**the Valley Tournament**
Greed:
The sudden death battle between Lance and me was about to commence. Just like before, the announcer summoned the dice that were to determine our battlefield.
When the large die appeared, it rolled and slowly fell onto one of its sides…
"And it looks like the battlefield for our two contenders is—face five, 'the Ruins'!" the announcer said.
The arena morphed into its desired state. Pillars shot out from the ground as Lance and I became elevated from the center part of the arena.
Made of cracked and piled stone, the sculpted landscape formed a large arched roof over us, growing vines and even grass beneath our feet. Flowers and weeds bloomed from within, and the pillars, far from each angle of us, had formed into the shape of four walls, trapping us—it felt like—within a giant cage. Yet there was a sense of peace that radiated from this place, even though a battle was waiting to happen.
The ancient archaeological area that formed around us felt more like a garden than 'the Ruins'.
"And now with your contenders here, and their battlefield in place… Folks, are you ready to see how this sudden-death match will unfold!?" the announcer shouted, and the crowd roared. The 1st Vice Captain of the Valley's number one Guild, challenging the Acting Captain of the Valley's lowest-ranked Guild—me. There was a deeper reason why I was the one standing before him now.
"You're gonna have to do better than that!" the announcer shouted, and the crowd erupted fervently—wanting blood, wanting humiliation.
"Now that's more like it!" He focused his attention on us now. "Contenders—are you ready?" The clink from Lance's boot sounded, his armor shifting like a machine. Taking my hands out of my pockets, I slowly put them up and got into a fighting position. Even though I often mocked him, there was something about him that made me want to take him seriously. Perhaps it was his attitude today, or perhaps it was something else. If there was ever a time I had accidentally read another's thoughts, this would have been the perfect time… and then the announcer went on, signaling our go, "Then let the Valley Tournament's sudden death match commence!!"
Lance was the first to make a move. Again, his armor shifted, layering over itself as he ran toward me. He wasn't overwhelmingly fast, but his steps were heavy, and it could have staggered my equilibrium had I not chosen to position myself in this balanced fighting stance.
I let him make his way over as he threw a direct punch to my face. I blocked it, crossing my arms, and the strike managed to push my whole body back—my feet dragging to a stop.
That was quite the punch… I thought. I wanted to test how strong he planned to go, so I could gauge my strength and how much I should use against him, so I hadn't even activated my power yet.
But when I looked over to him and saw his fist, I was surprised.
All that armor shifting I heard, I had thought he was layering the armor to his fist to strengthen his punch, but it had been the opposite…
When I saw the fist that struck me, it was bare. Only his hand and forearm were without the gold armor that had been previously over it. He had managed to push me with not only a direct strike, but with his bare fist.
He pull back and stood straight. With the way he held his head, he might as well have been looking down at me.
"Tell me…" he said. A calm before the storm. "Just how exactly did you manage to swoon the Valley's princess?"
I raised a brow. So that's what this is about, I thought.
I lowered my arms and responded disrespectfully—my words the opposite of how I truly felt, "Ever try being less of a tool?"
His hazel eyes twitched, and he clicked his tongue. He charged me again, going for another direct attack.
I went to raise my fists once more, but when I tried, they felt heavier than normal.
Huh?
When I looked at my fists, they were encased in a weighted gold armor that continued to grow larger incessantly. So much so that I fell to one knee, and the gold weight became one with the ground below me.
Lance's left arm then began layering armor over it, enlarging it to a giant size that he sent over to me as I remained knelt. Inches away, the armored fist slammed down without any hint of remorse; the motion thrashing my head down as shadows found its way over my eyes.
That punch… was filled with rage. And when I found his eyes, they were wild with malice.
"That attitude of yours is precisely what pisses me off so damn much," he said in a low, threatening tone. "And then on top of that, you come into the Valley without ever trying. You get handed an Acting Captain role, for what? And then when the Valley was in danger and Captain Belle proceeded to put her life on the line, where the hell were you!?"
I didn't say a word. The breeze from his punch fluttered my bangs as my face carried no expression with it.
"And then you show up out of nowhere after the chaos dies down, and it was you she had proclaimed her love for to the whole Valley? What kind of poor joke is this?"
Still, I remained silent.
"I bet you didn't even want to join the Tournament either," he added, "I bet you're only here for show, to make it look like you and your crew aren't just absolute trash. That when the going got tough, you all didn't just run and hide while the rest of us fought." he spoke as if he didn't just witness both Jo's and Nash's fight. As if he thought I won on a whim from the first round. I suppose I wanted it to look that way… and he was right about one thing…
I drew my head back to look him in the eyes. The gold armor that held onto me still shackled me down as I remained kneeling. The expression on my face took on a different tone this time. And it was one of defiance.
"How can you still look at me like that after everything you haven't done?" he said with irony squeezing the life out of his words.
He held his right arm up—still bare from earlier—and began layering it with gold, matching his left fist. The place seemed to grow dark, but only because he had stolen the sun for but a moment.
Now with two giant golden fists, he struck me with a series of blows. Repeatedly. Unforgivingly. Again, and again, and a-fucking-gain.
Punch after punch had landed. And I, still shackled with a knee to the ground, took each one. The audience cringed at the sounds of his pummels upon my face and body—like the cracking of bones and the gushing of internal bleeding in their ears. They gasped, and then they cheered. Mixed emotions turned into those favoring Lance as he proceeded to serve me a Gatling of heavy attacks. And then at last, I bled from the mouth.
What are you doing, my Greed… at this rate… Belle appeared to think as she held a look of concern on her face watching us.
Alice watched her from her peripheral while none of the Black Wolves reacted. But they couldn't help but wonder—Code especially as I felt a snap thought from him in that moment: Why the fuck are you not protecting yourself, idiot?
But his expression shifted the minute the thought had exchanged; for he did not know until then the purpose of my actions.
Not too long ago during a sparring session, I had allowed him to cut me across the chest and I had bled.
That was for not being here when you all needed me the most. I said to him as he looked at me with shock. It had been so long, he forgot that I could still bleed.
"Stupid idiot…" he said under his breath as I mouthed the words from his lips in the crowd.
My head thrashed upward, and I saw Ryo for a brief moment through one of the screens. He had his arms folded as Rex and Snow chanted irritably and inaudibly behind him.
My sight darted downward and then to the side, blurring each time as the sounds of the colosseum became muffled in my ears.
I began to bleed progressively more as strike upon strike was delt. Bruises had even formed on me, darkening, scarring like the bashed up mess I was.
I seemed to always find myself in situations where I'm fighting someone that wants me to feel their wrath. Perhaps it was part of the consequence of pretending to be weak in the eyes of the public. Or perhaps it was a reminder that I was not unbeatable. Either way, I couldn't complain with the way they all looked at me. With bitterness. With resentment.
All of this. All of it was part of the choices I had decided upon.
When you are weak, you can't complain about the actions of the strong. Ariella's words reminded me. So, in turn—when you are strong, you can't complain about the actions of the weak.
Even just saying felt arrogant. Because Lance was anything but that…
As he threw down his last punch, the strike had tilted my head backward once again. Our eyes no longer met, and blood splattered from my nose.
He panted, sweated even, as he inhaled and exhaled repeatedly out of rage. His clean, slick, blonde hair fell over his eye. It was longer than it had seemed, some of it peeking out from his gold armor underneath, trailing further down his shoulders.
"Sire… should we not stop the match? I'm pretty sure this is malice…"
Daz, intrigued with how Greed was handling the battle, took his time to respond before saying, "No. Let it continue."
"Sire…" the announcer replied.
"You'll see why soon enough," was all Daz said as he watched almost stoically from his seat, elbow and fist propping up his head when I saw him.
Lance had caught some of his breath as he said only for me to hear, "This is who Belle has fallen head over heels for? An absolute nobody who leads a bottom-feeder Guild. Look at you now… look how utterly pathetic you've become."
I remained silent still, as if I would never speak again. My eyes were darkened even though my head was tilted back and the sun's rays rested on its battered surface. Blood dripped onto the clean grass and pretty flowers of the garden ruins, staining it with crimson extract.
"What have you ever had to work for?" he continued. "What struggles have you overcome? Do you know what I had to sacrifice just to be in the Golden Rose Knights!? To stand next to the second strongest mage in all the Valley!? To stand there as her loyal right hand, all for it to be swept from under me from a mere black, dirty mutt like you!?" Raising his right fist once more, his armor shifted wildly like a storm of gold plates, forming what looked to be rockets that faced away and out from his raised elbow. "This is what you deserve. Not peace. Not a reward. Not Belle…"
His aura was immense; the audience felt it from where they sat, and it sent shivers down their spines. And as a final parting, Lance chanted,
"Bastion Magic: Raging Sun Meteor!"
When he shot down his fist, the rockets on it burned, forcing his already heavy, looming strike down onto me. And it looked and felt like the sun as it approached.
Before I knew it. Everything went black.