The day after my victory, I am of course perfectly healed. Spetus is even pretty happy to see it.

“Splendid, for such deep cuts to disappear in a day!” He examines my chest and flank, which, although I have grown used to having them bare, is mighty embarrassing when he does it so close.

Porar peels him off me and starts talking. We are gathered here today, because Spetus and I are the finalists for next week’s fight, and we need to plan the initial maneuvers “Alright, today, we are going to lay the outline for your choreography, and practice the initial movements. I was think we have Yos start with-“

“I don’t want to do it” Spetus interrupts.

“What do you mean you don’t want to do it? Isn’t this how we always do it?” Porar is none too pleased.

“Yos and I are both great fighters. I want us to clash with no holds barred, right from the get go. I promise you the result will be better than any scripted event” Spetus says so confidently, but I am not sure. He may look all fancy and full of technique when he fights, well the one time I have seen it, but I must admit I far too often just rely on my superior strength.

“Are you sure about that?” Porar leans in a little, purposefully making one eye look bigger and squinting the other, as if he is trying to stare Spetus down.

“I am. It will be much better if Yos and I merely use this week to prepare ourselves, rather than practicing some contrived maneuvers”.

Porar falls silent, before turning to me “What do you think, Yos?”

To be honest, I am just tired of being the villain. I felt so bad after that last fight’s jeers, that I no longer wish to perform the role. “I’m with Spetus on this. It will be better if we just go at it each” Spetus nods eagerly to my statement.

“Very well then” Porar caves. “But you two better give me the fight of the goddamn century!”

“Of course, it wouldn’t happen any other way” Spetus gleefully agrees and runs off, probably to do some training.

“Hey Porar… What happened to Vegar?” He seems a little baffled at my question.

“He clearly violated the agreement, so he has received due punishment. We have a prison here for insubordinate fighter, in which he has to spend the next 6 months. It was either that, or never hiring him again and cutting his tongue off.”

Sounds drastic, but I feel some kind of… smugness? Superiority? Emanating from deep below within me when I hear it. Serves him right, trying to cheat me.

“Thank” I say, and turn to my own training.

While lifting weights and swinging my sword, I try to see if I can come up with a way to gain an advantage for fighting Spetus. It seems tricky… His gift seems sort of all-applicable, exerting extra force while receiving less could very well be one of the strongest gifts out there. Well, if it was a fight to the death, I would obviously win due to being incapable of it, but for this fight, I feel he very well could take me out, judging by how he come out on top from our first brief encounter.

I think I have heard that there are some ways of fighting, where you use your opponent’s strength against himself. Asian martial arts. Judo? Kungfu? Aikido? Too bad I never learned any of it.

In the end, I see no other way, other than to butt heads against him with all my strength. I think I will have to swing my sword with intent to kill though, I don’t know how comfortable I am with that.

And so six days pass relatively quickly, until the day finally arrives. Spetus and I walk out from the recently opened portcullises. I look towards a certain area of the audience. There has been this balcony, that has been empty in all the fights I have been in know, but today the two usually-empty thrones are occupied. One of them is clearly Ahorn, with his easily recognizable otherworldly look, while the other look like a middle-aged man with white hair and a mild beard.

Doesn’t seem like Ahorn recognizes me. Well, I am certainly less memorable than he is, coupled with the fact I am wearing that chain-mail covering right now, that completely obscure my hair color, and that he is pretty far away from my face. I laugh a little inside imagining our re-introduction.

But first, this fight. I kneel down, pretty far away from Spetus. He sees it and does the same. And we both dash with all our might towards each other.

I am using bestowal right from the get go, and my speed is much greater than that of Spetus, but when we our swords collide, I am the one who feels like a train just rammed into me! Shit!

As I try to stop sliding backwards from the force, I notice our blades are not equal either. His is eating into mine! Does his gift extend to his weapons, like that of Atna’s?

I withdraw voluntarily, but it is too late. Part of my sword is broken off, and we have to continue this fight, while I have a disadvantage.

I am trying to think about a new approach while keeping my distance, but Spetus won’t let me. He charges me down once again; this time I can’t meet him with a charge of my own. Seeing no other option, I grit my teeth and amp my bestowal up to maximum force.