The fight began with Lone Shadow going into stealth, Sora simply stood still and waited. A carefree smile could be seen as he waited for the assassin to reappear. After a while a noise was heard from his left, he simply ignored it and shook his head.

“I thought I already told you that your pebble trick wouldn’t fool me.”

The audience didn’t quite understand what he meant but they were starting to get the feeling that Sora had everything in the palm of his hand. Lone Shadow started to sweat a bit, she was currently in stealth a few meters away from Sora, looking for an opportunity to attack. No matter what angle she positioned herself at, she couldn’t find a good spot to attack. She bit her lip as she pulled out another pebble, throwing into the leaves of the tree in an attempt to catch Sora’s attention. She was only left disappointed when Sora let out a sigh and turned towards where she was standing, looking directly in her position.

“I may have thought too highly of you if all you can do is throw rocks around. You have thirty seconds to do something, starting now.”

A silver light covered Sora’s sword as he resumed his relaxed stance, waiting for Lone Shadow to make a move. Lone Shadow felt like her feet were glued to the ground, she couldn’t think of a good attack strategy anymore and would have to either keep waiting until an opportunity somehow shows up or fight high directly. She has always used stealth to take the advantage in fights against higher level opponents and didn’t have much faith in a direct clash. Her mind was spinning as she tried to figure out a plan and suddenly remembered something. She looked towards Sora and realized he had said she only had thirty seconds to make a move. She moved to a different location since she had thought Sora was only saying that because he knew where she was at the time. Just as she repositioned, a silver light flew directly at her, catching her by surprise and dealing a large chunk of damage.

Sora followed up on the silver light and rushed towards Lone Shadow's position, striking the air in front of him and dealing another large amount of damage. One more [Slash] was able to connect as she was too shocked to retaliate. The match ended in Sora’s victory and the crowd was perplexed about what had happened. Lone Shadow finally broke out of her stupor as Sora came up to her.

“I know you said you would join… but I’m not too sure you’re qualified anymore.”

“Best two out of three!”

Lone Shadow got annoyed as she heard the mocking voice that Sora used against her. Her face puffed up in anger as she accidentally challenged him again. She realized her mistake and was about to take it back but Sora only nodded and entered the arena once again. Lone Shadow tried to talk herself into believing it was all a fluke, that she would be able to defeat him as long as it’s a direct fight. She was extremely proud of her footwork and didn’t think a knight could keep up with her, even if he was a special type of knight. She entered the arena and the countdown started again.

3…

2…

1…

Fight!

Lone Shadow still went into stealth, hoping to make Sora think she was going to use the same strategy, she even used a pebble to make a sound from the direction she was coming from. Sora once again didn’t pay any attention to it, which made Lone Shadow have a cocky smile on her face as if she had truly outsmarted him this time. Just as she was about to strike a little tiger came out from behind him, jumping at her general area and landing an attack on her. Sora laughed as he went to a nearby tree and leaned up against it, watching Snow let out tiny growls at Lone Shadow.

“Beat my pet first.”

“You!”

Lone Shadow was cut off before she could continue complaining. Snow was already level 42, matching the level of Lone Shadow and giving her a challenging fight. A few swipes from Snow had already chipped away at Lone Shadow, pressuring her into giving her full attention to the little tiger cub. She felt bad for attack such a cute little animal but wasn’t about to be bested by it in front of so many people.

Snow gave a good fight before being unsummoned when he fell to critical health. Lone Shadow already had half of her health gone and ran at Sora with disregard for any kind of tactics or tricks. A flurry of sloppy attacks came at Sora, who parried them all the way up until the tenth attack. Lone Shadow was on the verge of tears the entire time, calling Sora a variety of different names.

“Bully! Jerk! Annoyance! Rude! Meanie!”

She kept calling him names with each attack until a [Slash] hit her, ending the fight and sending her back to the outside of the arena. She lost her cool and ended up showing her childish side a bit at the end, causing her to be extremely embarrassed as she saw the smug grin on Sora’s face. She turned around so she didn’t have to face him but still listened to what he had to say.

“Alright, alright, I may have gone a little too far. I promise I won’t do anything dirty this time. How about we fight with no skills, no items, and no summons; only our normal attacks and that’s it.”

“Promise?”

“I promise.”

Lone Shadow humphed as she entered the arena first this time, she still felt embarrassed and wanted to use this fight to prove her worth. She has been played to death twice now and was ready for a real fight. Sora entered the arena and started the fight once again.

3…

2…

1…

Fight!

Lone shadow and Sora both rushed towards each other, following the agreement of using no skills. A clash was heard as Sora parried her daggers, wanting to go in for an attack but not finding an opening. Lone Shadows daggers danced around him as she sidestepped his attack, landing a few but not doing much damage thanks to his defense. Lone Shadow continued finding openings to attack, slowly chipping away at Sora’s health. Sora would occasionally parry an attack, seeming to be more on defense than offense.

Blossom watched the way Sora fought, she had been watching him a lot so she could learn a few moves and knew that something was off. His movements didn’t seem nearly as fluid as before, it had the same motions but revealed a lot of opening due to its sluggish performance. A sudden thought hit her as she watched the sloppy attack pattern, Sora was letting her land some attacks so that she could reclaim some of her dignity as a fighter. Blossom had felt a little disappointed in the way Sora had treated Lone Shadow, easily defeating her in each battle. Now that she saw the act that Sora was putting on she once again she sighed in relief, glad that Sora wouldn’t actually bully a little girl into quitting the game.

Although Sora was leaving openings on purpose, Lone Shadow was still a tough opponent. If Sora was at the same level as her then he might not be able to so easily dominate the battle. Her movements were on par with Sora’s and she was able to find opening during battle without any problem. She was also more proficient in mind games and assassinations than direct battles, meaning that the skill she is showing right now was only a small amount compared to what she could actually accomplish.

Sora continued to dance with Lone Shadow, landing a hit every so often so that their health would stay at around the same level. The fight didn’t end until both players were in critical condition, coming down to a ‘lucky’ hit from Sora to finish the battle.

The crowd had been mesmerised by the fight that Sora and Lone Shadow fought. Their moves seemed to be perfectly coordinated, a lot of players even thought it looked more like a beautiful dance than a savage fight. The sound of metal sliding against metal, the shiny blades swirling around the dancers, and the fluid movements that came together perfectly. The trance was only broken by the end of the battle, which also happened to be the end of the tournament. Most players started to file out, while some had stayed to apply for Phoenix Rising.

Lone Shadow came up to Sora with an unsatisfied look on her face. She had caught on to what Sora had done and was disappointed in her lack of skill but also thankful that Sora showed weakness for her sake.

“A deal is a deal. I know that I’m a bit lacking but I still hope you can accept me into the guild… Also, thank you for going easy on me.”

“Ah, you shouldn’t sell yourself short. If we were similar levels with similar gear then it might have been you showing me mercy. Welcome to Phoenix Rising.”

Lone Shadow was easily persuaded by his words of encouragement, truly showing how naive she was. Sora spoke part truth but in reality Sora would still come out on top nine times out of ten. The rest of the day was spent recruiting guild members and sparring in the arena. Sora was the main recruiter, with Blossom and Nobunaga as helpers. Sora would occasionally look into the battlefield to see how his guildmates were, incidentally looking right when Sumi had entered the arena.

Her opponent was First Shot, one of the archers in Nobunaga’s main party. Sora watched as First Shot was able to take down Sumi without taking too much damage. He could only laugh in his head since he knew that Sumi would be bad at the start, even when they met in his past life she wasn’t too great at PvP. The archer also held a big advantage over a mage, resulting in the sad fight that Sumi had fought.

Sumi sat down on one of the stone benches after her defeat, looking sullen at her lack of skills. Sora decided to let Blossom and Nobunaga finish things up while he walked over to Sumi, sitting down next to her. Sumi felt a bit awkward as he sat next to her, finally breaking the silence with a sad voice.

“You saw my performance didn't you?”

“Right, it was unlucky that you had to go against a pretty good archer.”

“It’s not only that… I really just don’t think I’m good at fighting.”

“You shouldn’t expect to learn everything at once, I’m sure in time you will be able to mop the floor with that guy.”

“I don’t really want to be able to do that, I just want to be useful to the guild.”

“Being able to mop the floor with cocky guys like him will put them back in their place, don’t underestimate the power of motivation a guy gets when beat by a pretty girl.”

“Th-that… p-pretty you say? I would-wouldn’t go that far. I mean, I’m not ugly. Ah, I mean-”

“Hahaha, of course I said pretty, don’t sell yourself short.”

Sumi became red as she looked to the ground, twiddling her thumbs as she thought about what Sora had said. She was able to tell Sora was trying to motivate her, even with her flustered emotions, and felt happy that she was able to have a kind guild leader like him. She wanted to say a lot of things, but she kept stopping herself right before the words came out. The only words she was able to force out was simple, but it summed up everything she was feeling.

“Thank you.”