The first day of the Tournament Arc came up in no time at all. Before I realized it, we were already standing just outside the arena. It seemed like everyone was here: the eight of us competing, my sister, and the Naka family were expected to come. I, however, did not expect to see the many others that showed up: my sister’s friend and classmate Sakura Amari as well as several other classmates, Beaufighter and Hadrian—who Tanaka-san had apparently become good friends with recently, Tanaka-san’s parents, Osana-chan’s parents, and an assortment of other people that were friends or even friends of friends. I turned to look at the massive group of people and sighed.

“So, you are Taikutsu Juyo?” Tanaka-san’s dad walked up and asked me.

“Yes,” was all I answered.

His dad put his hand out to me, indicating a handshake. I hesitatingly went along with it.

“Thank you for helping that son of mine to get a waifu; I was worried he was a lost cause,” His dad suddenly said with tears in his eyes.

“Okay, Dad, why don’t you go with Mom to your seats. Tanaka-san suddenly jumped into the conversation and pushed his father away from me. I’ll have to thank him later for that.

With Tanaka-san gone, Raphine was left defenseless. In an instant, Osana-chan’s parents pounced on her.

“Hello, Dear! My, you are such a cute waifu!” Madam Tomo asked.

“What Tier are you, dear?” Mister Tomo added.

“She’s an A-Tier! Estouls shouted before Raphine could answer. He, of course, had no idea what tier she was.

“How wonderful!” Madam Tomo said.

“I didn’t expect them to come,” I whispered to Osana-chan, who was off to the side shaking her head.

“They were planning to gamble on the event from home, but they got wind I was competing and decided to do it in person,” she whispered back.

“I see,” I said.

“Ah, Main-kun! We have to get going! We’re supposed to be in our pod early on the first day!” Trash-chan shouted very loudly to me; it got everyone’s attention. Nice save Trash-chan.

We did have to be at our pod early on the first day, but we still had an hour before we had to go. She must have realized most of us had an easy escape from the crowd. We all took the opportunity, and the eight of us competing quickly ran off to the arena.

The first thing we had to do was to run through the shopping center that had been seemingly set up overnight. Many people had brought out stalls and booths to sell various things outside the arena. We quickly ran past this area and into the arena.

“Thanks, Trash-chan; I’m not sure we would have escaped so easily otherwise,” I said with heavy breaths as we stopped to show our participation badges.

“What do you mean?” Trash-chan asked as we all walked in. A volunteer at the front pointed us in the direction of our pod.

“Didn’t you yell ‘we were late’ so we could get away from the large crowd?” I asked as we walked to our pod.

“No, I looked at my watch, and it said we were late!” Trash-chan showed me her watch.

I’m not sure where she got this watch, but it looked like something that ought to be thrown out. The glass was scratched up, and the strap was well worn.

“Trash-chan, this watch is broken,” I said after looking at it. She looked back at the watch and tapped it.

“Oh, you’re right!” she exclaimed.

“Where did you even get that?” I asked.

“Oh, I was checking out what I had in my Recycling Bin, and I found it!” she said as the watch disappeared from her wrist.

“Where did you ever pick something like that up?” I asked.

“Who can say…” was all Trash-chan answered.

We had spent quite some time researching Trash-chan’s new power, mostly to sate the curiosity of Tanaka-san and everyone else once they heard about it. It didn’t have a name, so we ended up spending most of the time deciding what to call it.

The ability had two stages; the first was what we ended up calling Trash Collector. This stage allowed Trash-chan to collect some item or ability from another waifu. Whatever she collected, it had to be something that the waifu, or anyone really, had parted with. This could be something they literally left lying around or something as interpreted as parting with. In the case of Firestorm’s flames, Trash-chan was able to collect them since Firestorm had no intention of bringing them back to her. Theoretically, the fire would have stayed good to use until Trash-chan brought them back out.

Once something was collected, it was sorted into two ‘bins,’ as we decided to call them. The first bin was the Trash Bin; it housed anything that could not be considered immediately useful. Trash-chan can pull from this bin for many applications. This was where her Trash-whip and the Combustible Trash came from. The Trash-Wave was something that temporarily dumped the whole bin on the battlefield.

Trash-chan’s second bin was the Recycle Bin. This is primarily where powers and weapons were saved and other items that might have useful applications. We had tested this thoroughly, mainly due to Tanaka-san’s insistence. She was able to absorb bullets from Junkers and arrows from Raphine before they hit her. However, she could not absorb Junkers’ mech suit or Estouls lance when they tried to attack her with them. She was able to absorb Estouls’ lance after knocking it out of his hand and waiting for the minute and thirty seconds previously thought to be the condition for using the Trash-Wave, however.

Even though Trash-chan absorbed the lance, Estouls was still able to resummon it after his cooldown. This led to them each having a lance at the same time. After testing, we found that Trash-chan’s was the weaker of the two, which confirmed that Estouls still had the original lance.

We arrived in the pod and looked around. It was quite jaw-dropping. The last times I had fought in a War, they had given us an F-tier pod. For the Tournament Arc, however, they assigned pods based on the collective tier of the team. Due to that, we were standing in a B-tier pod.

The pod was a fairly decent-sized room. The walls in front of us were made of glass so clean you could hardly tell it was there, and behind us, the walls were painted a lovely burgundy color. In the center of the room, there was an oversized, crescent-shaped couch. Next to the sofa, there were two large flatscreen TVs that stood on small carts to be rolled around the room to where desired.

We all sat down on the couch; it was big enough to fit all eight of us and sank in. It had to be the most comfortable couch I had ever sat on.

In no time at all, the fights began. We were up early in the day, so only two fights were before us. I didn’t pay much attention until it was finally time for our battle. That is not to say that exciting stuff didn’t happen. One team, in particular, sent out a waifu to modify the field for the two later fighters to sweep away the competition. The whole time the announcer they had was yelling along with the fight.

Then, it was finally time for our fight. I pulled out my tablet to look at the opposing team. Their team consisted of waifus with who I was not very familiar. Fortunately, I didn’t have to be familiar with them. I turned to Tanaka-san, who was looking at the opposing team.

“Hmm, I see. I see,” he muttered to himself.

“Alright, everyone! Are you ready for this next fight!” The announcer yelled. The crowds shouted along with him. He was excited for sure; it was probably his first time doing this job, after all. For the Tournament Arc, they always like to have a guest announcer. That was this guy and his waifu this year, though I didn’t know who he was.

“Let’s send out Estouls first,” Tanaka-san said, “His lance gives him an advantage on most of the opponents here.”

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I had no complaints about his suggestion. I looked over to Osana-chan and Shin-san. Shin-san didn’t have any opposition to the suggestion, while Osana-chan was excited to see Estouls fight.

That was the plan we went with, and Estouls was teleported into the field. On the other side of the field, a waifu with gold-red hair was teleported in. She was dressed like a neanderthal and held a long stone spear.

“Alright, everyone! Our first battle will be against the waifus stone age Amber and… Estouls!” The announcer shouted out. “How do you feel about this battle Rose,” he added.

“Well, I’m not sure. Both are physical attackers that use weapons with reach. It may be left to who can get a lucky blow in,” the waifu that sat with the announcer said.

“Well said, this will be an interesting fight, to be sure!” The announcer shouted. I don’t know how he can keep up that energy.

Estouls and the waifu Amber stared at each other for a moment. Estouls’ lance appeared in his hand. Then the fight began.

In a flash, they lunged at each other and tried to strike the other with their long-reaching weapons. Each weapon missed as the fighters ducked from their attacker’s blows. Gusts of wind seemed to trail out behind them as the weapons missed their targets.

“Estouls! Just get on your griffin and take her out from the air!” Osana-chan yelled to him.

“Wait, Estouls, don’t use that unless you think it is necessary!” Tanaka-san yelled back.

In the field, the two began an odd dance of attempting strikes and dodging them. It all was happening so fast that it was hard to keep up with.

“Why shouldn’t he go all out!” Osana-chan asked Tanaka-san.

“She has a point,” Shin-san added.

“We should try to win fights showing off as little of our skills as possible; we want future opponents to have as little information as possible,” Tanaka-san answered.

“Wow! This fight is going so fast! I can hardly tell what’s happening with the fighters! All I know is that the moment we don’t see a gust of wind will be when one has finally landed an attack!” the announcer yelled.

I turned back to the fight, but it looked more like two blurry fighters trying to attack each other. Fortunately, the TVs we had in the room could slow down the action. The people running the program had already done as much for the at-home viewers, though even slowed down, it was still quite fast. On the screen, Estouls threw forward a strike which was dodged by Amber as she twisted out of the way. In a flash, her spear disappeared, and she had a sword instead. With Estouls’ arm and lance outstretched, she charged in close and struck a blow across his chest.

Estouls, still standing, went sliding back across the field. He stabbed his lance into the ground to stop just before he crashed into the wall. He looked at the ground as he tried to catch his breath. Amber took the opportunity to charge at him.

Estouls looked up to his opponent. She had knocked him from the center of the field nearly to the edge, but she would close the distance in no time. Before Amber could, however, he held his lance in an odd position. Then, he threw it across the field with all his might. Amber stopped suddenly, but the lance came at her too fast. It landed a blow, and she landed on the ground, out cold.

“And that did it!” the announcer shouted. The crowd cheered along with him.

Amber was teleported out the field, but Estouls was left in.

“That was great, Estouls!” Osana-chan shouted.

“That’s good to hear, but I think I might need to tap out now,” Estouls relayed back.

“Stay in the field a little longer; we will see who they send in next and swap out accordingly,” Shin-san suddenly blurted out. It seemed like he wanted to participate in the strategy as well.

“I agree,” Tanaka-san confirmed.

After a few short moments, another waifu appeared on the field. She had short, rosewood-colored hair and tape wrapped around her fists.

“So, they send out Cherry; she’s a close-range martial arts fighter and a bad match-up for Estouls,” Tanaka-san said.

“Why would they do that!” Osana-chan asked.

“They’re anticipating us switching,” I answered.

“Yeah, they think we will switch, so they sent out someone unexpected, hoping we won’t have a good counter to it,” Tanaka-san said while rubbing his chin.

“So, should we not switch? Estouls seems pretty tired from that last exchange?” Shin-san asked.

“We already planned to switch, so we’re not going to back down now! I’d say Junkers or Raphine should be in this one!”

“Raphine should be good,” I said while looking at the waifu on the field.

“No, let’s send Junkers; they may just be trying to bait us and plan to switch again. She has the most mobility to adapt with,” Shin-san said.

Meanwhile, as we discussed, the fight had already begun with Cherry and Estouls. She charged at him and tried to deliver a punch to his chest. He quickly slid out of the way, and she collided with the wall. The whole arena seemed to shake from the blow. That got our attention, and we promptly teleported Estouls out of the arena. In his place, Junkers appeared.

She immediately took to the sky above Cherry’s head. A rain of bullets began to bombard the ground. Cherry took off running away from Junkers. She was helpless now as the shots chased after her, or so I thought. She leaped up in the air and smashed her foot into the ground. It simultaneously cracked into a large stone and turned over. The rock landed upright with Cherry behind it. Junker’s bullets collided with the newly created makeshift wall.

From behind the wall, they switched out the waifus. Now behind the wall was a waifu with blond hair in a ponytail.

“Oh, and after creating that wall, they switch from Cherry to Lucky!” the announcer shouted.

Lucky bent down and placed her flat palms on the ground. Two doors appeared on the ground next to her. The first had a dragon on the door, and the second had a goat. The doors opened and revealed two staircases from which two more fighters came up. From the dragon door came a slick-looking waifu with spiky hair and scaly-looking clothing. From the goat door came a husbando with a large form and large horns.

The waifu, Lucky, didn’t do anything. Instead, the dragon waifu took off into the air after Junkers. She was not fast enough as the Dragon waifu struck her. Junkers immediately began to fall. Before she hit the ground, the goat collided his horns into her in a quick charge. She smashed into the sidewall of the arena and was knocked out.

The crowd cheered as Junkers was teleported out. At the same time, the dragon and goat disappeared. We were now tied, with the next winner deciding the match.

“Well, that’s not good,” Shin-san said.

“Should we send in Trash-chan?” Osana-chan asked.

“No, she is a bad match-up against Lucky. Send in Raphine,” Tanaka-san said.

“Is she a better match-up?” I asked as Raphine was teleported in.

“I can only hope so…” Tanaka-san said.

Raphine had her golden bow appear in her hand. Lucky, who was still behind the wall, put her hands on the ground, and two more doors opened. This time the doors had a tiger and a rabbit on them. Once again, new fighters stepped out. The tiger was a waifu dressed as a martial artist in striped clothes, and the rabbit was a waifu with long rabbit ears on her head. The rabbit rushed Raphine with a sudden kick. She had run across the field in a flash to deliver the blow.

Raphine didn’t hesitate, however. Instead of firing her bow, she slammed it into the rabbit waifu. The waifu went flying across the field but ended up disappearing before she made contact with the ground.

The tiger waifu ran across the field at Raphine next. She was not as fast, though, so Raphine fired an arrow from her golden bow at her. The tiger attempted to catch the arrow, but it exploded into a fireball when it was right in front of her. The tiger disappeared next.

“And that’s two of Lucky’s summons that were defeated!” The announcer shouted over the cheers of the crowd.

“I see, so if you hit them hard enough, they are forced out,” Tanaka muttered to himself.

“Raphine,” I said, “Tanaka-san is muttering to himself, but he seems to think you just have to get a good blow on her summons to get rid of them!” I took it upon myself to relay what Tanaka-san had said.

Lucky went ahead and created two more gates to open. This time they had a rat and a dog. Once again, two waifus were summoned, and they charged at Raphine. Raphine shot both, and they disappeared.

Lucky jumped out from behind the stone. Raphine aimed at her, but before she fired, Lucky disappeared. In her place, the team’s last fighter appeared. A waifu with long turquoise twintails that were tied up with pink bows. Raphine fired her arrows, but the waifu made a sphere of water appear around her that floated in the air. The arrow connected with the water shield, but it only exploded in an ice sheet on the outside.

The opponent shot a stream of water from inside the sphere at Raphine, who only barely managed to dodge the blow.

“Raphine is at a disadvantage!” Tanaka-san said.

“Should we switch out for Trash-chan?” Shin-san asked.

Raphine just barely avoided another attack of water while firing another arrow. It hit the sphere and stuck to the side, as if it was lodged in a wall, before exploding into a sheet of ice.

“Yes, we need to switch!” Tanaka-san confirmed.

Without another word, Raphine disappeared from the field and was replaced with Trash-chan.

“And they go for a switch! This means all fighters from both sides have entered the field!” The announcer yelled out to the cheering crowd.

The waifu shot another stream of water at Trash-chan, who put out her arms and absorbed the liquid into her recycling bin. Upon seeing her attack disappear, the waifu made her water sphere dissipate and landed on the ground.

Trash-chan produced a Combustible Trash and threw it at the waifu. She gracefully dodged it, allowing it to fly over her head as she ran toward Trash-chan while ignoring the explosion behind her. The twintail waifu had a spear of water appear in her hands, and a suit of armor appear around her that was made out of water. The waifu tried to strike Trash-chan repeatedly, but she just dodged the blows.

“Trash-sensei, that is one of Chris’s best magic attacks; she is going all out on you now!” Tanaka-san yelled to Trash-chan.

“That’s great, Otaku-kun, but how should I counter it?” Trash-chan asked as she dodged the flurry of attacks.

Tanaka-san began to rub his chin.

“Oh, how about Estouls’ lance!” Osana-chan suggested while clapping her hands together.

“Will that help?” I asked.

“His lance can nullify magic. Even if Trash-sensei’s copy is weaker, she should be able to take down Chris with a good blow,” Tanaka-san muttered. I think I recall Estouls saying the lance was special, but I had no idea why until now.

“Did you catch that, Trash-chan?” I asked.

“I got it,” she relayed back. In her hands, Estouls’ lance appeared. The waifu called Chris stopped her attacks and leaped back, or at least she tried.

Trash-chan delivered a blow onto Chris. The water armor shattered along with the lance, and Chris went flying and rolling across the field. A buzzer went off to indicate the battle was over. We had somehow managed to win the first match.

I leaned back into the couch and looked at the ceiling. This was going to be a long Tournament Arc; I could just feel it. I let out a sigh and sat up straight. The others were cheering and giving praise to our fighters as Trash-chan was being teleported out of the arena. I joined along with the others.