Elias
Gabriel caught my shoulder before I could reach the last few steps leading down to the floor. When I turned to look back at him, he'd stopped smiling, and that was all it took for me to realize he was taking this a hell of a lot more seriously than he wanted to.
"Hey, Eli, if it starts getting too bad, just forfeit, alright?" he said, voice low as his eyes locked on Kieran. "You don't need to prove anything to him, and you certainly don't need to let him do to you what he did to Nadia."
I shrugged lazily as I stepped out from under his hand, mostly because doing otherwise would make me think a lot. "Yeah, I know, Gabe. If suddenly I see two Kierans, I'll take that as my cue."
Gabriel's stare didn't falter. "I mean it, man. Don't let your pride dictate the outcome."
"Alright, alright, I heard you," I muttered as I turned towards the floor again, raising one hand in acknowledgment. "I'll exercise my excellent judgment and everything."
That sounded better before I actually got there.
Kieran was waiting in the center already, arms loose as he stood beside the edge. Up close, I realized we were built the same, tall and lean; but I was an inch or two less than him, and he carried slightly more weight around the shoulders and legs.
The fact that he looked so relaxed, and even after the way he'd just done to Nadia, was what unsettled me the most. It was like it was another routine match and I was the only one treating it like some personal vendetta.
I rolled one shoulder before cracking my right knuckles with my left while stopping a few feet from him. "Okay, I have to ask you something, because I've been wondering since round one."
Kieran tilted his head enough to look me over. "Well, go ahead. You came all this way down here, so you might as well."
"Why do you have to beat everybody into the floor?" I asked, glancing briefly over at the seats where Uriel had been earlier before looking back at him. "You already know when you've won, so why do you keep going until somebody has to drag a healer over?"
Kieran gave me one of those little smiles, and I hated every second of it that landed on him. "If somebody can still stand, still swing, or still convince themselves they have a chance, then I haven't made the difference clear enough."
I stared at him for a second, trying to figure out if he'd actually heard himself. "Yeah, alright, that's probably the worst answer you could have given me."
He shrugged like it had been a question about his favorite color instead. "You asked, and I simply answered."
I glanced over at Nadia, who sat beside Gabriel with one arm still hugging a little close to her ribs. Seeing her like that was enough to bring the anger back so fast I stopped trying to mask it.
"You know what? I really want to beat the shit out of you right now," I said, raising my hands as I took another step towards him. "Like, I don't think I've ever wanted to punch somebody so much in a long time."
Kieran's smile widened just enough to make me regret giving him the satisfaction. "Then stop talking about it and do it. I'd appreciate actually seeing it."
I settled into my stance while Kieran remained almost entirely upright, arms still hanging loosely at his sides. He didn't raise a guard, shift, or even feign that he thought I was dangerous, which somehow irked me more than if he'd started laughing.
The instructor edged up to us and looked between our faces. "Cross, Holt, both of you know the rules, so I'm not wasting time repeating them. If I tell either of you to stop, stop."
"Yeah, I'm ready," Kieran said without looking away from me, and the casual manner in which he said it made my jaw tense. "Whenever he is."
I nodded to reply instead because my mouth had gone drier than it had a second ago. The instructor stepped back, lowered his hand, and as soon as it dropped, I attacked first.
I crossed the distance fast and opened the assault with a jab towards Kieran's face. He slipped it easily with less movement, so I immediately followed with another punch towards his ribs, and this time my fist landed cleanly enough that I could feel it through my knuckles.
Kieran barely moved. For half a second I thought I'd somehow misgauged and hit him wrong until I took note of the look in his eyes and realized he'd simply decided to take the punishment.
That should've warned me. Instead, I followed with a kick towards his side to keep him from settling into it, but his forearm dropped heavily and caught my shin with a sharp crack. Pain ran up my leg before I pulled it back and threw another punch towards his head, and Kieran's hand came up, catching my wrist out of the air.
My stomach dropped before he even did anything, then he twisted.
Pain shot through my wrist and forearm so fast that a shout escaped before I could swallow. "Crap! Okay, Jesus!"
Kieran stepped closer and held onto the pressure with irritatingly precise control. "What happened? You looked a lot more confident when you were standing all that up there."
"Yeah, well, give me my fucking arm back, and I'll try again," I hissed, rolling my shoulder with the lock to keep him from putting all of the pressure on the joint. I almost managed to break free enough, but Kieran let go on his own and drove his fist across my face before I could regain myself.
My head snapped sideways along with my feet for two stumbling steps before I caught myself. I pressed a hand to my cheek and stood there for a moment, trying to understand what I'd just felt.
Gabriel hit hard, especially when we stopped being careful with each other, but his punches were still controlled in some fashion. Kieran's were different; there was a lack of anything underneath the strike that told him when he'd already put in enough force.
I lowered my hand slowly and looked back at him. "Okay... you hit a lot harder than you look."
Kieran began walking towards me. "And you talk a lot more than someone who cares hardly anything about this place."
I frowned and raised my guard again. "What the hell is that supposed to mean?"
"It's fun watching you act righteous right now," Kieran said, still closing the distance between us. "You're mad at me because I don't care enough about the people I fight, but from what I've seen, you don't care about anything here, unless it's convenient for you."
The words caught me off guard enough that I actually stopped thinking about my face for a second. "You don't know me, so maybe don't pretend you do."
Kieran's expression barely changed. "I don't need your life story. I've seen enough of you to know what kind of person you are."
I was halfway through figuring out exactly how I wanted to tell him where he could put that opinion when he attacked.
His right hand came towards my face, and I slid outside just enough to feel the air shift near my cheek. I thought I'd cleared the punch completely, but Kieran kept turning with the miss, rode the rotation through his shoulders and hips, and then drove his elbow into the side of my head.
My vision flickered, but I stayed upright and forced myself forward before he could capitalize. I punched towards his jaw, only for Kieran to block with his forearm, catch my arm against his body, and hold it there long enough for me to realize I had walked into something worse.
His other fist buried itself in my gut. The first knocked the air out of me, the second weakened my knees, and the third made my body forget how to breathe. Kieran finally released me after the last one, and I staggered backwards before folding forward with both arms wrapped around my stomach.
I could hear the audience reacting somewhere above me, voices rising in concern while my lungs tried to drag air through a throat that suddenly felt too narrow. I stared at the floor between my shoes and tried to let my body remember what oxygen was supposed to feel like.
Then a thought came.
Maybe I should've left this to Gabriel.
I hated it immediately, but once it was there, I couldn't stop the rest from coming. Gabriel had actual military training, years more experience than me, and even though I had technically beaten him earlier, the last hit had been lucky enough that I still wasn't sure I had earned the right to brag about it. Everything I had was just talent.
What happened if I lost here? Would Gabriel think I had wasted the chance he should've gotten? Would Nadia look at me and think I stood up, got angry for her, talked a bunch of stuff, and ended up on the same floor Kieran had put everybody else on?
I squeezed my eyes shut and finally managed a deeper breath, even though it hurt my ribs enough to make me regret trying. Kieran hadn't followed me yet, and somehow that made everything worse because he was giving me time on purpose.
When I straightened again, he was standing a few feet away with that same slight smile. That was when I realized the part I really didn't like. At the banquet, Nadia had only held him off for a few seconds before the whole room turned into chaos, and during the earlier rounds, he'd beaten Uriel and the others badly enough that all of us assumed we'd seen what he could do.
We hadn't.
Kieran had been holding back then too, and judging by how my stomach and face now felt, he still wasn't showing me everything.