Chương 16: The Rival

Even in an alternate universe, almost all objects remained familiar to me. Buildings were buildings, roads were roads, cars were cars, and planes were planes – nearly everything was just about the same. For the first few years, I found comfort in watching familiar scenes with these familiar objects. A classically shaped pickup truck rolling to a stop at a red light, a commercial airplane speeding along a runway to gather the necessary momentum for takeoff…

They were things I knew, things I didn't have to guess about. At the very least, I understood them as well as any average person. I had no gaping blind spot when it came to something like an airplane, no crack in my mind to be exploited. It wasn't a subject that could result in middle school classmates staring at me like I'd grown a third eye on my nose. The Wellston City Railway system was an exception to the rule.

My first time riding in one of their crowded train compartments, a middle school field trip, I had been surprised by an elevated second layer of seats where I expected luggage compartments. The seats on the higher layer were body-length long and reclined at an angle, with sturdy-looking ladders leading up to them, and the train car's roof was a foot or two higher than usual to accommodate.

They had also been empty at the time, save for a lone woman in business attire, despite everyone else on the train being packed shoulder-to-shoulder like sardines. My History teacher had been overwhelmed, trying to keep track of a classful of fifth graders on a densely packed train, but he strangely didn't tell us to climb up and use them. I hadn't been able to catch the hint in time. I'd suggested to the teacher that we make use of the twenty or so empty seats, thinking I was being helpful.

His eyes had grown wide, seeming the size of pool balls on his face, and he began viciously scolding me – like I'd committed a faux pas as severe as playing pop songs at a funeral. The noise of the then-moving train, combined with the murmurs of passengers all around me, had made it difficult to understand what he was saying. But I had caught a small part of it: "not a high-tier." I'd known, then, that I had made a mistake. … I shook my head, forcing the unfortunate memory out of my mind.

The crowd of pushing, squirming train passengers below me unavoidably brought it to the surface of my thoughts, but I needed to keep myself at peak condition. I wasn't taking the railway for a field trip this time. We (the Royals, Arlo, and I) were headed to the suburbs north of Wellston City, where Agwin High was. It was the day of our 'away' Turf Wars match against them. Sayila was sitting in the chair to my right.

She'd likely noticed that I had been staring at the crowd below us, brushing a long strand of turquoise hair from her eye and giving me a mild smile.

"Is it your first time on the upper layer?"

"It is," I said.

"My parents are Elite-tiers, so they could never bring me up here. My dad's also a car-lover, so we've never used the public railway system much, anyway." I didn't mention that she had read through my student file multiple times, ignoring that she already knew my parents' ability levels to four significant figures.

I hadn't concluded one way or another if she was the sort of high-tier who appreciated back-and-forth with a 'lower' or saw it as disrespect, so I stayed cautious, just like in my other minimal interactions with Wellston's reigning queen.

"I see." Sayila shifted a little in her chair, tilting her head to look at passengers entering and exiting the train as it rolled to a stop.

"My family was the opposite. I have fond memories of sitting with my parents in the mornings and watching the people below me head to work. Perhaps because I'm short. I was tiny as a child." Kuyo snorted, sitting in the chair on the opposite side of Sayila from me.

"What she means is that she's so overjoyed to be a High-tier now that she jumped at the first chance to show it off."

"What makes you say that?" Sayila turned to Kuyo, and I couldn't see her face, but her voice sounded artificially flat.

"It's been nearly a month since I got the classification." Kuyo grinned.

"You think I forgot? In the early-season tournament, after the announcer called us 'the stacked team with two high-tiers,' you got this sad, weepy look on your face."

"I - I did not!" The tips of her ears turned red.

"Mhm. I bet you spent the first week playing with your passive in your room and blowing off work."

"Not true." She shook her head.

"I've been using it, yes, but only because it's very useful! I certainly wasn't like you, obsessively cutting things into exact quarters for a month." I thanked Kuyo in my mind, trying to watch discreetly. The self-constrained, 'proper' type of High-tier? I guessed. Believes high standing requires control of not just others but oneself? No, there's not enough information yet… I didn't remember Sayila from the unOrdinary comic, which was my most pressing worry.

A character of relative importance like her, who was a high-tier and Queen in the same year as Rei… But I couldn't remember reading her name in my past life even once? It was discomforting. I was at a clear information disadvantage, which I never enjoyed. It didn't help that the girl had straddled the status quo like glue during her reign, never pushing for or against any significant policies. Was it because she cared more about graduation and University? Because of laziness? A dispositionally moderate mindset?

Did she feel it wasn't her place to advocate for anything, given that she'd always been a few points weaker than Kuyo and Rei? I didn't know. I hadn't put in the time and effort to know. I'd figured that if Sayila had a truly significant impact on anything, she would have appeared in the main story. Even if it had been a good decision to use my time on other things, I regretted it a little more each time I spoke to her.

Arlo had been sitting silently in the seat to my left - but unlike me, made no effort to hide that he was watching them. And unlike Sayila, he was someone I knew more than well enough to put a label on. The 'everyone fits in their proper place' type of High-tier. Naturally, because he was lower-leveled and less experienced than the two of them, his 'proper place' was to learn and listen. But that was also why Rei could get on Arlo's nerves so easily, or I thought so.

Rei stood above Arlo, while simultaneously possessing a profound disregard for hierarchy and tradition... which made it impossible for Arlo to defer to him. Rei had been below us, but now he was climbing up the ladder to a nearby seat. Arlo noticed at the same time as me, heaving a breath.

"Good. He decided to stop embarrassing himself." Rei stuck Arlo with an irked look, clearly having heard him.

"I just think it's a waste, having fifteen empty seats when it's so crowded. I stopped because nobody would believe it was fine."

"That seems risky," Kuyo said.

"You could have given some low-tier kid the totally wrong impression."

"What do you mean?"

"If they start thinking it's 'fine' with every High-tier, but it's actually only you…" Kuyo trailed off. Rei and I met eyes, sharing a commiserating glance. It was momentary. He knew I wasn't going to show my full ideological power level with our present company.

"I was careful not to do that," Rei said.

"I just don't think it has to be this way. It's not like every city uses the two-level system on their trains - I know New Toronto doesn't." Kuyo raised an eyebrow.

"New Toronto's railway system is pretty bad. Trains usually come late or early, and they're sometimes completely unavailable."

"Because they don't have a second, exclusive level of seats?" Rei asked.

"Or because they have a funding issue?"

"Well, why do you think they don't have enough funding?" Kuyo said. He gestured below us, at the thick tide of people swarming into the already-packed train car.

"Imagine I'm a High-tier working at the New Toronto Bureau of Authorities, and the few times I take the train are as bad as that. How likely am I to vouch for the railway system?" Rei seemed mildly alarmed by the implication. Arlo looked like he wanted to say something, but he went silent. Kuyo shook his head at the two of them, as if he couldn't believe this was a surprise.

"In Wellston City, high-tiers always have a pleasant experience riding the train. They're also the people who manage our city budget. It's not a coincidence that our trains run on time."

"I - I don't believe The Authorities let personal bias decide policy to such an extent," Arlo said hesitantly, sounding uncomfortable.

"For one, my aunt and uncle haven't mentioned anything like this…" Kuyo shrugged.

"You can call it what you want, but it's the reason people can live in Wellston without a car and still make it to work on time."

"And that doesn't strike you as being wrong, or unreasonable, or anything?" Rei said, making a decent recovery.

"Having to pander to High-tiers for anything to get anywhere?"

"Look, if you can name a better alternative, I'm willing to listen," Kuyo replied.

"But what are the other options, realistically? Holding a popularity contest to decide who runs things? Picking a random person off the street? There's a reason every sector in the world has a Bureau of Authorities." Arlo and Rei's reactions were understandable, but I'd looked into the 'upper level' seats a few years ago, so this wasn't news to me like it was for them. The discussion still gave me an uncomfortable itch. Kuyo was, to me, the most intimidating category of high-tier: the cynical, uber-practical kind.

He didn't hold any overtrusting delusions about The Authorities... He didn't care to criticize them, either. It was difficult to believe that he was supposed to become a vigilante superhero in just a few years. I hadn't figured out what would somehow convince him into it.

"Kuyo..." I started.

"Isn't your aunt also a member of The Authorities? Would she take issue with you revealing things in a public area?"

"She is," he said with a nod.

"But she's not in the division that manages city infrastructure. The different divisions don't always see eye-to-eye, I can say that much. I don't think she would care." I stiffened and sat up straighter in my seat. Due to their scarcity, I was hungry for every scrap of information on The Authorities that I could get. I opened my mouth, about to ask Kuyo for details… But stopped just before my lips could make a sound. A jolt of instinct ran down my skin.

In the reflection on the train car's glass window, out of the corner of my eye, I saw it. A look of smug victory on Sayila's face, not directed toward anyone else but me. The smirk flashed over her face so briefly that I nearly missed it, gone so quickly that I had little idea what it meant. Still, it made me stop instinctually - and once I did, my intuition was screaming at me to say as few words as possible.

"That makes sense," I managed belatedly.

"While we have the time, could you tell me about how Agwin's Jack fights? I don't want to get caught off guard."

"Sure." If Kuyo had noticed my hesitation, he didn't mention it.

"In my experience, the first thing you should watch out for is…" I tried to pay attention to Kuyo for the rest of the train ride, but most of my effort was spent sneaking side-eyed glances at Sayila. I wanted to catch that smirk again, to figure out what it meant, but she wore the same mild, utterly normal look each time. The train rolled to a stop a two-minute walk from our destination. I left thinking Sayila's face was like the shiny mask on a porcelain doll....

Agwin Private High School had a long, prestigious history and a disappointing present. Of course, the school was by no means weak. But according to my parents, it had once been Wellston's rival in the truest sense of the word. They had fought on par with Wellston in terms of donations, student ability level, tuition cost, quality of facilities... just about anything else you could think of.

Turf Wars matches, especially, had always been a fierce competition, with neither school retaining dominance over the other for more than a year. At the end of a Turf Wars season, the two schools would always meet in the regional finals for a yearly match: one that old newspaper issues nicknamed 'the Battle For Wellston City.' Then, an insignificant three years ago, Headmaster Vaughn had arrived. Some people attributed our immediate rise to his policies and charisma.

If 'charisma' was a codeword for 'ability level 7. 8,' then I agreed. Whatever the case, Wellston High pulled ahead and never looked back. High-ranking families in the North of Wellston City, families like Arlo's Lingard clan, began switching to Wellston High the very same year of his arrival. These families had historically sent their children to Agwin, and now they were taking their donations, prestige, and strong abilities to Wellston High - all things Agwin, in turn, was beginning to lack.

From the perspective of an Agwin student, Wellston High was draining their school's lifeblood like a cloud of mosquitoes. All that was to say, it was no surprise that Agwin didn't throw us a welcome parade. Still, I hadn't expected to hear a booming call of 'Fuck Wellston' and other, far more expletive-filled chants before their home crowd could get a look at us. I heard the chants as we arrived in the outer reaches of Agwin's stadium.

Name-tagged security guards brought us to a small, enclosed room labeled 'game-planning' on the door. The voices were reaching us through layers and layers of concrete, I realized, which should have been impossible.

"Is - Is that a voice amplification ability?" I spoke incredulously.

"Those are incredibly rare. Did they hire someone just to…(?)""I think it's been the same guy six times in a row," Rei joked - or I thought he was, but soon realized no, he was serious.

"I think they hire him to distract us, to get us to make mistakes."

"Let's make sure it doesn't work," Sayila said purposefully, sitting in a chair in the opposite corner of the small room.

"We know that I will be the anchor, but we still have yet to decide who we want to lead. We haven't reviewed the notes Kuyo wrote, either."

"Oops." Rei Laughed.

"Sorry. They call it a game-planning room for a reason. Let me just take another look at some of these files before we make a decision…" He had an experienced confidence to him. Kuyo and Sayila did, too. I was a little envious of them - my face felt warm, and my hands were shaking, despite the reasonably-heated room. If you come across this story on Amazon, it's taken without permission from the author. Report it. In my previous life, I'd seen Turf Wars as nothing more than a glorified 3v3 fight...

although I had been halfway correct, I'd missed a lot because Turf Wars hadn't been a major focus of the webcomic. In reality, it was extremely popular, the overwhelmingly dominant high school sport worldwide, and each match came with pressure by default. The average high school arena could hold five thousand people; Agwin's had seen crowds of twelve thousand, and Wellston's newly built arena had a reported capacity of even more.

Turf Wars arenas were larger still at the college and pro levels, sometimes housing crowds in the hundreds of thousands. There were semi-professional and professional leagues all over the globe. There were also two types of Turf Wars matches: territory games and arena games. Four years ago, this had come as a complete surprise to me - as far as I could remember, unOrdinary had only shown the former.

Our match against Agwin was an arena game, and as the name suggested, it was a match played at one school's home arena. The team at home had the advantage of a significantly favorable spectating crowd, and they could usually get away with slightly favorable calls from their home referees. The 'away' team, on the other hand, operated under the disadvantage of having to announce the order of their fighters three minutes before the match started.

The team at home could use those three minutes to adjust their team in response.

"Arlo? What do you think about going first?" I asked, setting my paper profile of Agwin's queen on a table. He seemed surprised. I quickly elaborated, "Up until now, I've been assuming they would use a classic lineup and put their Jack first. But what if they have their king go out instead? From what I'm reading, he outranges me by a pretty large amount, and there's obviously a level gap." It was partly nerves, but I thought it was a primarily practical decision.

"Hmm…" Arlo started analyzing the profile sheet for the opposing queen. His shoe made dull taps against the ground as he thought.

"I see the risk. They could put him first to counter you and attempt to maintain an early lead from there." He gave a final nod, turning to the Royals for approval.

"If everyone's alright with it, I believe it's safest if I go first." Nobody objected. Kuyo looked especially pleased, as though he'd been about to suggest it himself, and pulled out a sheet of notebook paper inked in highly visible pen.

"Alright. If that's what we've decided on, we can get into the notes I prepared." He tapped on the top of the page with his finger.

"First of all, be on guard for ring-outs - if you really need to, Arlo, you can use your barrier as a last resort to keep yourself in bounds."

"Ringouts are rare, though, from what I've seen." Arlo immediately pointed out.

"I doubt any of them would intentionally attempt such a universally disliked tactic." Kuyo shook his head, chuckling.

"That's true most of the time. But against us, there's no such thing as going too low. If I remember right, Rei had a particularly close call against an Ice Control user a month ago…"

"But only a close call," Rei protested.

"I saved myself with a cool backflip maneuver!"

"We don't want any close calls if we can help it," Kuyo said, pointing to the next bullet point on his sheet of paper.

"After that is an important rule. I'm not sure if it'll come into play in this match, but you should still know about it. A double elimination, or anything too close to call when both teams are on their final fighter, is a victory for the home team. Obviously, you shouldn't be aiming for a draw in the first place, but it could be useful to know." I checked my phone, nodding along. We were twenty minutes from the start of the match.

Kuyo quickly ran through another handful of bullet points, including more general knowledge, niche rules, and fighting tips for Arlo and me. It was probably exciting for Arlo, to receive advice from someone like Kuyo, but I simply couldn't get myself interested in combat for the sake of it. What were we fighting for besides audience entertainment? What did victory or defeat entail?

That was the one aspect of Turf Wars I managed to find interesting: the number of matches a team played changed depending on how many away games they won and home games they lost. All teams started the season with three matches 'penciled in' for each month of the school year, but these initial schedules constantly changed. Losing a game in your home arena meant giving your spot in an upcoming territory game to the team that beat you. Losing as the away team meant missing your chance to 'steal.'

Teams were ranked over a season by the total amount of territory they'd won through territory games. As shown in the comic, these were matches on neutral ground, with neutral rules, where the winning team claimed the battleground for the rest of the season. More territory games meant more chances to gain territory, and success in arena games resulted in the ability to play more of them than your competition.

Naturally, Turf Wars was a game where the few strongest teams in a region quickly snowballed their way to the top, leaving the rest in the dust. Sometimes, the bottom few schools could end up with exactly zero pieces of territory to their name – a result of having most of their territory games stolen and being outclassed in the remaining chances they got. Wellston High had been prohibitively harmful to Agwin's pride because we'd drained enough talent that they could no longer guarantee an upward snowball.

Another supernaturally loud chant rang through the walls, jarring me from my thoughts. I couldn't catch it in full, but the chant was creative. There was a bit about how ugly our school uniforms were. The small room quickly filled with laughter. Rei's smile was especially wide, and he rose from his seat to the door.

"I think that's our cue." Kuyo was just about done, and my manageable nerves were likely the worst of us, so we quickly filed out of the room and into the hallway. The security guards had been waiting right outside the door, and after a few words with Rei, they led us to a nearby elevator.

"You're looking for the lowest floor," the one with navy hair said.

"I'd wish you good luck, but you don't need it." He pressed the down arrow for us, with a lot more force than seemed necessary, and down we went. The ride was short, and we bottomed out with a shudder, the metal doors sliding open to the low, ambient roar of ten thousand shouting voices. It was dark, but I could tell by the echo that we were in a tunnel - there was an easy mental connection there, to the tunnel entrances in Basketball arenas and Football stadiums.

A dim glow on the far end illuminated the darkness, showing us where to go, and we began slowly walking toward it. The roar of the audience became louder and more oppressive with each echoing step. Finally, I fully realized what we were in for. I hadn't been able to gauge the crowd's intensity from a distance, but I felt it the moment the lights struck my face." MAKE SOME NOISE FOR WELLSTON EVERYBODYYYY!!" The man with the Voice Amplification ability hadn't been an outlier.

We were booed, cursed at, and spat on the moment we walked in. I wanted to speed myself up as we walked, but we'd already decided on a slow, 'leisurely' entrance to project confidence. When we finally reached the center, out of the reach of any 'projectiles,' I took the moment to look around. The venue reminded me of an NBA arena but smaller, with a black-and-red, hellfire-themed fighting stage in the middle instead of a basketball court. The stage was fenced in on all sides by tinted, multicolored glass.

Its surface was a fragmented blend of all the colors in the rainbow, like a randomized tie-dye, and it left just enough room around the stage for a combatant to get knocked off and out of bounds. A few glances at the glass revealed my suspicion. It was glowing faintly, a temporary construct made from aura usage. There was very likely a large team of Elite-tiers with defense-type abilities sustaining it below the stage.

A tall brunette in a referee's outfit, eyes glowing carmine-red, held open a door made of the same substance. I noticed her hand twitch as we passed through the entrance, as though she were itching to close it behind us." IT LOOKS LIKE WELLSTON BROUGHT SOME NEWBIES THIS TIME! LET'S GIVE THEM A WARM WELCOME, TOO!!" The people who had been spitting and cursing must have switched over – the already deafening boos couldn't have doubled in volume otherwise.

I glanced at Rei and Kuyo, still in disbelief that this was somehow the norm, but neither of them looked at all out of their element. Arlo seemed about as affected as I was, at least. Rei noticed that we were both in a slight stupor, patting each of us on the shoulder with a grin. He mouthed something to Arlo. The blonde boy pulled out his phone in response, showing it to the rest of the team. 5: 56. That was four minutes left, and by three minutes, we had to reveal our lineup.

Rei spun on his heel toward the referee at the door.

"These three will be fighting!" He shouted, gesturing at me, Arlo, and Sayila.

"Kuyo and I are just here to help with strategy!" The referee seemed a bit dazed, but she realized what Rei was trying to do.

"Are you ready to announce the order of your lineup?" She shouted back.

"One minute early won't make a difference!" Rei confirmed, nodding.

"Our lineup is Arlo - Meili - Sayila!" There must have been some sort of sound amplification system built into the fighting stage, because the whole arena went silent. Slowly, the crowd began murmuring, presumably discussing the implications of our team – and then the commentator's play-by-play cut through it all.

"ARLO - MEILI - SAYILA! HOW WILL THE HOME TEAM RESPOND?" Another commentator's voice, more professional and less passionate, joined in.

"I like that anchor choice from the Wellston squad. Sayila's psychic force attacks are great at picking off injured fighters." Excluding Arlo, the rest of our team headed back toward the fighting stage's entrance. I followed after them, sparing a final glance at Arlo's back – once I made it past the referee, she slammed the door closed with an air of finality. It fused with the rest of the glowing, glass-like structure with a powerful hum.

While we waited for the other team to make a decision, I tried to put myself into a more focused, analytical mindset. After a few seconds of high-strung foot-tapping, I gave up. Strategies, plans, and scenarios were bouncing in and out of my mind, coming and going too quickly for me to grasp onto any one of them. The roar of the crowd was only intensifying as the wait stretched on, like a song with a crescendo but no counterpart.

It had no lyrics, the words emulsifying together into alphabet soup, but the message was clear. They were calling out for blood. Aggression faded into cheers and clapping, finally, with the appearance of three figures from the tunnel on our opposite side. The one in the lead was tall, or at least far taller than the others, his mane of red and orange hair flowing behind him as he walked. I recognized him as Agwin's King.

The other two were less distinctive from a distance: a girl with a green, mid-length bob followed by a short, young-looking boy. Still, they were clearly Agwin's Queen and Jack.

"AND IT LOOKS LIKE IGNACIO IS COMING OUT FIRST! WHAT DO YOU THINK OF THEIR ORDER, KEENE?"

"Well, you've gotta remember the fantastic run Wellston is on, Jim," the other announcer's voice rang out.

"They haven't lost a game this season! I think by putting their King and Queen first, Agwin is saying that going all out from the start is their best shot to win." I activated my enhanced vision, accepting the minimal aura cost for more information. The opposing team had reached the edge of the fighting stage, and the referee on their side let Agwin's King through the entrance.

They sealed it shut once he passed through, closing the final hole and turning the aura structure around the stage into a perfect half-sphere. Neither fighter inside it would be leaving until elimination. The two met in the center, as was customary for the start of the match. Arlo offered his hand for a handshake, but Agwin's King ignored it, wearing a dark look on his face.

"You're Arlo Lingard, aren't you?"

"What if I am?" Arlo asked.

"Does it matter to you?" Slowly, Ignacio's lips unfurled into a slight grin.

"…It does. It means I'll feel good about burning you alive." Speakers throughout the arena amplified the exchange of words, making the crowd erupt with oohs and aahs. Arlo dropped his hand to the side, his expression as cold as ice, and the two separated to the designated starting positions outlined on the ground. They stood twenty feet apart after a few long seconds, eyes glowing with pre-activated abilities.

"4. 7 vs. 4. 6 is usually good odds." It was Rei's voice behind me. I nodded. The fight began with the sharp, tinny sound of a robotic beep. Like a duelist drawing pistols, Ignacio ripped his hands up from his sides and doused Arlo with twin gouts of bright red fire. They rippled over where Arlo was standing, the crowd's cries cheering them on, but the flames washed off and around Arlo in the shape of a dome. Slowly, the dome shape began to move forward, overcoming the heat and force to make its advance.

It started with what looked like a single, staggered step, but the second, third, and fourth each came quicker than the one before. Eventually, Arlo managed to accelerate into a full-on charge through the fire. Ignacio hurriedly backed away, using his flames to repulse himself, but he was slowly reaching the edge of the fighting ring.

"Are you just going to run after saying that?" Arlo called out through the flames.

"Will you be able to run once you're in the corner?" Ignacio stopped his assault but kept retreating, cupping his palms together in a loose clasp. His face twisted with concentration, staring at his hands as he ran, and the light of fire began shining through the gaps in his fingers. It was red at first, but it shifted into a dark orange, a murky yellow- A bright blue. Ignacio stopped and turned, splaying his palms outward to unleash an explosion of blue, burning force onto Arlo's nearing form.

The wave of heat knocked Arlo back multiple steps, and his barrier caved in on itself slightly, the front dripping and softening like molten honey. Ignacio grinned.

"Like I'd let you trap me in your barrier, dumbass." Arlo staggered and hunched over, hacking and coughing at the ground – blood from his mouth was forming a puddle on the floor. Agwin's King straightened himself proudly, laughing a wheezing, breathless laugh, and turned in all directions to wave at the cheering crowd. Only a few seconds later, his face morphed in agony, and he began clutching at his chest with his hands.

Blood gushed from his mouth to his torso and stained his uniform, clearly more than the amount Arlo spilled.

"What- What did you just do?" Ignacio gasped, palming his torso for an injury.

"Why am I…?" The cheers went quiet. Slowly but surely, as though it were inevitable, Arlo rose to his full height. He wiped the blood off his lips.

"My barrier is special. It reflects all kinds of damage, even from ranged attacks. Your organs must be badly burnt." Step by step, he kept moving closer to Agwin's King.

"You don't want to attack me anymore, right? Most people in your position don't." The crowd started roaring, the intensity in the atmosphere elevating to an even higher level than before. Both announcers were babbling, throwing out cliched phrases of shock left and right. Still, Ignacio started to compose himself, taking deep, heavy breaths. Arlo noticed and rushed him with a sprint, not trying to let him recover, but Ignacio thrust down at the floor with his flames and launched himself into the air.

The blast of force sent him over and above Arlo's barrier toward the center of the stage – but Arlo quickly formed a thin, disk-like barrier on his palm, throwing it up to intercept the trajectory. Have a counter prepared for short airborne maneuvers, I recalled from our profile. The golden disk collided with Ignacio's legs, forcing the redhead's body into an awkward angle, and he slammed harshly to the ground without gaining any distance. He managed to rise to his feet, beginning to charge another attack…

But Arlo had already used Ignacio's recovery time to accelerate into a full-speed, barrier-enhanced tackle. The two collided, forcing Agwin's King to the floor, and the battle quickly transformed into a fistfight. Arlo used his golden-enforced body with harsh physicality, punching, elbowing, and headbutting Ignacio without giving him the time to prepare a large attack. Ignacio fought back, blocking and countering with blows infused with fire, but with his back against the ground he was at a positional disadvantage.

Eventually, Arlo caught Ignacio in the jaw with a downward pound, giving him a short opening. He clapped his hands together in a meditation-like pose, suddenly reversing the curvature of his barrier. Rather than a protective dome around himself, it wrapped around Ignacio, trapping him against the ground. If Arlo wanted, he could have shrunk it around the redhead and crushed him – but he didn't, choosing to ask a question instead.

"How did you know how to fight me?" Agwin's King gave no response, whether due to injuries or stubbornness.

"Answer me!" Arlo insisted.

"You kept me just out of range from the beginning of the fight. How did you know to do that?" Ignacio stayed silent. With his body unmoving and his hand blocking his eyes, I thought for a moment that he'd fainted. Then he let out a wheezing cough.

"……I knew a member of the Lingard clan," he replied. His appearance felt especially defeated, lying on the ground with a hand over his face.

"She was our Queen when I was a first-year."

"Always told me Agwin's future was bright… Something about a talented cousin named Arlo." Arlo's face twisted at that, hands twitching as if he wanted to tighten his barrier.

"I don't owe you anything, and my clan doesn't owe this school anything, either."

"Said it was an ideal partnership…" Ignacio continued weakly.

"A fifty-year tradition of helping each other, abandoned just like that…" His head fell limply to the side. The arena went silent.

"Let me make one thing clear," Arlo retorted to his clearly unconscious opponent.

"You didn't have to specify that my cousin was Queen. All of my cousins easily became Royals at this mediocre school. We were the ones dragging you up, not the other way around." Arlo dropped his barrier and spat on him. Immediately, a pair of men with speed-enhancement abilities sped through the stage, carting Ignacio's unconscious body off to be treated. The crowd (predictably) began boing and chanting for Arlo to leave the stage, but he stayed put.

A commentator, the more professional one, managed to offer something useful.

"I don't know about you, Jim, but I'd bet that they'll put this on Sector-wide TV. Emotions, drama like that? I haven't seen it in this city since Kassandra three years ago!" The fact had somehow slipped my mind in my analysis of Turf Wars. Every weekend, the handful of most 'TV-worthy', 'watchable' high school matches were broadcast to the whole sector. It gave students who had dirty laundry or personal grudges with their opponents an incentive to be as dramatic and antagonistic as possible.

Who didn't want to rip into their nemesis in front of a sector of 40 million people? When I first arrived in this world, I had always avoided watching or studying turf wars in much detail. I found it too violent, too unpleasant and pointless. But seeing it for myself, up close and personal, I finally understood why Turf Wars was universal media in this world. At its peak, it was gladiator fighting, young adult drama, and vicious reality TV in one. And it was all real.

This is what mom and dad put on the TV for their six-year-old son, I thought. Half the children in the world grow up with a Turf Wars fighter as one of their heroes. Agwin sent out their Queen after a brief intermission, eventually managing to finish Arlo off with moderate difficulty... but I had stopped watching as closely as before, and I wasn't nervous or shaking anymore, either. I was planning. Minimal injuries… Try to secretly burrow a claw underground and pull her out of bounds from behind…

I stepped to the fighting stage, a single thought pushing all others out. I could get a thousand kids to prefer ringouts over pounding their enemies into oblivion.