The Arena of Couples III

---Chapter 11: The Arena of Couples III

“Match 2… Commence!”

With that declaration from Chronos, the four-way battle was officially underway.

“Let’s go!” Quartz shouted while raising his staff in the air, casting a defensive boost on himself.

“Right!” Yui got into a fighting posture and stood guard in front of Quartz.

On the other side of the arena, the spearman MiracleBee quickly dashed towards the pair of fighters, R-Dragon and ComBuster, and began a barrage of strikes with her long spear. MiracleBee’s partner Sakura started launching a flurry of magic-infused arrows upon the two fighters as well.

With those two pairs occupied, DemonishDude and his partner Breezy focused their attention on Yui and Quartz. Demon gripped his large broadsword and barreled his way towards Yui, trying to force his way through with a large horizontal swing of his blade.

“Yah!” Yui leapt into the air, dodging the swing of the broadsword that flew by beneath her, before landing on the ground and trying to land a solid punch.

“Hoh!” Demon swiftly managed to pull in his sword and use it to block Yui’s punch. “You got some quick moves! But not quick enough!”

“Don’t worry, I’m just getting started!” Yui taunted before leaping back out of his range.

“Yui, watch out!” Quartz shouted suddenly.

“?!” reacting in an instant, Yui dodged to her left.

Right where she once stood, a ball of fire plummeted to the ground and exploded. It was a fire spell called meteor, and Yui had just barely avoided it.

“Phew, thanks for the save, Quartz!” said Yui.

“Back when I was in a party with this guy, his favorite strategy was always charging in with full force while letting the support classes cover for him.” Quartz recounted. “If he’s been working with this mage for long, they probably have a good dynamic, so you always have to be wary of incoming magic attacks.”

“That’s some good analysis there, Gloomy.” taunted Demon. “As I recall, you’d always call my plans reckless and get depressed every time we went out to battle. It was pretty damn annoyin’!”

“Ngh…” Quartz grimaced. “I’ll admit I was inexperienced at the time. But still, I won’t back down so easily here!”

Quartz pointed his staff toward Yui and cast another buff.

“Whoa!” Yui bounced around with a spring in her step. “I feel so light!”

“That’s a speed boost, Yui! Keep dodging and land any hits you can!” Quartz declared.

“Right!” Yui soon started dashing around Demon at extraordinary speed.

“Kh…!” Demon’s partner Breezy froze up, unable to properly aim any magic attack with Yui moving around so much.

“Damn you…!” Demon meanwhile attempted to land a hit with a few swings of his broadsword, but every attempt would miss.

“Now for you!” Quartz shouted. During their confusion trying to deal with Yui’s speed, Quartz was already casting another spell, this time targeting Breezy.

“What?! No way-!” Breezy quickly noticed the spell circle forming under her, and tried to dash out of the way, but she was too late. “Ah!”

“Ghh! Breezy, what happened?!” Demon shouted while blocking punches and kicks from the still accelerated Yui.

“No way… That kid more than doubled my MP consumption!” Breezy’s face went pale.

---

Up in the audience seats, Rokugo, Mint, and Striker watched on as their friends fought hard.

“Dang, they’re doing pretty well!” Strike nodded, impressed.

“Rather than a battle royale, it feels like this got split off into two separate skirmishes.” noted Mint.

“Indeed.” Rokugo agreed. “With this kind of composition, I can see why. MiracleBee and Sakura are a duo with a mid and long range fighting style. As soon as they noticed the pair of fighters, they probably planned to strike first against them while maintaining distance, to render their close-range punches and kicks useless. That left the remaining knight and mage pair to focus on Quartz and Yui.”

“Yeah, makes sense.” Mint nodded. “I was kind of worried when I saw that was how they split off. Their team structures are similar, but the Demon guy had a mage backing him, so they have a higher degree of offensive capabilities to rely on.”

“Quartz pulled off some quick thinking.” Rokugo smirked. “He knew they’d be at a disadvantage if he left Yui to handle both their attacks as she was, so he boosted her speed and told her to prioritize dodging. On the surface that only seems like a temporary fix, merely delaying the inevitably of being overpowered, but Quartz knew to prioritize handicapping the mage. Casting the mana inflation spell to boost the mage’s MP cost is a nasty trick.”

“You sound like you’re having fun.” Mint glanced at Rokugo, amused.

“Well, you know. It’s been a while since I saw a good PvP match.” Rokugo shrugged.

“Yo, check it out, Quartz is movin’ in!” Striker pointed to the arena excitedly.

---

“Mana inflation?! Dammit!” Demon growled while shoving off all of Yui’s quick attacks. “Breezy, just focus on sniping the healer with your lower cost spells!”

“Right!” Breezy nodded, before being surprised. “Huh?!”

“Yah!” Quartz shouted, surprisingly charging right in.

“Hey! What are you-?!” Breezy desperately dodged as Quartz swung his staff around.

“Obviously, I can’t just stand by with a big target on my back!” Quartz grunted. “Let’s go!”

Faced with Quartz’s mighty swing, Breezy blocked his staff with her own. The two now stood at a stalemate.

“Demon! I can’t cast anything with this guy swinging at me!” Breezy shouted.

“Grr…!! I’ll get ‘em!” Demon roared, pushing Yui away with his broadsword before quickly turning and dashing towards Quartz.

“Ngh…?!” unable to move, Quartz glanced over his shoulder and watched the giant knight preparing to swing his huge broadsword down on him. But just then…!

“Gyah!” spat Demon as he fell forward.

Yui had leapt from the other side of the arena and delivered a sharp elbow blow to the back of his head, dealing critical damage to his HP and knocking him down. Taking that opportunity to move, Quartz pushed Breezy away and jumped backward toward Yui.

“No…! You two, I’ll get you!” enraged, Breezy pointed her staff straight at the pair, and began charging a large incantation, ignoring the huge MP consumption. After all, the pair had just finished moving, and probably wouldn’t be able to dodge very easily. At the very least, she knew she could hit Quartz.

“Lava Gush!” she shouted, as flaming lava blasted its way toward Quartz and Yui.

“This’ll do…!” Quartz whispered, lifting his own staff. “Reflect!”

At the cost of a huge chunk of what little MP he had remaining, a large mirror-like barrier appeared in front of him and Yui, and the burst of lava… bounced right off of it.

“What?! No-!” Breezy was shocked.

“Hng… Huh?” because DemonishDude, who was finally rising from the ground, was directly in the line of fire of the lava blast.

“As soon as a spell is reflected, it can even hurt your party members… Looks like we win this one!” Quartz explained.

Just then, both DemonishDude and Breezy were blown away by the lava, their HP depleting to 0.

“Sweet! They did it!” Striker cheered.

“Not yet, that was just one pair…!” a tense Rokugo warned.

“Right, it’s a battle royale… Oh crap!” Striker just saw what Rokugo did.

While Quartz and Yui were dealing with DemonishDude and Breezy, the conflict of MiracleBee and Sakura against R-Dragon and ComBuster… had already been decided.

The pair of fighters were much faster than expected, so the mid and long range strikes from Bee and Sakura only landed a few hits, and even then the damage wasn’t huge. Both fighters eventually maneuvered closer and finished the pair off with a close-range flurry of punches. The other two pairs didn’t pay their conflict any mind, so after Quartz’s big finisher with the reflect spell, he was left wide open. Then, from the corner of her eye, Yui realized…!

“Quartz, watch out!” Yui screamed, desperately about to dash to his defense.

“Hm?” Quartz turned his head. “AAAUGH!”

Unfortunately, Yui was too late. R-Dragon’s huge fist slammed right into Quartz, launching him across the arena, tumbling along the ground. The strike shaved off a huge chunk of his HP.

“Gyah!” Quartz coughed, quickly trying to rise to his feet. But there where he landed…

“Sorry pal, I’ll end this quickly.” ComBuster said, before she unleashed a flurry of punches on Quartz, finishing off the remainder of his HP.

“Quartz, no…!” Yui shouted.

“So, what now?” R-Dragon asked as he approached Yui. “Think you can take us both on? Fist-to-fist?”

“Ngh…” Yui glanced over at the KO’d Quartz, unable to move due to his depleted HP.

“Yui… It’s fine…” Quartz mumbled.

With that, Yui gave a small nod.

“I surrender. Thank you for this match!” Yui declared with a bow.

“Thank you.” R-Dragon and ComBuster both bowed in return.

“With that, Match 2 is completed! R-Dragon and ComBuster are the winners!” Chronos declared, returning to the stage amongst the audience applause.

After using revival scrolls on the fallen players, Chronos guided them all back into the building.

“Sorry…” Yui whispered.

“It’s all good.” Quartz reassured her with a smile. “I didn’t expect us to win. Honestly, we did better than I thought. Plus, you kept your promise to teach Demon a little lesson.”

“Hehe… yeah, I guess so!” Yui chuckled.

The four pairs all passed the lobby, following Chronos to a new room.

“This is it… We’ll ask him here.” Quartz whispered.

“Right.” Yui nodded, feeling nervous but determined.

It was time to see if the moderator Chronos could answer anything about the Mermaid’s Tear.

[To be continued…]