Set during events in Marindo, spoilers for early in the game.

Blind Side

He started to notice that Sorey wasn't reacting as swiftly as he usually does. He was still good enough with a sword to hold his own and then some, but even first thing in the morning, he was struggling to block and avoid enemy attacks. He was getting injured more often in battle, but managed to keep it down to just minor scrapes and cuts, making it more difficult to say whether it was just the enemies being particularly strong or if something was amiss.

The others didn't seem to notice anything different, but Mikleo was certain that Sorey was being blindsided by enemies far too often. He simply wasn't reacting when they should have clearly been in his peripheral vision. Enemies would be upon him before he even realized and he'd get knocked to the ground since his reaction time was so delayed at times. He'd spring right back to his feet, putting a stop to most lingering concerns, but not all.

The other tenzoku were content not to be materialized for every step, but Mikleo was staying at Sorey's side more often than usual. Though he wasn't used to to being unmaterialized in the first place, he was still making it a point not to vanish until battle began. It felt more natural to be present for the traveling anyway; he wasn't accustomed to Lailah's contract.

Several plant hyouma sprung up from the ground and started to form a circle around them in mere moments. Alisha quickly moved to break their formation while Lailah materialized and started to cast fire artes. Mikleo did the same and washed two of them away in one attack, though it wasn't quite enough to defeat them in one blow. He started to cast another, but glanced over in Sorey's direction to see how he was fairing. He was landing blows on one of the hyouma easily and guarded when another attacked from the left, but didn't react when another started to close from his right.

"Sorey, to your right!" Mikleo shouted.

Sorey didn't seem to hear. They were some distance away, but not so far that he should have struggled. Mikleo stopped casting in mid-arte to run over and attack the hyouma with his staff, momentarily knocking it back. Sorey only looked over when he heard the hyouma make a shrill squeak as it fell backward. Despite the sound of protest it made, the creature was hardly fazed and back on the offensive in moments.

"Thanks!" Sorey said.

"Didn't you see that one coming?" Mikleo asked sharply.

There wasn't a lot of time for conversation, but he couldn't wait to ask the question until afterward. Now that he was in the middle, it was harder to find time to cast artes, but he still managed to use a few and not rely solely on regular attacks.

"It snuck up on me," Sorey called back simply as he chased after one of the hyouma.

Sorey caught up with the one he'd been fighting and Alisha impaled two at once with her lance, putting the battle to an end. Lailah dusted off her skirts and disappeared rather quickly once the area was clear. Mikleo started to frown in her direction, but she was gone a moment later.

"There were a lot of them in that attack," Alisha said as she adjusted one of her arm guards.

"Good job with that hyouma kabop," Sorey said lightly, joking around as though nothing was off.

"A what?" she asked, arching an eyebrow, not realizing he was a commenting on her last attack.

Though she was no longer under the impression that Sorey had very long and involved conversations with himself, she still didn't pick up on all the terrible jokes. Not that it came as a surprise to Mikleo, who watched many of those jokes end up with confused reactions, even from people who knew Sorey since childhood.

"Kabob," Mikleo corrected. "It's a kabob, not a kabop."

"Right, that's it!" Sorey said. "So it'd be a hyouma kabob."

Alisha laughed and started to continue down the path. Sorey replaced his sword in the sheath and followed after her. Despite the light turn in conversation, he wasn't going to drop the topic of Sorey's sloppiness in battle. Even with the nosiness of the fight, there was no reason for him not to have heard the warning. Plus, the enemies were so large and flagrant with their movements that he never should have been able to miss one approaching in the first place.

"How didn't you see that hyouma?" Mikleo asked quietly, not giving up on the issue.

"I just missed it," Sorey said dismissively, but then smiled. "Are you trying to get credit for making a heroic save?"

"Sorey-" he interjected, but was cut off.

"Because I'm still at least two ahead of you on our tally," he said with a grin.

He was so lighthearted in his conversation and so seemingly unfazed that it was almost believable that nothing was wrong, but Mikleo had known him for too long to be easily dissuaded.

"I'm asking you seriously," Mikleo said impatiently.

Sorey simply shrugged. "It was just a mistake, don't worry about it."

He wasn't content with the way Sorey made light of things. He was certain that something more was wrong that Sorey simply wasn't coming forward with, but it was evident that the questioning wasn't going anywhere. Even if he just didn't want to make anyone worry, Mikleo had sparred with him far too many times to ignore that his reaction time wasn't what it should have been. He was only getting worrisomely worse about pushing himself too far.

I might've made the conversation a little too derpy… but thank you for reading!

This is set before the boss where we learn what's going wrong here. I wanted to write this idea since for the brief moment we see how Sorey's seeing things, it looks like he's almost blind in his right eye.

TALKLIN' SPOILERS

I love how blindness is a recurring motif in Zestiria. I haven't gone all I'm-a-literature-major-I-need-to-analyze-the-shit-out-of-this yet, but it's really interesting. It's such an important sense to partially lose or simply not have.