Hero's Return 24 Conflic

The crowd cheered and roared as soon as the fight began, the area around the arena had become filled with the reverberated roar of the crowd. Sparks filled the middle circle as Sora and Rin fought against Del and Rez, there were various exchanges made between them, as Sora swung his sword he had grown accustomed to leaving openings, but Rin would make up for his weakness so he could fight freely. Del and Rez had been retreating almost since the fight started - they hadn't seen how Sora and Rin worked together yet, so they attacked first to see how they would fare, the first exchange happened extremely quickly.

Del thrusted forward with her fiery knives towards Sora's chest, he quickly dodged and swung his sword downwards towards her, not noticing that Rez had been directly above him, with a bow made of string as well as an arrow made of string, the bow had been fully drawn back.

(T)S: d.a.m.n, that bow is probably using up all of his scarf, Del was just a distraction! Rin!

The arrow shot towards Sora extremely fast, but Rin managed to jump up and collide with it, as Rin hit the arrow, she didn't have the power to fully stop it without injuring herself, but she did have the power to redirect it without sustaining any serious injury. Trusting in Rin, Sora sliced downwards towards Del. Del had been prepared for this initial strategy to fail, it was just a simple attack to test the waters, she swung upwards with her knives, making sure Sora's sword didn't make contact with her directly, using the momentum from the slice to retreat backwards, Rez had already been moving forward in the air so he landed next to Del, looking at eachother, they both confirmed their theory. When they thought about Sora and Rin, they didn't know Rin's strength directly, but they knew Sora's, as well as his weaknesses, they came to the conclusion that Rin most likely made up for Sora's risky fighting style, after confirming it, they were now looking for a way to attack.

Sora continued to chase after them, he had applied a little aura to his eyes at all time, so he could see potential strings that Rez had placed, even though he could easily look at Rez and just check if his scarf was still on him, Rez had been very careful, throughout the entire fight so far Rez had constantly made it so that his scarf was in it's seperate string state, he hadn't placed it though, the strings had been keeping close to him, whenever he used a string to jump on to look as if he was flying, he immediately took it back.

R: "Del! Now!"

Del stopped retreating backwards and put both of her hands onto the ground. Sora immediately took notice and attempted to retreat, this didn't seem like a bluff. Del chanted a spell under her breath and a wide circular wall of fire appeared around Sora, with Del outside, Rez jumped into the middle of the flames, immediately spreading all of his strings around and limiting Sora's movement. Sora had landed on the ground, after seeing the situation he was in, all he could do was wait for them to attack. He had no way out and in the s.p.a.ce he did have he couldn't move carelessly.

R: "String Element : Lightning"

All of the strings instantly became electrocuted.

R: "Del, let's finish this!"

D: "Alright!"

Del threw her knives into the fire as Rez made every single one of the strings close in on Sora, as they did this Del began to shrink the fire wall and make it begin to turn. This was a combination move that they came up with specifically for Sora. The flame begun to spin until it simulated a tornado, the strings inside had become loose to easily flow into the tornado, mixing the elements.

R: "Combination"

D: "Thunderfire"

When the strings had closed in on him, Sora jumped into the air and surrounded himself in a barrier of darkness, it's property made it a much better defense than light.

The fiery tornado roared as the lightning shooting off of it cracked the stone beneath it, Del and Rez watched as it spurned violently, the entire crowd had went silent, watching this monster of magic spin. Above the podium, all of the members were surprised, whilst it wasn't magic that would be impressive to them usually, for two youngsters to be able to cast it showed that they were not only powerful, but also worked well enough together to perfectly mix the magic together, it was extremely difficult to use magic like Del had used for normal people, but it was even harder to mix it with another element without failing and dispersing. This one attack alone spoke alot about their potential together.

[Above The Podium]

Y: "Wow, those two are actually able to accomplish this much after just a week of working together?"

M: "Hm? They've only known eachother for a week?"

Y: "What? No! They've known eachother for a long time, I meant 'working' together"

M: "Oh... well... that aside. They're good candidates to join up, that other one seems to have just immediately lost though, he seems too careless. He let the other kid get above him in the first exchange, then wildly attacked them without thinking"

Y: "Heh, that's what everyone thinks of him"

M: "Eh? If everyone knows that, then why is he fighting against these two?"

Y: "Well..."

Yuin looked back towards the fiery tornado.

Y: "You might be surprised"

The tornado had been a blazing monster coloured with a spiral of red and yellow, but from inside the tornado, a dark sphere could be seen. From the bottom of a tornado a dark spiral began to join in the tornado, seemingly corrupting it. Soon, the entire tornado had been one of darkness.

R: "This guy..."

D: "He actually broke through it..."

The dark tornado was no longer spinning, it seemed to be made of a black stone, with a crack, the entire thing shattered, and a boy fell to the ground, his s.h.i.+rt had been burned off but he only sustained mild injuries.

S: "Jeeez, that attack was amazing, If I didn't go for defense straight away, I'd probably be out!"

Rez sighed.

R: "That's unfair man, that attack is so hard to use"

D: "Not really..."

Del and Rez had been working togehter for an entire week now. They had worked together on combos for a week now and didn't need to expend much energy using this, the only real drawback it had was that the process was complicated, and they would be mentally exhausted after, this was cleared quickly though as they prepared to fight once more.

S: "Wouldn't say it's unfair"

Sora spun his sword in a playful manner.

S: "I've been improving my magic alot too, the whole 'corruption' part of darkness takes alot outta me too"

Sora held tightly onto his sword.

S: "So"

Del and Rez smiled.

D+R: "Let's continue!"

Both parties jumped back into fighting eachother, now directly exchanging with eachother, fire and lightning flied as Del and Rez charged towards Sora whilst light and darkness also flew, it was an explosion of colour every time each collided.

[Above The Podium]

M: "What?!"

Y: "Yep, he's kind of careless but he's no idiot when it comes to fighting"

Michael sighed.

M: "He can actually use corruption to such an extreme level... at such a young age..."

Y: "I can't tell you about that... don't know when he got this talent"

Yuin had knew now but decided to help him keep it a secret, no point in ruining Sora's efforts after all.

M: "Well, he can probably join too"

Y: "Alright, good"

Yuin kept watching the fight.

M: "Um? Are we not gonna stop the fight?"

Y: "What? Why would we do that?"

M: "I thought we were only doing this as a test for them to join"

Y: "Hm? No, they wanted to test their strength, I wasn't kidding when I said it at the start"

M: "What? I thought you meant test for the school..."

Y: "Nope"

Michael sighed.

M: "Well, I'm going back to sleep then"

Yuin looked back at him.

Y: "Alright, night. Wait..."

Yuin looked back towards the fight as Michael pa.s.sed out.

Del and Rez seemed were winning the battle as they pushed Sora back but Sora seemed to be attacking much more fiercely despite the obvious fact that he was losing, Del and Rez didn't hold back though, eventually cornering him at the edge of the arena.

(T)S: d.a.m.nit... I can't go anywhere from here..."

Sora had his back to the wall, with no where to retreat. Del jumped forward and sliced down towards Sora, whilst she did Rez had been standing at the back, ready to jump in if she was in any trouble. Sora moved his sword up to block Del's knives, resulting in a clash was so powerful it cracked the ground below them and the wall behind Sora, the two didn't move from where they were standing. Rez saw a chance as Sora was currently occupied by Del and took all the string floating around and once more formed it into his bow, jumping to the left and aiming towards Sora, as Rez drew back the bow him and Del were extremely hopeful that they could win the fight. Sora smiled.

S: "I can't believe you guys didn't notice"

Del revealed a hint of surprise. Didn't notice what? Rez was also surprised but didn't wait to find out what they didn't notice. He immediately shot the arrow of string at Sora. Sora was still smiling.

S: "Light : Refraction Property : Disable"

Suddenly, the ground beneath Del as well as the one beneath Rez froze, encasing them up to their waists in ice. Both revealed looks of shock as Sora jumped up then off the wall to dodge the arrow, landing in the middle of the arena, a white kitten running up to him and then jumping up to his shoulder.

D: "What?! Rin?!"

R: "Where was she?!"

Sora smiled once again.

S: "When we were encased in that dark sphere that I set up. I used a special refraction property of light, basically making Rin here invisible"

Sora pet Rin with his finger.

S: "All she had to do was lie in wait until you guys were fully distracted, and now..."

Sora had been infusing his sword with both light and darkness up until now, at the range he was at, with once slice, he would be able to hit both Del and Rez.

S: "I win!"

Sora took the sword out and began slicing from left to right, he would hit Del first then Rez. Rez revealed an expression of desperation, using all of his power to make the strings twist around the ice and break it, Del had exhausted more magic power than he did in the prior tornado, so she didn't have enough to break out of the ice, even though her element directly countered it. Running forward he realised he couldn't break her ice fast enough, instead choosing to stand in front of her and set up a wall of string then infusing it with lightning, he didn't know if it would help but he didn't care. As long as it could possibly help. The giant line of light and darkness collided with his wall of string, throwing it off it's course but blowing Rez to the right towards the wall, the impact was so hard that it completely broke the wall and left a deep crater, but Del was completely fine. This wouldn't kill him but he most likely wouldn't be able to fight, the reason they were able to fight like this was because Yuin had an extreme attainment in healing magic, whilst the two parties fighting didn't want to kill each other, their most powerful attacks would definitely leave a mark.

Rez broke the ice below Del before collapsing.

R: "Well, I guess it's up to you now..."

D: "Rez!!"

Rez fell to the ground and pa.s.sed out. Del immediately went down next to him and checked how bad his injuries were, she was also extremely embarra.s.sed right now - it was extremely obvious that he could have broke the ice and dodged, but he jumped in front of her instead. Sora felt extremely awkward.

S: "Ahhhh, Shh- I should not have made it that powerful..."

Del looked at him, extremely mad at him. Sora had seen that look before, it was one he saw very rarely. But he was terrified of it all the same.

D: "That slice should have taken alot out of you, if I try hard enough..."

Del's knives seemed to come out of her sleeve into her hands as they blazed with a heat more furious than before. She jumped forward and begun to fight him, Sora had used alot of energy for that slice so the only reason he could really keep up now was because of Rin, but that ice attack that Rin used took alot out of her too.

Del's attacks. .h.i.t like meteors every time one connected, and Sora was quickly running out of energy and aura, running out of ways to keep consistently fighting. Del's furious barrage out attacks was also gradually getting weaker, she was running out too. Both parties were running extremely low right now.

D: "You didn't-

D: Have-

D: To-

D: Do that!"

Sora was pushed back.

S: "I'm sorry! I don't have amazing control!"

Rin was extremely exhausted at this point and was getting slower. But was still somewhat able to keep up. Del was also getting slower and weaker. All Sora had to do was wait for a prime oppurtunity to jump in. Del was getting slower and slower...

...

(T)S: "Now!"

Del left an opening and through his mental link with Rin, they both jumped forward. Del knew that if she didn't take them down in that barrage, they lost, so she just sighed and accepted her loss, closing her eyes

...

S: "What?!"

Del was surprised that an attack had not yet landed on her. As she opened her eyes she saw Sora suspended in midair, completely still.

R: "Hehehe..."

Rez was on the ground where he fell, but he had his fingers on the ground, as Del fought he transferred his strings into the ground, having them dig underground, waiting for Sora to jump in on Del.

R: "Surprise..."

Del looked back at him and smiled.

D: "You..."

Sora looked down and then looked at Rin, who was also entangled. Del charged her knives with the last of her magic power, this was her last attack, but it was sure to hit. This was their victory. Sora knew what was going on, as Del jumped into the air Sora used the last of his remaining power to create a burst of darkness, breaking the hold the strings had on him, and he caught Rin as they both fell to the ground - as he landed, Del knew he should have been out of energy now so she kept charging towards him. Sora sat cross-legged on the ground and began to play with Rin, Del stopped.

D: "Huh?"

S: "What?"

D: "What're you doing?"

S: "Playing..."

Sora smiled.

S: "It's your win, congratulations guys."

Sora knew how powerful these two were, and it's not like they had a grudge, he actually felt pretty happy for them. Del also smiled, as Sora finished playing with Rin and stood up, he walked towards Rez and held his hand out to help Rez up, Rez accepted the offer and clambered to his feet.

R: "Man"

Rez could barely stand.

R: "You really don't hold back do you..."

S: "Haha... sorry..."

Sora looked away, he was kind of embarra.s.sed about this.

Del looked at Rez, blus.h.i.+ng, she also looked away from him.

R: "Hm? What's wrong with you two?"

Del and Sora looked back to him and they all began to talk.

R: "But seriously? What was the ice all about?"

D: "Oh! Yeah! Rin has blue flames on her! How come she can use ice?!"

S: "Hm? Did you guys not notice?"

R: "Huh? Notice what?"

Sora looked towards Rin on his shoulder.

S: "Do it"

Rin complied, she looked straight at Del and Rez with a neutral expression, the blue flames on her all froze over and changed to ice.

D: "Huh?"

S: "Well... the blue flames are kind of something she uses for her enemies, she looks like this so that people will try to use ice against her, which would mean she would have an advantage - and to anyone that does use fire, they would think that using fire against her wouldn't be worth it"

R: "So... basically... she's constantly lying..."

S: "Hmmm... yeah, basically"

D: "Well, it worked on us, that was a ma.s.sive surprise"

R: "Yeah"

As they were talking Yuin came down from the stands and walked towards them.

Y: "Congratulations you two! You tried hard too Sora!"

Yuin hugged them all.

R: "Ow! Owowow!"

Yuin moved back.

Y: "Oh, yeah! Sorry! Let me fix this!"

Yuin placed her hand on Rez's shoulder then began chanting a spell under her voice, a green wind encapsulated Rez and then disappeared in an instant.

Y: "There you go"

Rez looked at himself, he felt completely fine now.

R: "I'm never gonna get used to that..."

Del slapped him on the back.

D: "Well at least your fine now!"

S: "Yeah! Sorry, still, by the way..."

R: "Nah don't worry about it"

The three began to chat, Michael also came down from the podiums then stood behind Yuin. Yuin knew that she had to ask the question now.

Y: "You three..."

All of them stopped talking and looked at her.

Y: "About that offer..."

All of them looked down at the ground, they still didn't know.