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Sorry if it is short and filerish, but I don't want to start on the Artemist finals in this chapter. You can expect it in the next one.
Kalina had gotten the biggest surprise of her life when Arata and Reika suddenly appeared at the harbor with very pale faces.
"What happened?" She asked, jumping up in worry.
"There was a clown in the stadium." Arata managed to gasp out in the mist of his trembling as he curled up into a ball beside her.
"And frog!" Reika wailed as she collapsed on the spot on the other side of Kalina. "I hate frogs!"
Kalina could only sweatdrop as Arata continued to mutter incoherent things about clowns, jack in the boxes, and a creepy song. Reika on the other hand was wailing, waving her hands around dramatically.
"Calm down you two." Kalina finally managed to get a word in before they got strange looks from passerby's. "There's no clown or frog out here. It's just us."
The two teens slowly calmed down but were still tensed. Kalina let out a soft smile and patted their shoulders. "I know why you are afraid of clowns and frogs, but you go to get over that fear. It's been more than ten years and you're still afraid of them."
"Lina-senpai, it's not something you'll forget easily." Arata said wearily. Not a lot of people knew about this but the root of their fear for clowns and frogs respectively were from the time they spent at the orphanages. Therefore, the fear was deeply ingrained in their minds along with the fear of the memories of the past.
Kalina casted a sympathetic smile at them and patted them on the shoulder. "It's hard, but it'll come eventually. I mean, I did overcome my arachnophobia."
"I didn't know that you are afraid of spiders."
Kalina scowled and spun around sharply. "'Overcome' being the key word. And how did you find me, Ban!?"
Ban shrugged and pointed at the back exit which was visible from where they were. "I came out of the back stadium to look for you and found you here."
Kalina groaned and pulled Arata and Reika up. "Come on, we have to get back now. You two still need to do your maintenance for your LBX before the finals."
"Um, Lina-senpai, Muraku will be the one playing in the finals." Arata suddenly told her once they got inside.
"What?" Kalina said in surprise, "but I thought it would be a fair chance for either three of you to get in."
"Pandora will take days to be repaired." Reika groaned. "The first Future Impact had damaged the core skeleton. It was lucky not to break over at that moment."
"And I'm not in to win it." Arata smiled sheepishly. He straightened up and gave Reika a look which she understood and nodded.
"I think Arata has something he wants to talk to you about, Lina-senpai." Reika grinned as she pulled out a battered Pandora out of her pocket. "I'll leave you two to talk and try to get started on Pandora's maintenance."
Kalina raised an eyebrow but soon figured it all out. She gave Arata a small grin. "I see. You entered Artemist because you wanted to ask me a favor. You never had the intention of wining unless you did what you wanted to do. So what's the favor?"
Arata sighed in relief that he didn't need to approach her on it awkwardly and proceeded to explain the details of the events starting from when the Gem of Wishes was stolen to the point where Yuko received the parchment from her father and cannot decipher it. Kalina had varying responses as the tale went on, from shock of the Gem of Wishes being stolen, horror that the Night Lurkers have returned, and grimness from the Element Stones.
"I wish someone updated me on the situation of Fantasy sooner." Kalina shook her head in distaste when Arata was done.
"From what I heard, none of the alumni from Fantasy were told unless they were teachers there or figured out themselves." Arata shrugged. "They wanted to keep it as quiet as possible because if all the alumni knew, they would mobilize and that would cause a lot of suspicious which we are not ready to face."
"I have to accept that excuse." Kalina gracefully accepted it. "But this parchment, it used an old language which dad was working on…Alright, give me some time to get all my materials and I'll head over to Fantasy by next week."
"Thanks a lot, Lina-senpai. We owe you a lot for this." Arata grinned.
"Just keep me updated on the rest of the tournament. I'm heading back to A-nation now." Kalina shrugged and headed back to the exit.
Arata's eyebrows shot up in surprise at that but decided to let it be. He figured that she wanted to avoid Ban and Hana for now so if anyone asked, he would just say she left.
Arata had arrived back at the waiting room to see Reika's eyes glued on the screen showing Block E's finals while working on Pandora at the same time.
"You're going to break the core box if you tighten that screw further." Arata spoke up as he came over to her side.
Reika gasped and quickly removed the screwdriver. She gave him a sheepish look and rubbed the back of her head. "Sorry. I got distracted. Maxus Trio is getting their butts beaten by a one-person team."
Arata raised an eyebrow in surprise and looked up at the screen. Sure enough, this person was single handedly defeating the only LBX left in the diorama. Based on the scorched marks here and there, Arata guessed that he made the other two LBX explode.
"Who is he?" He asked, leaning against the table.
"That's Kanai Makoto." Jin spoke up as he joined them. "He's one of the best players out there that can rival Asuka in skill."
"That's because he already is her self-proclaimed rival." Hana added in amusement.
Reika giggled at that. "Are they like Ban and Lina-senpai?"
"Something like that." Hana shrugged with a grin. "But the best part is that they are not a couple, but they sometimes act like it. Even Makoto has his moments."
"Ok…" Arata shifted his eyes back to the screen and let out a whistle as Makoto managed to finish off his opponent with a single blow. "He's good. How come we never heard about him?"
"Makoto is not one for huge tournaments despite being on Asuka's level. To be honest, I'm surprise to see him here." Jin shook his head. He glanced at Pandora in Reika's hands and frowned. "Is it badly damaged?"
"No duh." Reika rolled her eyes. "Core box needs a few parts replaced, the whole armor frame needs to be repaired or replaced, etc. I'm out of the tournament from here."
"Me too." Arata shrugged.
"But does Muraku know about that?" Jin frowned. "From what I gathered, he's expecting either one of you to go for the final round."
"I have no choice here." Reika raised her hands up in defense.
"I'll tell him." Arata shrugged. "But anyway, good luck in the finals."
"There you guys are!" Daimen sighed in relief as he came in. "I've been looking for you guys all over. The clown and frog guy are already out of the stadium. Security actually kicked them out when they tried to get to the stands. I guess you guys were not the only ones creeped out by them."
"Thank goodness." Arata let out a massive sigh of relieve and slid onto the ground.
"Don't tell me you're stopping now because your nerves are getting the best of you?" Daimen quirked.
Arata's face became red while Jin and Hana's eyes lightened up in understanding. Reika giggled behind her hand and nodded. "Yup, it's because of that."
"Oi!" Arata jumped up and wacked her on the head. "Don't go saying things like that."
"Ow!" Reika rubbed the part where Arata wacked. "But it's true. Remember that time we went to that fun fair and saw that clown? You were so jello after that that you couldn't even fight a match properly."
"And I could remember the time a frog jumped on your head in our fourth grade science class that you panicked and ran around, making a mess of the class, screaming on the top of your lungs even though the frog was long gone." Arata retorted.
"Come on, you two. Admit it, you two can't do anything well after being scared like that." Haruki remarked as he, Hikaru, Muraku and Mia came over. It was painfully clear that they had heard everything about their mishaps when they were younger.
Arata groaned and hit the table with his head. "Muraku, do us a favor and just agree to do the finals. I admit, I really don't have the heart to battle anymore."
Muraku sighed, having anticipated this even before the clown and frog guy got involved. "Alright, give me some time to do my maintenance."
"For our group, Hikaru is going on." Haruki spoke with Daimen nodding before Hikaru could protest. "You have the best chance out of all of us." Haruki added with a warning in his tone that Hikaru cannot protest it.
"What about you, Jin-san?" Reika asked. "Will you or Ban-san be participating in the finals?"
"We're not sure yet." Jin frowned as he looked around for Ban. "Ban left to find Kalina a while ago and he hasn't come back yet. If he doesn't come back on time, I will have to go."
"Oh, about that, Lina-senpai said that she's leaving." Arata scratched the back of his head sheepishly.
Hana slapped her forehead with her palm, muttering something about going off on her own again. "I'll go and find her and Ban and get Ban to come back while I have an important talk with Kalina."
'Good luck with that.' Arata silently thought, guessing that Kalina was now at the airport to go back to A-Nation. How she managed to handle travelling so quickly was beyond what he could understand since flight travels tired him out more than Daimen' teleportation or Reika's portals. But it could be just him since all of his other friends didn't have that kind of problem.
"Where's Asuka?" Jin wondered, noticing that she was not around.
"Don't know." Daimen shrugged. "She vanished the moment the Block E Finals ended."
'Oh boy.' Arata and Reika silently thought, having known now Asuka's rivalry with Makoto.