Whoops, another month-long delay. Sorry again. I'll do better next time.

Anyways, I don't own Yu-Gi-Oh 5Ds or Fire Emblem, but I do own my OCs… Enjoy!

Chapter 5

Three days. The tournament is in three days. I have all of three days to prepare, when I still don't feel that I'm going to be able to hurt our opponents. Three days, when our opponents have probably been training for several years or their entire lives. I mean, I must have some knowledge about how to fight—after all, I fought the Risen. I just don't think my skills are up to the level that some of the others are.

The first night, and into the next day, I spend my entire time getting used to the quaint inn and Regna Ferox's war-like nature. Then I'm still intimidated, so I stay cooped up in the room I share with Akiza, Sully, and Xylia. I don't know where Akiza is, but I know that Sully is out at the training grounds, and Xylia is on one of the beds, scribbling into a notebook and muttering orders under her breath. Likely planning a hypothetical battle or something.

I sigh, leaning back in the chair next to the window. I don't want to train now, and yet… I can't just sit around and do nothing. Wait a second, my tome! I can finally see what the heck it is about! I reach to my belt, removing the ancient, red-backed book from its pouch. A small jolt of electricity runs through me, and I can sense the power emanating from it.

Opening it to the table of contents, I see the blank spaces on it, and the two lines of text. While the Rear Claw chapter sounds interesting, I'll look at it later. Chapter 8: Envoy seems to talk to me, as much sense as that makes. I note the page number and flip to it.

The first page as a picture of me on it. Underneath, there is a paragraph. "Sky Fudo, Envoy of the Crimson Dragon. Awakened on May 12. Class: Signer. Wields tomes and swords."

"Okay…" I mumble, mostly confused by the statements made. I turn the page and frown. The next two, three, four pages are blank. It's only the fifth page I get to that has writing on it. It has the subtitle "Chilling Flames", and underneath it is a list. For a moment, I have no idea what it means. Then I realize it's a list of spells.

There are about ten of them, with a wait time for after it's used. The lowest time is five minutes, and the longest time is… six months. The thing that makes it even stranger is that the one with the six months wait time is also titled Chilling Flames.

'Must be powerful if it has to wait six months between uses,' I think. 'Though, I wonder what it does…'

I continue to flip through the pages, but the rest of it is blank. I sigh, closing the book. 'Why is there so much empty space?' I think. 'Could there be more people that I have to find?' It would make sense, considering the fact that only chapters 5 and 8 are visible. What's to say the others don't exist?

"Eureka!" Xylia shouts from her position on one of the beds. "That makes another battle won, and only one casualty. Hmm… now to make it no casualties…"

"Xylia? I have a question," I say.

The dark-haired tactician blinks and looks up on me. "Oh goodness, I had no idea you were in here, Sky." She shrugs, shaking her head. "Well, what's the question?"

"How do you use magic?"

I can practically hear the gears turning in her head. "That's a… difficult question. All I do is read off an incantation from my tome, and point at the enemy. Then the page turns to dust, and I use the next one," she replies. "Why, have you started looking at your own tome?"

"Yeah, and, well… it's different, I think. No incantations listed; just names and times," I say. "Thanks for answering my question, though."

"It was no problem," Xylia says. Her eyes wind up on the window. "Would you look at that! It's almost sunset already!"

XXX

On the third and final day of preparation, I decide that training is the best course of action. I seriously think I just got lucky during that fight with the Risen. I can't fail tomorrow either, because Ylisse is counting on all of us to get help.

When I head down to the training field—which is literally a field and a bunch of practice dummies that seem totally ignored as the people in it are sparring with each other—I start to question if I'm doing the right thing. For one thing, the majority of the people out here are men, and they're all basically having a contest to see who's the strongest. I think I even see one guy sitting on a much smaller one and yelling with fury…

"Huh, never expected you to come down here," a voice says.

I turn, and see the woman with short red hair, dark pink eyes, and armor exactly like Stahl's only the same color as her eyes looking at me with a touch of curiosity. "Well, I need some practice… but it doesn't look like I'll be able to do much here. Any suggestions, Sully?"

She laughs, "Well, you could go to the women's training field instead."

I feel the color drain from my face. "There… there are different ones?"

"Yep. Can't say I'm surprised you didn't know that, since you've been in that room the entire time," Sully replies.

"I was… uh… reading," I say. Then I shake my head. "Never mind that. Where's the other field?"

XXX

Sully ends up coming with me to the other field (something about none of the men wanting to spar with her along with several uses of the word damn, which still makes me uncomfortable for some reason). The women's practice field is drastically different from that of the men's. It's mostly empty, actually, with Flavia and only a few people I don't recognize in here, and the practice dummies are actually in use.

'Huh, I was honestly expecting more people to be in here…' I think. 'Well, no one from the Shepherds, anyways.' Lissa is a healer, after all, and doesn't really fight. Xylia has been too busy plotting strategies. Sumia, whose complete clumsiness reminds me of someone (I don't know who, though, just that she wears glasses), wouldn't want to practice here anyways, and Maribelle…

A shiver runs up my spine. The first and only time I met the blonde-haired, pink-eyed young woman with a light-pink parisol that she clings to for dear life, she drafted a two-page list of my faults at "being a proper lady".

Needless to say, I still don't like her, though if she's another of the healers, I'd best get on her good side…

"Hey, you gonna train or just stand there like a damned idiot?" Sully shouts, snapping me out of my thoughts.

"Uh, yeah, I'll train," I reply quickly.

"Good, you can spar with me, then!"

Before I know it, Sully is attacking me with a wooden sword, and I'm fighting back.

XXX

By the end of the day, I've only managed to beat Sully twice. The first time was an accident, as a Feroxi woman made her trip, giving me ample time to knock away her fake sword and pin her to the ground.

The second time, however, was no fluke. I knocked her sword away fair and square.

"Gah, looks like you win this time," Sully groans, clearly upset that someone beat her.

"Heh… I… did…" I say between breaths. "I need to… sit…"

With absolutely no grace whatsoever, I plop to the ground. This so-called "training" with Sully has completely wiped me out. I hope nothing is sore by tomorrow, when everything I do matters to every resident of Ylisse…

XXX

Stahl helps me onto his horse, and I can't believe I didn't ask for his style of combat earlier. I don't think I've ever ridden a horse before. Nothing seems to be surfacing in my barely-there memory.

Once he mounts the horse (apparently a female one, whose name is Jade), I lean closer. "Any, uh, suggestions for how to, eh, fight and not fall off?" I say as quietly as I can.

He tilts his head back. "You've never ridden?"

"No."

"Uh… don't squeeze your knees too close. Jade might buck you off if you do," he replies quietly. "You need both arms to fight?"

"I can make do with one."

"Then hold on to me, I guess… There isn't much to attacking, by the way. I let Jade do the leg work, and swing my sword when I'm close enough," Stahl says.

"O…kay…"

And with that, we enter the arena.

To be continued…

This is it! Next chapter is the tournament, and Sky will reveal one of her tome's strengths…

Thanks to Ulrich362 for reviewing the previous chapter!

I hope you all leave a review to tell me how I did!