Change In Schedule

Kies woke up the next morning feeling the same as he always felt whenever he wakes up. In other words, he felt nothing. "Good start to the day..." he mumbled to himself. Kies slid down from the roof and almost fell on top of someone but luckily, they saw him and moved out of the way in time.

"Woah! Where did you come from!?" the startled man asked Kies.

"Sorry." Kies apologized to the man and walked away without answering his question. The confused man watched as Kies walked away and shrugged his shoulders and walked away as well.

Kies entered the inn and found Sirks at the same table they were at yesterday evening having breakfast. The two princesses were nowhere to be found and Kies went over to Sirks to ask about them.

"Hey!"

Sirks jumped out of his chair and almost knocked the entire table over. He turned around and saw that it was Kies. "Oh, you scared me! Who the h*ll greets people from the back!?"

"Sorry," Kies apologized for the second time this morning. He has only said three words so far, and two of them were sorries. It could be just him, but why did he feel like everyone was so jumpy today? Kies looked around and noticed that everyone seemed like they were on edge. The other people in the room were all looking around paranoid for no reason. Or maybe there is a reason and Kies just didn't know it.

"We'll have to head to the colosseum this afternoon," Sirks suddenly told him out of the blue.

"What for?" The tournament wasn't today, was it? No, it was tomorrow. He was supposed to spend the entirety of today training with Nell. So then why did Sirks want to go to the colosseum today?

"Some things happened, and the tournament starts today, not tomorrow," he explained to Kies.

"What!?"

"They announced it this morning. Apparently, there are too many participants and they need to start early if they want to end it in time."

"Oh... What time is it now?"

"Not sure, but we have to get there after we finish eating."

"Where are the other two?"

"Already done eating. They're upstairs waiting."

"Iris is still going to participate?"

"Yes. I don't know how she does it, but it seems that she forgot about everything that happened yesterday. Either that or she doesn't care anymore. Both of which are pretty impressive." Sirks crammed three rest of his food into his mouth and then got up and left the table. "If you want to eat something, you better be quick. We don't have much time for it."

"I'm fine."

"Really? You didn't eat dinner yesterday. And it's not like we don't have the money to eat. We might not have much but we can always make more. Health is our first priority, the mission is second."

"No, I'm not hungry. I'm serious." Him eating would straight up be nothing more than a waste of money.

"You sure? We're fighting today. We need everyone in peak condition."

"Yes, I'm sure."

Despite hearing this, Sirks scratched his head and insisted a couple of more times that Kies ate something, anything, that would give him energy for the day. But he refused every time and Sirks gave up since they didn't have time to waste arguing over something as silly as this.

"You know your body better than me, so you better be telling the truth when you say that you're fine. The last thing I want to see is you losing the battle because you don't have energy."

"Don't worry, I'll pass it," Kies assured him.

"Alright then. I'll get the girls. You can wait outside or get a head start to the colosseum."

"I'll wait."

Kies left the inn and stood outside next to the door and waited for the three. A couple of other people exited the inn before they did and Kies saw that they were all heading for the colosseum. This summer tournament really did seem to be quite important if everyone was going to it.

Finally, the door opened again and the three people that Kies had been expecting minutes earlier walked out. "Took you long enough."

"Someone thought it was a good idea to take a nap right before the tournament..." Sirks told him the reason why they were so late. The two princesses looked at him innocently. Although Sirks didn't say who, Kies already knew who the person responsible was.

Kies looked at Iris and she smiled. "Aw drats, how did you know it was me and not my sister?"

"Just a guess."

"You're a good guesser. Can you also guess who it was that woke me up?"

"No."

"Hmph. You're no fun."

Despite going through something horrible yesterday, Iris seemed like her normal self. Sirks wasn't kidding. She really was acting like nothing happened yesterday.

"Are you sure you can fight today?" Kies asked Iris out of concern. He wasn't sure if she was hiding it and wanted to make sure that she could fight today. If not, no one was going to blame her for dropping out considering what she went through yesterday. Any normal person would need some time to heal from something like that.

"What do you mean by that?" Iris asked back, not getting why Lies was asking her that.

"I heard what happened to you yesterday."

Kies expected a monotone response but that wasn't what he got. Instead, Iris smiled and said, "Wow, you're worried about me!? That's a first!"

"It's fine if you want to stay home today. No one is forcing you," he told her. Sirks and Wompa agreed with the statement and nodded their heads.

But Iris still chose to go. "I'm okay. I'm not as weak as I look. I'll heat those mercenaries up if they try something like that again," she confidently told them. "But... If you're truly worried about anything happening to me, we can always switch the pairs up," she winked.

"I'm good." Kies was fine with teaming with Wompa. Unlike her sister, she didn't take his stuff and frisk his body whenever she had the chance to search him for magic items and whatever else he had hidden underneath his cloak.

"That's a shame... But if you ever change your mind, I'll be more than happy to," she said in a cheerful voice. Yeah, she will definitely be more than happy to do it. She would be thrilled to be with Kies so that she can annoy the ever-living cr*p out of him.

Since they were wasting time standing here, Kies turned and looked towards the colosseum. He pointed at it and told the three, "We should go." It will take them a good amount of time to make it there and they can always talk while walking.

"Yes, we better start moving. The line is going to be quite long. We don't want to get disqualified for not making it there on time," Sirks agreed.

"Wait, before that," Iris took something from her small bag and handed it to everyone.

"What's this?"

"The masks you wanted. You don't want people recognizing our faces, right?"

"Oh yeah." Kies forgot about it and it was a good thing that Iris remembered. Competing in the tournament would be for naught if they got recognized by the soldiers.

Kies flipped the mask over to the other side and saw that there were whiskers painted on it. There was also a curved mouth at the bottom. It took Kies a moment to figure out what exactly the entire face represented. Kies looked at everyone else's masks and saw that they were the same as his with slight variations.

Sirks had one with a huge mouth with angry eyes, with it being overall creepy looking while the two sisters had cute matching ones, just with different colors. He looked back at his own and saw that it had a rather cranky look to it with the small eyes and unhappy mouth.

"Um... Where did you get these?" Kies asked Iris. The masks looked like they were made by a child. Kies was pretty sure that these were supposed to be cat masks, but the drawing was way off.

"I made them! The ones in the shops were too expensive, and they weren't even that good anyway. These are better! Aren't I great!?" She proudly puffed her chest out.

"..."

As much as Kies wanted to tell her that these masks were not good, he decided not to. It was to applaud her effort for making them. In the end, masks are masks. As long as they fulfilled their purpose, he had no complaints. But the thought of running around the colosseum and fighting people with this was pretty hilarious. She even designed each of them to suit their personalities.

Kies put the mask on and discovered that it fit surprisingly well and was comfortable as well. Other than the eye sockets being way too small, there were no noticeable problems about it. The other three also put on their masks as well after Kies.

"Hmm... Not bad," Sirks complimented.

"Not bad? Only a 'not bad?' Come on, you have to give me more credit than just that!"

"Fine, it's better than I thought. Does that sound better?"

"Hmph, I guess..." Iris still wasn't happy about the compliment, but it was a bit better at least.

Without anything else to say, all of them headed to the colosseum where the tournament is happening.

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