I woke up with a stretch that cracked several of the bones in my spine and shuddered from the little spikes of pleasure that resulted. 

Another dawn on Prespian City, technically only the fifth day that I had been in this new world, and technically only the third that I had actually been conscious for. Yet, somehow, it felt like I'd been in this universe for months now. 

<You've been through a lot in not so many days,> BB chimed in, just as groggy as I was, <and you're going to go through even more before this week is out, so come on, into the shower with you unless you want those debuffs to be reinstated.>

The debuffs were the absolute last thing that I wanted, so I stripped myself out of the clothes I had fallen asleep in and staggered into the bathroom. 

I'd never been much of a morning person, I'd always found it hard to drag myself out of bed to get going, but a shower had always been able to get me moving. 

Unfortunately, as I stood under the tingling manna stream of the shower in my dorm room's bathroom, the same effect couldn't be said of these high tech energy showers. I needed hot warm water flowing over my head and down my back. We were on an ocean planet for goodness sake, surely it wouldn't be that difficult to pump water up and into the shower system? 

I sighed and stepped out from under the stream of manna. This probably cleaned you much better, it was probably a lot more hygienic, but damn if I didn't miss my old human showers. 

I stepped out into the corridor and walked through into the kitchen area so I could fix myself some cereal for breakfast, only to find that both Yr'Arl and Akash were already sitting in the attached common room. 

"Morning you two," I yawned as I poured some of that weird orange milk into my bowl of cereal. 

<You know it really isn't that weird, it just comes fro-,> BB tried to explain before I tuned him out. I still didn't want to know where this weird dairy substitute came from. 

"Good morning, Jacob Lyre," Yr'Arl replied, "Do you feel prepared for the tournament today?" 

In all honesty, I didn't. While the tournament itself was going to be no issue at all, I was sure that Lara was going to launch her assault on Prespian city, and if she did I was also pretty sure that we were going to get overwhelmed by it. The only chance we really had would be if the Guard sent in reinforcements straight away, and considering Belana was the one who controlled the Guard in this region I had some serious doubts about anyone coming to our rescue. 

"Yeah, the tournament itself should be fun, I'm just trying not to think about the… extra fights… we might have to deal with along the way," I said. "Still, I'm more looking forward to getting out of here, to be honest."

Yr'Arl's head turned down, he looked troubled. "You still plan to leave when all this is over, then?" The feline asked. 

"Well, yeah. We all agreed to it last night, I'm not exactly going to turn my back on Rin now when we promised her that we were going to join her," I said. "You're having second thoughts?"

When Yr'Arl had agreed to go with Fal, Akash and me, it had felt like he was doing it out of some warped sense of duty. Because he had supposedly put his 'faith' in me, which was a concept I was still struggling with. But if he didn't actually want to come with us, then as sad as it would make me to leave him behind, I wouldn't mind. 

"You know, if you are having second thoughts, that's okay right. There's nothing saying that you need to come with us," I said, plonking myself down in one of the bean bag chairs next to Yr'Arl. 

"I… will come," He said, still sounding reluctant. "I just wish for it to be known that I still want to help people and that if our journey together does not end in that goal being realised that I will know I have chosen to put my faith in you in error, and will subsequently depart."

He was really worried that we weren't going to help people? If I wasn't so concerned about him I'd probably be angry at the statement. 

"Of course we're going to be helping people, Yr'Arl, that's the whole reason we're leaving after all," I flashed him a smile. 

"Then is the best place to do that not within the Guard itself?" Yr'Arl questioned. 

I sighed before taking another bite of my cereal. "You remember what happened on that colony ship down under the ocean, right? How many peopled died?"

Yr'Arl gave me a slow nod in response. 

"The reason so many people died down there was due to overcrowding and a sub par leader. If it had just been us down there, we would have been able to take out the null space invader without anyone getting hurt. But that's not what happened. You follow?"

Another nod. 

"Right, so in my opinion, if we leave the Guard and do things our own way, the chances are we're going to be able to help way more people than those who we'll be able to help if we were part of it, you get me?" 

He was silent for a few moments. "I understand your line of reasoning, Jacob Lyre, whether or not I think it will work is of no consequence. I said that I had put my faith in you, and that faith will stay true through this coming time." 

I shot Yr'Arl a smile. I was glad that I could convince him to stick around, we'd been through a lot already and I was pretty sure that Fal would be sad if our group split up after agreeing we'd stick together. 

As I finished off my bowl of cereal I turned my mind back to the task ahead. 

None of that conversation would matter if we didn't manage to stop Lara in her tracks.