Alexandra Harrison:
Height: 170 cm
Weapon type: Lance
Armour: Seltas
Monster: Zino (Zinogre)
Age: 27
Place of origin: Dundorma
Hair colour: Black
Hairstyle: Short, cropped
Eye colour: Blue
Trivia: Normally this segment would continue a joke from before the timeskip, but since Alexandra did nothing for the past three years but train there's nothing funny to say here.
The hunters continued forwards, finally stepping into an arena.
The sounds of a crowd came from above them, they seemed excited for this final phase.
Finally, a voice that was about as loud as the one who'd been leading them around until now, yet a lot deeper, yelled out.
"ARE YOU READY TO THROW DOWN!?"
Everyone was confused by this, until a large man with his muscles bulging so hard they had their own muscles appeared.
This was followed by three other hunters, appearing to be in a team.
"Oh, more elite hunters." Callum noted.
"Introduce them." Zach ordered him.
"What? No, they've already been introduced before. So has Hitoiki, but she was the only one. Just go back if ya wanna know."
"Wait, ya can't do that."
"Just did."
Zach used an annoyed silence, to no effect.
"Now then!" Muskular continued yelling "We shall be your judges for this round." He beckoned to the others behind him.
Roy and Corra seemed to be evaluating the hunters silently,
Morgan continued to look incredibly pissed off, while also having both of her arms broken.
They all had their own motives for being there.
Muskular was always pumped up to see the tournament every single year, so there was no way he could miss it.
Roy and Corra were currently competing to see who could more accurately predict the outcome of the round,
Morgan hadn't originally been planning to attend, but after getting heavily injured in a hunt the day before and being unable to use her sword, despite her protests, Fallon had prevented her from going on any hunts until she was healed, making sure there wasn't a repeat of last time. She had showed up because she still needed to at least see some violence, or else she would die.
"Anyways," Muskular continued "as was already mentioned before, this is a match where all eight of you will fight against many monsters in a row. Of course, the last one standing shall be victorious. But, since we only have a limited number of monsters and don't want to give victory to cowards, you'll also be evaluated on your performance fighting against those monsters, but these points will still be for nothing if you fall unconscious. There's nothing more to explain here."
With that, the other group of hunters disappeared and the gates behind them slammed shut.
"Well, this shouldn't be too bad, right?" Callum pointed out "I mean, we're competing, but there's eight of us, so…"
Just then a Green Nargacuga, Brute Tigrex, Tigerstripe Zamtrios and Black Gravios were released into the arena.
"...Never mind then." Callum finished his sentence with a sigh.
"I'm down for this." Ben thought aloud, running forwards.
"Seems fun." Natasha joined in.
"Alright." Sean shrugged, before beginning to shoot at the monsters right there.
Alexandra had already rushed towards the Gravios, clearly determined to win.
Meanwhile, the mysterious duo had already advanced towards the Nargacuga.
"Just… try to go with the flow." Zach advised him, before also running off.
"I probably shouldn't have come here." Callum thought, now deeply regretting having stolen the medal earlier.
Alexandra blocked a tail swing, before quickly striking the monster's belly.
The Gravios swung again, this one blocked more carelessly.
At this point, Alexandra didn't care about taking too much damage, she simply wanted to win, regardless of the damage she took.
The Nargacuga pounced forwards, only to find nothing where it had aimed. Joshua then appeared to its side "Looking for me?" He asked for style, before bringing his scythe down, blinding it in one eye.
As the monster attempted to ignore this pain and focus on what was going on again, it saw Isaac rushing towards it, before swinging his weapon at its head. The Nargacuga was knocked backwards by the strike, but this was only the beginning.
Isaac continued to strike at it, his attacks only getting faster and more powerful each time. Eventually, it was as though he was weightless.
"Isaac seems to be destroying the monsters with his mysterious weapon!" Hitoiki yelled at, before quietly continuing "Seriously though that is mysterious, what's with that?" She looked over to the others.
Muskular shrugged and Morgan didn't look up from the violence.
"It's an accelaxe. First developed in the Moga region of the New World back in 1260, the weapon uses boosted attacks. As he continues to hit his opponent, it continues to speed up, eventually reaching in a blistering pace far exceeding any other weapon."
"Of course," Corra continued, refusing to stay silent "This comes with serious risks, multiple hunters have lost their lives attempting to control it. This is why it's the least used weapon of all of them. Well, there were versions of it that popped up much earlier than what Roy mentioned, even going back as far as 684, but I guess even less would know about those."
"Well of course not," Roy irritatedly replied "After all, those are only designs and were forgotten about very quickly. What's more relevant here is when it started to be used by more hunters, even if that was still limited."
"Or… did you just not know?" Corra asked back, to a pained sound from Roy before he tried to argue back.
"I just wanted to know how it worked…" Hitoiki thought as a heated debate that would probably last a few days began.
Back at the fighting, Ben hopped backwards to avoid the Zamtrios rolling forwards. Zach fired at as it spun around towards him and leapt through the air, landing where he'd been standing before, but he still found himself pushed back by the impact.
The Zamtrios then fired a stream of water at him, which Zach had no choice but to try blocking.
As the Zamtrios deflated, Ben continued to swing at its side relentlessly, before the Zamtrios finally turned to face him. It pounced forwards, only to be rolled around and have Ben quickly switch to sword mode and begin attacking once again, before then jumping back once the Zamtrios swung its tail around.
Meanwhile Callum and Natasha were barely avoiding the Tigrex's charges, while Sean fired at it, barely moving.
The Tigrex made yet another charge, which Callum leant underneath and slashed at it, before then quickly backing off again.
Natasha struck from the other side, barely blocking one of its strikes as it turned around and rolling out of the way of the rest of the charge.
The monster then suddenly stopped, giving Callum a chance to jump in. He realised his mistake as it began to roar.
The force of the noise knocked him flying, his swords being knocked away. The Tigrex continued to roar, not letting anyone approach.
The moment it was done, Natasha rushed in using axe mode and with one massive strike toppling the monster. She continued to attack without pause.
Sean then finally moved in closer, loading in a wyvern's fire. The Tigrex's head was covered in flames.
Meanwhile, Callum managed to recover, but got in substantially less damage than the rest did before the Tigrex could rise again.
Alexandra managed to finish off the Gravios, but due to her carelessness and rush she had taken too many hits during the fight. Still, she had to continue.
As the Tigrex got back up, Alexandra rushed towards it, piercing its neck.
The Tigrex roared out in pain, pushing everyone back.
The fight between the mysterious duo and the Nargacuga steadily continued onwards, but was of note was the fact that they hadn't taken any damage up until this point. Despite having such great speed, the swift flying wyvern was constantly on the defensive, barely able to catch sight of its opponents.
Its eyes started to glow red and it roared, attempting to stop the hunters for a second.
Without even checking it swung its tail around wildly, in every direction, yet still hit nothing.
"How boring…" Joshua sighed, at which point it swung in that direction, still hitting nothing.
"Should we finish this one off now, Isaac?" He appeared again on the other side of the monster, using a very casual tone.
"Of course." Isacc replied, seeming uncaring.
Joshua jumped into the air while Isaac's axe was swung at a blistering speed. Joshua grabbed his scythe and brought it down towards the neck like guillotine. Isaac's axe swung faster and faster, eventually seeming to be controlling his movements more than he controlled its.
The two strikes hit simultaneously, taking out the target instantly.
As the Nargacuga fell to the ground, Alexandra had already taken out the Brute Tigrex but without any hesitation charged towards the Zamtrios. It attempted to pounce towards her, but she quickly stepped out of the way of this and struck for its side. Ben was pretty annoyed at the idea of someone stepping in to take his kill, so he started attacking even more recklessly. Zach was unaffected by this, figuring there wasn't much reason to care.
In a few more minutes, the monster was down.
Alexandra finally took a second to catch her breath and looked up towards the judges, but a few seconds later even more monsters were released.
A Glacial Agnaktor, Steel Uraagan, Desert Seltas and a Desert Seltas Queen appeared.
Alexandra sighed and charged straight for the Agnaktor. Joshua and Isaac turned their focus towards the Uragaan, leaving the others to deal with the other two.
Callum looked up at the Seltas buzzing around them and remembered he had a grappling hook. He fired at the Seltas, intending to pull it to the ground, but wasn't strong enough for this at all, instead being dragged around with the insect. Figuring it'd look bad to just go back down he stuck with this move and pulled himself towards the monster, slashing at it with his free hand.
Ben and Natasha both began to slash at the Queen, while Sean fired from a distance and Zach more cautiously attacked from the side.
The fight continued on, Alexandra still taking far more hits than she would've liked to. The Agnaktor dug into the ground and started lunging towards her before disappearing back underground. She was able to block each one, but was getting slower at reacting each time. A sigh of frustration, followed by an attack aimed straight for the monster's head.
The Uragaan slammed its chin into the ground, hitting seemingly nothing. Another tail swing where it thought its opponents were, still finding nothing. It then rolled forwards, which signalled Isaac's time to strike. He ran straight towards the advancing monster, with his axe swinging wildly. Eventually, he became like a whirlwind, anything that dared to approach was guaranteed destruction. The two forces smashed into each other with a loud crashing noise. Despite its great size the Uragaan was knocked flying backwards, in confusion as to how it had been stopped.
Joshua then also suddenly reappeared and began wildly slashing at it as it was knocked down. Meanwhile, Isaac had quickly recovered from his own attack and began rushing forwards again, his axe swinging in circles before finally connecting with the Uragaan's head, crushing it into the ground.
Alexandra made one last attack, finishing off the monster she was fighting. Her breathing was now ragged, barely hanging on. Even so, she turned to face the Seltas Queen and charged forwards. The Seltas Queen didn't care for this charge, and stabbed forwards with her pincer tail. Alexandra quickly raised her shield but still found herself completely stopped. She then quickly hopped back to avoid the pincers snapping closed. The Seltas had noticed her and shook off Callum to fly straight for her. Alexandra was unable to respond to this in time and was knocked backwards, crashing into the ground awkwardly.
As she got back up on her feet, she saw the Seltas Queen charging straight towards her. Barely able to move, she unsuccessfully attempted to drag herself out of the way, being knocked away once again.
In spite of this, she picked herself up again. She had managed to hold onto her lance, but had no idea where her shield had gone. She hurriedly stumbled towards the Seltas Queen, who had changed her focus and put everything she had into one final, desperate strike, aimed straight for the monster's side.
The Queen reacted with pain from this and quickly spun around, only to find Alexandra not reacting in the slightest, her eyes just staring forwards emptily.
Everyone watching reached the same conclusion at roughly the same time. She had passed out after the attack, still standing. The cart felynes quickly rushed in, picking her up and bailing just as fast.
"Well at least I wasn't the first out…" Callum thought, before being rushed at by the Seltas and sent flying into a wall, passing out instantly. The Seltas Queen was still enraged by the previous attack and swung around wildly, taking out both Ben and Natasha. Zach found this kind of funny, before being knocked face first into the ground by a tail swipe, no longer moving.
Sean stared at this in confusion, before quickly dodging out of the way of the same tail strike and firing for the monster. He briefly scanned the remaining two, finding that they were still unharmed. Sean briefly muttered in frustration, before focusing on the monster once again. Much like Alexandra, he was determined to win. Of course, this was for entirely different reasons, he couldn't get the prize money without winning.
The fights continued onwards, with the eventual rankings being: Sean in third, Joshua in second and Isaac in first.
Sean dragged himself away from the arena, looking even worse off than the wounded. "Godamnit…" He lamented "Those two bastards took almost all the prize money! I'll never forgive them."
"It would've been better if I'd taken myself out in the last round, huh?" Alicia thought aloud, having slipped behind Sean a few minutes before. Matt also dragged his way along, silently annoyed he hadn't gotten to do anything.
Terrence and Natalie were feeling fairly down after having been taken out in the first round, but they figured that if the one they let take their place had made it somewhere in the tournament it would have been worth it. They saw Natasha and quickly approached her.
"Hey, did you see either an old man or a dude in full armour in the rounds after we dropped out?" Terrence asked.
"No, I think." Natasha replied.
The two of them were silent, both thinking in unison "Wasn't it kind of pointless for us to lose then?"
"Yeah, I guess so." Natasha interrupted their synchronised thoughts.
Lyra and Shoot were still missing, but would probably reappear the next day.
Riko and Anthony also walked away from the arena, vowing revenge against Alexandra for taking them out, despite being likely to have forgotten about it by the next day.
Alexandra was still waiting around inside, more frustrated than they were about this result.
"I finally got a chance to prove how strong I am… Yet this still happened." She looked upwards, not sure what to do "How can I get stronger, beyond what I'm doing now. This won't be good enough to reach the top."
Vert wandered through the forest, still looking for any opponents, unaware the competition was over.
She saw someone in the distance and quietly approached them, only to notice the red glinting eyes.
"Oh yeah, I know that one… What was his name again?" She thought.
Ed turned to see her, also calmly observing.
"This girl is… definitely a part of my group." He thought.
The two of them were now in a duel to the death, the loser would be the one who revealed they had no idea what the other's name was first.
"Well, looks like the tournament's over." Ed sighed.
"Huh? What makes you say that?"
"When was the last time you saw someone other me that wasn't unconscious on the ground?"
"Good point, I guess. Then we should try to find the way out."
Vert turned to walk in a random direction, having absolutely no idea where she was actually going.
Ed remained in place.
"What are you doing?" Vert asked when she noticed this.
Ed remained unresponsive.
"Seriously, what?"
Still nothing.
"Hey, respond, you."
Ed seemed to be frozen.
"Hey, come on already…" Vert decided that the only option was to risk it all "...Eduardo."
Ed's eyes were suddenly filled with life, as he posed smugly "Who are you talking to? That's not my name at all, my name's Edward."
Vert didn't react, leaving Ed feeling unsatisfied, so he continued.
"You know, it's incredibly unfocused of you to just not learn the name of one of your teammates, I mean after all, how are we meant to cooperate if you don't pay any attention to your surroundings? Foolishness, you have much to learn."
Vert still had no response.
"What, trying to use my trick now? Too bad, but it won't work on me, after all I was the one who invented it forty-five seconds ago. Come on, no one likes a sore loser…" Ed's smugness reached its peak "Green." The smugness immediately crashed to the ground, as Vert's previously emotionless facial expression quickly twisted into a grin.
She didn't have to say anything more than "My name's Vert.", for Ed had already destroyed himself by his own hand.
They continued onwards, before finding another unconscious person. What was more surprising was that this time it was Joseph, with a bunch of blood around him.
Ed rushed forwards in confusion while Vert surveyed the surroundings, before finally determining that it was probably safe and also stepping forwards.
Joseph quickly woke up and jumped away from them, drawing his sword before pausing.
"Oh, it's just the two of ya."
"What happened?" Vert asked.
Joseph looked at his surroundings and took a second to remember what happened.
"...I tripped."
There was silence from both sides.
"Then why so much blood?"
"I landed badly."
"There's no way you could bleed that badly from tripping."
"What are you saying? I didn't bleed at all."
"Then how did all this blood get here?"
"That's not blood at all… It's ketchup."
"What?"
"I tripped and landed badly on my bottle of ketchup."
"...Why would you bring a bottle of ketchup to a tournament?"
"Heh… anything could happen at a tournament, anyone knows this. Go in without ketchup and yer life's at risk."
"The things you are saying make no sense."
"My friend Johnguy Mcexists said the same thing as ya."
"I have never heard of this dude."
"Of course you haven't, he went to a tournament without any ketchup a few years ago."
Vert realised that Joseph would continue refusing to tell them anything, so she just gave up.
Joseph made his way away from the arena, finding the other three. He was immediately laughed at for having dropped out in the second round, by the three who had been taken out in the finals.
After having been mocked for long enough he found Nargy. "Ya haven't gotten to show up in a while, huh?"
Nargy didn't care, crawled up and asleep on Joseph's bed, which caused him to have no choice but to crash onto the floor and enter a flashback for exposition.
Joseph charged towards Joshua, the opponent jumping backwards and bringing his scythe down. Joseph immediately stopped himself, the scythe just barely missing, Joshua then placed his scythe back on his back.
The two were now facing each other, with only the slightest amount of distance between them.
Both quickly drew their weapons, but the strikes deflected one another, knocking them both off balance. Joseph stopped himself from stumbling back and stabbed forwards, which Josh quickly stepped out of the way of and swung his scythe around. Figuring that they were going to continue not hitting each other forever, Joseph moved forwards, going past the blade of the scythe and aiming his sword for Joshua's shoulder.
Joshua took a second to react to this but quickly moved backwards, only getting grazed by it. He also pulled his scythe backwards, Joseph not noticing this, only being saved by his aura telling him to dodge.
Joshua noticed this happen and jumped back, before landing hunched over with his scythe raised over his neck. "You're really not normal, huh?" He asked.
"Did ya try to kill me just now?" Joseph asked back, more panicked.
"It's fine, you tried to take out my arm after all."
"No way in hell it's fine!"
"Look, get over it. What's more important here is what let you dodge that attack."
Joseph's response was a confused silence
"Well, looks I don't gotta hold back." Joshua smiled and lept forwards again.
Joseph dodged out of the way of his swing and stabbed forwards himself, only for Joshua to move out of the way with movements he could barely even follow.
Joseph spent a second in confusion, before swinging around, unable to find his opponent. Every time he felt like he was about to hit something, it disappeared and he had to go back to searching. Finally, a presence definitely appeared behind him, leaving him no time to counter but only barely roll out of the way.
The ground almost broke where he had been a few seconds.
Joshua now seemed bored "Hey… are you even trying? If you don't go all out, you'll die, you know."
"Ya can use aura too?" Was all Joseph was able to respond with, trying to recover.
"Oh, that's what you call it? Blessing has more of a ring to it for me, but whatever floats your boat I guess. But yeah, though unlike you I'm not going easy on my opponent for no reason."
Until now, Joseph had been training so that he could use his aura in moderation, but it was becoming clear that if he stuck with this plan he'd die here. So, to survive this encounter, he let the aura take control.
Joshua saw no response from him and charged forwards himself instead, only to have Joseph move completely clear of this strike, now seeing it coming.
Joseph still didn't draw his blade, so Joshua pretended to continue his attack. Joseph fell for this feint and drew his weapon, but the speed of it startled Joshua and left him unable to take advantage of the opening, just barely deflecting the strike. The two circled each other, swinging wildly, not gaining any clear advantage. After almost a minute of this the two of them drew their weapons into one last clash, before both backing off.
"That's better." Joshua grinned "Well then, you pass, even though you're still pretty clearly new to this."
"Pass what?"
"Well, you'll find out. Now then, while you might think you have everything worked out, there's still a lot you don't know."
He raised his scythe to attack, but didn't move, Joseph braced himself in response.
Joshua remained in place, but energy seemed to be drawn into the scythe.
Finally he spoke, remaining upbeat.
"Come back to the arena tomorrow night, assuming you survive this one. If your blessing's good enough, there shouldn't be a problem. Well then… here we go…"
He rushed as fast as possible with the scythe, leaving Joseph with no time to dodge. He realised that even deflecting it would be pointless, as it'd break his sword instantly, so he was left with no choice but to take the hit.
This left him down for a few hours, before finally being woken. It hadn't seemed to do that much damage leaving Joseph in confusion.
"Still though…" Joseph continued thinking "One thing's pretty clear here… I can't let the others find out about this. I've just gotta deal with it myself."
As Isaac and Joshua walked back, Joshua thought it was finally a good time to mention something.
"Oh yeah, Isaac, by the way!"
"What?"
"I found someone to join us back at the tournament, he should be meeting up with me tomorrow."
"I see. What's his blessing like?"
"Dunno, he doesn't seem like he used it much. Didn't have anything special to it, just seemed a little above average in what he could do."
"Not acting when you've been gifted something for justice is a problem, but he can learn. What is his name?"
"Uh… not sure actually. I'll have to find out next time we meet, then we can background check him."
"Joshua."
"Yeah?"
"Do you remember why we do this?"
"Of course, to create a perfect world."
"With every hunter, the chance of them being worthless exists. Before you tell him everything, investigate him. If garbage joined us, then we'd fall apart."
"Got it, still gotta meet him though, so I guess I'll only tell him part of the story."
"That is what you should do. For the perfect world."
"Yeah. For the perfect world."
TO BE CONTINUED
And that finally concludes the tournament arc, which became pretty plot relevant but only in the last chapter.
As for other stuff, Rose Guns Days is cool, though I still need to finish it, but just going off his actions after the first chapter of last season, Gabriel Kaburaya is a level of evil that I feel like none of my plans come near, I'm genuinely really impressed by how much I can hate one person, so I guess Ryukishi07 is just god.