Reason to Live (Amourshipping)

Chapter 24 - Done Deal and Path to the Final

Third person's POV

It was Monday and the tournament continued with the remaining battles of the group stage and the play-offs, which were in the same format as the group stage...

Most of the students didn't get to the play-offs as only the winners of respective groups advanced... So, from 64 groups of 4 people came 64 play-off participants... The school had 4 venues prepared, one inside the gym and three outside, so and the tournament was running on time, even though the group stage had 384 battles...

Iris advanced from the first place in front of Misty. Gary denied Drew's continuing in the tournament. Goh, Cilan, Chloe, Barry, Lillie, and few other boys and girls from their class didn't advance either...

On the other hand, Dawn, Paul, and surprisingly even Serena won their respective groups and qualified for the play-offs...

Ash and May were the only one who didn't get a single one of their Pokemon knocked out in any round so far, and were quickly named as favorites for the win...

When the play-off chart was published, there weren't any surprising pairing in the first round... The only thing that was interesting was a fact that Ash and May can't battle each other sooner than in the final...

Monday held first two rounds. Third round and quarterfinals were scheduled to Tuesday. And Wednesday was about to be a host for semifinals, battle for third, and the Finale.

Monday's battles were at the full swing when Ash, who rather easily won and advanced to the next round, met Calem in the hall...

"Hey! Where's your date?" Calem caught Ash's attention.

The deal was that Ash asks a girl out in front of Calem... The fact that Ash texted a girl and asked her out in advance was only a good thing, but didn't really mean anything... What was important is that Ash took his time describing everything to that girl on Saturday, before he actually asked her out through the text, so the girl was prepared and knew that Ash's gonna ask her out in person, in front of Calem... Only that way could Calem's deal be completed.

"I believe she's now battling..." Ash responded, looking at the time on his phone.

"I'll be in the cafeteria... Come there with her and properly ask her out." Calem said and began walking away.

"Okay..." Ash responded.

"And don't be late..." Calem turned around. "If I'm done eating sooner than you come... the deal's off, understand?" He explained before resuming his walk to the cafeteria.

Ash nodded and ran in the opposite direction, the direction of the outside battlefield, where the girl he was supposed to ask out was battling...

When Ash arrived outside, where three of the four venues were located, an older teacher was just ruling out the last Pokemon in the battle where the girl, which Ash was supposed to ask out, was participating... She won and will face Ash in the third round, but neither of them was aware of that fact yet...

"Sorry, no time to explain!" Ash arrived in hurry, grabbed the girl by her wrist and began dragging her away before she could even shake hands with her opponent.

"Ash?! What's going on?!" The girl demanded an explanation.

"Calem's waiting in cafeteria, but if we arrive late... the deal is off!" Ash briefly explained while jogging in the cafeteria's direction.

"Oh no! Let's hurry!" The girl reacted and matched her pace with Ash, who let go of her wrist.

"Ash? Dawn? What's the hurry?" Wondered May into whom they almost bumped when they took a turn in the hallway.