The bowl held the sound of Arashi's extraction for one breath, then let it go. The arms hissed away, the stretcher disappeared through a seam, and the arena remembered it had twenty battles left to decide.
Raizen stepped back into motion. The board recalculated, stacked Nyx points with the new deathmatch combat points. His line moved. He didn't chase it. The work would keep.
A floor below, two heavy arcs cut clean through dust.
Keahi.
She crossed a broken concourse with her claymore low, blade bright the way sunrise is bright. Across from her a tall figure in a long cloak planted a palm on the ground. The earth answered. A knee-high wall rose out of cracked tiles and ran like a wave. He didn't shout. He didn't posture. The ground moved because he asked it to.
The host tried a joke and didn't finish it. "Matchup - Keahi versus… cloak. Nah, I'm just joking. That's Ichiro, folks. He's been farming assist points like a saint, and now we get to see him keep himself alive."
