Against an old friend

"You. It really is you."

Reya held up the dagger Eo had "given" her several months prior, hand shaking.

"I want a full explanation of who you are, what you did, and what you're doing here now." She continued. Her eyes were blazing with anger.

Eo felt the hairs on his neck rise.

"Whoa whoa, chill. I can almost feel an electric tension in the air."

Reya's seem to momentarily flash into a genocidal rage, then settled back to its more subtle murderous intent.

Reya continued. "I'm going to kill you either way, for avenging those innocents who you killed." Reya seemed to spit out the last few words. "So, if you have any last words or pleas, I'd be glad to hear them now, before your death."

Eo slowly backed away, wondering how a fight between Reya and a metal user would go. Wait, he had actually seen what had happened between Reya and the metal user. The metal user died.

Wait, the metal user died? Suddenly Eo found himself getting angry.

"I wonder how it feels, acting all high and mighty because you think someone had died."

"You think this is a joke? You killed SIX PEOPLE. SIX PEOPLE!" Sparks of electricity flew around Reya's hands.

Eo snarled in response. "You don't know what it's like being me, constantly on the run. You think after running from soldiers for months and being on my old friend's hit list is any fun?"

"Oh I know how it was like running from monsters. Didn't I tell you I was stranded in Amdintel City for weeks, watching my friends die from the incursion?"

"At least your own friends didn't backstab you."

"You, murderer of half your own expeditionary group, think you have the right to even utter those words?"

"Who says I killed them? The government? The IMO? What can they do to prove it?"

"You must be delusional to think you're still innocent somehow."

"Plus," Eo continued, "having friends you're too weak to protect is kind of your fault."

Immediately, a blast of lightning slammed into Eo's chest, sending him backwards. Eo coughed and rolled over, shirt smoking. He shakily stood back on his knees and started synthesizing a shield.

"Say one more thing about my friends, and I'm killing you, Eo."

Eo painfully smiled under his charred breath. "This is why I don't have friends. They might sometimes want to threaten killing me."

Another blast of electricity flew out of Reya's hands, but it was blocked by Eo's shield. The conductivity of the shield prevented most of the electricity from reaching Eo, but the metal itself heated to such a high degree that Eo's arm got burned.

"I honestly can't believe I hung around with such a scum in this world." Reya continued. "I believe it's my duty to eliminate such scum."

Reya electrified her dagger and charged towards Eo.

Eo stumbled back, wincing from the burn pain in his arm. When Reya got closer, Eo started synthesizing dagger-chains. Reya swung her free hand wildly, sending off electrical bolts as well as summoning artificial lightning from the roof's cable system.

Eo constructed a metal roof over his head, grounding it in the progress. The powerful smites from above were now stopped, but Reya didn't seem to care, slamming more and more lightning attacks from above anyways. Reya got within a couple meters of distance, forcing Eo to use his dagger-chains defensively against Reya's swings.

Every time her electrified dagger slammed against Eo's, there was no popping noise. It wasn't organic, but metal, so the electricity raced down the chains and burned Eo's hand. Eo blocked every one of her swings anyways, so he wouldn't get poked full of holes immediately.

There was pure fury in Reya's eyes. "Tell me why you did this."

Eo's voice was getting raspy so he couldn't talk properly. Another block and then a consecutive lightning bolt put so much pain into Eo that he was forced down on a knee. Eo continued blocking.

"C-Calm d-down… " Eo couldn't talk properly anymore. His body was actually blackening, and his limbs were all numb.

Eo used a bit of essence in his legs to push himself away. It was a bit overkill, as Eo couldn't feel there anymore, and Eo jumped back about 30 meters.

Reya seemed a bit stunned for a second. Then she returned to being angry.

"H-how did you, I mean, what are you doing? Murderers deserve to die."

Eo landed, and heard a crunch sound. He probably broke some bones. It was a good thing all of his nerves were fried, because he still felt nothing.

"Hey Reya," Eo coughed out. "You still enjoy doing this?"

Reya's hardened expression faltered a bit. Then it returned.

"Wouldn't you like avenging other people? Especially if you had the power to do so, like I do right now."

Eo tried to laugh at that, but it hurt too much.

"You always call me a murderer and such, but aren't you one yourself?"

"Huh?"

"Yarbim. You know he died, right? Death: Electrocution. He might've been mentally unstable and all that. But you know he also had a family who was looking for him."

Reya blinked a few times before narrowing her eyes.

"How did you find about tha-"

Eo continued in his raspy voice.

"Yarbim was a victim of his mother's drinking when she was pregnant. Yarbim had a pretty terrible adolescence and ran away, eventually becoming a slave and falling into this arena. Then he fought his way through 200 wins, and became a freed fighter. That's where he met you, and died to your hands."

Reya's eyes started shaking. "B-but this is an underground… place of thugs...and criminals…"

"You killed him." Eo coughed, and what looked like blackened blood came out. Uh oh.

Reya's voice was now wavering too. "Y-you also fought here. And killed people. But those were prerequisites for this arena! The will to kill… and the bravery to still continue fighting.

Eo instinctively tried laughing, and almost collapsed. "There are slaves here, and they don't have a choice. They either fight to the death, or just get executed anyways. You should know that by now"

"Slaves? Wait, don't tell me you're…"

"I'm one of them now."

"Y-you still murdered people before that."

Eo's voice was getting dangerously hoarse. "Reya, I didn't kill anyone in my fifty victories here. I didn't intentionally kill anyone my entire life. I was framed into murder."

Eo's passive essence circulation started healing his nerves near his broken bones. Massive amounts of pain shot out from all parts of his body, and Eo simultaneously felt the collective pain of the burn damage and the broken bones.

Eo collapsed on the floor and passed out for a lot longer than 10 seconds.