you'll see... just... lemme rest for a bit here... I don't get enough of it these days..."

Y: "Mm, alright, just don't be sleeping when the fighting starts"

There were more people sitting around the podiums but none of them were as important as Michael, she just invited them more as a formality than an actual genuine invitation from her. The only person she really talked to and knew before she ran the village was Michael.

[Behind The Right Gate]

Sora was playing with Rin, petting her and thinking about what had happened last night, and the discovery he made about Yuin. He was confident in his abilities to fight Del and Rez but was also cautious of how strong they had really gotten, no one had seen them when they had been out hunting, only they knew their strength - Del and Rez should have also sensed Rin's own power and should have already guessed that Rin would be able to cover Sora at all times. This fight was one where the winner could not be accurately guessed. The looming threat of the Demonic King was one Sora had to learn to live with, but it was way too early for him to even attempt to accept the duty and just move forward, right now he was acting like he usually did and distracting himself with his life in the village. This fight was initially one that he wanted to test his strength, but now it was also just a part of the distraction.

A loud sound could be heard, the sound of stone grinding against stone, the gate was opening. Sora, noticing this, stood up, Rin quickly jumped onto his shoulder. He smiled and began to walk out of the room he had been waiting in for so long, walking out the light temporarily blinded him, when his vision returned to him he saw the crowd, cheering. But that wasn't what he paid any attention to, he looked straight forward at his two opponents, they stopped in the middle of the arena, mentally linking themselves to their partners before the fight even started.

S: "Sup guys"

D: "Seriously? We're fighting in a second Sora, at least act like it"

R: "Hm? I don't see why, we're all friends here"

S: "Yeah, this is just a fight to test our strength right?"

Del sighed, these two never changed.

R: "Well, you better be careful Sora, we're way stronger than before"

S: "Heh, wouldn't be any fun otherwise, I've got my partner too"

Rin let out a soft purr, Del looked away to hide from the guilt of having to fight Rin.

R: "Well, good luck to all of us I guess"

S: "Yeah!"

As the group of friends finished speaking, Yuin silenced the crowd.

Y: "Oi! Everyone shut up! Time for the fight to start"

The entire crowd went silent, looking towards Yuin, waiting for her to start the fight.

Y: "These two groups are not fighting for any reason but to test their strength, for that reason, they will be going all out. Let me just remind you that you can volunteer to fight after they are done with their own"

Yuin looked at Michael to check if he was awake, and after seeing he was...

Y: "Well...

Let the fight...

Begin!!!"