The Next Morning
Locus wanders into the courtyard relatively late, he laughs as he approaches Tempus, "What are the girls sparring for, we're here."
Tempus rolls his eyes and replies,"Someone has an attitude today, huh."
"Shut up!" shouts Locus, distracting Aiko from the sparring match leaving an opening for Sonoshee to get a hit in.
"Oh my God! I finally got one in," exclaimed Sonoshee as she jumped in excitement.
Aiko cuts her eyes to Locus, turns to Sonoshee and encourages, "Well Done."
Yusei enters the courtyard irritated but unnoticed and Tempus looks at Locus condemningly, "You're in trouble."
"Who's gonna be my magistrate, YOU?" as Locus looks at Aiko disgruntled.
"Okay little boy. Let's try your hand now," Aiko says, rather exasperated.
Preparing to take their positions to spar, Yusei steps in interrupting, "I got this."
Aiko shouts, "Really!" as she storms infuriated to the benches near Tempus and Sonoshee.
Locus gulps, "This will be fun!", as he began circling Yusei standing still just watching him calmly.
Yusei doesn't say a word as Locus attacks by teleporting closer in order to hit Yusei, but suddenly stops as he reappears locking eyes with Yusei.
"No way!! How did you know where I'd be? If teleportation wont work, perhaps I should come at you face to face," Locus charging at Yusei, while Yusei effortlessly dodges all of his moves. "Why won't you fight back?" Locus riled.
Yusei looks at Locus, "As you wish." Suddenly, Locus falls to his knees gasping for air, "What happened," he says trying to catch his breath.
"What's wrong, I barely tapped you," Yusei snickers and he glares at Locus.
Again Locus tries charging at Yusei, abruptly receiving a knee in the face, making his nose bleed generously.
As the girls observe the match, Sonoshee asks Aiko, "Isn't that a bit much?"
Aiko replies,"With that mouth, not nearly enough." "Gentlemen! Let's call it a match. I think that is enough for now," she asserts to Yusei, looking at Locus like he deserved the punishment. Yusei holding Locus face in his hand, releases Locus dropping him to the ground, dripping with blood.
Yusei gives Locus some advice, "Next time don't be so cocky and things like this won't happen."
Sonoshee runs over to Locus, "Are you okay?"
Locus replies, "I'll live." As he barely stands up.
Yusei reaches out to put his hand on Locus's shoulder, "Go over there and sit on the beach. Aiko and I will spar to show you what a real sparring match looks like. Maybe you will learn something."
As Locus and Sonoshee go to sit by Tempus, Aiko walks into position to spar with Yusei. Without hesitation they suddenly vantage re-appearing as they clash making a crater in the ground.
"There is no way I would have been able to block that, had you not been going easy!", Aiko shouts.
Yusei replies, "Well of course, I'm not going all out. It's just a sparring match, unless you want to put more effort into it."
Aiko attempts to punch Yusei as he gracefully deflects her swings, making her unbalanced and giving him the opportunity to barely push her so she would fall.
Aiko "Damn it, I'll make you take this seriously!!," she shouted.
She jumps back up and starts unleashing a flurry of attacks putting Yusei on the defense. Continuing to attack she is able to break through his guard punching him in the face, but Yusei stands there unfazed by the punch shocking Aiko. Yusei takes the advantage of her being in shock by grabbing and pulling her arm, as well as swiping her legs from under her, making her flip in the air and fall on her butt.
"You think that's enough or do you want more, Ms. Aiko?" Yusei said with a smirk on his face.
"So you're being a smartass now? What's gotten into you today?" Aiko asked with a little concern in her voice.
Yusei replies "I'm seeing if y'all are ready for the trip we're taking, it's a three day ride there, It's going to be some of the most dangerous days of your life!!"
"Where are we going, Sir?" Sonoshee asked as she started walking towards Yusei.
Yusei starts walking towards the front gate where the carriages awaited them. "You'll find out once we get there and there's no going back once we're there so be prepared for some long days ahead," Yusei said as he stepped into one of the carriages.
"Yay, this is gonna be fun," groaned Locus, as they all stepped into the carriages.
"Might wanna shut up before you get beat up again," Sonoshee replied to Locus's comment.
Meanwhile on the Human side of the planet.
"Your Lord, You summoned me," said the Templar Knight.
"Yes, I want you to go get some powerful Knights and go to the mountain where all the dragons are located. I read that dragon hearts will grant great power to whoever obtains them." The Prophet tells the Knight as he sits on the throne.
"As you wish my Lord, we'll leave immediately," replied the Knight. He gets up and leaves the room.
The Knight gathers multiple powerful Templars to join together as they go on horseback and head toward the mountain.
Back to Yusei and the group
Locus, "Why did we stop, are we already here?"
"We're setting up camp for the night, get out here and help set up," Yusei yelled from outside the carriage.
The group steps out of the carriage to set up camp.
Few minutes later
Yusei and the group sit around the fire as the night sets in.
"Your Majesty, what are dragons like? We've only read about them in books and they all say dragons are creatures that only live for Destruction. Is that true?" Tempus asked curiously.
Yusei, "Dragons are beautiful creatures, and yes some throughout time have caused death and destruction." He replied to Tempus' question with a smile on his face.
"Oh my god, did He just smile?" Aiko whispered to Sonoshee.
"Yeah, I've never seen him smile," She replied to Aiko.
As the night continued the group started to see a different side of Yusei, he was smiling and laughing.
Later that night
"It was shocking seeing you act like that, I mean it felt like you were enjoying yourself," Aiko said to Yusei as they were still sitting at the fire while the others were fast asleep.
"I do love being king, but the feeling of being outdoors again feels good. I've spent almost my whole childhood out here fighting, living, training to get stronger. A part of me feels happy being back out here, and it felt good teaching them about dragons and hopefully more as we ride to the mountain. It's about that time to get some shut eye. I'll take the first watch." Yusei said as he threw a stick in the fire and wraps himself in a fur coat.
Ch 8 End