Six events. Six columns. Nas stacked in elimination-style trees that branched across the massive display board like the roots of so ancient, predatory plant.
Reyna’s erald eyes moved with the precision of a hawk scanning a hunting ground. She tracked through the columns thodically, filtering out the noise of hundreds of other prospects until she found what she was looking for. Her na. His na. The places where their paths would cross again.
Event Two, Obstacle Course: Cabana, R. vs. Nakano, S. Sa heat. Sa starting line, sa finish, sa battlefield of artificial terrain and deliberately engineered chaos.
Event Four, One-on-One Duel: Cabana, R. vs. Nakano, S. Direct bracket match. No obstacles. No gimmicks. Just her, him, and a circle drawn in the dirt.
Event Six, Mystery Event: All finalists. Details TBA. The only slot without specifics, which ant it was designed to be spectacular, unpredictable, or both.
Three out of six. The tournant committee had clearly sat down in a conference room sowhere, looked at the preliminary viewership numbers from their first fight, and made the most comrcially cynical decision possible. They were giving the crowd exactly what it wanted, which was more of the two of them trying to destroy each other while the ratings counter spun like a slot machine hitting jackpot after jackpot.
"They’re milking it," Diego said from behind her, his voice carrying that particular blend of amusent and resignation that ant he’d already accepted the absurdity of the situation. "Nakano versus Cabana sells. The whole country just watched you two go at it for ten minutes straight and then shake hands afterward like a pair of goddamn samurai having an honor duel in so period drama."
"We didn’t shake hands like samurai."
"You literally bowed your head to each other."
"That was a nod. A nod is different."
"Mija." Diego sat down beside her with the specific gravity of soone about to say sothing annoying. "You are the most competitive person I have ever t, and I grew up in a family of professional kickboxers. You just fought a boy who can absorb your strongest attack and convert it into a weapon. You lost. And right now you’re looking at tomorrow’s bracket with the expression of soone who just received a Christmas present they really wanted."
Reyna said nothing.
Diego waited.
"He told to stop holding back," she finally said.
"I heard."
"Nobody says that to . Ever. They say be careful. They say conserve energy. They say think about the brand. Veronica says smile for the caras. My coach says protect the highlight reel." Her good hand curled into a fist on her thigh. "He told to fight for real. And then he took everything I threw at him and hit back harder."
Diego absorbed this with the thoughtful expression of a man who knew he was entering dangerous territory. "So you want revenge."
"I want a rematch."
"Those are different things?"
"Revenge is about ego. A rematch is about respect." She looked at the bracket again. Event Four. One-on-one. No teammates. No constructs protecting either of them. Just Satori Nakano and Reyna Cabana and the distance between them. "He respected enough to break my arm instead of going easy on . I respected him enough to yield instead of making him knock unconscious in front of the caras."
"That’s a weird love language, Reyna."
The temperature in the room spiked.
"Say that again," she said.
"I will not," Diego said quickly. "I value my eyebrows."
Takamura watched the exchange from his chair without comnt. His dark eyes tracked between Reyna and the bracket with the patience of soone who had seen this particular species of denial many tis before and found it reliably entertaining.
"Your arm," Takamura said, after Diego retreated to safety near the food.
"Hairline fracture. No structural compromise. I can fight."
"I didn’t ask if you can fight. I asked about your arm."
"It’ll hold."
"Will it hold against a boy who can hit hard enough to fracture bone through a reinforced combat suit?"
Reyna t his eyes. "If he hits the sa spot twice, no. He won’t though."
"You sound certain."
"He pulled the strike today. If he wanted to shatter my arm, he would have." She touched the splint gently, feeling the healing accelerator’s hum through the material. "He doesn’t want broken. He wants fighting."
Takamura’s expression did sothing she couldn’t read. He looked at the bracket one more ti, then at Reyna, then at a point sowhere behind her left shoulder that might have been the future.
"Get so sleep tonight," he said. "Real sleep. Not three hours of footage review followed by shadowboxing until your arm gives out."
"I would never."
"You did exactly that before the Crucible match."
"That was different."
"How?"
Because this ti she wasn’t fighting to prove sothing to the VHC or the sponsors or Veronica or the faceless mass of people who expected her to be what they’d decided she was. This ti she was fighting because a boy with dark eyes and a scarred-up bat had looked at her across a broken arena and grinned like he’d just found the best fight of his life.
And she wanted him to feel that way again.
She wanted to be the reason his pulse spiked.
She wanted him to look at her across the platform tomorrow and know, with complete certainty, that he was about to earn every single bruise she gave him.
Reyna stood from the couch. The room had gone quiet around her. Diego pretended to be very interested in his food. Leo studied the ceiling with academic intensity. Kira slept beneath her blanket.
"I’m going to shower," Reyna announced. "And then I’m going to eat whatever Leo hasn’t destroyed. And then I’m going to sleep for eight hours."
"All extrely healthy decisions," Takamura said.
"And then I’m going to wake up tomorrow morning and remind Satori Nakano that a draw and a yield don’t an he’s won."
She walked toward the corridor that led to the dormitory showers, her broken arm cradled against her ribs and her crimson braid swinging with each step. The healing accelerator humd. Her mana reserves trickled back at the grudging pace of an exhausted body rebuilding itself from near-zero.
Behind her, Diego muttered sothing to Leo in a voice he probably thought was quiet enough.
"Bro, she’s down bad."
Reyna kept walking.
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