The Challenge of the Masters

⊱⊰ 39: A Twist of Fate [Revised] ⊱⊰

"What happened there?" Zen pointed at Arisa's arm.

Arisa examined her arm and saw multiple bruises spread across her lightly pale skin.

"Oh," she said. "This is the result of today's training; I failed at defending and fell a lot."

Zen shook his head. "Even during your birthday, your grandfather won't give you a break."

Arisa shifted her gaze in time to see Zen having another bite of her birthday cake. She wished that he would have joined her family to celebrate her seventeenth birthday. But with her grandfather still not trusting him, she had to be happy with this secret encounter.

"Well," she said, glancing to her front, "I'm sure there's a good reason that he keeps training me. Maybe he wants to make sure I can defeat you and Kazuya someday."

Zen chuckled. "Right. If he trained you how to make your goofy face even goofier, then maybe your chances to defeat me would increase a little."

Arisa glared at him before she returned her gaze to her front. The lights of the buildings of Aurora City looked so weak under the bright light of the two moons. Even the lamps of the neighborhood that could be seen under the small hill seemed insignificant with tonight's moonlight.

Something damp and soft met Arisa's bruised arm. When she examined it, she saw that Zen had placed multiple kinds of grass on her wounds.

Arisa giggled. "What's this for?"

"To heal your wounds," said Zen, picking more random grass and applying them on her arm.

"These are not the herbs to treat bruises." Arisa laughed.

Arisa had been spending years watching her grandmother prepare medicinal herbs, so she partly knew which herbs were used to treat wounds and diseases. Throughout the years, she had grown an interest in medicinal herbs that she wanted to be a herbalist someday.

"Oh really?" teased Zen. "So those grasses you used to treat my wounds back then, actually didn't do anything?"

Arisa gazed at him, her forehead wrinkling.

"From your reaction, I'm guessing that you forgot," said Zen, sighing.

Arisa kept looking at him, trying to remember that moment.

"You have a short memory, Goofy Face," teased Zen. "Weeks after we became friends, you noticed a bruise on my hand and you suggested to play pretend. I became a patient and you a herbalist. I remember you taking me to various gardens to pick random plants. You were so sure that you would heal me because you had seen your grandmother treating her patients."

As Zen chuckled at that memory, Arisa remembered that childhood moment.

She giggled. "Well, my knowledge of medicinal herbs has grown since then. I was a clueless child back then. On the brighter side, I had succeeded to make you play something instead of just sitting there drawing."

"You did." Zen smiled.

Arisa's heart skipped upon seeing that rare smile. She quickly shifted her gaze to the front, telling herself to calm down. For a short minute, silence fell in the atmosphere.

"You know," said Zen, breaking the silence, "sometimes I wonder what I would have become if I hadn't met you in that forest. How coincidental our encounter was that night."

"You would probably end up being an anti-social broody man," Arisa teased. "But there's a reason for everything. I think we were fated to meet. Celestians and Eterians had been hating each other for years, so I guess fate wanted to make a difference."