Leona and Deuce

In an early vignette Vil seems impressed by how Deuce is not intimidated by Leona, but after he explains his reasoning of, “It don’t matter who you’re talkin’ to. You always gotta be straight,” Vil takes it back, saying “It is not brave to challenge someone without a grasp of their capabilities. It’s reckless.”

When a dream-Ace asks Deuce about being accompanied by Leona in Cater’s dream Deuce says they decided to get together for tea: “L-Leona can have tea sometimes, when he feels like it!” Leona quietly asks, “Couldn’t that idiot have come up with literally any other cover story?”

During the trial of Cater’s dream Deuce selects Leona for the witness stand on the logic that he would be able to improvise the best out of anyone else in the group.

Leona sleeps through the proceedings, instead, but we later get to see his improvisation in action: when Cater volunteers the group to become members of Riddle’s band Leona is not pleased, but follows along when bade, pretending that he can play the drums: “I haven’t used drumsticks much lately, but muscle memory should compensate well enough. I’ll do some drumming…IF you can keep up with my beat, that is.” 

Idia is delighted.

Deuce and Leona overlap again in Riddle’s dream, where Deuce identifies a dream-Ace by how he praises Leona at Riddle’s expense (Dream-Ace: “You’ve got a super powerful signature spell, and you can block our housewarden’s signature spell.” – Leona: “That was more of a fluke.”)

Deuce says there is no way that Ace would ever believe that Riddle would go down easily to the housewarden of another dorm and Leona says, “So you don’t think I could actually win against that redheaded rich boy.”

Deuce responds, “It’s true that you’re levelheaded, and smart, and strong. It’s just…our boss is just as good!” Leona replies, “Would you look at that? He’s got a decent dog in his kennel.”(Deuce: “Housewarden Riddle has a dog?”)

While nothing is described via dialogue, based on visuals it appears as though Leona physically shields Deuce from an attack by a dream-Ace. Leona then sends him off alone, claiming that “lions have no stamina” (though this may have been a lie to convince Deuce to leave him behind: Ruggie has said before that Leona has “got ridiculous magic reserves…and (his) stamina’s nuts, too”).

When Deuce is hesitant about being alone Leona assures him, “You’re a Heartslabyul student. You should know what routes the other guys would take, right?,” successfully convincing Deuce to escape on his own (Leona: “I can appreciate someone who doesn’t waste time waffling”).

Leona turns the magical hedges of the rose maze of Riddle’s mind into sand long enough for Deuce to run off, leaving the dream-Ace with Leona.

The dream-Ace says, “It’s not like you to stick around and let Deuce run off by himself. You think you’re some kinda hero, Your Highness?,” and Leona responds, “Yeah, that’s right. Deep down, I’m a kindly, caring prince.”

Deuce has a line about Leona giving him the Lion Garb outfit from the Cloudcalling tournament, saying that Leona told him that it could be him next year (Deuce: “What did he mean by that?”).