*Iah*

Mina easily dispatched our opponents for this round. It was a tiny country in the southern continent, a land consisting mostly of ice mages. Knowing that, we had our two Vermilion Bird emblem members, one of our two Black Warrior emblem members, Orichalcum (our lone White Tiger Emblem member), and me (the lone Yellow Dragon emblem member) fight them.

"What event are we participating in next?" Azure asked as he turned to look at me.

I looked down at our schedule. "We signed up for the Race of Trust." I laughed. "You probably wish you were a part of this, eh?"

Azure nodded shyly. "Y-yeah!"

I patted his head. "Wait a few years and you'll be able to."

"It's time to kick some tails!" Scarlet said, snickering.

Scarlet was a red-haired young man with short red hair but long bangs that covered part of his face. He wore feather earrings and had the signature reddish-golden bird-like eyes of a Vermilion Bird branch member. He was also Azure's maternal uncle. He was probably the third youngest amongst us in the tournament to have become a parent, with Same and Sirius beating him.

Though he was actually older than a lot of the people here, but had spent all those years in suspended animation

"Papa," a two year old boy said.

"So the race is next," Miaya said as she handed Azure's cousin over to Scarlet. Just like Azure, Aoitsuki, and my ex, Miaya was born with the Dragon of the East emblem. "For that we need five, so who will it be?"

"Please let me participate," Isabelle said, grinning.

"Sure," I said, smiling.

"I want to join too," my ex said.

"I hope it's not as difficult as the first race we did," Scarlet said as he shook his son's rattle. "That race was impossible. No one made it to the end except for those two from the Fire clan."

"Those two huh?" Nyima said, tilting her head.

I leered at her and chuckled. "Shouldn't you be talking to your team about your next event?" I said, putting my hands on my hips. "Don't spy on others."

She rolled her eyes. "I'm not spying. Besides it's not like we know the exact details of this year's race. So you two have met the Hou clan leader and his wife?"

Scarlet nodded. "Yeah. I raced against that pair and I also fought against their leader in the Fight of the Flames. He didn't break a sweat on anyone before. Though even I couldn't do much. I barely managed to land two hits on him."

"That man's kids are equally impressive," I said, chuckling as I recalled our training job. "Their eldest child, Keanu, managed to lift a small mountain worth of earth even though he barely knew how to control it."

"I thought that was because of your teaching," Nyima said, eyes wide.

I shook my head. "I only taught him how to focus his energy on one single pebble. He was the one who took the next step, or rather leap of turning it into a boulder."

"I'm sure that I'll be stronger than the Hou's leader one day," Eien said unannounced. He had no scars or bruises left over from his battle with Zelde. Had someone healed them? He did so? Or did he somehow have regeneration on par with mine?

"Don't be so smug," Zelde said. "Anyways, Nyima we need to decide on our five."

Nyima looked sad. "I think that we should leave Lei out."

Zelde nodded in agreement. "He's still weak, and his asthma could be triggered during the race. Hopefully he won't try to put up a fight against this decision."

Eien chuckled. "Lei is the second most incompetent guy on your team, after Wanikiya of course. Actually I think it'll be best to leave that weakling and keep the asthmatic kid around."

Zelde laughed. "Such big talk coming from someone who is also a loser."

Eien's face became almost as red as her hair. "I'll get my revenge on you soon enough." He walked back to his team, his face still bright red.

"Good one Zelde," I said, grinning.

She frowned. "That guy truly is cut from the same mold as Ayawamat. A bunch of guys with ego issues." She and Nyima walked back to their country's team.

"So Lei is going to be out," I mumbled to myself. "That means we will see fire, light, water, ice, sound, earth, bug, wind, time, and/or whatever those who didn't participate in any of the matches have."

"Who do you think will be going on Kyuu Seishin's side?" Orichalcum asked. "I mean, Wahkan is sure to be wild card, but Kyuu Seishin still has members to draw from."

"Eien said he's getting his revenge on Zelde so that adds him. I get a feeling that they'll put in those who didn't get to join in this event's first round."

"So that eliminates the first prince, the masked girl, the scythe girl, and the shark man," Scarlet said. "Think we'll have an easy time against them."

"Hopefully, but we shouldn't underestimate them. Besides this is a game based on speed," Maiya said. "Eien as we saw is quite fast."

"So is Lei, but he's out of the picture for this race," I said. "As is that mask girl if Kyuu Seishin does as we think they'll do. Though there's still Kun and Yen to worry about."

Maiya and Scarlet grinned. "Well, as for our team, you got the two of us," the couple said. "The two of us plus Orichalcum are the fastest amongst the five of us. Should we start to fall behind, we will be needed."

"Exactly. Hey, Isabelle, Cìjī', I hope you don't mind sitting this one out. I want to try something else." I turned over to look at the black haired young man standing far from us. "I'll let you start the race, Darin."

Darin looked up, startled.

"A turtle starting the race?" Scarlet said. He chuckled. "Very fitting."

Darin glared at him with his snake-like eyes. "I'm a snake, my sister is the turtle. I can call her out if you want me to."

"That won't be necessary. We will reserve her for later," I said.

Darin sighed. "So it seems that I won't be sitting this round out."

Cìjī' grumbled. "Lucky you. At least you got to see some action. Your sister and I haven't participated at all."

"You will soon, trust me," I said, winking.

My ex's face reddened. "Y-yes, of course. You're the leader. I will do whatever you want, dear."

I didn't want to string her along, but considering that the alternative...

"Who do you think the other nations will use?" Orichalcum asked.

"I expect Adela to represent Xian. She is as fast as Eien and Lei after all. Renshu is also rather fast. Ona is too. I don't know much about Elliot's current abilities, nor the others. Do you have any idea?"

"Only one of them," Darin said.

"So Xian has the ability of surprise," I said, rubbing my chin. I turn to look over at the other nations of our continent.

I spotted the regent Empress of Tora with her husband, Magic Council judge, Kane. Alongside them was their seven-year-old boy, and Tora's five member team. Her son looked back down at me with cold blue eyes. Something about his eyes looked odd, as if part of them were fake. Hikaru also had the same kind of eyes though.

Staring at him, I felt a familiar sensation. One of dread. A dread I hadn't felt in years, one which I had been forced to forget but was rapidly resurfacing. The dread I felt when a man with a similar look in his eyes nearly killed me and over a dozen others.

The members of Tora's group me and covered the young prince.

I turned away and saw Azie's team looking at us. Azie was a nation in the central northeast of our continent. It bordered mountains to the west and south, and the sea to the north, leaving it without a barrier from the east.

The nation's citizens specialized in dark and light magic. A strange combo if there was ever one. Sitting by their team was a young blue haired boy with red eyes. This boy... he had a familiar aura to him. Not a frightening one like that Toran prince had, just a similar aura to my dad's family. Azie was a nation governed by Zionia's queen, a land created during the rule of her father millenia ago. Was the boy her son? Was he the rumored crown prince of Azie? But he looked five.

"So which nations are participating in the race again?" I asked.

"In addition to the ones we've discussed there's Tora, Azie, Sera, Sefa, the western and eastern states of the anarchic states, and Acien."

"So counting us that makes eleven, Scarlet said. "Why the low number?"

"May have something to do with the previous race remember?" Maiya said.

"Oh right," Scarlet said, chuckling.

I laughed. "Right, you left a bad impression our our rivals."

Scar grinned. "Hey, I was pumped! You know how I can get when I'm having fun."

I nodded. "Yeah, you start to lose control over your powers."

"Hey, let's go check out the site of the next event!" Wanikiya yelled to his team.

"Sounds like a good idea," Sirius said as he carried Astra on his shoulders.

Wahkan's team left the arena as fast as they could. The rest of us followed after them.

We didn't have to travel very far, though. In front of the stadium was a large lake with floating wood bridges forming a section of a road. Though the floating bridges were only a small portion of the overall race track. It spanned on toward another arena where more of the track laid, but even then it likely continued on further. This was a twenty-five mile race after all.

"Woah, mom was right," I heard Lei say. Lei was already up and running. When had he woken up?

"Lei," I said. "Are you alright? Shouldn't you be resting?"

He gave me a smug look. "I am fine. Somehow my energy managed to restore itself rapidly. I didn't even need to take an energy supplement."

Nyima raises her shoulders. "I didn't heal him fully. I had to use some of my own spare energy to heal him. I took an energy supplement to speed up my energy recovery. I'm not sure how Lei managed to heal so quickly. Even his wounds are completely gone."

"Let's not worry about that," Lei said, grinning. "So who is going to be racing? Tell me I'm one of the five!"

Nyima gave him a disapproving look.

He looked down at the water. "Oh... that's fine. Uh... well good luck. I'll be cheering you on. Oh, and Adela I'll also be cheering Xian to get second, and for you, Iah, I'll be cheering you guys to get third."

Adela and Nyima laughed.

"It's the opposite," I said, wagging my finger at him. "We'll be first, Xian will be second, you will be third."

Adela shook her head. "No, it's us first, Wahkan second, and you third."

I chuckled. "We'll see about that!"

**Solar Note: I know that much happened in this transitional chapter, but I hope that you enjoyed it all the same ^_^. **