A Slytherin Without Ambition
11.
The finals are a far cry from the semi-finals. Not fun, but equally necessary. They aren't just fighting each other, but Iona's preconceptions, Ruuko's lack of understanding about her ambition… They are fighting for their reason to fight, and Ruuko has them: for her friends, for herself, to get to know people at that intimate level she just can't manage by talking to them… And it iss a recurring theme, she realises. She's met all her friends that way, after a fashion. Yuzuki defending her, defending Hitoe. Kazuki giving them the knowledge to fight back. Tama cheering them on. Even Akira and Iona, being the antitheses to help her understand all that.
Iona has been right, in a sense. They are similar in the sense that they are the sort of people who have to fight to find their aspirations. But she is also wrong. She doesn't fight for the sake of fighting, for the sake of watching other people's suffering (and Iona does that, she's realised, somewhere between Akira's public humiliation and that final match), or for that doped up feeling of adrenaline (and Iona does that too, if that lopsided, sweating grin is anything to go by) but to protect her friends, and herself, and the things she holds dear.
And, this time, she thinks she can hold on to her family too.