Tristán was nervous; he had to admit it.
"Just be natural; your mother and I are gonna be next to you the entire time, so there's no need to worry. When the lights focus on us, stand, wave, and take a seat while the announcer introduces the competitors," his father had told him when they took their seats. Tristán did his best to follow those instructions.
But for a moment, when the lights focused on them and the announcer began calling attention to him and his family, he felt a pang of fear and froze briefly.
"It's okay. This is okay. I'm doing the thing now. It's gonna happen, and then it will have happened, and I won't have to do it anymore for the rest of the day," he reminded himself, using a type of reminder his mom had taught him for any possible moments of anxiety.
He stood beside his mother and father and waved. Right now, he was the overseer's perfect child, there to clear rumors and oversee the duelists he had sponsored for the past eight years.
The Black Knight debuted as a duelist a bit after Tristán's accident. His father brought him a list of people and asked him to pick who he wanted to favor while he was recovering. His dad explained that favoring someone meant giving them a fighting chance in a world that might not offer one.
"I guess that makes sense." His little voice spoke out. Though he couldn't see the cards his dad had before him, he was blindfolded and lying on his back in a hospital bed. The serene white environment matched the blonde-haired boy's subdued tone. He had clearly been resting a lot and needed something like this to use up some energy.
As his father read out the options, the boy listened intently before, after careful thought, selecting Lancelot Turner, a 17-year-old duelist and the half-son of Duke Carden.
Lancelot was, as his father explained, a promising young duelist. After his debut, his heritage and connection to the duke leaked. His father's promise of anonymity was broken, and instead of protecting his son, the duke, still trying to hide his infidelity and appease his wife, moved to hinder his son's prospects, leaving him unable to purchase a true spirit sword and needing a sponsor to have enough money to put his name in the tourney's chalice.
A feat that was all but nullified by the young boy's choice.
Though he had never met the black knight himself, he had received endless letters and fan paraphernalia as the knight slowly moved up the ranks from novice to champion. Now, after 8 years of sponsoring, Tristán sat in the stadium to see the results of his generosity, as his mother put it, and his duty, as his dad called it. The now medically cleared boy could fulfill the role, not just as the son of the new overseer, but also as the sponsor of the champion, a role that required, at least now and then, his attendance at these events.
Tristán looked at the stadium before him and noticed the ever-full seats, as if people were multiplying as the match began. Cheers for the Black Knight echoed through the arena, matched only by the cheers for his opponent, the Winter Guardian, and Tristán felt the crowd's energy pressing in on him.
"All right, folks," A grand voice called throughout the arena. "Duels Determine Destinies here at the mosaic, and today two grand destinies are going to clash. One being our challenger, someone who has completed his spirit formation at a speed rivaling the champion, a prodigy amongst prodigies, the Winter Guardian!"
As the name was called, snowflakes began to accumulate across the sky and appear throughout the arena. Tristán reached out to touch one, then quickly pulled his hand back.
'Mother probably would think that's unbecoming. I shouldn't stir her ire, not here'
Instead, the boy watched as the kids across the arena played with the dancing snow, and he decided to appreciate the aesthetic it provided without giving in to those same childlike urges.
As quickly as it appeared, the flakes began to dissolve as they moved across the stadium toward the Winter Guardian's entrance. They came together as they dissolved, and soon a figure emerged from the joined frost. The figure stuck his hands out as if gesturing to his fans.
"A powerful display with his entrance, the Winter Guardian enters the dueling circle with just nine matches under his belt. He's been on a streak, and with this win, he would be the second person in history to have 10 consecutive wins that culminated in a championship, rivaling the record of his opponent."
The blue-cape-wearing, white-knight-like man walked with regal urgency toward the salt circle the size of a football stadium. He opened his cape and revealed the form beneath it: a golem attendant, who quickly drew a line from the circle and then created a person holding a circle for the Winter Guardian's totem and spirits.
Spirit Dueling was a practice that had continued for thousands of years. Simply put, two or more spirit sword wielders created a salt circle connected to a grand one they would duel in. Inside that circle, they placed a totem, a talisman that represented their life force, and reinforced the salt barrier it was within. The golem before Tristán, for example, was creating one such circle and waiting for its master to place his talisman, which typically was where the required steps stopped.
"They said he has the whole supplementary line of 4 spirits? That's pretty impressive for a 23-year-old," Tristán muttered to his mom, whose eyes were stuck on the scene behind, just like his and his father's.
"Yes, it is. He's quite a formidable foe. Your champion has some work ahead of him. That's for certain."
Tristán nodded, though he never attended events like someone else his age would. He had read up on spirit-dueling customs for practically his entire life. He'd be lying if he said that he didn't use the connection to knights as a crutch whenever it bored him, but regardless, he was pretty knowledgeable on the concepts at hand. He felt a small yearning to prove that to the two people sitting beside him.
As the blue-capped, blonde-haired, knight-like man called out to his spirits and they began to appear, Tristán tried his best to analyze which had which role within the circle.
"I see he has a messenger spirit to connect him to his weapon's spirit; that's just standard. Besides that, he has a reinforcement spirit to fortify his body, a barrier spirit to fortify the salt circle, a fighter spirit to reinforce his movements, and what's that outside the barrier?"
"That's a healer spirit. It waits outside the barrier so that it won't take damage during the duel, and it can heal its user and its fellow spirits after the battle is over," his dad responded, eyes on the scene below.
"Oh okay, I didn't realize that," Tristán said, looking below at the blue-haired, woman-like figure.
'Wait, is that a nymph??' Tristán couldn't believe it. In sharp contrast to the floating lights that surrounded the inside of the circle, the healer spirit was a fully formed woman, a nymph spirit, one of the two highest classes a spirit could hope to obtain. Tristán stared, startled by the sight.
"If he has a nymph, why is he assigning her to healing duty?"
"Because he's going up against the Black Knight," his father answered.
"His opponent, the reigning champion, the person who wears the titan's sigil, the undefeated, unstoppable force of nature. The Black Knight."
Suddenly the room fell still in darkness, and then a crack split the space before the floor entrance door. The crack widened until a dark figure emerged, and that was the first time Tristán had ever seen him.
The Black Knight.
"That was so cool, right, Father?" Tristán said as his mother moved his glasses onto his face.
"Yes, Little Prince, it was." His dad said, wearing the same grinning expression that dawned on his son's face. Though for a different reason, one related to the joy his son was feeling.
Tristán watched as the black knight moved to the center of the room, and towards that stadium-sized salt circle. On his back was a cloak of shadows that, once he removed it, revealed three woman-like figures standing behind him.
"What are those three nymphs?" Tristán spoke in a hushed tone, not loud enough for it to escape his box, but loud enough to make his mother scowl.
"While it is very impressive, you don't have to transcribe each event that unfolds before us. We have eyes, Tristán," his mother said in an authoritative tone.
He nodded but then went back to paying her no mind. He watched the three nymphs, all of different colors—white, gray, and black—begin to make the spirit circle and manifest their champion's totem. As they entered the circle, Tristán tried to discern their roles based on the incantations and prayers they each said.
The gray one stood outside the circle and was clearly the healer. The white one worked in a dual role: morale spirit to keep the circle spirits and his connection up, and barrier spirit to reinforce the salt circle, while the black one was a counter enchanter.
As he said the words, it dawned on him. The reason the Winter Guardian's nymph was just a healer was that the Black Knight had a counter enchanter nymph, who could nullify and redirect all her enchantments regardless of the role she was in
Now he understood his dad's line, and though the fight hadn't started yet, he already saw the stacked Black Knight as the winner.
"Now I ask that the maiden of the south, who is the guardian of this year's tourney, come and bless the swords of the duelists before us." The announcer called out.
A woman in her 40s came onto the field and called the two duelists forward. The winter guardian held out his rapier, and the black knight, his great sword. She bowed over the weapons and got close enough to touch them with her lips barely. She spoke a quick hymn, and suddenly the swords were surrounded with a type of spiritual energy that made Tristán's heart begin to race.
'Keep calm,' he thought, as he felt his dad grab his right hand and his mom grab his left. Though he didn't hear them say anything, words of comfort floated into his head, and soon his racing heart began to slow.
"Ymir, I channel your power, alongside my spirits of lightning. Bestow on me a winter storm unlike any other." The winter guardian spoke as the floating words began to manifest alongside him in the circle. Across from the black knight, he began his incantation as well.
"Oh Leviathan, come grant me the power to slay with water as I pierce through the darkness, a nightmare flood only I can save the world from."
The announcer took a deep breath before making his final announcement.
"DESTINIES COLLIDE AT THE MOSAIC, A BATTLE THAT EVEN FATE CANNOT DENY.
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GO"
They began