“Ilia Faus…”

Both Augen and Lya looked at each other funnily as they spelled out the name of the young man who just appeared from the middle of the capsule right as it vanished into thin air, “Wait…you know him?!”

“He was at the Academy…” Augen murmured as Lya blushed again and hurried to look away.

“And he was from Necrovia…” Lya said, fixing her hair and speaking deliberately slowly, “It’s not exactly surprising that someone would know him, right?”

“Right…” Augen leaned his head back slightly before moving away from Lya slightly, “Let’s just get out of here.”

“And here I thought something strange was going on around here.”

The voice of Ilia came from right behind them as chills spread all throughout Augen's body with Lya squealing from right beside him. Augen immediately shielded Lya behind him as he instantly drew his playing cards and held it in between his fingers, “What do you want, Ilia?”

“I might ask the same.” Ilia cracked his neck before stepping down the slope of the sand dune they were on. His communication Cast beeped once before the voice of the other soldiers came through, “General Faus. What’s the matter?”

“Nothing of note.” Ilia replied, “Proceed with your duties. I am just going for a walk.”

And so he did, strolling towards Augen who slowly started to back away with Lya still hidden behind him.

“Her majesty was wondering how you made it away from the guards, and she suspected outside interference,” Ilia spoke straight past Augen as his black hair dangled over his face. However, Augen lowered his stance as his Wave started to swirl with Ilia reaching behind him and pulling out a red staff, “I would have never imagined someone from the Academy coming to his aid, let alone someone like him.”

“Leave him out of this!” Lya said quickly, though Augen can tell the fear in her voice and her Wave, “He was just a traveler that helped me! I...don't know what you are talking about!”

“Is he now?” Ilia pointed the tip of that staff straight towards Augen, “Do you know who this girl is?"

"From your reaction...someone important." Augen said, "Regardless of what you planned to do, or what you have the authority to do, I will not step aside when you have that stick in your hand."

"So…you have gone from being annoying with your friends to straight-up interfering in other kingdom’s politics?”

“I have no idea what’s really going on here, but I can see your intent even without my eyes” Augen brought the playing cards up to his face, “Before you threaten me any further, think about the last time we had fought.”

“You were lucky last time.” Ilia shook his head as his tired eyes suddenly lit up with fire, “I will not be susceptible to the same attacks nor suggestions as before.”

“You were also this confident last time.” Augen crouched down slightly as his Wave became powered through his Casts as the forbidden Casts from each of his four playing cards started to spin around his body when Ilia rotated his staff in a flurry and slammed it into the ground in front of him.

The impact sent up two jets of sand around both sides of the staff, and those sands formed a screen from which Ilia charged straight through. The speed of his movements pushed the sands aside as each of Ilia's footsteps seemed to have mushed the sand grains into one another.

He closed the distance between himself and Augen instantly when Augen's light blue card with snowflake patterns engraned onto it glowed once.,The sands around him suddenly came to life before they were formed into the shape of a hand that reached up and latched onto Ilia’s ankles.

“Winter Bark!” Augen said, creating two halves of a sand sphere around the entrapped Ilia before clapping them with Ilia in the middle. Ilia had initially created a barrier of Wave to guard himself against Augen’s attacks, but Augen switched things up at the last moment, instead of letting go of the sands and allowing them to swirl around Ilia's shields and obscuring his sight.

“He had nothing but tricks.” Ilia reminded himself before rapidly shifting his focus to his Wave sensing systems when he suddenly caught the sensation of familia-feeling tearing pain right over his arms.

It was the same forbidden Cast that nearly completely destroyed his body back at the Summer Selections. Howevevr, this time, he knew exactly what to expect.

“Forbidden Summer: Rupturing Intensity!” Augen commanded accordingly, concentrating forward as the Cast attacked what little natural Wavefield there were right in front of him. However, Ilia’s presence in the Wave suddenly vanished downward before he reemerged from right underneath Augen, this time with his staff in hand, it's blunt tip threatening to dislodge Augen's jaw if it ever made contact.

“Like I said.” Ilia said with his armor now glowing with individual pieces that looked like dragon’s scales, “Your attacks won’t even hit me this time.”

“Forbidden Autumn: Decaying Inevitability!” Augen reached his hand forward as the staff slammed into his wrist. However, before the impact completely destroyed his hands, a series of gray cracks eroded away the staff itself as Ilia shoved the remainder of his weapon forward, using the exchange of momentum to leap back and kept the distance between them.

“Tsk.” Condensing more Wave into his armor, Ilia then conjured upsets of claws extending out from his wrist guard.

“If it had been a weapon constructed purely of the Wave, I would have lost this hand.” Augen said, “However, you have lost your only chance in this battle.”

“Don’t get cocky.” Ilia warned when Lya finally stepped ahead and held her hand out in front of Augen’s chest.

“Please, Ilia! Just let him walk away…” Lya plead, “You want me, not him!”

“True” Ilia tilted his head as more power started to swell within his body, so much so that even Lya's facial expressions changed and Augen quickly realized that the Ilia that he had fought at the Infinite Academy was not the man that stood right in front of them.

He felt…far stronger, and his Wave felt far deeper and more dominating, and yet on the outside, he seemed to be the same scared and tired-looking boy that was knocked out by the backside of Shin Takumi’s Meat Maker Axe. His strength continued to increase further and further, and the natural weak Wave fields of Necrovia offered no resistance against his external influence on the Wave.

That must be it! He must have felt this strong because of the way Wave feels in general within the dessert.

“Power down, Ilia...and let him go...” Lya said quietly when suddenly, Ilia projected his pressure forward as a pair of invisible hands suddenly grabbed onto Lya’s shoulders and shoved her down on her knees. Then, her entire body buckled further until she was folded on the ground, “Ilia! Please!”

“Be quiet,” Ilia said, moving forward through the sand as massive droplets of sweat started forming along Augen’s forehead as he ground his teeth together and tried to create a defense to resist Ilia’s pressure.

This is ridiculous...

Augen thought as his legs started shaking under the immense pressure. Then, as Ilia walked closer and closer, it felt as if Augen was being yanked towards the surface of the sun as Ilia continued to pressure onto every ounce of Augen's flesh as each individual strand of his muscle fibers started to scream all at once.

“Winter...Bark!” Trying to alter the environment around him to give him an advantage, Augen tried to direct his Wave to the playing card he was still holding onto before his fingers slipped, and the card fell to the ground just before he was able to activate the Cast written within it.

“I will pay you back what you did to me tenfold.” Ilia said, squatting in front of Augen before he lined up his claws to his side and grabbed onto Augen's face, “Because of you, I was humiliated in front of the entire world.”

“If you are scared that you might lose, then you shouldn’t have been in the fight in the first place,” Augen said as his face was slammed into the sand and he ate a mouthful of the Necrovian sand. It was rough, bitter, and salty.

“No! Ilia! Don’t!” Lya plead when Ilia raised one of his hands into the air as the extension of his claws now started to sharpen. He eyed the back of Augen’s thin neck beyond his green hair, and he looked towards Lya one more time as she reached forward with great difficulty, “Please!”

“I am sorry, Tonya.” Ilia said as his hands started flying downward, “I have dedicated my everything to no one but the Kingdom of Necrovia…so allow me to be selfish just this once.”

Tonya? Augen wondered as he tilted his head to face Lya. He's not surprised that she was still hiding things from him, but that's her real name?"

“Wait! Wait! I will go with you! Please, just stop!” Tonya started crawling forward as Ilia followed through with his strike. Tonya screamed as the claws sliced straight through Augen’s neck as all of his playing cards rolled onto the ground accompanied by splatters of his blood.

Then, all of a sudden, the pressure that Ilia exerted on the local Wave had completely vanished, and Tonya’s body nearly elevated from the ground from how much she was trying to push herself up. As she ran forward towards Augen’s body, Ilia stood up and gave her the space.

“Hey…hey…” Tonya said quickly as she hovered her hand over Augen’s gaping wound behind his neck with Ilia watching over her head. Then, he slowly reached forward, ready to bring Tonya in when he sensed something shifting from within her.

“It’s time to go,” Ilia said when the pulsing Wave from within Tonya’s body became greater and greater, and Ilia instinctively grew his very own Wave in response as the two tides of power crashed into one another.

Tonya spun around, her glowing blue eyes now decorated with a pattern of a crown in between as her image towered n front of Ilia when he ground his teeth and tuned up his Wave output to the maximum.

“Faux dominance of the dragon!” Ilia declared, entering his strongest mode when Tonya opened her mouth, and her voice came from everywhere at once.

“Sit.”

Ilia blinked, and he found himself sitting cross-legged on the ground when the pressure from Tonya’s command pressed further.

“Run.”

“It’s…it’s real…” As Ilia found his body moving on its own as his legs powered by the Wave within his armor surged him through the ground in a crack of thunder as the crowds of soldiers in the camp turned and looked towards him, “The King’s Eye…she has it…she has it!”

“Forget.” Tonya said, slamming her fist down as blood streamed down from her eyes with her vision started becoming blurry. She felt her arms unable to support her weight as everything started to darken, and soon, she collapsed onto the corpse of Augen.

Not too long far outside, Ilia’s eyes rolled up as he carried on running, his mind becoming blank as his legs moved continuously and unconsciously.