Leona is called to his hometown to participate in a local festival and tournament. It is customary for the younger brother of the crown prince to be the leader of a group of warriors and give guardian lessons to new members, which Leona does not want to do.
In order to evade this duty, he invites Lilia, Jack and Vil to participate in the tournament. Leona explains, “If students from far-flung Night Raven College win, we can pretend I did the lessons.”
On their way to Leona’s hometown they meet Kalim, who has been invited to the festival by Leona’s family as a guest due to his status as a descendant of one of Scalding Sands’ most powerful families.
Jack faints from heatstroke soon after they arrive, however, leading Leona to invite Kalim to join the team for the tournament.
They meet Kifaji (EN: Neji), the grand chamberlain of the royal family, and visit a local bazaar where they drink a blended drink of hibiscus and baobab and try mutton sauté, mango, passion fruit, jackfruit, steamed banana and savory crepes with stew.
At one point the group’s bus breaks down, and Kalim buys a new bus for their driver.
Leaving Kifaji at the royal palace, Leona drives the group in a car to a local hot springs resort.
After visiting the hot springs the group practices for the tournament, with Leona explaining that he is forbidden from participating: “I’m the leader of the Sunset Warriors. People’d say it’s unfair if I threw my support behind a particular team. The team’d be disqualified to boot. All your fine efforts practicin’ for nothin’.”
After training they return to their hotel for barbecued meats and seafood, with coffee.
Leona gives each member of the group a personalized strategy for the tournament, telling Kalim to “go for a draw in al his bouts” so that Lilia and Vil will have a chance to watch the competition and prepare for their own rounds. Kalim decides that it would be more entertaining if he were to try and win, instead, ignoring Leona’s advice and immediately losing his bout.
Vil is kicked in the leg during his first bout but still outmaneuvers and beats his opponent, explaining, “faking pain is easy for me.”
Leona’s strategy for Lilia is to go for an immediate victory due to his low stamina, but after his opponent becomes violent Lilia also decides to ignore Leona’s advice in favor of punishing his opponent for breaking the rules. Lilia wins his bout, but Leona is not pleased.
After the first round Leona is set upon by active members of the royal palace guard who achieved their dream of becoming Sunset Warriors two years ago but never received the training from Leona that they thought they would be awarded with. They assure Leona, “We will win this year as well, and finally have our guardian lessons.”
During the final round Lilia accidentally sends his opponent flying into the stands and rescues both him and the spectators by catching him magically in midair. This immediately disqualifies Lilia for use of magic, which is against the rules.
As they will lose the tournament if Kalim does not win his bout Leona comes up with a plan of having Vil distract Kalim’s opponent. Kalim refuses, saying that he wants to try on his own, and Kalim’s opponent is revealed to be the bus driver from the previous day. The bus drive forfeits the bout to Kalim out of gratitude.
It is revealed that Vil was not actually faking his injury from the first round of the tournament but he refuses to withdraw, saying that he will fight on a broken leg if he must, but Leona comes up with a new plan: he wears a mask and enters the ring as a member of the NRC team himself.
Kifaji explains, “Prince Leona isn’t allowed in the tournament. His participation would mean an immediate disqualification. If it was known that the young prince was so flagrantly breaking the rules, it would bring shame to the entire royal family of Sunset Savanna. There are many foreign dignitaries in attendance. We can’t allow them to witness such malfeasance. To protect our country’s reputation, that masked man CANNOT be Prince Leona. Prince Leona must have been counting on me making this calculation to save face.”
Leona successfully wins the final bout of the final round of the tournament, to the frustration of the Royal Palace Guard team. Leona tells his fallen opponent, “Got a message from Prince Leona. He says he’s NEVER gonna do the lessons. Real warriors don’t need to rely on others’ teachings. Dedicate yourselves to making it on your own…is what he said.”
The guardsman responds, “We may have lost, but it seems we still got our lesson after all. No regrets.”
Leona is noticed to be missing from his seat and a search begins for him. As being discovered could result in the NRC team’s victory being rescinded Leona abruptly leaves in his car, followed by Kalim, Vil and Lilia and leaving Jack, Grim and the prefect behind.
Twisted Wonderland Reference Note 