When Darkness Turns to Light

Someone's Hero

Recappy From the Last Chappy: The kunoichi stood. "No prob. I'll see you out in the arena. 'The Hero' and 'Team Sora' should be facing each other, soon." She smirked and winked. "But Team Sora's going to win this."

With a laugh, he returned the smack talk. "You should bring some of the White Mushrooms into the arena with you. Fighting the five of you will be too easy."

"Bite your tongue!" Hikari snorted, and exited the tent.

Chapter Forty-one: Someone's Hero

"You've certainly kept Ed on his toes, during this fight," chuckled the man inside the arena. Blood had spilled from his smile and down his fair-skinned chin. While one hand swept back his chocolate brown locks, the other held a kunai to the throat of his adversary. He winked a violet eye at her. "But Ed finds that sexy in a woman, so he'll forgive you."

"You think I'm going to fall for a cheesy line like that?" the woman sneered. The Konoha headband tied around her forehead was almost completely covered by the plum-colored bangs framing her face. She also held a kunai to his neck and struggled to keep her hazel eyes open. "I'm not into pigheads that refer to themselves in the third person."

He noticed that she was trembling. "Don't deny it. Ed makes you weak in the knees. Go ahead and swoon for him. Let's end this dance."

"You'll faint before me. You're not as good at hiding your exhaustion as you think." She stuck her tongue out, which stretched like Hikari's, and licked some blood from under her eye. "Die, for all I care."

"That's har-ah . . . !"

Simultaneously, both contenders swayed. Their eyes rolled to the back of their heads, and they turned limp. At the same time, their backs hit the ground.

Censure rang through the crowd at the anticlimactic end; they were not amused by the flirtation and were annoyed by the lack of a clear victor. Many people turned toward one another, murmuring and confused.

Phil waddled into the arena while infirmary professionals came in with stretchers to pick up the combatants. He was hunched for a moment and huffed as he caught his breath; then, he spoke, somehow projecting his voice through the entire Coliseum; the crowd quieted.

"The match of Edward James Bos and Anko Mitarashi is a tie, seein' as both participants collapsed at the same time. So, because there are only three teams left, we'll skip the semi-finals, and the finals will be a three-way fight between Team Sora, the Hero, and the Mad Mushrooms. The match starts in ten minutes." He waddled off.

As he exited, Hikari entered and walked back to her team. She casually sipped a pink soft drink from a bendy straw in a cup shaped like a small blue pedestal; it looked like it was decorated with a gold coin bearing Hercules's physiognomy.

"Sure took you long enough!" Donald piped.

She stood in front of them with a hand on her hip. "It isn't polite to time someone else's bathroom breaks. Besides, I was doing some recon, and from what I found, Hades didn't hire anyone for this tournament; he ran out of time and chums. It's just the Heartless, and those aren't anything we can't handle." She sat next to Sora. "Anything interesting happen while I was gone?"

"The participants of the last fight both fainted, so the final match is between three teams," Goofy explained.

"And that's it," Red XIII said.

Sora spoke next. He was staring forward with a determined look in his eye, and there did not appear to be a single White Mushroom in sight; he seemed almost back to normal. "Hey guys . . . do you mind sitting this one out? I want to fight the Hero and the Mad Mushrooms."