Chapter 10: Tournaments and Terrorists
Watching Shadow work through his routine, leaving a crimson trail as he performed what she thought was the 'scarlet sleigh ride' Nu reflected that this was one of the most hilarious things she had ever experienced. Watching a fight that was comically one sided, amongst an audience that thought exactly the same thing, only with the combatants reversed.
The crowd's enthusiasm was had diminished even though it was only the fifth time Cid had been thrown back, the copious blood and his apparently injured state was beginning to worry them. Alexia's voice was beginning to shake as she commentated the duel while his friends were noticeably worried and kept looking down at their hands to avoid having to look at the fight.
Cid rose to his feet and performed the now customary waving off of the referee and insisted he was still able to fight as he squared off against Rose. When they clashed this time Cid actually managed to score a noticeable hit, getting a jab to the ribs that momentarily winded her. Claire rose up from her seat and started cheering but no one else joined in.
Inevitably, one of Rose's counter strokes caught his legs and he tumbled over, impressively balanced almost entirely on his neck in the 'reverse hanged man' form.
"Dammit Cid, just stay down" Po muttered, clearly worried by the fight below.
She looked around at the crowd again and noticed a look of horror beginning to gradually form among the onlookers as the fight continued. When they looked at this they saw a conformation of their ideas about Cid's weakness while Nu could only stand in awe of his humility. To allow himself to be beaten like this before thousands due to his commitment to secrecy showed incredible dedication to their cause.
Shadow had been something of a surprise to her, when she'd reported her failure to gain any information from the third child she had captured he'd simply shrugged and said "Yeah that can be pretty rough. Those guys never give anything away". Coming from noble society she was used to those in charge belittling their subordinates whenever they failed however valid their reasons were. She had done it herself a lifetime ago.
Shadow was simply efficient, working with her, Gamma, and the rest of the shades with a casual attitude. On reflection it wasn't hard to understand why. His superiority didn't have to be proven and re-proven, after witnessing his magical power two months prior no one in the organisation would dare challenge him (even disregarding the fanatical loyalty of his closest agents).
So he could afford to be not to put down his subordinates, interact with them like friends rather than servants and put on embarrassing acts like this. In an ironic twist his unchallengeable power had actually brought him closer to those around him rather than forcing him further away.
When Cid rose from his next knockdown Skel whispered "It's been ninety seconds" to Po in a voice that implied he was close to tears.
Po angrily ripped up the small slip in his hand furiously and looked at Cid "Come on. Why does he have to be so stubborn now! We had half our betting fund on that".
She couldn't place the move he was performing now, it was either the sixth or nineteenth form from their practice session. She was a little curious about how Alpha's mission was going and so looked across to her and Beatrix watching the match. Alpha's expression was inscrutable while Beatrix was watching the match with interest between bites of her Tuna King sandwich. She was the only person who might see through Cid's act so Alpha had decided to accompany her to the event to ensure she didn't. She also apparently had a weakness for Tuna King honey mustard sandwiches which was why Alpha currently had a bag of four sitting at the ready to keep her aunt's attention elsewhere.
Alpha seemed to sense she was being watched and began looking around the section Nu was sitting in. Nu tensed and turned away even though the chance of being recognised was minimal. Her hair was arranged in a tight bun and she was wearing a pair of large glasses. Her clothes were both drab and baggy, and the whole outfit made her look much older and larger than her dresses usually did. There was no way she would hold up to close inspection but at this distance even Alpha should miss her.
She'd been forbidden from attending and the reason behind that was sitting at the ring-side seats, accompanied by an older man she thought must be Glenn. Marco looked just as he always had. He'd always been confident and acted above-it-all, but it looked much better on a twenty year old man than it had on the gangly teenager she'd been betrothed to.
She'd wondered what it would be like to see him again, testing it as someone feels at a healing injury to assess the damage. She found she didn't care that much. It would have been nice to meet again and reminisce about old times but it was nothing she couldn't live without. Her personality had changed so much that for him it would essentially be like meeting a whole different person and his time in the army had probably had a similar, though somewhat reduced effect on him even if it didn't show at a distance.
Cid was recovering himself for the 18 th time and the referee just nodded sadly, clearly done trying to convince the boy to give in anymore though someone else decided to call an end to the spectacle. Claire Kagenou leapt into the arena and held Cid in a pose which brought a poster from Mitsugoshi's wedding store to mind, though the genders were reversed.
"I'm sorry, I'm sorry" she wailed to Cid. "Cid concedes" she screamed to Rose, the referee and the audience as she carried him out of the arena and towards the exit.
Nu alone chuckled. If the crowd didn't think Cid was on deaths door they would have joined in and mocking stories of the event would have followed Cid for years. She had thought the horror of the audience had been a miscalculation on her master's part, but in the end it all turned out to be part of his grand design. She was beginning to truly appreciate why the shades were in such awe of him.
They could hear an echoing voice from the exit "Put me down! I still have thirty one more moves left to try".
---
Cid was bored. The tournament was still going on but the school physician had advised him to rest for the next few days. He'd used EiS technique 33 "Blame game" to avoid his lack of injuries raising suspicions, telling the doctor Claire had mostly healed him before he got there and telling Claire the doctor patched him up. He'd let himself get a little bruised during his flips to have something to show if either of them saw, since a complete instant recovery would have been a little much.
He could have just ignored the advice but Claire was spending almost every minute she didn't have to be competing herself to visit and look after him. She seemed genuinely sorry that he'd been hurt because of her insistence he could win. Practically it wasn't much of an improvement since it just meant she tied him down even more, but he supposed the thought was nice.
Someone knocked at the door and Cid rose to answer, thankful to finally have something to do. Sherry and Eta were there, the former holding a small gift wrapped bag.
"Hi Cid, are you feeling okay?" Sherry asked
"Yeah, pretty much fine" he replied, waving the two of them in and gesturing for them to take a seat at the table.
"I brought you some cookies I baked. I hope you like them". Sherry gave him the bag.
Cid grabbed one and took a bite "They're good. Do you want one?"
Eta shook her head while Sherry responded shyly "Oh no. I tested the recipe a couple of times and I...kind of had to be my own tester."
That was nice. It was good to see his efforts with Sherry were going somewhere. He'd decided that if he needed a distraction girlfriend Sherry would be a good choice. Kind, loosely tied to the main plot, naive enough to believe whatever bullshit excuses he came up with and apparently a decent cook into the bargain. Truly the ideal (temporary) woman.
It would be nice if he could just ignore having a love interest but since he was posing as a typical teenage boy he needed to pretend to have an interest. It wasn't like he didn't 'prefer' girls but he'd ideally have left actually choosing a love interest until he was a hundred or something. There were scenarios like explaining his super-secret plan solely to whoever he chose as his partner, but he wanted to exhaust all the bachelor eminence in shadow possibilities first. How could he exchange flirty dialogue with a femme fatale if he had a girlfriend hanging off his shoulder. It would be so...inelegant.
Sherry smiled at him "Besides, I did owe you after you shared the rest of your chocolates with rest of us". She seemed to struggle with what to say next "I also thought you were really cool when you were fighting Rose, like how you kept getting up over and over again despite your injuries".
Cid didn't think there was anything cool about losing, but smiled anyway to not kill the mood, supposing everyone had there own sense of aesthetics. He was just thinking over how to respond when Eta interrupted in a firm voice.
"We should tell him about my breakthrough".
Eta didn't like Sherry. He thought some of it was professional as Sherry seemed to be slowing Eta's progress down at every turn, which wasn't unexpected. If he was asked who the smartest person in Shadow Garden was, it was Eta. Well it was Eta academically, Alpha tactically, Gamma Organisationally and Zeta in pure cunning, but even so he expected Eta to fly circles around pretty much everyone she met.
On a more personal level she seemed to dislike Cid showing any interest in her, especially after he decided to set up a potential relationship between them. She didn't try to stop it but seemed always on the verge of doing it, as if some invisible string kept her from leaping between them.
(One of) Eta's problems was that she always wanted to have his attention focused solely on her, it had even been a problem with the other shades in the first few months after she joined. Alpha had privately suspected this was due to being neglected by her parents when she was younger.
"I found out what the artifact is… it's the control unit for the Eye of Avarice".
"The what?" Even if Shadow was meant to know what that was he could ask this with Sherry here without looking stupid.
Sherry ran a hand through her hair and smiled sheepishly "It looks like my theory about the artifact being an individual piece was incorrect, sorry Erin" She nodded to Eta who just stared at her contemptuously. "Well...the Eye of Avarice is an artifact that takes mana in from the people around it, without the control unit it either decays or if it reaches it's maximum capacity, it explodes. The control unit stabilises the collected mana and let's whoever holds it access it."
That could be useful.
"The Eye is being held by the crown artifact protection service. We've put in a request to examine them together to confirm it's identity before we send back the set. Since it's considered a class three artifact we'll have to wait at least a week for the request to go through, even with Iris's name on it".
Artifacts in class three were considered too dangerous to handle and were immediately confiscated and held by whatever government got a hold of them (they said for storage, but obviously they researched them). Class one artifacts were completely harmless, ranging from devices to help with agriculture to decorative lights and were something anyone could have access to while class two artifacts were controllable, military grade weapons that were mostly held by the army, with a few being held by influential families under licences.
He didn't think they would send a class three artifact to a school so "Are we sending the control unit anywhere, or is the eye coming to us?"
"We're sending it to the treasury..in a few days" Eta replied lazily "And CAPS getting the eye from storage"
"And you're not disappointed you wont get to study it anymore?"
Eta understood the subtext and shook her head "No...I've got everything I can from it. I'd like to examine the Eye though" she answered dreamily.
"Well you'll probably see it when they do the identification check" Cid said cheerfully. He wasn't going to steal it just to please her. Definitely not.
Probably.
They chatted for a while before they both had to go. Rose and Claire were both easily clearing their way to the finals while Po and Skel had gotten jobs at the food stands to recoup all their betting losses. They apparently blamed him for this even though he had never told them to gamble. Guess they had to blame someone or they would have to see it was their own fault.
Sherry gave him a quick kiss on the cheek and a "Get well soon" that set Eta scowling. Deciding he should nip this in the bud he held her back for a quick chat.
"I know you don't like Sherry and that's fine, but you need to find some way to hide it or deal with it or someone else will notice"
Eta nodded "As you say master… I'll deal with her somehow".
That's one problem solved.
"About the tournament, I probably should have told you about my plan. Were you worried about me?"
Eta smiled gently "No, it was okay. I've worked with a lot of blood before...so I could tell it was fake".
"That's nice"
She gave him a quick hug and left, leaving him to wonder what he should do next. Claire would be over in a few minutes to make dinner so the rest of today was shot, but she'd be occupied with the finals tomorrow so he would have most of the day to himself. He felt he should probably go hang out with Delta before she headed back to Alexandria. While she couldn't help the new recruits with technique (at all) Lambda was using her to chase their newest soldiers to help build their stamina. She wasn't exactly a dog, but she was enough like one that he would feel she was being neglected if he didn't play with her once in a while.
---
Even from across the arena Rose could see the hatred in Claire's eyes. Her expression was so exemplary of the emotion an artist might have used it as a reference for a painting or statue.
Rose could only try to remain calm and prepare herself for the inevitable assault while the referee counted down. Though she understood the source of Claire's feelings she didn't truly feel guilt for Cid's injuries. She had given him as many chances to yield with pride as she could but for some reason she couldn't understand he had just kept rising up to challenge her again and again. She had wasted a lot of time trying to puzzle out the meaning of that determined look in his eye and the satisfaction that had seemed to emanate from him throughout their duel.
She forced the image out of her mind as the referee cried "Begin" and Claire flew towards her. From what she had seen of the older girl's fights she had a very straightforward style, relying on simple attacks, parries and dodges to overwhelm her foe, it was vaguely similar to Alexia's if slightly less graceful. Rising wind used more feints and attacks intended to allow repositioning around the opponent so even if it was unsuccessful you would be in an excellent position for the follow-up attack.
As she blocked the flurry of attacks she reflected it was more like Alexia's style if an angry animal was trying to follow it through. At certain blocks when she thought Rose was most likely to break Claire smashed their swords together one or two more times, testing to see if she could just bash her way through with raw strength. She was very nearly successful on more than one attempt.
As the speed of Claire's blows declined over the next few minutes, Rose reasoned it was time to attempt a counterattack. On Claire's next savage downswing Rose pushed the blade aside with her own then thrust the sword towards Claire while beginning to circle to her left, away from Claire's descending blade. Claire's sword attempted to follow her but the swing lost all speed changing direction and was easily avoided while Rose's thrust left a nasty cut on Claire's forehead over her left eye. Claire shook her head and growled in frustration.
Rose had accompanied her father hunting a Troll once. Hunting wasn't a common noble pastime in Orianna but their journey back from Midgar brought her father and his escort to a town that had been ravaged by the monster and he had been unwilling to leave them to their fate (and unwilling to separate from her at the time). The troll's desperate attempt to break through the line of knights that had trapped it was the closest point of comparison she had for Claire's next barrage.
The attacks came on again nearly as strongly as at the beginning of the fight if not with more power. Eventually she tried the same downward slash that had caught her last time and Rose could sense the trap she'd laid. Claire probably expected her to try the same thing again and catch her while she moved, so Rose decided to block and not reposition herself.
It was the wrong decision.
Claire had managed to guess her plan as she took Rose's momentary stillness as an opportunity to tackle her shoulder first while their blades were occupied at their other side. Rose was off balance when the next attack came, a brutal, beautiful arc of steel that sent her own sword crashing into her side accompanied by a cracking sound.
For the second time in three months Claire Kagenou had broken her arm.
The sound of her sword clattering to the ground was like a bell calling the end of the fight as she went sprawling through the dirt.
The crown princess covered in muck, if my father's court saw this half of them would faint.
She'd fought well and placed highly, it was disappointing she wouldn't be able to show her skills at the Bushin festival before her father and countrymen to prove sending her to the academy hadn't been a mistake but there was nothing left to do.
Then the image of the battered, bloody Cid Kagenou pulling himself to his feet flashed through her mind and all at once she finally took his lesson. Just as he had tried to improve her footwork before their duel, he had used their battle to show her the true extent of a warrior's spirit. Even though she had won the duel, in the contest of wills underlying the battle she most certainly lost. The reason behind him going so far to teach her this still escaped her but she could figure that out later.
How long had she dreamed of becoming the Bushin champion, of her father embracing her before all the nobles that had scoffed at the idea of sending a princess of Orianna to study sword-work. One broken bone and she was ready to let all of it go.
No, it's not over yet. I can still go on.
She grasped the hilt of her sword with her unbroken right arm and pressed forward as she lifted herself up, hoping the surprise of her continuing the fight might catch her opponent with her guard down. She was in luck as she managed to get a quick jab in at Claire's ribs before she was ready to defend. Rose had never felt so focused in her life as when she pressed forward, slashing and jabbing and dodging as she went on the offensive. Blocking was out of the question now as Claire's heavy swings would easily knock her off her feet since she was using her off-hand and couldn't even use her broken arm to steady herself.
It was a chancy thing, she could have easily lost if she hadn't predicted most of Claire's responses correctly but eventually she managed to land a slash at the back of her leg that sent her to one knee.
Rose didn't repeat Claire's mistake as she held her sword at the older girl's shoulder, in position to slash at her throat if it hadn't been a blunted blade. In this situation the referee would call the match even without the other girl's surrender.
"Claire Kagenou has been defeated, Rose Orianna wins" Alexia called out as the crowd exploded with cheers and Rose fell to her knees from exhaustion.
I'll be in the Bushin festival after all, and I owe it to Cid Kagenou.
---
"Boss-man, Delta's hungry" Delta wailed as she looked at the slowly cooking deer.
"I know that but just wait, you can eat when it's done" Cid replied waspishly. He glared at her and apparently overdid it as she assumed what he had termed the 'submission pose'.
"Stop that, I'm not going to hurt you" unless you start trying to eat this before It's done.
Delta rolled to her feet gracefully and shook the dirt off her back "In the pack, if you upset the pack leader you'd be dead meat if you didn't beg for forgiveness."
"Well you're in Shadow Garden now, not the pack. There's different rules"
"The rules are dumb though. Delta still thinks boss man should use all our new recruits to make a bunch of strong kids and take over everything"
"I've told you three times today, I'm not doing that"
There's nothing shadowy about that. It's more like the plot of an H-game.
They had been playing for a couple of hours now and Cid would have to head back as soon as he was done with the deer. Delta's idea of a good time was pretty much him throwing something, chasing after her to pull it off her, then her chasing him to get it back. He was still the only one who could catch her if she got to full speed so she'd been very enthusiastic.
I guess it's good she's easy to please.
Delta looked longingly at their lunch, and Cid was tempted to glare again when an idea struck him.
"Hey Delta, is there anything about the way we do things you think is better than the pack?".
"Hmm" Delta assumed a look of deepest concentration for a few minutes, successfully distracted from the roasting meat. Eventually she answered in a confused voice "Well...Boss man was nicer to Delta when she was sick than the pack was. Delta understands why the pack did it since being strong is super important…".
She looked to Cid apparently seeking conformation and he nodded his agreement. As a man who had dedicated years of his life to trying to out damage nukes with punches he was confident he didn't undervalue raw strength. Delta continued on in a quiet voice " but Delta still liked it even if it d idn 't make sense".
I guess her kill or be killed philosophy conflicts with her canine loyalty.
"Food's done" he announced to a smiling Delta as he tossed her a large cut of cooked meat.
"Also, cooking sucks because it's so slow, but it does make the food taste good" Delta added cheerfully.
---
Sherry's father looked down at her unhappily as she continued working through her notes.
"It seems your time with the princess is over". A racking cough followed soon after he finished.
"Yes. Erin really was very clever to identify the artifact so quickly"
"What a shame" he smiled ruefully "If you'd have been the one to do it you would have been in good stead for the future".
She could sense the disappointment under the apparent nonchalance.
"I'm sorry. I tried to stall her as long as I could, but she just kept going. Honestly she slept half the time we were together and then started working again in the middle of the night so I couldn't keep an eye on her, not to mention she was working during my classes"
Lutheran considered this and nodded "Well it's done now we..." he coughed again "We need to move quickly. As soon as they examine the eye they have they'll know it's a fake. Given my connection to it I'll be under suspicion and I don't have the backing I used to" another cough "So I could easily be found out. We're using the Eye tomorrow. Prepare accordingly".
"Dad, about the survivors, could you make it so Cid pulls through?"
"Things going that well with him?" He was actually amused this time.
"Well enough. We need a few witnesses anyway and it would be a waste to kill him now"
Cid was an ideal infiltration boyfriend. His (strangely masterful) grasp of ancient runes would give them something in common to justify the relationship and he was simple enough to believe whatever nonsense excuses she would need to come up with. When she had to compliment his horrible showing at the academy tournament he had just eaten it up.
"Very well. I'll let our agents know but I've had to call in members from outside our cell and I'm not sure how...tractable they are"
"Alright, I'll try to stay close to him for the whole thing. These agents do know the penalty for killing another member of the order right"
Lutheran smiled and put a hand on her shoulder "They do. That they certainly do".
---
Cid's first day back at school had been a strange day. Most of the students seemed to be talking about him when he was close but shut up as soon as he got too close.
Did I accidentally cross into MC territory somehow?
But that couldn't be it. Main character's might lose a tournament arc but never in the first round. That should have marked him absolutely as not-MC material. The only way he could be considered the winner was that he had technically had the longest fight with Rose, edging out his sister by twenty seconds. She'd tried to cheer him up with that fact when she'd come home yesterday but she was in too dark a mood from her own defeat to really try.
It wasn't a time trial, stop looking at me.
It was at least starting to calm down by the time he got to math class. Miss Vander stopped their work a couple of minutes early so a few members of the student council could come in and talk about the upcoming elections.
Cid cared about this even less than math so prepared to check out for the lecture when Rose smiled shyly at him and gave him a little wave.
"Dude, the class president totally just waved at me" Skel broke out excitedly.
"Sure" Cid replied deadpan.
"She totally did!"
"I said sure" What the hell was she thinking. If anything she should feel uncomfortable about beating him half to death in front of thousands of witnesses, not friendly.
Maybe it's some Orianna tradition I don't know about.
Then they were attacked by terrorists.
Yes. The dream every young boy had while wasting hours learning geometry or geography had actually come true for Cid in this one moment. He could feel his traces of his mana being sucked away and promptly locked down what he would surely need for later. His excitement was slightly diminished when they revealed they were more bad Shadow Garden posers.
"Attacking a school for dark knights. I applaud you for not attacking the defenceless but it was still a mistake" Rose thrust forward in excellent form, but only then seemed to notice she couldn't use her magic.
Her unreinforced blade shattered on contact and she was about to be cut down when Cid leapt between her and the sword. He could only think one thing as he defended the beautiful maiden behind him with his own body.
How the hell would I explain it to Alpha if I let Rose die. I have no idea how the politics of that would work, but it should be fine if I save her, right?
---
Rose held Cid's head in her lap as he bled out, only the presence of so many enemies forced her to keep her tears from falling.
Cid had died for her foolishness. She was the student council president and as their leader she should have been the one to protect all of them. Instead she was watching the boy, no the man who had used his own life to save her slowly fade away.
His hand reached up and she grasped it gently.
"You...you have to live" he said softly.
She understood then, understood everything she had failed to understand through all of their previous interactions.
He had loved her passionately from afar for a long time.
He had tried to help her with her swordplay before and during their duel because he had learned how much she prized the art-form, how much she had committed herself to it. He had died to save her because he valued her life more than his and he had helped Alexia with her problem out of sympathy for two lovers who couldn't be together due to the difference in their stations.
It's like a story from a ballad back home. One of the ones I stopped believing in years ago.
As she looked down in to his red eyes she could only mourn the kind soul he had been as his gaze began to lose focus. Many boys had told her that they loved her and she had long since learned to distrust all such confessions, but Cid, without ever speaking it aloud had proven his devotion to her undeniably.
"I'm... totally dead" Cid rasped out before his head rolled limply down her knees. She could actually feel her heart break.
She could hear the terrorists arguing quietly, apparently trying to kill her was a bad idea and killing Cid had also been wrong. She didn't really take any of it in as she gently set Cid down on the floor.
"You're coming with us, I hope you understand not to resist now". The hooded man gestured crudely at Cid to demonstrate the point.
The rest of the class was standing horror struck with a couple of the girls and the boy who sat next to Cid teary eyed. She had failed already but Cid's love and devotion had redoubled her motivation to ensure everyone got out of this unhurt.
"We'll cooperate. Come on everyone, we need to go with them now" she said calmly.
She would hopefully see these men brought to justice, see them dead before too long but right now resistance was futile. They needed to bide their time and pick their moment later.
---
Cid took a long rattling breath as he came to and lifted himself off the floor. His death scene had been worth an Oscar by his reckoning, it was nice to get a chance to flex his range.
Now he had to decide where to begin in this candyland of a scenario.