Motoyasu stood there, pointing his Spear at Naofumi for a few moments, before lowering it down and sighing, obviously frustrated as he spun the thing dramatically, and then slammed the butt of it on the ground, before pivoting in a way that was tailor made to show off not only his strength at how deep it had been driven, but how agile he was, as he spun on it as the center, and then pointed towards the King and Pope.
"Can you two please explain to this idiot what I'm talking about, I don't think I'm supposed to say anything else to him after issuing that challenge…I think," he says, and you can almost see the King 'sweat drop' like an anime, while the Pope lets out a very genuine sounding laugh.
"Sir Shield Hero, you must understand, the Princess' deeds require punishment. Not only the harm she caused you, but this nation as a whole is extensive. Were she anyone but my daughter, I'd have already given her to the executioner for dealing with. Her life was spared only because I had to be sure of her guilt before I allowed her to face that end," explained the King, and Naofumi looked about to shout something.
I could almost hear him demand to know if the King was really that heartless, to kill his own daughter, but Melty grabbed his arm from her perch on Filo's back before he could say something absolutely stupid and stared into his face in the same way Lucia had been at me a few minutes before, making me wonder if that was just a trait women of this world had. Regardless, it seemed to knock some sense into him, as he scoffed, but bit his tongue and didn't say the things he'd obviously been about to say.
"So, if you win, you what, get to keep her like a slave or something?" he asked, and Motoyasu spun around, as he grit his teeth, but took a deep breath, and slowly let it out before speaking.
"Myne, for all she has done, was part of my party. I can't…she's evil, she…I heard what she did to those knights. They were good, loyal men, willing to follow her orders even when they knew they were wrong, and she wasted those lives. I can't overlook that, no matter that she's a woman," he said the last like it was some perfect defense of a person, being a woman, but he then shakes his head.
"Therefore, I am giving her a chance at redemption. If I win, she keeps her life, and her gear, so she can continue living as an Adventurer. Perhaps even eventually becoming a good person if she saves enough people," he didn't sound confident in that, and looking past his shoulder I could see the expression on the Princess' face, and even her rolling her eyes, as she obviously didn't believe it either.
"And if I don't fight you, she just dies then? What if I don't want her to?" he asked, which was a fair point, but the King shook his head.
"Her crimes are great, against you and against this nation as a whole. Even were you to 'forgive' my daughter's transgressions, the murder of a dozen men before a man of the cloth cannot be ignored, let alone what she admitted to doing in the past. Thus, the only way she might be spared is if this becomes a matter of honor between two Heroes," he explained, and Naofumi swore. Not a good one either, as it was short and terse. I would need to teach him a few longer ones, with more consonants later.
"So if I want her to face any kind of punishment, I have to leap to killing her? Otherwise she goes completely free?" he asked, and Motoyasu shook his head this time.
"Dude, she's been disowned. The King has declared her no longer in the Royal line of secession," he explained, and the green haired young woman whispered into his ear.
"Er, succession rather. Even when I win this, she's not going back to the castle. She gets her adventuring gear, the stuff we bought her, and that's it. I won't have her in my party after what she did," he declared, and took a moment to turn and give her side eye. She had the temerity to try and look 'sad' at this, but she gave it up a moment later, and glared back at him, causing him to scoff.
"Still sounds like she's getting off easy," commented Naofumi, and it was starting to become obvious he was trying to delay making his decision, to accept the duel or not.
"Maybe she is, but I still don't want to see her die," countered Motoyasu simply, and I couldn't help but nod with that. I thought Myne deserved jail time as well, locked up until her red hair turned grey or the like. But striping her of her power, making her 'just' an Adventurer, with none of the politics. She'd probably die anyway, but it would be her own fault then, not something her father was forced to do.
"And why are you against her now, anyway? You seemed okay with the rest of the stuff she got you to do," he said, Motoyasu looking angry with him, but taking a breath, holding up a hand and curling in the fingers one by one, before breathing out again.
"Idiot, I did those things because I trusted her. You still think I did that after she tried to kill her sister, Bard, set fire to a mountain while blaming you for it, all right in my face?" he demanded, and I had to admit, those were some compelling bits. Probably the 'killing her sister', and 'blaming Naofumi for something she clearly did' were the important two of those, but it was nice to feel included.
"Not that we would have trusted her to begin with if someone had bothered telling us she killed that group of knights she blamed on Naofumi," commented Ren, looking at me, and Motoyasu looked back at him, and then, surprisingly, shrugged.
"Eh, you might not have, but with no proof and only one old guy's word on it? I would have had doubts. Not that it matters. She outed herself, and thanks to Lucia, we got the truth out of her," he declared, before spinning his weapon around to point at Naofumi again.
"So there it is. Face me in battle for Myne's freedom, or don't and she dies. And don't even think about throwing the match, because I want to earn this," he says, and Naofumi, despite everything, barks out a laugh, while stepping forward.
"You say that like you have a chance if I DON'T throw this match. You've lost every fight we've had so far, from the duel, to the race, to that fight on the cliffside. Why do you think a change of clothes will make any difference?" he gauded, obviously accepting the duel, as we, in his group, backed away from everything, giving the fighters room to decide this, even though, in all honesty, we probably should have come towards the third group of the Heroes' Party members.
"Dude, you cheated in every one of those. Do I need to remind you that you used MONSTERS in our duel? Or were riding a one of a kind, ROYAL filolial in our race? And in the marketplace, Filo got the drop on me, I didn't see it coming, before you bring that up. As for the cliffside…well, that wasn't exactly a fight between us, now was it?" he asked, and Naofumi scoffed, while, at the same time, Ray and Lucia looked at each other, and then walked around the pair, giving them a wide berth to come stand near us, as they began to circle each other.
"You have a lot of explaining to do," said Ray as they got closer, and then stood to either side of me. Lucia looking back towards Filo, Raphtalia, and Melty, before, with an ability that reminded me of my own (Blink), she teleported the Princess from the filolial's back and into her own grip, then brought her to stand with the three of us.
"You'll be safer with us, Princess. Do not argue," she said, that last sounding very much like a threat, as she glared at me, making me swallow, hard, before we both nodded, and then watched the coming battle, as Motoyasu's spear shifted into a form I hadn't seen before, with both ends having sharp points that he twirled around, before holding it up into the sky.
The Pope, having been waiting for this sign, clapped his hands together, and I could see his whole group doing the same, their voices carrying just a little, though not nearly enough to understand what they were saying exactly. It became obvious it was some kind of spell though, as a bolt of lighting soon fell from the heavens, forking as it got a few meters above the pair, and then becoming something about the size and shape of a small circus tent over them.
The 'cage' of lightning began to glow, as the space between the 'bars' filled in with magical energy, sealing the two inside, and leaving us to watch as the battle between Heroes was joined again, their weapons with arcane might, before Motoyasu, with a great cry leapt towards Naofumi, beginning a battle for the fate of Princess Myne.
(A/N: Yeah, short one this time, sorry, I tried to stretch some of this out a bit, but didn't want to go all exposition dump on you without giving my readers a sweet battle to at least dig into a bit. That said, I do want to address some of the events we do see here, as I'm sure there are some questions.
First, Motoyasu, in Reprise at one point straight says he thinks Naofumi cheated in every battle…and he does kind of have a point. That 'duel' was a farce the moment Naofumi used the Orange Balloons. Worse, their DPS is shown to be next to zero, so three of them(In the anime, in the manga it was straight up a dozen) taking him from full to half health in seconds is a bit absurd. Again, this is AFTER they had a short, easy battle with a boss, and while he didn't take a hit from that, being killed by slimes in a few minutes is kind of weird for someone able to take down an act 2 boss so easily.
Beyond that, he's basically right about the race…but then Myne was cheating for him there(rewatching it, it's doubtful he knew ANYTHING was going on, as he barely seemed to be aware of the world around him, focusing on the race itself), and instead only saw that Filo is a unique creature, with special stats and abilities, which is what allowed Naofumi to win. It's true…but it's also true that Naofumi would see it differently, and Myne cheated first…in his opinion anyway, considering Filo was ALWAYS special. But then she wouldn't have known about that, so…mulligan I think.
Now, why did he come around on Myne so quickly in this version? The most prominent is something from Canon. He believes that beautiful women cannot lie, and thus, truly believes everything Myne feeds him. You could ask why he doesn't believe Raphtalia and Filo…well he does, but he also thinks Naofumi is poisoning their minds, so it's easy for him to dismiss them as outliers.
However, in this version of the Pursuit Arc, he saw Myne cast a spell right at Bard, and she declared in no uncertain terms she was going to kill Melty. Then she set a mountain on fire and blamed Naofumi. Seriously, me and the betas went looking for more references to that event, but her burning down a mountain/forest is literally never brought up again in most canons, and the one it is, the light novel, it's a footnote of her crimes.
This despite the fact that she either did it right in front of the guys, as there is no reason to start the fire if Naofumi is already far away, thus she had to do it soon after, no time for them to go back to town and then to bring the knights back to do it. Worse, again, Motoyasu knows that Naofumi HAS a prisoner at the moment, one with no powers at all to protect themself, so he sees it as endangering people recklessly.
He would still TRY and say maybe he's missing something. Then the Sword of Truth comes out, Lucia, another beautiful woman, revealing her lies. He still feels responsible for her, but he's no longer trusting of her, as he respects Lucia, similar to how he seems to respect the other members of his party, who admit to what Myne was doing, before kicking him to the curb after the Gammara fight.
So this Motoyasu got the reality check from the Return Arc a bit early, and doesn't suffer the break from reality that one caused, as it's centralized on ONE woman, and not on the gender as a whole because the cheer squad hasn't betrayed him in this one.)
