Noticed I haven't done one of these in a long while so…

Disclaimer: I do not own Fire Emblem, or any of its characters, locations, or the DLC (*sigh*)

And now onto the chapter!

Morning found Darren slumped over in his bed, once again sleeping peacefully. After yesterday he was more than a little tired when he came back to his room. As per usual Grima, despite how much colder it was getting recently, was still able to wake up before him somehow. And so the morning wakeup call went how it usually does: with Grima playfully shooting Darren with a ball of energy.

*THUD*

"Ack! Will you stop doing that every time I have to wake up!?" Darren yelled from the floor, as he was forcefully shot off the bed by Grima yet again. The shot itself never really hurt him, it was more the impact he receives when his head lands on the floor. Which really isn't a good thing to wake up to.

Grima snickered from the bed, "Get up earlier then."

Mumbling tiredly, he got up and began getting ready for the day. Pulling on his shirt he shuddered at the cold air, but thankfully it woke him up a bit more than he previously was. He let his mind wander as he began putting on his arm and shoulder braces. If now was when Grima usually 'woke' him up, then his lessons with Lon'qu is probably in an hour or so. His arms were still a little sore from yesterday, so he can't say he was looking forward to it. That is unless Grima was willing to give some energy, maybe he could ask him later. 'Oh yeah,' he thought absently, 'the tournament's toda-'

His eyes widened.

"Oh god! The tournament's today!"

The Other Way - Chapter Nine

Darren was growing more nervous as he walked. After their morning meal, Flavia, Darren–and by extension Grima–, a few of those who lived in the castle and the rest of the Shepherds began making their way into Western Ferox where the tournament was being held. Darren was not too far from Flavia, being her champion and all he had to stay somewhat close. Grima was hiding out in his hood in order to get out of the cold. As odd as it was, Darren himself didn't quite feel it. Sure, it was getting a little chilly, but it wasn't that bad that even the normally shirtless Vaike had to put on a coat. Although when he saw Flavia and the rest of the Feroxi natives take the cold in stride, he just chalked it up to one of the features of his revival. Either that or it was just the differences between worlds.

A sneeze from the right brought him out of his wandering thoughts. Glancing over he saw Robin. The poor tactician was pulling his coat tight around him in attempt to keep warm.

Darren chuckled. "Cold?"

Taking his eyes away from the ground Robin scowled at him. While it would have looked quite intimidating under normal circumstances, at the moment it hardly seemed so with the constant shivering and how his teeth chattered when spoke.

"I'm a-actually h-half t-t-tempted to use a f-fire t-tome right n-now."

Darren laughed some more at Robin's misfortune, Grima silently doing the same. Although it seemed like most of the Shepherds would share the same feeling.

"Well, are you all ready for the tournament?" He asked on a different note.

"Y-yeah, w-we are."

"And you did tell Chrom that the actual plans were done already, right?"

Not even bothering with words anymore he just nodded.

Robin had managed to catch Chrom before he began running around to find the other Shepherds and inform them of his draft plan that used to play a prank on the prince. After explaining that it was just a draft and that the actual plan was already finished he got a tired glare from Chrom, who simply walked away silently. He had the feeling that something might happen to him later on, but oh well, he will deal with it when it happens.

"Oh. He wasn't mad right?"

Robin shrugged. He'd be lucky if he didn't have Frederick accusing him of something again.

"Alright then."

The sounds of snow crunching beneath their feet were all that was heard as the two groups walked to West Ferox.

The coliseum they entered was huge; just the living quarters they saw on the way there was bigger than the barracks and the area Darren had his usual spars with Lon'qu, never mind everything else. Flavia and the rest of her Feroxi left to watch the match from their seats, not without giving Darren a few words of encouragement –which in Flavia's case, was accompanied by a friendly slap on the shoulder– and good luck to the Shepherds. Leaving Darren to follow the Ylissean group to where the entrance to the arena was.

Of course he lagged behind them for a little bit at first, giving Grima an opportunity to escape his hood in order to get him to watch the match from somewhere else. Eventually catching up to the group, he went to the one person he really talked to out of everyone there.

"Heya Robin, I see you're doing better now."

Looking over at him, Robin crossed his arms as he continued walking. "No thanks to you, but yes, I'm doing better now." He responded.

Darren mock frowned at the comment. "Well it's not my fault you guys can't deal with the cold." He taunted lightly.

Arriving at a large set of doors –which could probably pass as a gate– where the others were stopping, Robin scowled at the memory. "I can deal with cold," pointing in the direction of the entrance where they entered he continued, "That was not cold."

On the other side of the doors there was the unmistakable sound of people. A lot of people. Simply judging from just how loud it was from the other side of the door you could tell that it was packed. Unfortunately all this speculation made Darren all the more nervous. Fortunately for him however it turned out that he wasn't the only one affected.

"Sure sounds like a lot of people." Stahl stated nervously as he pulled his horse behind him. Yes, the halls were large enough for them to bring their horses with them.

"Don't get cold feet now!" Sully scolded from beside him. "If these guys wanted a show, we'll give 'em a damn show. Remember now, we're doing this for Ylisse. We need this alliance more than anything right now."

As they all waited for the doors to open, their determination to win rose a bit more. Darren shook off his nerves in favour of finding his confidence once again. Good timing too because soon a booming voice could be heard from behind the doors, momentarily overpowering the cheers from the crowds.

"–…And the challengers would be none other than the West Khan's chosen champions!"

With a groan the two doors were pulled open, revealing the group to their spectators, opponents and battlefield. Like in the game the arena was surrounded by large walls on all sides. Thankfully the amount of space there was to move around on the ground was plentiful, meaning the decision of bringing their mounted ground units a wise one. But then there were the crowds…

'Pretty sure I'm getting a little dizzy now…' Darren thought as he stumbled slightly. With no one else there to tell him otherwise, he would have guessed that a majority of Regna Ferox was attending the event. The others didn't seem to mind the fact that they were being watched by what seemed like thousands of people. Nor did it seem like their opponents at the other end did either.

'Honestly Darren not now. You can deal with stage fright after you win this.' Grima admonished. Finding the cause was easy enough; just a simple look into a few memories and there it was. 'Not even Lissa seems bothered with it.'

It was true. Walking close to Frederick, the groups' only healer seemed to be taking everything in stride.

'She's a princess, she's probably good at dealing with crowds.' Darren reasoned nervously. The cacophony of people seemed to be blending into each other in his ears, eventually becoming one jumbled mess that seemed almost deafening to him.

'Look, if you let this get to you there is a very huge possibility you won't make it past this. So please, try to focus on what's in front of you instead of everything else around you.' Grima worried for his partner, and feared that nothing good would happen if he were to intervene and was caught by the spectators. Both the people of Ferox and Ylisse didn't take too kindly to Plegia at the moment –well more like they absolutely disliked them, and even that's putting way too lightly– and finding out your newest possible ally just so happens to have said nation's 'God' wouldn't look so good for him.

'Okay… deep breaths.' Breathing deeply as he walked, Darren tried his conventional way towards calming himself. Slowly things began to clear out; the mixture of sounds that were blended together seemed to fade into the background. Just in time to watch a familiar confrontation take place.

"Chrom! Look!" Lissa exclaimed.

"I see him."

It went like how it originally did in the game, with Chrom trying to talk to 'Marth' again, only to see that it wasn't going to happen. So instead they 'let their blades do the talking'. With a timely announcement of "FIGHT!" from the loud voice from before, the two withdrew their swords and began their fight.

It was quite a thing to watch actually. The way the two Falchions lashed out at each other, with sparks flying each time they made contact. If it wasn't for the situation everyone was in, it could have easily been seen as a choreographed fight with how the attacks seemed to flow into each other. Of course, that illusion was thrown off a bit when Chrom noticed that his masked opponent used an eerily similar fighting style to his own, but proved his flexibility by quickly adjusting to it.

'I can't believe I have to fight that…' Darren thought numbly as he watched 'Marth' preform the gravity-defying blade spin on Chrom.

'Your only advantage would be to hope that you weren't here in the future-past and she doesn't know who you are, that way you're an unknown factor to her.' Grima supplied helpfully. Once again he was watching from from above, having slipped past the guards outside to make his way to the opening in the top of the large arena.

'Y'know, somehow, I doubt that.' Darren responded dully.

Suddenly a voice shouted to him.

"Darren! Watch out!"

His eyes snapped to the sight of a giant cracking ball of electricity heading towards him. Instinct taking over him for a second, he rolled out of the way as it passed over his head. Quickly getting back up he looked in the direction of where the warning came from. He found Robin launching his own ball of lightning towards the enemy mage that had attacked him while his attention was elsewhere.

It seemed like with that exchange the entire battlefield came to life; with everyone else that wasn't Chrom and Marth drawing out their various swords, axes, spears and tomes. Speaking of their prince, Chrom had quickly run back to his group soon after he noticed some of the enemies making their way to him.

And judging by the confused expression on his face as he returned, he probably had even more questions coming out of the fight than he did at the beginning of it.

"That was… odd." He muttered before dodging out of the way of another bolt of lightning from a second mage.

"Alright everyone," Robin's voice called out to them, "remember the plan."

Grima watched the battle go on with interest. Every now and then he warned Darren whenever he was being shot at by an increasingly annoying thunder mage. After not seeing the first shot fired, which nearly resulted in Darren taking the blow head on if it weren't for the help of Robin, Grima swore he would keep a more watchful eye over the boy.

'Behind you.'

Leaping out of the way of yet another ball of electricity Darren scowled. 'The range on these guys…' he fumed. He soon found out early in the battle that being on the receiving end of ranged attacks was extremely different from within the game, but that was something that should have been expected. What he didn't expect however, was that they could take a shot at him –or anyone for that matter–from basically half of the battlefield away. And it didn't help that there were usually people blocking his path to them. If that was how far it went for normal spells, he dreaded to think of the distance a Mire tome could cross.

Unable to resist a little teasing, Grima laughed, 'Once you learn to shoot like I do you'll be saying how amazing it is.'

'But I'm nowhere near being able to do that aren't I?'

'Well, no.'

'Well until then, ranged attacks are annoying.'

Silence informed Grima that Darren was once again focusing on the task at hand, which in this case was fighting. The overall battle seemed to be going in favour of the Shepherds and their extra. Taking advantage of their mobility, the horse-mounted units did their best to pick off any isolated opponents, and never stayed in one spot for too long. Darren and Chrom went for those that have already taken damage from the attacks of Sully and Stahl, the pair covering each other's backs as they fought. Robin dealt with the more difficult enemies, such as the ranged and heavily armoured ones that the others were having trouble with. Lissa was guarded by Frederick, being both the princess and their only healer; she tended to stay in the back. Of course Frederick also attacked of course, and much like his digital counterpart, he was a monster on the field; essentially leaving no survivors. Of course you weren't supposed to kill in this tournament, but with the way Frederick attacked Grima could almost swear that the man was out for blood. The dragon shivered as he thought this, though it didn't make that much of a difference with how much of it he was already doing. Stupid cold.

Turning his attention back to the ground he saw as Darren took on an axe wielder, and soon effectively disarming him in a similar manner that he did to Vaike. After watching Chrom also deal with one, Grima's eyes looked over to the rest of Marths group.

Or rather, Lucinas group.

That's why he was stunned when he saw the direction the masked princess was looking at.

It wasn't on the battlefield. Nor was it even level with the ground. No…

She was looking right at him.

'Darren,' Grima said suddenly through their mental link, the tone of voice he used made Darren pause in his advance. Confident that there wasn't much danger of being attacked at the moment, since the rest of the remaining enemy's attention was focused on the deadly duo of Stahl and Sully, he looked skyward to find the dragon. Seeing a tiny black dot high up in the otherwise bright sky after a few seconds of searching made him worry slightly for Grima's cover.

'What's up?' He asked curiously. There was also the thought that he hadn't heard Grima sound like that before at all. And even as half a second past by since he asked, a feeling of dread began to grow.

'Lucina's looking at me.'

Darren stood still as he processed the words for a few seconds. His mind coming up with possibility after possibility of what this could mean. Finally after coming up with the best response he could come up with at the moment, he asked: 'Does she look happy to see you or does she look mad?'

'…

'She's wearing a mask you idiot!' Grima roared inside his mind, involuntarily making him raise his hand to his ear to block out the sound as he cringed noticeably. 'This isn't the moment to act like a fool Darren.' He calmly added afterwards.

'Well what do I do then?' Darren asked.

A sigh. 'I guess now's as good a time as any to test out if we were in the future-past.' Grima said reluctantly. 'Go and fight her.'

"Darren? Are you all right?" A voice asked worriedly. Ending the mental call Darren jumped slightly and whirled to where he thought the voice came from. His eyes quickly settled on the forms of Lissa and Frederick, both of which were riding on the latter's horse.

"I-I'm fine Lissa," he said in attempt to act like he didn't just get scared by the sudden arrival of the two. "Why?"

"Well, you were just standing there. I thought you might've been hurt or something." She responded. Frederick had simply remained silent. It was unnerving with how he stared at him, obviously studying him for whatever reason. And after watching just how easily the Great Knight was able to take down his foes, Darren didn't want to get even close to his bad side. Fell-Dragon on his side or not.

Aside from a few cuts here and there, none of them deep enough for it to be dangerous, and a scorch mark on his clothing attire from when a ball of lightning got way too close for comfort, he was relatively fine and dandy.

"I'm fine, thanks Lissa."

"If you aren't hurt then what were you doing?"

"I was…" he hesitated slightly, "thinking."

Growing curious, the princess asked a simple, "About what?" It seemed to slip both of their minds that a battlefield really isn't the place for having conversations, something that Frederick immediately thought, but didn't voice. But this was the world of Fire Emblem, so conversations like this would probably take place sooner or later, perhaps in even worse conditions.

"W-well uh… I was thinking about… whether or not to take on the main West Ferox champion by myself."

"Marth?! By yourself?!

"Yeah, I mean, it's only fitting that I do right?" Quickly building up his confidence in the reasoning, Darren continued. "Both of us are the main champions for the two sides. And I'm pretty sure that if you guys didn't arrive when you did, we would have ended up facing each other here anyways."

"But you saw how he fought against Chrom!" Lissa pressed. "And I know you've been putting up good fights lately, but I don't think that's a good idea."

Finally speaking up, Frederick agreed. "Milady is right Darren, it wouldn't be wise to challenge him without any aid. I would try to assist you, but that would put milady in danger."

Out of the corner of his eye he saw Sully take down that annoying thunder mage, and knew he was running out of time to get his one-on-one, and possibly the answers that could come along with it. "Look, I'll go after him now and you guys can go get Robin or Chrom to back me up when they finish everyone else off. By then either I would have beaten him by myself, or worn him out enough that you guys wouldn't have any trouble taking him out. Got it?"

Seeing them both nod, although they still seemed doubtful, he ran off. He quickly ran past Chrom and Robin as the two were fighting both a Knight and the last Fighter on the field, the two of them throwing him a surprised look as they saw him, before they were forced to continue fighting due to the attacks of the other pair.

'Grima, if you don't mind, I'd like a boost before I do this,' he politely asked. And though he didn't hear a response, he could almost feel the amusement coming from the other side of the link. Immediately after that something that could only be described as an adrenaline rush flowed through his body, arms and legs forgetting their previous aches and injuries. Afterwards he felt just like he did before the tournament began; well rested, nervous and the smallest ounce of excitement.

'Thank you.'

He came to a stop. Across from him was the only person who could give him any answers, no matter how pointless they really were. 'His' face was covered by a mask, so looking for any changes in facial expressions was pointless, and if he were to judge by the last time and his knowledge, asking any questions was too. So his only hope was to find out through the one thing that he had learned since coming to this world: combat.

Lifting his arm up, he pointed at the masked swordsman in front of him, his blades coming out in the middle of the gesture.

"Let's get this show on the road."

AN: Finally got it done. This chapter seriously shouldn't have been this hard to write, but it was. Now originally the whole tournament (and then some) was supposed to take up this chapter, but that idea was so quickly demolished once I saw how much it took to get this down. So I extended the previous work and decided to have the fight and what I have planned afterwards. And I wanted to do a Birthday special and upload two chapters at once, but as you can see from when I upload this... that didn't work out. But as compensation for that, I will upload the other chapter quicker than usual.. I hope.

So as per usual, if you've enjoyed the series so far, follow and favourite it. And if you enjoyed the chapter feel free to leave a review.