Thudding, mauling, yelling. Men, and a handful of women, trod beneath the boots of their peers and slamming into one another. A scrum of unbridled violence erupting amidst it all, whatever rules existed in this sport of theirs seemed rather loose to say the least. Here was a mouse of a woman pinning a significantly larger man into the pitch and beating him bloody with both fists – seemingly intent to ignore the game unfolding around them.

“I love this!” Jura cried, raising her hands in tune with the rest of the wild crowd to support her team. In this case, that of her school, though she really didn't know what was happening. It reminded her of a war unfolding on the green grass below. Mages pounding one another and carving up the pitch with magic imbued stomps. “Why haven't I heard of this before!?”

“You should have!” Astrid shouted. It was so loud and raucous here that she had to, lest she be caught in the storm of howling voices. “It's the most popular sport in the successor states!”

It was the violence combined with flashy and nuanced magic to make it one of the most popular sports in the world - according to Astrid.

Jura wasn't surprised it was well liked, but still, the most popular? Doubtful. Whether this sport existed in Kriegstad or not, nothing could possibly trump the roar of the arena. So loud that the whole city could hear them. Twice a week, to the furthest reaches of the place. Over a million people lived in that city, according to her old master, and it seemed like they all came out for the gladiatorial matches.

This game lacked the visceral, bloody conflict and stakes of death, but it had more impact than one might expect from a game involving running with a ball. There were different game modes and 'leagues' for blitzball, but in Amistad it was mostly only the various universities and academies that participated at a collegiate level. They had a professional team, apparently, and junior or intermediate league as well.

Typically it was a game of 11 vs. 11. Two wings, two fullbacks, a halfback, two strikers, three midfielders, and a sovereign. The king, of sorts, typically the goalie. This time, the match was 35 on 35, and it was a madhouse. Jura liked this game and its lack of overly limiting regulations. Gladiator matches to the death weren't the norm in Krieg, in all honesty. They existed, but the majority of the matches were until incapacitation or maiming. For normal fighters, it was rare to be able to overcome the power of enchanted armor or other artifacts through pure force of arms.

Here, there was obviously no killing. No maiming or tearing of flesh, but there was blood. All projected magic beyond a certain distance was against the rules except for defensive barriers and wards. Every player was a competent mage, showcasing a vast panoply of talents to the crowd. Typically those talents involved elemental counters, slamming into one another at close range. Wrestling or tackling another player down and engaging in a microcosm conflict with them in a bid to either bait a penalty or disable them for a while.

Transmutation was dominant here in a way that people might not see in the outer world. It was largely pushed to the side in lieu of the far easier and far more versatile art of enchantment. Jura had met, even fought people with a spot of talent for transmutation, but she'd never seen anyone so proficient at it as Sigi was. Switching skillfully between components of the discipline. Making it look like she was a titan amongst children rather than a mage, it wasn't a flashy school of magic but it certainly worked.

One moment, Sigi Faeron the fullback – a crowd favorite – would be so fast as to blur ahead of Alex. Bending at unnatural angles, thin and lithe, bursting into ripping muscle that would've torn her uniform had they not shifted with her.

Defending her sovereign, through pure physical domination of an opposing male team that she towered over, even before the magic. It was the fullbacks job to defend, the strikers job to push the offensive, the halfbacks job to define lanes, and the wings... Jura wasn't sure – in a match this big the six wings didn't seem to do much. Prowling around the outside and passing most times, smaller – quicker players. As for the sovereign and striker in one, Alex, her job was to maintain position in the center and score in the 'three five' game mode.

A job she did very well based on how many people were holding up signs with her name on it. Alex seemed by far and away the most celebrated player on the pitch.

“Gooooooooooal!” The cry seemed to stretch onto an eternity, whoever this commentator was had an incredible set of lungs on them – that was for sure. Jura clapped and cheered along with the rest, caught up in the passion of it all. Alex was so much faster than the other team, making it look easy as they took a lead of 3-1 against their division rivals. There were race horses that would most assuredly be outstripped in a dead sprint once the woman got going.

Her air infusion magic was just as dominant as Sigi's earth and water infusions matched with her transmutation. One was an unstoppable object, and the other an immovable force. The perfect duo, making many of the other players look a bit irrelevant, truth be told...

“Isn't it exciting!?” Astrid had surprised Jura. It was an incredibly violent sport. When in the scrum, with the ball loose or unaccounted for, the field would devolve into a bloody fistfight with players jumping on one another like animals. And Astrid, for all her elegance and finery, bayed loudly for it. Perhaps not so surprising. This was the same of three girls who said they went out to kill monsters 'for fun and pocket change'. Making adventuring sound like a hobby, it was pretty easy to chalk it up to some kind of mental illness.

“It is.” Jura nodded. “How do I sign up?”

Royal Road is the home of this novel. Visit there to read the original and support the author.

–

“You are... At an acceptable level as far as raw ability goes.” Lina observed, standing over a pile of meat again. She didn't know how it was possible, but she was aware Tyr could hear her. They'd been training for weeks and his endless list of unique skills astounded her time and time again, not that most of them would help him win a fight – but there was novelty there. “You have good instincts, and you learn well enough, but you need an outlet. You should focus on defensive wards and swordsmanship, you are too slow off the counter and your riposte could use a lot of work. Being ambidextrous is a talent but your left leg lags behind your right-side dominant body. You overextend no matter how many times I tell you not to.”

“I could have defended against all of those spells.” Tyr's mouth said from the pile. “But that's not the point of this. Someone at your level will never be my match, but that is not the level I am trying to train against. I let my armor drop because I can pull my flesh out of your thorny nets, but I can't say the same of white mithril.”

“Oh really, my level?” Lina laughed, bold faced and looking down at him. “Your talent for the arcane is laughable, and I don't mean that as an insult... Necessarily. Level three is your maximum and even then it's so thready and unstable you'd be better served with a more advanced level two spell. You can be proud all you want, but I promise that I am going easy on you.”

“Alright.” Tyr nodded, rising first as a bloody, skinless cadaver, his body stitching itself together at an intense rate. Every time he was struck down, it seemed to get faster. Lina wasn't sure if that were true, or just confirmation bias, they'd sparred hundreds of times and it seemed like it. “Cast your strongest spell at me, then.”

“Big sister Lina!” Farron laughed from his spectating position mounted on the back of Okami. “Kill him! Eat his bollocks!”

“Chill, man...”

“Eh...” Lina frowned in the little boys direction. The kid had some... Issues. But she did as Tyr asked, the only level four spell she was capable of casting with a one hundred percent success rate and very little delay.

“Deep Cradle!” She shouted, spinning her open hands together, clutching them into a claw perpendicular to her hip before raising them upwards, splitting them, and slamming them into the ground. For all of Tyr's mediocrity, healing factor notwithstanding, he had a tendency to show boldness in the face of danger. Throwing himself into it haphazardly without much face given to any kind of hesitation a man might feel. Facing down the score of whips that burst from the ground, the water table beneath the soil vibrating energetically in response to Lina's magic.

Just as it was about to hit him, though, something miraculous happened. Tyr had begun to develop techniques as Lina had suggested, but he still had that vain aesthetic, refusing to speak them unless necessary. His hand raised, and inches from his body, the spell went wild, the bands of pressurized liquid bursting into vapor. Lina watched open mouthed as the air around him blurred like the flat plains of Varia during a hot summer, the magic unraveling. He hadn't resisted the spell through sheer force, but rather.... Devoured it? Her mana was rushing into his body, groaning under the pressure, not quite so mundane as an absorption.

It was more like he'd shattered the spell and allowed the mana powerful it enter his own body...?

As impressive as it was, it had a cost. Tyr's veins popped into relief against his skin, turning dark and blue. He hacked violently, spitting out a mouthful of blood. Regardless, he had broken a level four spell – even a rather intermediate one, and remained standing. It was impressive, even if Lina didn't want to admit it.

“What was that...?” She asked.

“A technique, one that I am most assuredly not going to use in the future” Tyr replied. Not mentioning that it was actually nothing of the sort. All he'd done is form his spira into a collection of discs, serrated shields of a sort and countering the magic with them, and then he'd gathered them all up and crammed the foreign mana into his body. Which was not the greatest sensation, all told, he thought it would be cool to suck magic up but that definitely wasn't how it worked. “It's harder on my body the more opposite the element is, you are so difficult an opponent for me because our elements are not compatible. That's why I asked you, remember?”

“That's only true if we are of a similar, or you a lesser... Er... Call it power, degree of talent. Like, scissors beat rock, but when I'm up against someone far stronger than me those same scissors could cut my own hand. Water expands as it's boiled, pressurizing a tea pot and trapping me in scalding steam of my own making. If I was caught in that reaction meeting a stronger fire mage, it could kill me, elemental affinities only go so far. Except this time, you didn't use fire – did you?”

“I did not.”

“Spira, then?” Lina asked. She was aware, and had been for a while. But knowing was not doing, and she'd never made any headway into understanding what that enigmatic energy source actually was. “But I'm assuming you can't just use that all of the time?”

“No.” Tyr answered, shaking his head before spitting blood again. The coppery, iron tang of it filling his mouth. A wound that would not heal any faster than that of a normal person, by the look of it, some side effect of what he'd tried to do.. “It hurts quite a bit, and has an obvious downside. Hurts my body, for lack of a better way to phrase it.””

“What is your motivation for fighting?” Lina suddenly questioned him, crossing her arms and frowning. “When I first began training as a squire to become a paladin, one lesson was true throughout all of the instruction I received. Men or women without convictions are weak. Why do you think are you weak?”

“I am strong.” Tyr said, his back straightening, chest puffing out with a vanity and pride that was fairly rare in a person like him. He was arrogant, and Lina knew it, but he was realistic as well – capable of observing his own faults – perhaps he'd changed in that vein, too. “I am stronger than anyone or anything you've ever met. And one day, you'll see it. When I go out, I'll leave a second sun burnt into the retinas of anyone lucky enough to see me.”

“Were you always this bad...?” Lina's hilarity rose, laughing at the ridiculousness of what he was saying.

“Bad, as in?” Tyr faced her, raising an eyebrow. “Pompous and self assured?”

“More like violent and dramatic, I already knew that you were a narcissist. Were you always so cold and ruthless, perhaps even goalless?”

“Hmm, well. No.” Tyr shook his head. “No, I was not.”

“What were you like, then?”

“Do you really want to know? Because it's a long story.”

“I've got plenty of time.”

“Alright.”

What kind of man are you? Tyr had heard this question many times from that voice in the back of his head, and he hated it. What kind of man was he? It wasn't about that. It was the nauseating reality of who he'd been as a child that bothered him the most. Once he'd remembered, he hadn't been able to go very long without thinking about it.