The next day gave Saras much-needed relief. After the whole 'spa day' debacle he had managed to get adequate amount of sleep, eat enough food to be sick, and wash off his 'treatment' in a bath that smelled of roses (and was mercifully, Safi-free). He was looking forwards to finally being able to confront Babirasu about the gem, when to his horror there was an announcement from none other than Chaonao.

"Dear competitors, to the weak and the ridiculously strong, your presence is required in the arena for the Mid-Task Hype-Match between the two finalists of the previous tournament!"

This was followed up with groans of protests and excuses that varied from 'I'm ill' to 'my mommy told me not to watch any fighting today'.

"No buts! Not attending automatically disqualifies you. And for parental obligations, we need a signed note as proof! SQUAWK!"

Saras frowned, remembering Badr's offer. If only he could impersonate other people. Life would be so much easier if he could just pretend to be the emperor wherever he went...

"Oh and for the record the carriages leave in ten minutes. So get your asses moving!"

"Well at least we don't have to do any fighting ourselves." Li I grumbled, sounding as if that was the worst part of the deal.

Saras trailed behind the others. If he had played Badr then all he had to do was try to fight back a little, make it seem impressive, then get knocked out by the frog. And then Badr would have given him every assistance possible to advance further ahead. He would also insist that he spend time with Safi, but that was avoidable. Getting through what followed, was not.

He didn't notice where he was going and accidentally bumped into the hooded figure of Ba. The spider spun around and stared at him, with all eight of his eyes.

"S-sorry." The eyes dug into his, and there were so many that he felt dizzy just trying to keep track of them.

"You better be." The spider hissed, turning around and marching ahead.

"Sorry about him. He doesn't like people." Wugu explained. The fish's eyes looked up at him, but in them there was none of Ba's malice.

"I can tell." Saras was about to turn away when the fish gave a loud, fake, cough.

"Hey can you cart me along? I'm not very fast on my own."

Saras stared into his wide, pleading eyes, and felt his heart melt. Then forced it to harden, then looked away, then looked back. Reluctantly, the fox circled around the fishbowl, and began pushing his cart. Wugu turned in the water to look at him.

"So, how are you?"

"Fine." Always him. Something always happened to him.

"Did you rob it yet?"

"R-rob what?" He asked, suddenly in a panic. How did Wugu know?

"Remember you said you said you were a mugger."

"I never said that." Saras replied deadpanned. "You inferred that."

"Oh. But you said you robbed something from the Silver Fang Vaults."

"Well it was robbed from me so I was just er-taking it back." What went on inside this fish's mind?

"That makes sense. Why did they take it from you in the first place."

"No idea." Saras replied, really hoping this conversation ended soon.

"Was it shiny-"

"I don't know!" Saras snapped. The carriages were about to leave.

"There you are." Said Ba, he waved an arm at the fish, calling him forwards.

"Ba's over there." Wugu pointed out 'helpfully'.

Saras pushed the fish over to the carriage. Ba did not make eye contact and picked up the fish bowl, setting Wugu down on the seat. Saras turned to find another cart- any other cart preferably- just as they began to roll away.

"Don't worry, you can share with us." Said Wugu cheerfully.

Saras turned back around. Wugu looked just as sweet and innocent as ever, Ba looked like he'd tear him apart if he put a single fur in. But not arriving on time would lead to disqualification. And disqualification was something he really couldn't afford.

He sat down opposite Wugu, trying to avoid Ba's many eyes. The door shut, and the horse began trotting ahead.

For a while they were silent, with Saras taking in every speck of dust on his Talon Claws. Eventually though, Ba broke the silence.

"Are you scared of me?" He asked quietly, with a hint of a hiss.

"Well er-" Saras' mouth hung open as his eyes met Ba's. It was hard to lie to the spider. "I-I get s-scared of a lot of things." He gulped audibly, wondering just how rubbish that excuse actually was.

"Including me?"

"Of course Ba. You're very scary." Said Wugu, smiling sweetly. "And Saras Kanbujian Kanbu Shifty is scared of Lang as well. He gave him a black eye when he found him looking through his stuff."

"How do you know that?" He was referring to all three facts, since he had never talked to Wugu about Lang, and hadn't given him his full name.

"I heard you."

"But you were nowhere near."

"Don't dig too deep fox, you won't find anything you'll like here." Ba growled. "Wugu don't talk to him."

"Ba you're so secretive." Wugu giggled. "But okay, I can be secretive too."

Saras frowned. He'd be more annoyed if Ba wasn't creepy as hell, but as it was he decided he didn't want to dive too deep on the spider's no-doubt long list of hated people.

The carriage succumbed to silence, save for the vehicle's motion.

Wugu let out a giggle. "Okay, I lied, I can't be secretive. Basically when I was younger I had something injected into me. It made me feel all fuzzy-"

"Wugu!"

"And I can hear things through water if I tap into it. It's so cool. I'm basically a super-spy." He said all of this in a voice of everyday conversation. But then again when you were sharing a carriage with a giant spider and a shapeshifting fox hearing through water wasn't too out of this world.

"That's...cool." The fox nodded. Ba was glaring at him intensely, but had no control over Wugu whatsoever.

"I'm not actually good at fighting though. But Ba is. He's got super-strength, his silk, eight arms, eight eyes-"

"I can count." Saras cut him off to stop the spider's growing anger in it's tracks.

"So who do you think will win?"

"Er... Ba looks...er-pretty-" He was going to add strong, but was interrupted due to his poor word-choice.

"Is that meant to be a joke?" The spider hissed.

"N-no, absolutely not."

"I meant this fight. Ba is obviously going to loose this tournament."

Saras thought it was odd that Ba never reacted to Wugu beyond getting annoyed.

"Well, er Badr won last time."

Suddenly, Ba lunged forwards and punched the seat Saras had been in a puff of green earlier. The shapeshifter re-appeared next to the spider, claws at his throat. To his surprise he found a sword waiting for him, gently poking his stomach, and threatening to go further.

"Ba stop! He's my friend! Besides we don't even know if he is you-know-what."

Ba let the blade slide back into the handle, and crossed his arms over his chest, looking very much like he had no inclination of stopping and would continue fighting at a moment's notice.

"Our Mistress and Badr don't like each other. Ba doesn't like Badr either. He's a monster."

Saras frowned. It was a bit rich for Ba to be calling anyone a monster. But the fox held his tongue. Ba was irrelevant, it was all irrelevant. He just needed to get to Babirasu and to get the gem. He had to focus on the mission.

"He did some terrible things to win. Like making that necklace you're wearing."

Saras tugged awkwardly at it. "I-I never wanted it...he just gave it to me." He explained, ready to have to teleport again.

"How long have you known Badr?" Ba demanded.

"Um...since this tournament started." The answer was the truth, but Ba's eyes still looked at him with dislike and mistrust.

"I hope our Mistress wins. It would bring her peace of mind if she could finally put an end to him."

"She's going to kill him?" Saras blurted out.

"He's heard too much!" Ba went for his swords.

"NO! I meant overthrow him as winner." Wugu was backtracking-that much was obvious, but Saras pretended to go along with it anyways. He had nothing to do with Duyao or Badr.

"Oh, right. Sorry, simple misunderstanding." Ba's arms were still on his handles, however. The rest of the trip was awkwardly silent. And when they arrived Ba's eyes still followed him. He pulled off the ugly necklace and tossed it as far away as he could. He had nothing to do with Badr or Duyao. Badr most likely knew what the frog was up to, and had even tried to swap him into the mix... and all while acting nice and friendly. Well they could both kill each other for all he cared, so long as he completed his mission.

"Oh hey Shifty, we missed you on the carriage. But we saved you a seat." The rabbit waved at him from the stands.

"I got them mixed up." Saras explained as he sat down next to Li. Badr and Duyao were in the arena, doing stretches. Would the black cat live another day? Inwardly, the fox shook his head. Badr and Duyao's feud was not his business. He had nothing to do with it, and hoped to remain uninvolved.

Little did he know that his hopes were just wishful thinking.

Outside the arena, the necklace shaped like the skull of a lizard, slithered forwards. Free at last, he could do what he wanted, and after several years in a box, what he wanted was to spread his madness. Perhaps with the one who had so mercilessly tossed him away...

Footnote: Next time we get to see Badr vs Duyao as well as the Singh Box's relevance. Then a bit of filler and then Task Three, more filler and Task Four, more filler and Task Five. Then the conclusion. In all honesty I expect that finishing this fic won't be too difficult, though it's really a coin toss as to which tournament ends first.

Enjoy!