Audience
Two pairs of focused eyes among the bustling crowds searched the screens with a common purpose among varying feelings. But one was torn between Arena 1 and 2, and the other was fixated on the former.
"What a waste of time," said the man. The irregular patch around his right eye, raw yet discolored like a frozen wound, wrinkled hideously, but the rest of his face was chiseled like the bust of a serene master.
The tiny woman uneasily sitting at his left startled, gaze shifting away from the broadcast of both the arenas. Her round face was a contrast to her beastly, colorful eyes, and the demonic horns that framed her head.
"W-what are you on about? Master Klearjacc needed me, and that's why I'm sitting with you, but!" She drew a sharp breath, as if daring herself to the unspeakably rude. "If not anxious, shouldn't you at least be looking forward to this? Two heads are here, to clash with fighters that may actually bruise their ankles, and even monsters the likes of which, other than their peers, only thrive outside our home."
The transparent motive and the inquiry built into it hung untouched for a short spell. The man didn't take his sight away from Arena 1.
"I am only here for Master Sethrol." His naturally bitter voice was for a moment, charged with a unnatural, unnameable sting, but the next, returned to a level-headed metric. "If you own your strength, it does not matter how you achieved it. But I do not understand, why he must take responsibility for one who walked away from his tutelage and accepted the roots of power from an unknown source."
And it was no question, but a veredict. One that the diminute swordwoman could not contest, or remark on, regardless of her vague understanding for the words. She may be the Demon Butterfly, but he was the Source-Melting Hand, and who knew what could provoke him to pluck the wings of even the least assuming beauties?
