Flow of Existence

A couple of months had passed since the merchant caravan had arrived in Ashen village, and so far it had been relatively calm.

After Nora confirmed the news of the new king with the other merchants she had been worried for a while, but none of the merchants really knew a lot about what the new king was like.

Nora knew that if even the merchants did not know a lot about the new king, then no one would yet. It was a merchant's job to collect information after all.

So she had been quite worried about it for the past couple months but decided against traveling together with the merchant caravan when it left, she didn't want to leave her family for a couple of months just to learn some information.

She had also discussed the suspicious people with the village chief; they had decided together that they would keep an eye out for any outsiders who might come across the village.

But so far their worries had been unfounded, no outsider had entered the village since the last merchant caravan. Which was also unfortunate for Nora because outsiders could tell her more about the new king.

Yosen had been quite worried about his partner, but he mostly refrained from talking about it with her.

He focused on developing more traps to hunt more efficiently, and spent his days hunting for food like he always had.

Meanwhile Kes had been focused on developing his Flow proficiency and Flow pool. He hadn't gone out to hunt again since the so-called academy test, but he had diligently worked out and meditated.

His body looked quite good, if he might say so himself. He had grown quite a bit more muscular over the past months.

He was still quite a bit behind Nash when it came to both Flow pool and proficiency, and since they had been growing at an about equal rate he wasn't really catching up either.

But Kes wasn't bothered by this because he could now give Nash a decent spar when they practiced against each other, which they did a whole lot.

Ade had also been allowed back into the academy, her relationship with Nash was still stagnant.

She had grown noticeably less arrogant after being humbled by the encounter with the elemental beast, Kes had grown to like her a whole lot more.

He wasn't in love with Ade or anything, he could never do that to his best friend. But he had noticed she had gotten a lot nicer since the forest incident.

She had actually trained with Nash and Kes a couple of times, in which she completely destroyed Kes, and trained with other classmates too.

But despite Nash now training with Ade more and her being more sociable, their relationship hadn't progressed.

Kes could see Ade had an eye for Nash too, maybe because of his valiant actions within the forest, but she too seemed scared to really approach him romantically. 

Kes was growing tired of their behavior so he had decided to do something about it today, he would set Ade and Nash up for some time alone.

He was currently walking towards the training grounds where he had invited both Nash and Ade to come train today. 

He arrived to see Ade had arrived first.

Kes wondered if she had shown up early in hopes of Nash arriving early too, so they could have some alone time together. 

He inwardly shook his head, he did not understand how their relationship was still stagnant. But he would try to change that today.

The girl was sitting on a nearby bench playing with her long ashen gray hair as her icy blue eyes shined in the sunlight.

Kes greeted her. "Hi Ade, are you ready to train today?"

Ade looked up and stopped playing with her hair. "Oh, hey Kes. So you arrived first huh."

Her voice had a disappointed tone to it.

Kes rolled his eyes inwardly. If it was Nash sitting here he would've maybe shot back with a nasty joke, but he couldn't really do the same with Ade. They had gotten along better recently, but they weren't really close friends yet.

Instead Kes just silently took place on another bench and decided to wait for Nash.

He arrived a couple minutes later, he had a brightly beaming smile on his face and was clearly looking forward to the training.

Kes rolled his eyes inwardly again. He really did not understand how this relationship was still stagnant.

He stood up from the bench and greeted his friend. "Yo Nash, ready to lose today?"

Nash raised his eyebrow with a smile. "I don't plan on only fighting Ade today though?"

Kes clicked his tongue. "If you are so eager to lose, let's go first."

Nash eagerly got ready to start fighting but Ade quickly stopped him. "I've been waiting for quite a while now so I think I'll go first. Let's fight Kes, Nash you can just watch for a bit."

Nash gave a disappointed nod but quickly sat down on the bench.

He boredly rested his head on one of his hands and observed the spar that was now starting between Ade and Kes, but inwardly he was quite interested in the outcome.

Kes slapped his cheeks to focus up, he wasn't going to lose today.

He wanted the relationship between Ade and Nash to develop today, but winning came first.

Both Ade and Kes got into position and greeted each other. With that the spar started.

Kes reacted first, he dashed toward Ade with astonishing speed. He clearly wasn't holding back anything.

He tried thrusting his palm into her right side but was quickly met with a block. Ade responded with a punch of her own, aiming it at Kes' head.

Kes dodged the punch and stepped backwards while quickly weaving out of the way of the follow up punches Ade was throwing at him. 

He quickly crouched down and stepped inwards, this time successfully delivering a left handed palm strike to her side which Ade barely blocked. 

Ade wasn't slow to respond; she quickly swung her left leg up with almost inhuman speed, kicking the crouched Kes while she was still recovering from the palm strike to her side. 

Kes tumbled and quickly pulled back his left hand, with which had just delivered a strike, to support himself. He pushed up against the floor to get himself back up on his feet, but Ade recovered quicker. She was already standing there and ready for him, she quickly struck him in his chest.

Kes took the palm strike almost unguarded and jumped backwards, he had taken quite a bit of damage this time.

Trying to shake off the damage of the heavy strike to his chest he kept dodging the incoming attacks from Ade, she wasn't going to let this chance slide. 

The attacks quickly caught up to him, but Kes stayed resilient waiting for his chance to strike.

And suddenly he saw an opportunity, Ade had gotten greedy. She seemingly wanted to end the fight quickly and went all in with the next attack, but this left her open.

Kes risked it all and tried to capitalize on this opportunity, he disregarded his guard and quickly struck out towards Ade's head. 

Ade's composed face suddenly formed a smile, it had been a feint. She quickly blocked the all-out punch and managed to deliver a spar ending strike of her own, winning her the spar.

Kes looked into the icy blue eyes that towered above him and let out a sigh. "I guess it's my loss again."

Ade smiled. "No need to beat yourself up over it, you fought pretty well this time. I honestly can't believe you grew as quickly as you did."

Kes let out an annoyed mumble. "I don't need to beat myself up over it because you already did plenty of that."

After that spar Kes took a seat and watched as Nash and Ade sparred for a while, Nash narrowly beat the already pretty tired Ade.

In the following couple of spars Kes lost every single time. He had almost beaten Nash once, but almost is the same as not at all.

After the spars were over they were resting together on the benches. Nash had even brought some food, unlike Nora Viola was great at making food so it tasted delicious.

After finishing his food Kes suddenly stood up. "Oh, I completely forgot, my mother asked me to do something for her today. You two can continue together for now I guess."

Nash turned a bit flustered. "Uhhh, sure Kes. I'll speak to you later, shall we spar here again tomorrow?"

Kes shot him a grin. "Yeah that sounds good to me." 

His tone turned a little sarcastic. "Now, I must take my leave."

Ade and Nash both waved him goodbye as Kes stepped away.

When Kes was out of sight they both sat there flusteredly, a little awkward to say the least.

Nash opened his mouth, seemingly trying to say something but quickly closed it again.

Instead Ade started talking. "You know, now that I think about it I never actually apologized for what happened in the forest. But I want you to know that I am truly sorry for what happened back then, I hope you don't hate me because of it."

Nash flailed his hands in a dismissive motion. "No no no, how could I ever hate you over something like that. I had already long forgiven you, if it even needs to be forgiven. That trip worked in my favor too."

Ade's face turned to a soft smile. "We truly worked together so well back then, I hope we can do more of that in the future."

Nash's face brightened. "I hope so too."

After sitting together in silence for a while Nash stood up.

"I think I'll leave too then, talk to you later Ade."

But as he stood up Ade suddenly said something that made him stop in his tracks.

"You know, I love you Nash."

…

Meanwhile Kes was making his way home.

'I sure hope those two are getting along well.'

Kes hoped his friend would work up enough courage to confess to the girl he loved today, he had pretty much perfectly set them up after all.

'If that useless Nash is still too scared to confess, maybe I'll just tell Ade he loves her myself.'

All in all he was feeling pretty happy with himself, mission completed successfully, or so he thought.

As his house came into vision he suddenly saw the door fling open. Nora was standing there, she had a distressed look on her face.

The distressed look was not just on her face, Kes could feel the awful distressed feeling coming from her Flow too.

Nora dashed up to him and hissed. "You need to get out of here, now!"

His good mood instantly turned sour.