Scarlet

“So after that, I walked right up to him and said, ‘I’m sorry, but I don’t think my boyfriend would take kindly to you asking me out,’” Belle finishes saying before she, Emily, and Denise all break out into laughter. “You should’ve seen his face afterwards! It was priceless!!!”

“I’ll bet!” Denise says while almost crying. Meanwhile Emily just flops onto her back while laughing her little head off.

After a few seconds of this I remove one of my hands from the pillow I was hugging before raising it slightly and asking, “So, why exactly are you all here? In my room?”

The girls all turn to me – each of the three wearing pajamas as we sit on my enormous bed inside of my equally enormous room in my suite at the university – before Belle says, “Well, we’re here to celebrate you making it to the second round of the Primary tournament, of course!”

I narrow my eyes slightly, shifting awkwardly due to not being used to wearing my usual sleeping attire of a pair of shorts and a tank top while others are around. Said others being these three who randomly showed up at the front gate asking if they could stay over for the night and bothering the poor guards stationed out there.

“If you wanted to celebrate, you could’ve done it through another training session, or at least a meal,” I say, ignoring the way they flinch slightly at the mention of a training session with me. “A sleepover is…”

“Just the right thing to go with before a big, important second round!” Belle says with absolutely no shame in her voice as she sticks out her chest in pride. Meanwhile Denise and Emily just start giggling at that.

I sigh in defeat.

“You’re not gonna win this, you know that, right?” Tar asks.

Unfortunately.

“Oh, and tell your little fae friend to go away,” Denise suddenly says, making me blink and Tar mutter, “Huh?”

“She’s right,” Belle says, “this is time for us girls! He’s not allowed! We’ve already kicked our fae to the wayside after all!”

Poor fae.

You don’t have to go Tar. Not if you don’t want to.

“Uh, I, uh, think I’m just gonna go,” Tar says.

Please take me with you.

“Sorry, but that’s not possible,” he says without any hint of actually meaning it in his voice. Then his presence in my mind fades away.

Damnit. Was worth a shot.

Time for plan B then.

I lie down on the pillows of the bed and draw up a random blanket located nearby since a certain trio is blocking the sheets. Then I close my eyes and begin trying to go to sleep while acting like they’re not here.

“So do you have anyone you like Denise?” Belle suddenly asks as I try to go to sleep. Although, I can’t help but pause for a moment to hear her answer out of pure curiosity. Only to hear her say, “Michael,” making my eyes widen in shock.

Holy shit. That… was unexpected.

The other two don’t seem to think that way though, despite the squealing they’re doing that’s hurting my wolf ears. So I do the sensible thing now of switching ears and then reaching under the bed to grab some of my earplugs.

My eyes fly open again and I jerk upwards, throwing the blanket off when I feel someone poking my wolf ears, only to end up scowling at Belle who is just grinning at me and waving.

“No touchy,” I tell her, my scowl not letting up as I reach over to grab the earplugs, still keeping my eyes on her of course, before pulling the blanket over my head this time to protect my poor ears from human hands. Or rather, Belle’s hands.

“So how was your sleepover?” Tar asks, suddenly returning as I’m staring up at the brackets for the second round from my private booth, briefly wondering how the heck he’s been managing to get inside of the magical reality without entering a pod dock. Something I probably should’ve wondered about before.

Actually, that’s beside the point right now.

You abandoned me last night! Even if they didn't do anything after Belle poked my ears that one time. In fact, I'm pretty sure they left after I fell asleep.

The group probably only came to make sure I didn't stay up training or studying or something...

“I have no idea what you may be referring to, after all it was impossible to bring you with me,” Tar states rather shamelessly as he appears in the air and floats down onto my lap. “And the void in between the Farshore and the mortal realm is also connected to magical realities, so fae can enter it just like we enter the mortal realm. I guess you could say that the magical realities are like a third realm added in the in-between like the other two, but only temporarily. And the people in it are complete copies of what they are in the mortal realm but with their own realities placed temporarily in the copy’s body. Then their reality is moved back into their real form while the copy of them is destroyed when they leave the magical reality.”

I blink at him, my mouth opening and then closing twice in a row before I close it and focus on the brackets again.

It looks like my second round battle will be against a Guardian known by the name of Isaac Taylor, otherwise known as Supersonic. And it doesn’t take much research after learning their name to find that they use lightning magic and have incredible speed.

Kind of like one of those twins that I fought during the ranking tournament at Lion’s Heart.

This…

My eyes narrow as I find that they do use weapons, unlike that twin. And they’re a terror with them in conjunction with their superspeed and lightning magic.

This could be annoying.

Wait a second. No.

I grin as a plan comes to mind.

Yeah, that could work very nicely.

“You’re doing that creepy grin again,” Tar comments while glancing up at me from my lap. “The one that makes people who are looking at you think you’re insane.”

“Shut up, I’m in the middle of plotting,” I say out loud, not stopping grinning in the process.

The tanuki snorts at that but goes silent.

This plan will work quite well.

Now I just have to wait till our battle comes around. Since we don’t appear to be till the middle of the round this time.

Guess I can just watch the other matches till then.