Return From A Long Journey

"How did you..." Iris was in disbelief at how he was still alive, and even more so at how he was completely fine.

"I have my ways..." he told her, not saying how exactly he got out of it. He rolled his shoulders a little and raised his sword. "Anyway, sorry for looking down on you," he apologized to Iris, smiling. "Don't worry, I'll take this a bit 'more' seriously now."

Great... This wasn't what Iris wanted to hear... At least not now. She wanted him to take her seriously at the start of the fight, but now... She wasn't too sure. She didn't know how he got out of her flames unscathed, but she did know that she was no match for him. Iris was weaker than him in terms of physical combat and her magic also didn't work on him for some reason. She had no other options anymore.

Surrendering right now was probably her best choice and that none of her teammates would blame her for doing so either. She got matched up against an unknown enemy whose strength was out beyond what any of them expected. But even still... Iris glared at her opponent, holding out her hand and creating another fireball. She wasn't going to give up here. Even if she was going to lose, she was going to lose by fighting to the end.

"You still have that much magic left?" the man asked in an impressed tone. Considering the amount of magic required to cast the spell she did before, he really thought that she would have no magic left by now but that wasn't the case.

Iris ignored the man and shot the fireball at him. The truth was that she didn't have much magic power left. The last spell really drained her of everything she had and she could only cast a couple of fireballs. The hooded man cut down the fireball with his sword and charged at Iris while she was preparing her next spell. "What!?" Before she had the chance to react, the man grabbed her arm, canceling her spell, and pressed his sword against her neck.

"The fight is over," he told her.

"I... I surrender," Iris unwillingly said. It was her loss and there was no point in denying it. The man could have injured or even killed her if he really wanted to but he didn't. The referees moved in and called the match. The man let go of Iris' hand and walked away, not saying anything else. Iris clenched her wrist where the man had grabbed her. It was red from the amount of force exerted on it when the man grabbed her.

She took a moment to calm down. Her heart was pounding out of her chest from the fight and her clothes were soaked with her sweat from the heat of the sun. Her arms and legs were both tired and she had difficulty getting them to move. It was a rather short fight and yet she was this tired? What was going on..."

Iris heard the cheering of the crowd, but it wasn't for her. It was for her opponent, the dark horse who they knew nothing about. "Hey, move it!" The referees urged her to get out of the arena. The next two contestants were already down here and they needed her to leave so that they could start the next fight.

Iris turned and walked out of the arena. As she did so, she passed one of the contestants and he sneered at her. "Think you're hot stuff with your magic? I would've loved to beat your brains out, but you're lucky that you didn't get put against me." Iris didn't respond to him and quickly left the arena, tears welling up in her eyes as climbed the stairs that led back to the spectators' area.

***

Leaving through the stairs on the other side of the arena was the mysterious man that fought against Iris. He held his head down as he climbed the stairs so that the people coming down wouldn't be able to see his face. He heard footsteps above him and he shot a quick glance up to see who it was. Avoiding the face, he saw that the person was wearing royal guard armor and had a sword at their side.

"Was that really necessary?" a female voice asked him. He recognized the voice.

"..."

"Answer me," she demanded the man to tell her the reason behind his actions. "You suddenly disappear for over a year and you don't even tell me when you come back?" The man kept quiet, unsure of how he should answer the woman who was obviously quite angry with him, but this just made her even angrier. "Say something!" She wanted him to say anything at this point. Even a lie or excuse would work.

"...I had to do something," the man finally said something to the woman.

"...Something? And what exactly is that something?" It couldn't have been anything small if it took him over a year to come back.

"Investigation," the man answered very vaguely.

"An investigation that long?" the woman asked, pushing the man to elaborate on it.

"I can't tell you much right now... But just know this, the demons aren't staying quiet."

"What do you mean?" Everyone knew that the demons were taking time to bide their strength right now and so were they. There hasn't been any demon activity in years now and she didn't understand what he meant by that. "And what does this have to do with you joining the tournament as well?" she also added. None of what he was doing was making sense to her.

"That's an easy question to answer, and I was getting to it..."

"Well, spill it!"

"The demons... They're in Otane," he told her, but she wasn't even the slightest bit shocked by the news. "Huh, you don't look surprised," the man noticed.

The woman crossed her arms. "I mean... It's expected that there are spies in here." It would be more shocking for her to hear that there are no demons in Otane. There will always be demons spying in Otane and since it was impossible to identify them when they're blending in so well with the crowd, it was better to just keep their lips sealed to avoid accidentally giving them any important information.

"No, I don't mean that. What I am trying to say is that there is a demon working with that man."

"What!?" The woman stared at him, wondering if she heard that right. "Did you say-"

"Yes. It is exactly as it sounds," he told her. They had a problem and they needed to do something about it. And as it stands right now, the problem was actually a lot bigger than any of them could ever imagine because that wasn't everything. In fact, that was just a part of it. "That's not all," he told her in a grave tone.

"What else did you find?"

"Do you recall what destroyed Silverfield?"

"Yes, of course." How could she ever forget what she saw that day? How could anyone from Silverfield forget it? The monstrous beast that destroyed their home...

"Well, I found out the people behind it. They apparently kidnapped a baby dragon and brought it into the city to frame us..."

"What!? Is that true!?" All this time, she thought it was because they unknowingly angered the beast but it was something else? She felt her blood boil upon learning this. "Who are they?" she asked, her voice filled with rage. She was ready to hunt them down no matter where they were.

"That's not important..." the man told her, shaking his head. He knew that she would react like this if he told her and didn't want to because of that, but it was important as it was related to what he was going to tell her next. "What is important is that they're here, targeting Otane." Because of this, they had two problems to worry about...

"What a mess..." the woman said, putting her hand on her head like she had a headache. After a brief moment, she looked at him again and asked, "Is there anything else I should know?"

"Not right now."

"Are you not going to tell me what you're up to, joining the tournament?"

"It's important, that's the only thing I can tell you."

"...Alright... Is there anything else you want to tell me, especially after we haven't seen each other for over a year?" she asked the man, hinting at him what she wanted to hear.

The man thought about it for a moment, unsure of what she wanted him to say. Was she asking if he found anything else from his long trip? In that case, the answer was no. He didn't learn that much, but the things he did learn took him a lot of work to find out about. "No," he told her.

"Really?" she disappointedly asked.

"No, I didn't get anything else."

The woman sighed but didn't ask any further about it and walked back up the stairs. The man stood there for a minute, trying to figure out if he said something wrong. He couldn't figure out anything and after waiting for her footsteps to disappear, he continued up as well, still confused about why she reacted the way she did.

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