[center][h2][color=d7d7d7]Roland[/color][/h2]

Level 8 Roland (19/80) - Holding 1 level up. 
Location: Eseka
Word Count: 1332
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Well, Roland was having fun hanging around with Sakura and Band, but looking at the time he had to make it to his next match. Hopefully he'd be done with these soon or at least get something from this that would make for a good payday. But first he'd have to get to his scheduled fight. Being at the center of the city in the high tier, getting there wouldn't be too bad, but he'd just be cutting it close to his appointment when he got there. And since he took awhile, he didn't really get much research on his opponent this time. But from the looks of him, some pretty boy with a green outfit, Roland wasn't too worried, although if he knew who he was fighting he should be.

Entering the arena where people could fall off once again, he came face to face to his next opponent, a fairy boy wearing a green outfit with a sword and shield. Funny enough, not many people used shields in the City. Most weapons were more durable or stronger than with something that would only shatter. Outside of some... particular circumstances. Even then, those that took on a defensive style knew how to block or evade without such a big clunky item. 

As the fight started, Roland rolled Keter, a floor he was familiar with as it was the floor he was mostly found on. And strangely a good match up against his current foe whom was announced to be "Link (Soul Callibur)". Although the man before Roland seemed to only grunt and say nothing outside of some grunts as he charged right in when the battle started. Roland was glad that he was finally fighting a sword user who didn't seem to have any special gimmicks or anything, just a fight with swords. At least at the start as Roland dodged Link's stab before striking with his own sword, which Link blocked likewise. This clash getting him to emotion level 1, giving him Scars and the voice coming from him almost disturbing his opponent with a woman's voice saying. "It takes a strong will and courage to cut your own wrist.". 

Hearing that, Link hopped away dodging Roland's followup slash with his daggers showing greater agility than it looked like he had and moved to a ranged style shooting Roland with an arrow. Being much slower than a gun, Roland could deflect the arrow without much trouble and after a few more arrows from Link being effortlessly deflected by Roland, he put his bow away and dodged out of the way of Roland making his way in leaving a bomb behind. Now, bombs funny enough were not used much in the City at all, so it took Roland a little bit to notice what the big cartoony orb with a fuse was. And while he tried to defend against it, the explosion left him staggerd with Link smacking him with a sword charge to knock him off the ledge, leading to a round 1 win for Link. However this gave Roland emotion level 2, him gaining Pulsation with an ambiguous voice saying, "He who holds power should rightfully wield it."

Round 2 started, and Roland had gained some emotion levels now. Much like before, knowing his archery was useless against Roland, Link started with what worked last time, bombs. This time however he threw them at Roland. Roland however was ready for them now, and knocked them back at Link, causing him to take damage from them instead. Roland then followed up with his own ranged attacks using his pistols and shotgun, Link blocking them with his shield, but being knocked back a tiny bit from the recoil from Roland's shotgun.

It seemed both of them would be finding ranged attacks mostly useless. As such, both sides ran into each other and clashed, swords clanging, shields blocking, Roland dodging or taking reduced damage from the sword slashes that hit him thanks to Scars, and him sometimes overpowering Link thanks to Pulsation. Eventually the round ended with Link trying a hail mary dash attack at Roland as he hit emotion level 3, gaining Fervent Beats, the same voice from earlier saying "The more you aspire, the faster the beats will get.", and with that a huge power boost with a significant downside, Link just had to outlast Roland now to win a round but this time he dashed right off the ledge leading to a ringout. Knowing this, Roland also gained the EGO page Aspiration, turning the rest of the fight into a huge rush.

Round 3 showed this in good stride as Roland unleashed Aspiration right away, the area turning into the insides of a heart as Link was blasted by the EGO power, which also damaged Roland. Link tried to block it with his shield, but not even his powerful shield could block everything with some of the damage going through. Roland then continued to rush Link which was stopped by Link's shield again, Roland getting hit with a retaliatory sword slash. The two then got into a huge sword fight until Roland finally collapsed from Fervent beats, but as Round 4 started, due to the frenzy of attacks and the loss of the previous round, Roland managed to get to emotion level 5. This got him Guilt and Leer, the same girls voice saying "You’re still holding onto those painful memories… You poor fellow." and "You’re trembling so much. What makes you so afraid?" and the EGO Marionette and Remorse. 

Round 4 started, and having gotten Leer, Link was thrown off guard by Roland hitting like a truck now, causing massive knockback to him when Roland hit his shield and making parrying Roland's attacks very difficult. Its as if the fight turned as Roland was at max power and speed now, and while Link had little problem blocking Rolands attacks before, now he was being pushed and before he knew it, Roland had knocked him out of the arena as he blocked a frenzy of attacks from Roland with his shield.

Then came the final round, the round that ended everything. Link knew that Roland would eventually collapse, and that while he seemed to take a lot more damage from round 4, Link also took the damage dealt to Roland on top of Roland's insane damage output now. So he swapped to as defensive as a fighting style he could. As the fight started, Roland drew his gun to use it to knock Link off the platform with a barrage, but Link used his hookshot to disarm Roland before throwing a bomb between himself and the fixer as a smokescreen. Roland didn't care though, and used the EGO of Remorse to clear the smoke as the two were now in a church, Roland in a plain white dress as he seemed to gaze at Link through the smoke as if he was looking through his soul and teleported on top of Link and tried to drive nails into his chest. Only one nail got through, but Link felt what that meant right away as any remorse about anything he had ever done overflowed from him and weakened him for a moment with Roland using this time to hit Link with Furioso. 

This was where Link showed his defensive prowess, using the fact Roland constantly moved and teleported around him to keep himself in the center of the arena as he was knocked around, shield raised. But he was still taking chip damage this whole time, and Roland was hitting him with hard attack after hard attack. After Link was standing after this attack, Roland knew his time to finish the round was almost up and unleashed his last two attacks, an attack with Marionette hitting Link hard, and as he slid, fired his explosive shotgun to knock himself and Link back even further leading to a double ring out. But as Link fell out first, Roland was deemed the ultimate winner.