The instructor dropped his hand, and they crashed together immediately. Nadia opened with a fast low kick that Kieran checked before firing a jab toward her face, but she slipped outside and tried driving her knee into his ribs.
Kieran caught the movement early and shoved her backward, but Nadia recovered almost immediately, pivoted, and came back with a hook that he barely blocked. Unlike most of the people Kieran had fought, she refused to let him dictate the pace.
Nadia kept changing angles, flowing around his front side and forcing him to rotate with her. Every time Kieran planted himself for something heavy, she shifted just enough that the strike lost its clean line, then answered with something quick, a kick against the thigh, an elbow into his guard, or a short palm against the chest.
"She's doing good," Elias said quietly beside me.
I nodded without looking away and replied, "Yeah, she is," although the nervous feeling in my stomach hadn't disappeared.
Kieran pushed forward harder, but Nadia slipped one punch, ducked another, and drove her knee cleanly into his side. He grunted, a few people in the room cheered, and Nadia backed away with a small grin.
Kieran looked down at the spot where she had hit him and slowly raised his eyes. Nadia's grin disappeared almost immediately.
Elias murmured, "Okay, yeah… he didn't like that."
Kieran attacked again, but this time he stopped trying to catch her with individual heavy shots and began taking away her space instead. His punches became shorter and faster, forcing Nadia to move rather than giving her room to counter, and although she slipped the first two, the third clipped her shoulder before he followed with a body shot that folded her slightly.
She still answered, snapping an elbow against his cheek and forcing his head sideways. Nadia tried escaping around his flank, but Kieran caught the back of her uniform and yanked her backward before kicking one leg out from beneath her.
Nadia hit the mat and rolled immediately, trying to get back onto her feet. Kieran kicked her across the ribs before she could, and my hands tightened around my knees hard enough that my fingernails started digging into my palms.
Come on, Nadia. Just surrender.
She curled around the impact, breathed through it, then forced herself back onto one foot anyway. I found myself wondering why she wouldn't just call it, especially after I had explicitly told her she could.
Then I looked around the room and remembered Uriel lying underneath Kieran earlier, still trying to defend himself while the punches kept coming. The other cadet had done the same thing too, and maybe Nadia surrendering now would feel to her like saying their losses mattered less because she had been smart enough to take an exit they hadn't.
It was stubborn and probably a little stupid, but I understood it. I still wished she would quit.
Kieran stepped in again, and Nadia swung before he caught the strike, controlled her wrist, and drove his knee into her stomach. She folded, he shoved her backward, and when she tried straightening, his fist caught the side of her face.
Nadia stumbled but raised her guard again. Kieran immediately attacked it, pounding against her forearms until they tightened around her face, and when she tried slipping out along the side, he followed her instead of giving her space.
She threw another low kick, but Kieran absorbed it and answered with a hard right that snapped her head sideways. She stayed standing anyway, and beside me Elias leaned forward and muttered, "Come on, Nadia, just call it."
The instructor didn't stop the match because she was technically still defending herself. Kieran hit her again, then drove another body shot in hard enough to fold her before sweeping her legs from under her.
Nadia hit the floor and curled around her ribs instinctively. Kieran stepped toward her, but the instructor finally raised his voice and said, "Enough, Holt. Match."
Kieran stopped, while Nadia stayed on the floor for another moment. The entire section around us had gone unusually quiet.
Then Elias shot out of his seat. "Hey, what the fuck is wrong with you?" he shouted across the room, and several heads immediately turned toward us.
Kieran slowly looked over, wearing an expression that was far too calm for somebody who had just beaten another cadet into the floor. I said Elias's name once, but he either didn't hear me or simply chose not to.
Kieran's mouth pulled into a small smile, and Elias stepped toward the stairs before I said his name again, this time hard enough to finally stop him. "Elias, hey, keep your head. Getting thrown out of class right now isn't helping Nadia."
His jaw tightened so hard I could see the muscle shifting near his cheek, but he stayed where he was. Down on the platform, the healer knelt beside Nadia and started checking her ribs before spreading spiritual energy across the bruising.
Kieran looked directly at Elias, then smiled again.
Something hot twisted inside my chest.
My hands clenched, and this time I stared back at him without bothering to hide it. Kieran noticed, but his expression didn't change, which somehow made my irritation worse.
Elias finally sat down and muttered, "Okay, one of us is getting him."
I kept my eyes on Kieran and replied, "Yeah, one of us is," even though that was probably one of the least professional thoughts I had entertained since arriving at Sablegate.
Another match happened before either of our names came up, but I barely watched it. My attention kept shifting between Nadia being treated and Kieran sitting comfortably across the room as though what he had done was nothing unusual.
Then the board shuffled again, and my name appeared: GABRIEL CAIN. I started standing, but when the second name loaded beneath mine, I stopped halfway up.
ELIAS CROSS.
Elias looked at me.
For a moment neither of us said anything, and then he let out a slow breath and said, "Well… that's annoying. Of all the people left, it had to be you."
"Yeah, apparently," I replied while standing fully.
The instructor looked toward us and called, "Cain, Cross, platform," leaving no room to complain even if we wanted to.
We walked down opposite stairways and met on the mat. Standing across from Elias felt strange in a way none of the previous fights had, and he rolled one shoulder while looking me over like he was trying to remember something.
"Okay, when was the last time we actually fought each other?" he asked.
I thought about it and replied, "Properly? I honestly don't remember."
"That's probably bad," Elias said.
I reminded him, "We've sparred before."
He shook his head and replied, "Yeah, but that doesn't count because you always stop whenever you think I'm getting pissed."
"You do the same thing," I pointed out, and Elias shrugged.
"Well, yeah, because we're best friends. I don't exactly wake up wanting to beat you unconscious."
I glanced toward Nadia, who was being helped back to our seating area, then looked across the room at Kieran. He was sitting comfortably and watching us.
Elias followed my gaze and lowered his voice. "Only one of us is getting another chance at him." His expression became more serious before he added, "So, Gabe, don't go easy on me."
"I wasn't planning to," I replied.
Elias shook his head again. "No, seriously. None of that weird gentleman stuff you were doing with Amaya."
"You're not a lady."
"Wow, good observation."
"You know what I meant."
"Yeah, I do," Elias said while raising his hands. "So earn it."
I settled into my stance and nodded. "Same to you."
The instructor looked between us and asked if we were ready. Neither of us answered verbally because there wasn't much left to say, and when his hand dropped, we moved at the same time.
Elias drove a straight punch toward my face while I slipped outside and sent my own toward his ribs. He twisted away before I could land, then came back immediately with another jab that I blocked against my forearm before answering with a hook.
He ducked.
His fist came toward my stomach, so I shifted aside and sent mine toward his jaw. Elias leaned backward far enough to avoid it, and for several seconds neither of us landed anything as our punches kept passing through space by inches.
He knew how I moved.
Apparently I knew him just as well.
Elias smiled while ducking another strike. "Okay, this is really weird."
"Focus."
"I am focusing. I can still complain!"
I swept my leg low, but he hopped backward and immediately dashed forward again the second his foot landed. His jab slammed into my guard hard enough to push me back half a step, and before I had completely reset, another one came.
I moved too late. His knuckles caught my cheek and snapped my head sideways.
Elias grinned. "There we go."
I looked back at him and said, "Don't celebrate yet," before stepping forward and striking him in the body. I followed with another punch toward his shoulder, hooked behind his arm, and pulled him forward while driving my knee toward his stomach.
Elias twisted just enough that my knee struck his side instead, then shoved me away. We separated for barely a second before colliding again, and the fight stopped looking particularly clean because we knew too many of each other's habits for textbook techniques to work easily.
Elias threw a hook that I blocked before shoving him backward. He stumbled, recovered, then came back with a kick that I caught against my thigh before punching him in the chest.
He grabbed my shirt as I caught his wrist, and we collided shoulder-first and nearly fell together before breaking apart again.
Elias was already breathing harder when he muttered, "Okay, this is getting stupid."
I answered, "You started it."
He immediately shot back, "We both ran at each other."
"You punched first."
"That is such a technicality!"
He rushed again before I could respond, and I ducked his first punch before landing twice into his body. Elias hissed through his teeth, caught my shoulder, and drove me backward until I planted my feet, turned my hips, and threw him over them.
He hit the mat hard, but before I could follow and secure the position, Elias kicked me away. I rolled, got back onto my feet, and barely raised my guard before he rushed me again.
His fist struck my forearm, then another followed immediately. I countered and caught him across the mouth, leaving a thin line of blood along his lower lip.
Elias stumbled, wiped it with his thumb, and stared at the smear for a second. "Okay, wow. You really listened when I told you to go all out."
"You literally asked me to."
"Yeah, I know. I'm just processing the consequences."
He spat a little blood aside and came at me again.
The next punch slammed into my ribs hard enough to make me grunt. I answered against his shoulder, he struck my chest, and I caught him across the jaw before he staggered and immediately returned.
At some point the rest of the training room disappeared from my awareness. I couldn't hear Nadia, the instructor, or whoever was shouting every time one of us landed something, because there was only Elias, his shoulders, his feet, his eyes, and every tiny movement that told me what he wanted to do.
The frustrating part was that he was reading me the same way.
I jabbed, he slipped it, he swung, I ducked, and when I drove my shoulder into him, he grabbed the back of my uniform and dragged me sideways. We broke apart again with both of us breathing heavily, and Elias briefly put his hands against his knees.
"You tired?" he asked between breaths.
"No."
"Yeah, okay, liar."
"What about you?"
"I'm dying."
"That's good."
Elias laughed despite himself, then straightened again. "Wow. Supportive friend."
We attacked again.
He tried another jab, which I parried, then another that I slipped outside before punching him in the stomach. Elias folded slightly, and I struck his shoulder before attempting another leg sweep.
He jumped over it.
That actually caught me off guard.
Elias landed awkwardly, almost lost his balance, somehow recovered, and swung at me while still turning. I leaned away just far enough for the fist to miss, then stepped inside as he shoved me and I shoved back.
We were tired enough now that the clean movements were starting to deteriorate. Our punches became heavier and uglier, our feet dragged slightly between bursts, and neither of us wanted to be the first one to slow down because both of us knew exactly what was waiting in the next round.
Elias caught me across the cheek, and I answered into his ribs. He hit my chest, I struck his jaw, and when he stumbled backward, I moved after him.
He raised his guard, breathing hard enough that I could hear it over the noise around us. I punched through the opening once, then again, forcing Elias backward another step while his balance started to look noticeably worse.
His breathing sounded rougher now, and his feet were starting to drag whenever he reset. I stepped forward for one more strike, convinced that if I landed cleanly, the match would probably be over.
Then my boot landed wrong.
Maybe there was sweat on the mat, or maybe my leg was simply more exhausted than I realized, but my weight tipped farther forward than I intended. It wasn't enough to make me fall, but it was enough to ruin my balance for half a second.
Elias noticed immediately. I saw his eyes widen the moment he realized what had happened, and before I could pull myself back into position, his fist was already moving.
It was desperate, lucky, and perfectly timed, the kind of strike somebody throws because they see one opening and know they might never get another.
His knuckles caught me directly beneath the jaw while my own momentum carried me into the hit. Everything turned black, and before I could even process the impact, the entire room disappeared.
When my vision returned, I was staring up at the lights above the training room with no memory of actually hitting the floor. A healer was already kneeling beside me, one hand near my jaw and the other against my neck while warm spiritual energy moved beneath my skin and slowly dulled the pain.
Then I heard the instructor announce, "Cross wins." The words took a second to register, but once they did, the whole fight rushed back into my head at once.
I blinked several times until Elias appeared at the edge of my vision. His face was bruised, his lip was still bleeding, and somehow he looked more worried about me than he did about himself.
"Gabe? Hey, I'm sorry, I didn't mean to catch you like that," he said quickly while crouching beside us. "You leaned forward, and I saw the opening, but by the time I realized where it was landing, I'd already thrown it."
"Elias," I interrupted, waiting until the healer gave me enough room to sit up carefully. "It's fine, seriously. You won."
He frowned immediately. "Yeah, but I knocked you out." There was still guilt all over his face, like he thought winning somehow stopped counting the second I hit the floor.
"And that's that," I told him. "You don't need to apologize for doing exactly what we both agreed to do."
Elias stared at me for another second before finally letting out a slow breath. "I just wanted to make sure you weren't secretly planning to hate me for the next week." The joke sounded weaker than usual, but at least he was trying.
The healer looked toward him and pointed at the mat beside me. "Cross, sit down, you're next." Elias blinked and immediately tried to wave her off.
"Oh, I'm fine," he said, even though there was still blood on his face.
The healer glanced at it, then back at him and replied, "You're bleeding on my floor, so no, you're not."
Elias looked down at the blood, then back at her. "Well, technically that sounds more like the floor's problem." She pointed toward the mat again and said, "Sit," with enough finality that he gave up arguing.
"Okay, okay," he muttered before dropping down beside me with a sigh. Once the healer finished working on my jaw and neck, she shifted toward him and pressed one hand against his ribs.
The moment she applied pressure, Elias flinched hard enough to prove her point. The healer raised an eyebrow and said, "Yeah, you're definitely fine."
Elias frowned and replied, "Well, I was doing better before you pressed that."
"Hold still," she told him, and this time he actually listened. Warm spiritual threads spread along his side, then moved toward the bruising around his face and lip while he sat there quietly for a few seconds.
Eventually Elias glanced toward me. "So… seriously, no hard feelings?"
I looked back at him and shook my head. "Why would there be? You fought better than I did at the end."
He still looked uncertain. "I knocked you unconscious, though."
I shrugged and answered, "Yeah, and you earned it."
A small smile finally appeared across his face. "Okay, good. I'd rather not survive Kieran just to come back to the dorm and find out you've been holding a grudge."
Once the healer cleared both of us, Elias stood first and offered me his hand. I took it, and he pulled me upright before we made our way back toward the seats together.
Walking hurt a little more than losing did. My jaw was healed, but my body still felt like it had been dragged through the entire fight twice, and judging from the way Elias kept rolling one shoulder, he could still remember the pain.
Nadia was already back in her seat when we returned, but her head was lowered against her folded arms while she stared at the floor between her boots. Elias sat beside her, and I took the seat on the other side without saying anything immediately.
For several seconds, none of us spoke. I wanted to tell Nadia she had fought well, that Kieran had taken things too far, and that losing to someone like him didn't suddenly make her weak, but every version of the sentence sounded too much like I was consoling a child after losing a game.
All of it was true. None of it felt useful enough to say.
Elias apparently didn't care about finding the perfect wording. He leaned toward her and said, "Hey, you know you made him look stupid for like half that fight, right? Seriously, that knee you landed changed his whole face, and I thought he was about to file a complaint against your leg."
Nadia didn't move at first, but after a few seconds she slowly lifted her head and gave him the faintest smile. "You're horrible at cheering people up," she muttered, though there was less weight in her voice than before.
"Yeah, but you smiled," Elias replied immediately.
Nadia rolled her eyes and said, "Barely," but Elias nodded as if that settled everything.
"Still counts," he said. "I'll take what I can get."
Nadia turned toward me afterward and looked at my recently healed face. "So, you lost?"
I nodded once. "Yeah, I did. Elias caught me clean."
"To him?" she asked, glancing toward Elias with a little more life in her expression. When I confirmed it, her smile grew by maybe another millimeter.
"That's embarrassing," she said. Elias immediately pointed at her and grinned.
"There she is," he said. "Okay, now I know you're alive."
I leaned back in my seat and said, "Glad you're feeling better."
Nadia shook her head and replied, "I'm not. I'm just capable of insulting you while miserable."
"That's good enough for now," I told her. She didn't argue with that, which I decided was progress.
Another match began below us, followed by another, and round three gradually emptied itself until only a handful of names remained in the upper bracket. My own run was over for the moment, and the dull ache around my jaw still distracted me enough that I wasn't particularly interested in whoever fought next.
Then the board refreshed.
One name appeared first: KIERAN HOLT. Nadia slowly raised her head, and Elias stopped rubbing the place where his ribs had just been healed.
The second slot flickered once, then twice, before finally settling on ELIAS CROSS. Nobody at our end of the row said anything for several seconds, because there wasn't really anything to say.
Across the room, Kieran stood. Elias stared at the board for a moment longer before slowly pushing himself out of his seat.
Nadia caught his wrist before he could leave. "Eli, just… don't do anything stupid, okay? I know what you're thinking, and I really don't need you getting hurt because of me."
Elias looked down at her, then across the room at Kieran. His expression had become quieter than I had seen it all day, and after a few seconds he looked back at Nadia.
"Yeah," he said while rolling one shoulder. "I'll try, but I'm not promising I'm going to be nice about it."
Nadia released his wrist slowly. Elias started down the stairs, and by the time he reached the floor, Kieran was already waiting.