“I’m here.” I spoke in a firm attuned voice.

The man below me sat jotting with his quill on a piece of paper, stopped and lingered on his remaining thought, before slowly raising his head upwards and greeting me with his uncanny and eerie smile that protruded a two-faced angel. His dark hair slowly fell into his eyes and he swept his palm across, correcting it and pushing his oval glasses up his nose.

“Wonderful. Shall we see ourselves off to a different place, or would you perhaps like to indulge in some pleasantries. I’ve got time.” The pearl glisten from his toothy smile darkened as his eyes fell into an intense aura.

“I don’t think you’ll have as much time as you nearly expect. I propose we set off. It would only be fair to the both of us.” I replied, a passive aggressive sense in my words as I returned an equally revolting smile. Our eyes locked and my scarlet hue began ferociously sparking with his lifeless black clad stare.

He turned his head to the gate to enter into the receptionist's desk. “Follow me.”

I promptly listened to his words and opened the closed hinge, marching behind him as we walked past a set of doors and a bald man intermittently changed roles with Lloyd. We continued to walk for another few minutes before we arrived at a great hall blinded by the sight of nothing. That was, until he snapped his fingers and a bright incandescence began bursting into a bright flame and illuminating the path ahead of us. The cold air of the mountains reached even deep inside here and the moisture in the air clung to the back of my dry throat. My body felt awfully sticky from the sweat I accumulated before I came here.

Fibres in my being told me to stop pursuing this man's back in front of me and turn around. Surely death would follow if I engaged him. What am I doing? Yet my valiant approach and my nerves and thoughts moulded by the blistering heat of the blacksmith that crafted me, told me to continue this desperate chase. His broad back seemed to carry the weight which looked so familiar to me. Though he looked slightly less substantial than mine. He knew not to frolic in the battle. He had things waiting for him, so he chose to abandon his life to live a little bit more peacefully. But now he looks empty in a way completely foreign to me. His heavy handed swings as he tread ahead, and how his sword would aimlessly swing in his tight grip littered with blisters arranged by his tiresome effort.

God, this feels like staring at a mirror that differs only in certain light streams. We are the same, yet so different.

His board back then paused before two behemoth sized doors imprinted with some sort of language I couldn’t understand. But certain scriptures and pictures seemed to evoke some sort of idea within me.

Is that a devil with an army? Coming down and destroying all the races? I thought.

Then the large doors briskly separated and let apertures seep through light along with the brumal gale of the mountains. “C’mon. Don’t stand around there all star struck.”

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“Right.” I replied, plunging into the snow only a hyperborean could be accustomed to. The bitter, raw feeling encompassing my sole swallowed all my feelings immediately, snapping me back to reality.

That’s right. I can’t have second thoughts about this. It’s necessary for the future. A safetynet I’ll be able to rely on.

The both of us then walked further out onto the cliff of the mountain. Snowflakes costively fell before us, settling on our hair, and on our hands which gripped the hilt of our blades, eagerly awaiting the others' approach.

“Now that we're here, I want to ask you why you challenged me to this fight? Do you believe you can win? Do you strive to be the strongest? Do you strive to be at the top of this world, unfaltering to any obstacle in your way?” His voice seemed to ridicule his own actions as he spat out the words with anguish.

“I do not wish to claim such meaningless titles nor search for such tremendous power. I long for the ability to protect the things I care about. So I can establish the connections I wish. So none can come between me and my goals. Power is merely a by-product of the things I wish to achieve. You are the power I wish to earn and cling onto. I want you! To become my aid in a time of dire need. When I need strength, I want to rely on you!” I screamed, airing out the pent up strength in my lungs.

He simply snickered at my remark. “And why should I? What can you offer me? Do you think that you are so special that you can receive my aid without anything?” His words seemed to slur into the crazed battle maniac I always pictured him as.

“I can’t offer you money. I can’t offer you fame. I can’t offer you the world. I’m sure you’d be able to get those things by yourself anyway.” I began laughing at myself in a condescending tone. “But I can offer you myself. My friendship, my loyalty, my faith, my hopes and burdens. I can offer to get rid of the solitude in your world. To fill your dull world devoid of the bright colours of childhood.”

“Hahahaha, HAHAHAHAAH!” His deranged laugh slowly surfaced and his sharp features fell into a viscous lake of mud trampled by the world. “What do you know? Fill the colours of my world? You don’t know shit, kid! You’re just pissing me off! Come at me!"

His steps vanished in the snow, an after image only drifting in his approximate location. A bustling cloud of powder exploded in great might. His figure reappeared before me, clinging to the hilt of his worn sword about to draw. His efforts, to his surprise, were halted by me. My palm firmly blocked his way. No momentum nor strength could be mustered from this position and his animalistic look hounded me.

“You have some skill, kid. But you won’t win and I’ll teach you that you still know nothing of this world nor of the people you just met a few days ago.” His words scolded me as he accelerated backwards elegantly, creating a firm imprint in the ground, revealing the jagged mountain holding us up above the view of the mountains around us.

“I don’t have to win to get what I want. There's other ways of progressing in the world that vary from dominating your opponent in a bout.” In turn, I also scolded him only to laugh mockingly.

I withdrew my sword from its scabbard and shifted into a stance. Spreading my legs a bit of a distance, my left leg firmly rooted to the ground, my hips generating power constantly and an internal flow of mana began surging in the inner networks of my mana veins. My grip twisting on my sword.

He returned with an examining glance before standing up from his previously slouched position, pausing his meagre taunt.

I restarted the fight thrusting forward with a supportive gust of wind mana exploding from me. Simultaneously I began conjuring pillars of earth obstructively narrowing Lloyd’s path as he would flee. Eventually he gave up avoiding them and trying to get a hit on me whilst I pursued him and instead he rose to my next conjured pillar and began bouncing off them. A kindling flame swallowed his sword and the next sight caught in the corner of my eye was a wheel of blistering heat surrounding me. Its oppressive heat charred the snow and melted it into a sloppy mess. Our battlefield was slowly terraforming from our elemental spells that affected our nearby area.

“Let’s keep going!” I screamed.