Small announcement! This book now has an update schedule! It will be updated every Wednesday!

Also the chapters are going to be longer from this chapter forwards, so please enjoy :D

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"Alright folks! Because of the number of contestants this year we'll be having another round of drawing lots!"

"Hey, sorry to interrupt but I'm going to be withdrawing." Brooke said, raising her hand slightly.

"What?! You can't do that!" Aarona exclaimed, "You promised me you wouldn't back out!"

"I said I wouldn't back out of the last match. I only stayed in because I wanted to fight that guy. Now that he's been defeated I have no interest staying in. Besides, with how many people there are the rounds are uneven. Someone needed to step out."

"You're really going to step out? You sure?" Meliodas asked.

"Completely. I only joined because Ban signed me up for it. And looking at the line up now, it seems that you're almost guaranteed to win back the weapon."

"Well, if you're sure." Love Helm said, then cleared his throat before making an announcement to the crowd. "Brooke has stepped out of the festival! Therefore the remaining participants are Cain, Matrona, Meliodaf, and Aarona! Please stand by everyone! the semi-finals are about to begin!"

***

The matches were soon created, and everyone who was in the hut was now back outside and Love Helm now standing on his podium.

"It's time for the first match of the semifinals! Everyone give it up for Matrona vs. Aarona!"

Aarona grinned and looked over towards Diane. "You better not hold back!"

Diane looked over at her before smiling, a look of determination on her face. "You got it!"

The two girls stepped up into the ring, Aarona looking at Diane with a wide grin on her face. Once the two girls were ready, Love Helm cleared his throat, "Let the first match of the semi-finals began!"

Not even a millisecond had passed when Aarona jumped into action. She sped straight up towards Diane and sent a solid punch to the girl's gut, making her skid back a few feet, a look of shock on the brunette's face. 

"Woah she's strong!" Meliodas exclaimed. "Not a lot of people can send Diane flying back like that."

"Aarona's probably one of the only people strong enough to do so." Brooke said.

On the ring, Aarona and Diane had been exchanging punches for the past few minutes, though even if Diane was putting her all behind each of her punches they seemed to barely effect Aarona while on the other hand every attack Aarona landed sent Diane sliding back a few inches, every once in a while Diane's body shimmered silver as her body turned to iron to defend herself.

"You're really strong! I've only met a few people who could withstand my punches, and they're all probably dead!" Aarona exclaimed as she pulled back, shaking her hands in the air. From where she was standing, Brooke could see that her knuckles had started to bruise. Though as Aarona waved her hands in the air, the bruises started to heal over, leaving no evidence of any injury.

"You're pretty strong yourself." Diane said. "But I'm not letting you win this!" She ran forwards and aimed an attack straight towards Aarona's gut. Dust from the destroyed ring rose up as Diane ran towards Aarona, and when they made contact the people watching couldn't see what was happening.

"This battle is as good as done." Brooke said as she watched the dust slowly float back towards the ground.

As the dust cleared, it showed two figures standing at the edge, one of them leaning backwards over the edge and the other holding them in a dip, arm around the waist and holding the other one's hand.

"You did a good job, but I think it's time for this match to end." Aarona said, looking down at Diane with a grin. There was a second where nothing happened, and then, Aarona let go, causing Diane to fall to the ground, a shocked look on her face as she looked up towards the sky.

"Matrona has been knocked out of the ring, Aarona will move onto the finals!" Love Helm announced over the cheering crowd.

Aarona grinned and pumped her fists in the air. "Aw yeah! Victory is mine!"

Diane got up and dusted off her outfit, a look of annoyance on her face. Once she was up the two of them started to walk back to the group. "I can't believe I lost."

"Don't be too upset, you put up a good fight. You managed to stay in the fight longer than most giants I've gone up against!"

"Yeah... wait, you've fought other giants before!?"

"Oh yeah! They were really good sparring partners! There was this one giant with four-" Aarona started, interrupting herself midsentence as a look of realization appeared on her face. "Ah, I mean there were four giants I would regularly spar against to get stronger."

"Good fight you two." Brooke said once they got to the group. "Looks like you're going to the finals, Aarona."

"Oh yeah! I'm gonna come out on top!"

"And onto the second match of the semi-finals! Meliodaf vs. Cain!" Love Helm announced.

Meliodas grinned and jumped up onto the ring.

"Do your best out there, Captain." Diane said.

"Please be careful." Elizabeth said from Diane's chest.

"Just leave it to me!" Meliodas said.

"Promise you'll avenge me, okay?" King said.

"Do it yourself."

With that Meliodas walked towards the center of the ring, standing face to face with the old man that had somehow made it to the semi-finals.

"I have to say you really are the spitting image of him. I had my suspicions that I saw your face but when I heard that your name was Meliodaf I just knew that my hunch had to be right." Cain said as he walked towards Melidoas. "the truth is you're Meliodas' son. That is the case, now, isn't it?"

"He's a smart man I'll give him that." Brooke said from her spot.

"Actually I'm Meliodas if you really wanna know." Meliodas said, causing a look of pure shock to appear on Cain's face.

"You're talking nonsense! There's no way Meliodas could be a whippersnapper like you!" Cain shouted out, causing Meliodas to lean forwards and shush him. The two of them continued a conversation, but their voices were too quiet for Brooke to hear. Suddenly Cain jumped up and aimed a few kicks towards Meliodas before jumping back and tearing off his cloak. "I swear I'll never forgive what you've done!"

"Hey, isn't that Danafor's crest?" Aarona asked, looking straight at the black crest on Cain's tunic. "I haven't seen one since the kingdom was destroyed sixteen years ago."

"Wait did you say destroyed?" King asked, looking over at Aarona.

"What possessed you to destroy the whole kingdom?!" Can shouted, a ball of fire appearing at his fingertips before he reached forwards and sent the flames straight towards Meliodas. "What possessed you to kill all my people?" He sent another wave of flames towards Meliodas.

"Just look at that folks! Meliodaf can't counter Cain's attacks!" Love Helm shouted out.

"What are you doing? You've gotta fight back now!" Diane shouted out.

"He hasn't fully recovered from fighting Ban yet." King said.

"That isn't it." Ban said, causing the group to look towards him- where he showed no signs that only a few minutes ago he had holes going straight through his body. "It's all on purpose. He's always pulling stupid crap."

"So he's letting himself get hit because he regrets what happened, huh?" Brooke said, causing King and Diane to look over at her, "I don't blame him. If I were in his shoes I might do the same thing."

"What possessed you to kill Liz? The woman you loved?!" Cain shouted, brining Brooke's attention back towards the fight. Cain raised his hand over his head and a giant fireball appeared, the heat washing Brooke despite how far away she was from it. "What possessed you to betray every one of us?!" He brought his arms down the the fireball sped straight towards Meliodas, who made no effort to move.

"I tried to save all of them. I wanted to protect everything. But I... I failed. And that's the sin I bear." Meliodas said, looking straight at the fireball and reach up towards it. "So this time, I won't let that happen." The moment the fireball grazed his outstretched palm is disappeared, leaving Brooke to shiver at the sudden loss of heat.

"That ability... Without a doubt you're the same Meliodas I knew alright." Cain said.

"And I remember you, Cain Barzaard. Though it took me a while."

Cain smiled slightly before he walked up to Meliodas, and once again the words that were exchanged between the two of them were too quiet for Brooke to hear. Suddenly he leaned forwards and wrapped his arms around the blond, crying tears of relief.

"What's going on here?" Diane asked.

"It's a reunion of old friends, can't you tell?" Brooke said, a soft smile on her face.

"Um, excuse me, what about the fight?" Love Helm asked, walking up to the two competitors.

"I'll be forfeiting the match." Cain said, causing everyone around to look at him in complete shock.

"What's this? Cain just admitted his own defeat! The winner of this festival's second semi-sinal match is Meliodaf!"

As Meliodas and Cain stepped off of the ring, Brooke couldn't shake the feeling that something bad was going to happen, the darkness she had felt earlier was still there, and ever since then it had slowly continued to grow- no- it wasn't growing it was getting closer. She glanced over at Aarona and noticed that she was feeling the darkness as well. With how strong the power felt the others had to of felt it as well.

"It's time for the final round of Vaizel Fighting Festival! It's been a parade of unbelievable fighters this year and this final match will feature the very best of the best!" Love Helm exclaimed. "All right fighters! Time to step into the ring if you please!"

"Looks like it's our time to shine, ey 'Meliodaf'?" Aarona said as she stepped onto the ring.

"Bring it on!"

"All right finalists it's time to fight!" Love Helm shouted, and the gong sounded.

"I'm not going to hold back on you. You were able to withstand that old man's fire, but let's see how you fare against mine!" she held her arms out on her sides and two fireballs appeared at her fingertips.

Suddenly, she paused and tensed up slightly as her eyes widened, looking around Brooke noticed that the other sins, had also tensed up. It was easy to tell why. The approaching darkness had finally gotten within range of their senses. All around her, Brooke could hear the crowd complaining- since most of them were regular villagers they most likely didn't sense the dark power coming towards the village at all.

Aarona flipped her fingers down and the fire vanished. Brooke, along with the other sins who were standing on the sidelines stepped onto the ring. While the sins grouped up Aarona and Brooke stood at a slight distance from them.

"My real identity is Captain of the Seven Deadly Sins. I'm Meliodas, the Dragon Sin!" Meliodas announced. "We're taking over Vaizel! Everything here belongs to us now!" All around the ring, people were whispering to each other. Some had looks of confusion on their faces while others held looks of fear. "I'm giving you less than one minute to clear out of this town. Understand? If you don't we're gonna kill you all!"

"You're not fooling anyone, ya brat!" One of the villagers shouted out.

"What he said! You don't look a thing like him!"

Aarona took a step forwards and cleared her throat before putting on an expression of fear. "Please! You have to believe him! They've already forced me and my friend to follow all their commands! If they don't kill you they'll make you all into servants like they did us!"

"Nice work." Brooke said as she watched the looks of confusion turn into looks of fear.

"Surprised they believed me. I mean, they all saw me fighting in the ring."

"If you don't want to turn out like them then get the hell outta here!" Meliodas shouted, and the villagers started to run.

"Hey, wait, what's that!?" A man said, pointing towards the sky.

Turning around, Brooke's eyes widened. Headed towards them at insane speeds were multiple giant fireballs. As the villagers froze in their tracks and started screaming Aarona jumped in front of the sins and reached her hands towards them. Slowly, the fireballs slowed to a stop and started to combine into one giant fireball above Aarona. Slowly, it started to shrink, before disappearing altogether.

"Damn, they're here already?" Meliodas asked.

Up in the sky, two flying Rays were hovering, on their backs were three Holy Knights, each one of them radiating with dark magic.

"That equipment she's holding is sacred treasure-class." King said, now in his larger form.

"It sure is. I bet Guila's gotten a lot stronger than she was in the Necropolis. And what's worse, there are three of them this time." Meliodas said as the Holy Knights floated down from the flying rays. "We need to split up for now."

"Right!" The sins exclaimed before they all jumped off into different directions.

"So, what should we be doing?" Aarona asked, glancing over at Brooke.

"First we need to help the villagers evacuate then we can help the sins with fighting the Holy Knights."

"So, the faster we evacuate the villagers the faster I can get in on the fight!" Aarona exclaimed as she headed towards the edge of the boulder.

"Aarona-" Brooke started.

"Yeah yeah, I won't start throwing villagers to get the mission done faster." Aarona said, waving her hand dismissively before she jumped off the edge and started to run towards the villagers the moment she hit the ground.

"Let's hope you don't." Brooke sighed as she walked up to the edge as well, looking down at the chaos happening down below. Taking a deep breath she jumped off as well, creating an updraft of wind to soften her landing. "Alright, let's save some villagers."