Here it is.
Reviews:
Guest - Glad you liked it and you're welcome.
shaolin story - I already have some ideas for the brother gods so don't worry. I also like how much Bleach and Shaman King have in common. It's kinda weird how little crossover fics are there between them.
X3runner - Nice.
NinjaFang1331, Gamelover41592 - Thanks as always. :)
A beautiful night came over Vale. Countless stars were sparkling without any clouds to obstruct them, the ever broken moon was shining with all of the light it could and the wind was gently blowing away the leaves.
It was the final night before the second round of the secret tournament to decide the fate of the world would officially begin.
Not even two days have passed since the memorable fight between certain blond and white haired shamans have finished. It was fast and nobody would deny that, especially not the participants of that fight, but the tournament had to proceed forward and that fight was the last one of the first round.
Many different shamans had already been prepared for the next round for weeks and when they finally heard that their wait would soon be over the hidden tension between them exploded.
Recently, it wasn't difficult to find excited shamans wandering somewhere in Vale or every other major city on Remnant. Except Atlas of course as the first round of the Shaman King tournament hadn't been held there.
There were dozens of them! Some of them were gathering in small groups to try and get new teammates for the next challenge the tournament would throw at them while others kept to themselves avoiding others in case someone decided to get rid of the competition early.
On an isolated bench in the Vale South River Park lied such a single person.
It was the winner of the last fight of the first round of the tournament, Jaune Arc. He lied facing the sky with both of his eyes closed, unsuccessfully trying to fall asleep.
Despite not sounding like much it wasn't an easy task. The adrenaline and excitement were so prevalent in him that he wouldn't be surprised if his body thought that it didn't need any sleep for the next week.
He shuddered a little as a gentle yet cold wind blew on his bare arms. There was another reason he couldn't comfortably sleep, his only hoodie he always used as a blanket whenever he had to spend the night outside was gone.
After the last fight ended and he found the time to examine his clothes, he realized that the hoodie he wore at that time was just too torn and ripped to be of use for anything other than as a rag to clean the dirt.
At first he thought about buying himself a new one with the money he got from Whitley but he quickly found out that the medical costs required to allow him to be able to function properly in two days were simply too large to allow him any other spending.
A sigh escaped him as he thought about the money he got from the younger shaman. It wasn't that the amount he got was too insignificant since if he were to use it in any other situation then he would be able to afford even the greatest of hospitals.
The problem was the time limit. What normally would have cost one third of the money he was given and required him to be in a hospital for a week became unimaginably expensive if he wanted to be free the very next day.
Just like that, all the money he had saved up was gone and he couldn't sleep at night because of that.
There wasn't even Summer near him to keep him company since she chose to spend their possibly last night in Vale stalking her daughters. If he remembered correctly, she tried to argue that she was doing that to try to atone for how she asked him to keep her a secret from her 'Little Roses'.
That certainly had been a thing he hadn't expected from her. Summer always bragged about how her daughters were the greatest thing to have happened to her when she was alive so seeing her actively hiding from them was jarring.
It had happened right after they saw Whitley leave. He had been tired from the fight and the audience were still shaken up from everything that happened when suddenly Summer's older daughter grabbed him and commanded him to tell her how exactly he was related to her mothers.
Obviously, he had wanted to simply tell her about the relation between him and Summer but the moment he opened his mouth and tried to say something he noticed Summer shaking her head vigorously at him in fear while pleading to not tell Yang anything about her.
He had complied of course. Summer was his guardian spirit after all and if she didn't want her daughters to know that she was still on Remnant then he wasn't the person to reveal that to them.
Instead he had uttered a lie about how he had met her and helped her to move into the afterlife after she trained him a little. From the doubtful look on the older sister's face he knew that she didn't believe that but at least he didn't go against Summer's wishes by telling them the truth.
Another sigh, although filled with much more pain, escaped him as he thought about Summer and her daughters.
He shifted to the side with a quiet grunt to get his mind out of the issue and find a more comfortable position. Sadly, it appeared there weren't any comfortable positions on the bench he was lying on.
"Would you mind making a place for me so that I can sit down for a while?" A lighthearted voice of a young boy asked him from behind.
"Huh?" He reacted in surprise before opening his eyes to look at the person who said that.
There stood a young boy of at most fourteen years of age. The boy had a black shoulder length hair and hazel colored eyes. A simple long piece of cloth was covering his entire body and the only piece of clothing that could be seen from underneath were heavy looking boots covering the boy's entire feet.
The person before him didn't look remarkable in any way but the smile on their face was weirdly off-putting. It didn't look fake or strange in any way but it didn't look honest or normal either.
If he had to point at one thing that made that smile unnerving to him then he wasn't certain he would be able to do so.
"So, will you move?" The boy said again, tired of waiting for his answer.
"Yeah, sure." He answered before sitting on the bench and moving slightly to the side.
Seeing the free space he made, the boy decided to treat it as an invitation and sat down right next to him. The kid didn't even thank him for that and instead acted as if everything was proceeding as it was meant to be.
An awkward silence quickly arose between them. He didn't even know who that kid was so there was almost nothing he could realistically talk about with him and the kid was keeping silent as well, being too focused on observing stars and humming something to himself than talking to him.
It made him question why did that kid even want to sit here. There were multiple different benches in the park with a way better view and the one they were sitting on right now was the most out of the way situated bench among all of them.
He was certain of it as it was the reason he chose to sleep on it in the first place.
"It's a beautiful night, isn't it?" The boy said, breaking the silence.
"I-I guess?" He answered unsure why the boy asked that.
A cheerful laugh escaped the boy near him when he said that, confusing him even more. Did that kid come here almost in the middle of the night to stare at the sky and ask him meaningless questions?
Actually, what was a young kid like that doing here anyway? It had been dark outside for at least a few hours already and the parents of that kid must for sure be worried about him.
"If you don't mind me asking, may I know why are you here? It's already dark outside and the only thing that we are doing here is staring at the sky in silence." He asked with a cough.
The boy once again laughed a little when he heard the question before turning towards him and answering with a playful look on his face.
"Does it matter why I'm here? I could be sitting here because I got lost and thought that this bench looked comfy. Though if you really want to know then I guess I might as well tell you. I'm the future king of shamans and the only reason I came here is to look for interesting people, Jaune."
He recoiled a little after hearing that. All this time he was sitting right next to another competitor in the tournament and he practically was ignoring him completely. If he knew that earlier then he would have started some conversation the moment he met the boy.
How was he supposed to know that the boy beside him was shaman too if there wasn't any spirit along with him?
Once the excitement from meeting another shaman dulled out a little, he noticed another piece of information in the kid's previous statement that he overlooked earlier.
"How do you know who I am?" He asked with confusion in his voice. He didn't remember telling him that and considering that they only said two things to each other before, he doubted that he had forgotten about it.
"Simple, I'm the king and the king knows all." The boy answered with confidence in his voice before jumping from the bench to stand.
The moment the black haired shaman touched the ground he spun around lazily with a small smile on his face before turning towards him and leaning forward a little to make sure he would be heard correctly.
"Enough about me Jaune, I came here to find some interesting people so let me ask some questions about you." The boy said with a small smile.
He laughed a little when he heard that before leaning backwards a bit to get in a more comfortable position than he was before. Sure, it was most likely a way for his possible future opponent to scout any opposition but if it allowed him to befriend another shaman then he honestly didn't mind that.
His only goal in the tournament was to meet more shamans anyway.
"Ask whatever you want. I warn you though I'm not a very interesting person." He said with a wave of his hand.
"Don't be like that. I heard that you were taught by the spirits of the old Asakura clan. It must have been a very enlightening time." The kid argued.
He raised his eyebrows a little in response. As far as he was aware beside him and Summer nobody else knew about him being taught in the ways of the shamans by the old man Asakura.
It could have been possible that one of the ghosts who helped him with the training told that to the kid before him though since the old man Asakura already moved to the afterlife after he finished his training under him so he wasn't too concerned about that.
The only thing that was strange about that was the fact that he was pretty sure that he met them at the border between the kingdom of Vale and Vacuo so the younger shaman before him must have traveled a lot as well to be able to meet them.
"You could say that it was fun. Sadly, I wasn't training with them for long." He answered with a nostalgic smile before asking a question on his own to keep the conversation going. "You mentioned being the future king before. Where do you get that confidence from?"
"It's because I'm the greatest. It's simple." The boy answered with unwavering confidence.
His opponents must have been quite weak then. He didn't know if that was a good thing or not though as it meant that the kid didn't have to face off against some really dangerous people but it also meant that he didn't know the sheer power some of the combatants in the tournament could have.
Honestly, he was kinda glad that the kid before him didn't have to witness the execution that was the fight of Iron Maiden Jeanne. It certainly would have an impact on his confidence.
A yawn brought him out of his thoughts. He must have been more tired than he thought.
"It's already getting late, huh?" The boy said while looking at the moon before turning towards him with a serious expression on his face. "I have one more question, Jaune. Tell me, why do you fight in the tournament?"
So that was the reason behind this entire conversation. He couldn't quite say that he was surprised, if one's goal was to meet interesting people like the boy claimed it was then it was the most obvious question to ask.
He looked at his conversation partner in silence for a couple of seconds, contemplating his answer, before letting out a tired sigh.
"There isn't much to it." He started with a lazy wave of his hand. "Throughout my entire life I rarely met other people like me so when I heard about a secret tournament that would bring together countless different shamans I just knew I had to take part in it. I don't really have any desire for becoming the Shaman King but if getting to the finals would allow me to meet many other shamans then it's enough for me."
His answer was simple, dull, and most likely underwhelming but despite all of the things that have or could happen in the tournament he doubted that he would change it in any way.
"So petty." He heard the boy before him say in a surprisingly cold tone.
Normally he would have remarked how the chilliness of the words that were just said sent shivers down his spine but the temperature around them suddenly became so high that he started to wonder if he was burning at the moment.
"Excuse me?" He asked with an unexplained fear in his voice while carefully grabbing his walking stick in case he would have to defend himself.
"Your ambition, It's so small, so insignificant." The boy started to say with a harsh tone before an ocean of fire began to slowly appear around him. "When I heard that you were taught by my clan, I thought that you would be at least somewhat interesting. Sadly, I'm disappointed."
An imposing giant made solely out of pure fire formed right in front of him out of all the flames that were gathered by the black haired shaman. The monster, for only that word could accurately describe how terrifying that spirit was in person, was taller than any of the trees in the park they were in. Even some of the grandest buildings around the park looked humble compared to it.
Seeing the threat before him, Jaune instinctively jumped away with his weapon at the ready.
"Summer! Over Soul-" He started to shout only to stop himself after remembering that his guardian spirit wasn't here with him.
His action seemed to amuse the person before him since the moment he tried to do that a loud laugh escaped the black haired boy while the fire giant picked the kid up to let him ride on its shoulder.
"Don't worry. I'm not going to kill you." The boy said, slightly dismissing his worries. "I already told you, I'm here to look for interesting people, right? Killing you wouldn't help me with that anyway."
He only narrowed his eyes in response, not trusting the kid before him.
"You don't believe me, do you? Pity." The boy said with a shrug, not caring about his thoughts.
With the information acquired and nothing better to do at the moment, the kid together with his terrifying fire spirit turned around and prepared to leave.
The heat waves and flames created from that action pushed him a few meters backwards. Even such an unassuming movement as turning around was more threatening to him than many of the attacks he had faced during his shaman fights.
"I've got all the things I wanted from you for today so I will be going back to Mistral to make sure I'm present at the beginning of the second round. My name's Hao Asakura, although in this life it would be Hao Pine. Make sure you remember that, It's the name of the future king after all." The kid, Hao, said with an arrogant smirk while looking down on him from a corner of his eye.
"By the way, I've already met three interesting people here in Vale so make sure you don't get in their way, alright?" Hao asked with fake politeness before flying away on his huge spirit of fire.
A good couple of seconds passed after Hao had left before Jaune was able to barely calm his nerves enough not to die out of sheer amount of adrenaline his body was supplying him at the moment.
A loud thump could be heard as the blond shaman plummeted to the ground after his legs gave in.
That was Hao. That was the person Jeanne and the X-Laws warned him about. Someone who even the Iron Maiden herself considered to be a foe that couldn't be defeated by the power available to her and her team.
Back when he met them for the first time, he assumed that they were exaggerating how dangerous Hao was.
Now, after witnessing the strongest shaman's power for himself though.
He must say, they weren't wrong.
...
At Beacon...
...
At least once in the life of every person there comes a moment when they have to decide between two equally important paths their life could go towards. For some people it was a choice of either family or work, for others it was a decision of a partner they would live with until the end of their lives.
For a certain Lie Ren it was a choice between his shaman lineage and the future at Beacon.
He hadn't gotten much info about the second round of the Shaman King Tournament yet but he already knew that it was highly likely that it would take place outside of Vale. The fact that they were supposed to arrive at the old bullhead docks was a big enough hint for him to know that.
It would mean that at best he would have to find a way to explain a couple of days of not having ability to attend the school and at worst it might mean getting expelled from Beacon because of having too many unattended hours.
On the other hand, not taking part in the tournament after already getting past the first round would be just as devastating for him as having to abandon Beacon. The tournament happened only every five hundred years after all.
Unless he would be able to take part in the next tournament as the guardian spirit of one of the participants, there was simply no way for him to have another chance at it.
That really was a difficult choice.
A quiet sigh escaped him as he shifted a little in his bed to at least try to get a couple hours of sleep before the next day. It didn't matter what he would decide to do tomorrow if one of his options would be taken from him because of oversleeping.
If someone were to tell him that he would be faced with a choice between Beacon and a hidden tournament for people capable of interacting with spirits at the beginning of Beacon, he would have taken them to infirmary and asked the nurse to make sure they didn't have a concussion.
Yet, despite how crazy the situation he was in sounded, it was happening.
He took a quick glance at his teammates. If he were to choose to continue with the tournament then he would be abandoning them, with no explanation to boot. It would make him a terrible team leader.
Would they even understand if he gave them an explanation?
Nora would but she was already aware of the tournament and watched all of his fights up until now so that didn't really count.
A small smile appeared on his face when he thought about his best friend. The moment he would leave Nora unsupervised she would make a raid on the Beacon's cafeteria to steal all of their pancakes.
She probably would be the most angry about the fact that she wouldn't be able to come with him and watch his shaman fights with other contestants. He closed his eyes as he imagined what a mess the tournament would become if they allowed Nora to spectate all of the fights.
On a second thought compared to some of the weirder things shamans apparently were capable of doing based on what he heard from Jaune, Nora wasn't actually that insane. She was actually pretty normal when juxtaposed to some competitors of the tournament.
That was a sentence he certainly never expected to come to his mind. The tournament was doing some pretty strange things with his mind if thoughts like these were being formed in it.
"Hey, Renny. Are you asleep?" A whisper said from his side.
So he wasn't the only one who couldn't sleep. Considering that the next day was going to be almost as emotional for Nora as it would be for him, he didn't find it very strange.
"If I really was asleep then I wouldn't be able to answer you." He turned around to face his best friend.
"Of course, but the silence would work as an answer by itself in that scenario, right?"
"It would." He answered with a tired nod.
Comfortable silence interrupted their conversation as neither he nor Nora knew what exactly to talk about and it was certainly an eerie moment for him. It wasn't everyday that he got a chance to spend time with Nora in silence, most of the time their time together was spent on his best friend talking and him only giving his short opinions whenever he got a chance.
It was moments like these that really made him wonder if he really should go forward in the tournament. Especially if that meant that he would have less time to spend with Nora.
"You are thinking about giving up on the tournament, aren't you?" Nora said with an accusatory look breaking the silence. Her guess was so correct that he started to wonder if she was able to read in his mind.
Seeing that his friend already saw through him and that there was no point in hiding anything he shrugged a little under his cover helplessly. In contrast to how she was acting most of the time, Nora was actually really smart and perceptive.
"It's just..." He started with a difficult expression on his face. "I know that the tournament is one of if not the most important thing to be happening right now and that the next chance to take part in it would be many years after I die of old age but I feel that by taking part in it I would be abandoning you and the team."
Nora's immediate response to him letting out all the things that were troubling him at the moment wasn't to try to cheer him up with a hug or some grand and cheerful speech like many would have thought she would. The first thing she did after hearing him say everything was to quietly look at him with an understanding look in her eyes.
"You know that I would never see that as betraying or abandoning me, Renny. I'm aware how important it is to you. It's the biggest connection you have with your dad, there's no way that Beacon is more important than that." Nora said in reassurance.
"I might miss my chance at Beacon because of that entirely though." He said.
"If you truly won't be able to attend Beacon anymore then you will just have to take the Huntsman license exam without it and after finishing the tournament there won't be a second Huntsman as awesome as you, Renny." His best friend said, getting rid of his doubts.
"Thank you, Nora." He said with a smile on his face before slowly closing his eyes and falling asleep almost immediately after.
"You are welcome..." Nora said with a genuine smile that turned into a mischievous smirk after she noticed that he was already sleeping. "Besides, It's not like we are going to be separated anyway."
Sadly, Ren wasn't awake to hear the cartoon villain-like giggle that Nora was quietly doing under the protection of her blanket, for if he knew then there would be no way that he wouldn't know what Nora was planning.
...
The next day...
...
A crowd of shamans.
It was a phrase that many shamans would consider to be an oxymoron and if someone were to tell them that they would be able to see an example of such a phrase in real life then they would have laughed at them.
Finding a single spiritually aware person in a group of over a thousand people was already considered to be a nearly impossible task, let alone meeting a person that knew anything about the life of a shaman. They just were that rare.
Some of the shamans never even met any other person like them throughout their entire life.
Yet, despite how unlikely the chance of such a thing happening were, it was the only way one could describe the gathering of people that was taking place at the old bullhead docks right now.
No matter wherever one looked at they would be able to see groups of different eccentric people that would look out of place in any other place on Remnant but somehow fitted perfectly along other people like them.
It for sure made for an interesting sight.
To top it all off the people here weren't even half of all the competitors that would be present on the battlefield of the second round of the tournament as similar gatherings were currently taking place in almost every major city on Remnant.
"I keep telling you Summer, I almost died yesterday." A young blond haired shaman complained quietly to his guardian spirit with a yawn while traversing between the small crowd of people to find a place he could sit down and rest his legs before the beginning of the Tournament's second round.
Usually in a situation like this, Jaune Arc would have been more than elated at the prospect of being able to meet so many new shamans that he could make friends with but currently he was too busy with rubbing his eyes from tiredness to pay attention to anything that was happening around him.
"I still think that you just simply had a nightmare. If you truly met with the Hao yesterday then where is he right now? He is also taking part in the tournament, isn't he? I don't see him here." Summer answered with a roll of her eyes, even if what her shaman was saying was really true then he was still making too big of a deal out of it.
He walked right beside her without any injuries so that 'horrifying' event from yesterday couldn't have been that bad, right?
"I remember him saying something about going to Mistral so it's possible that his first round took place there." Jaune shrugged.
"To get to Mistral on foot, you would need at least a couple of weeks and you would need to have almost no brakes during your travel. I don't know what kind of Over Soul that guy has but if he really was able to cross such a distance using solely his Over Soul than his Furyoku would probably be dozens times greater than yours." Summer said.
"If not even more, Summer. If not even more." He said quietly while deep in thought.
While claiming that someone had dozens of times more Furyoku than him could have sounded impressive, after witnessing the power of Hao he would rather try guessing the man's strength in multiplications of thousands than dozens.
Even the slaughter by the hands of Jeanne didn't seem like much compared to that power.
He shivered a little after remembering the burning hell he had the chance of watching last night. It didn't harm him in any way yet he still was afraid of it.
Luckily for him, after searching the entire meeting place with his sight at least three times he didn't notice Hao standing anywhere. He did notice Jeanne and most of the X-Laws though.
Weirdly he wasn't able to find Luchist among them. Was he perhaps hiding to provide the Iron Maiden with the best information about their possible opponent?
The group of X-Laws noticed him staring at them and he waved his hand a little as a greeting. Most of them kindly smiled in response while Marco frowned at him with a grumble before looking away with a scoff.
He would never understand why that guy was so grumpy all the time.
"Hey Jaune!" A familiar proud voice called out to him from behind, getting his attention. "Are you ready for the beginning of the real challenge of this tournament? I hope you won't disappoint me by getting out of the tournament before me."
Whitley Schnee slowly approached him with his saber sheathed and the spirit of his grandfather right next to him. The confidence in Whitley's voice got the attention of many shamans around them but after noticing that nothing interesting was happening they quickly turned around to mind their own business.
"If I wasn't ready then I wouldn't be here, would I?" He answered with a grin and a small laugh.
They shook their hands right after. Whitley's grip was both strong and gentle, it felt as if the younger shaman tried to squeeze his hand lightly but for some reason couldn't do it.
"Are you tired?" He asked out of curiosity.
"Yes, I finished my last training session not even an hour ago and I haven't rested yet." Whitley answered.
"You guys are already back to training?! It wasn't even two days since our fight." Summer said in surprise.
"My grandson, unlike young Arc here, didn't suffer from any serious injuries after the fight so we decided to start getting stronger as soon as we could." Whitley's guardian spirit, Nicholas Schnee answered.
If he didn't experience that meeting with Hao the previous night then he would have wondered why would Whitley even want to push himself so hard when he already was plenty strong but after knowing how terrifying powerful shamans could be he kinda agreed with the shaman from the Schnee family.
He would have to start training again as well. There was only so much free time he could have because of an injury before the difference between him and other shamans became too big for him to catch up.
A slight shiver went down his spine as he thought about Summer bringing back her training regime. People stronger than him were afraid of those hellish exercises.
Their conversation became way more lighthearted as they started to talk about more insignificant things to pass the time before people from the tribes came and told them how the next round was going to look like. They still had a couple of good minutes before that happened, after all.
Somehow through their light chat they managed to get the attention of almost every shaman close to them. It was most likely because of the difference in their mood compared to every other person around.
Unlike everyone else around them they were surprisingly relaxed about anything that could happen. Almost everyone at the docks was stressed and nervous from the prospect of having so many possible enemies standing so close to them which made the few who weren't acting like that easily stand out.
If he were to be honest then he didn't know why he wasn't stressed as well. He probably was one of the weakest people present here and anyone could probably defeat him in a shaman fight yet no matter how powerful everyone else looked he just couldn't feel pressured by them.
Maybe the atmosphere didn't seem so heavy to him because the scariest person he could meet in the tournament wasn't even in the same city as him.
Time passed quite quickly for him when he was preoccupied with a conversation he had with Whitley and soon the half an hour that they had to wait until the beginning of the next round turned into less than ten minutes.
The moment for the organizers of the tournament to arrive was steadily approaching yet the less time was left the more nervous he was becoming. It wasn't because the start of the second round was approaching or at least not directly. He had a completely different reason to be worried.
There were only a bit more than five minutes left but he still didn't see Ren anywhere.
If he didn't trust in his friend's capabilities so much then he would have worried that something happened to him. The time was quickly passing and the wind shaman was nowhere in sight so thoughts like these could have easily entered his mind.
Could it be that something held Ren back?
He shifted a little as he turned towards the entrance of the docks to make sure he would see his friend the moment he came through the gate. It's highly likely that the Ren father and son duo wasn't here because they simply had to say their goodbyes to Nora.
Less than three minutes were left and he gulped loudly out of nerves without taking his sight of the entrance for even a moment. If Ren didn't come here soon then he would be eliminated from the tournament.
Thankfully, a long haired boy wearing green clothes entered through the gate he was looking at just as he was about to seriously worry whether he would show up or not.
"Hey! Ren! Here!" He shouted happily while widely waving his hands to get the attention of his friend.
His method of getting attention worked perfectly since the exact moment he did that the eyes of more than a dozen of different shamans turned towards him. Luckily, one pair of those eyes belonged to Ren so it didn't take long for the boy to start walking towards them.
"I'm sorry, I'm so late. Sneaking out of Beacon in the middle of the day turned out to be way harder than I anticipated." Ren said in between huffs as he arrived next to them.
"And here I thought that at least one of the fake shamans wouldn't advance further after winning the first round." Whitley scoffed.
"Maybe if your so-called true shamans were any better than the ones you call fake then you wouldn't have to watch so many of us be present here." Ren bit back with an angry frown.
"Guys stop, the second round hasn't even started yet. There's no point in having fights between each other." Jaune said with a whine while frantically waving his hands and trying to separate his two friends who looked like they were about to start a fight.
Luckily just before the fight could escalate a loud humming noise from some hidden speakers echoed through the docks interrupting any conversations that were currently being held.
"Good afternoon, as most likely all of you are aware, everyone present here is a competitor who qualified for the second round of the tournament and before anything else let met congratulate you for getting this far." A voice of an elderly woman said calmly through the speakers.
Right after these words were spoken an incomprehensible noise made out of countless whispers and murmurs from every shaman present at the docks envelop the entire gathering. They didn't get much information through the Oracle Bells yet so everyone was curious what was going to happen.
"Moving onto the reason why all of you are here." The old lady said with a cough quieting down everyone. "The second round of the Shaman King Tournament isn't going to be taking place in Vale, in fact it isn't going to be taking place in any of the major cities the first round was in."
A few murmurs were heard as some people started to wonder where exactly they were going to be fighting and how they would get there.
"Do not worry though. While we cannot tell you the exact location of the United Tribe Village where the second round will take place, we will safely transport you there with the help of the mysterious ancient soaring device made using the secret method given to us by the Great Spirit themselves."
The gates to one of the hangars slowly opened to reveal an outdated and rusty bullhead resting there and waiting to be used by anybody.
"Are they serious? It's just a normal bullhead." Summer sighed before shaking her head in disappointment. "Honestly, I have no idea what else I expected from the people who have given us old Scrolls and said they were the Oracle Bells granted to people by the closest being to a god that exists."
Jaune's guardian spirit's charade was ignored by everyone as they were too focused on the bullhead that was being slowly pushed out of the hangar instead. Although, Jaune himself wasn't listening to Summer because of a little different reason.
So that is the true challenge before the second round. He thought to himself in fear before gulping audibly. The old lady on the speakers was still talking, probably to explain some details, but he didn't listen as his mind was too preoccupied with a different thought.
The bullhead ride. Just a thought about it paralyzed him from fear. They didn't know how close or far the United Tribe Village was so he couldn't even guess how long the ride was going to be but he doubted that it would be as quick as a one way trip to Beacon.
He was going to die before the second round even started.
"There's no point in standing here anymore. Let's go, Jaune. We might be able to get the best seats if we hurry." Whitley said confidently before marching forward.
"Didn't you forget about someone in your previous statement." Ren quipped before walking towards the bullhead as well.
It looked like he couldn't delay the ride in that steel death trap any longer. Both of his friends were already moving to the bullhead anyway so he might as well join them. Why couldn't it have been some teleport type Over Soul that was responsible for getting them to the village?
"Hey! Wait for me!" He shouted while running to catch up to his friends.
At this point the only thing he could do was hope that the ride wouldn't take too long to finish.
Chapter finished!
Not much has happened when it came to the action but it still was fun to write.
See ya later!