Jacob and the gang ran down the hallway to check the tournament seedings. Other students joined the rush, all pushing and shoving and yelling in one great mob.

A well dressed man in his early twenties with a trimmed moustache stood in front of a bulletin with a big tournament bracket pinned to it. His eyes went wide as he saw the oncoming stampede.

"Wait!" He croaked. "Slow down!" He waved a stack of papers. "I have the brackets here. Take one each, please!"

The mob pressed in around him. A couple people snatched several brackets and took off down the hallway like bandits.

"Wait! One each!" The man cried.

There was a surge of grabbing hands, like a bunch of medieval peasants desperate for food handouts. Blake's long arm managed to snag one before they were all gone.

"They have more at the faculty offices. Jeez!" The moustache guy said, pulling himself away from the grasping crowd.

The horde of students moved off, leaving a few dozen little groups peering over the handout brackets.

"Second?" Camilla screeched so loudly Jacob clapped his hands over his ears. He hadn't known girls could be that loud.

"Second!" She screeched again. She ripped the bracket from a stunned Blake and stormed up to the little well dressed guy.

The guy backed up against the wall and waved his hands in front of him as if that would ward Camilla off.

"Him? Over Me?!" Camilla thrashed the bracket wildly. "Are you kidding me?"

The guy stuttered.

"Did you make these rankings?" Camilla seethed.

"No!" The guy managed. "I'm just a teaching assistant. I'm just handing them out."

Camilla composed herself and smiled prettily. "Tell me who made them, please."

"The entire faculty votes on them. But, all decisions are final. There's no arguing..."

Camilla hissed. Sparks crackled in her clenched fists. One jumped out and struck the man's pant leg.

He yelped and sprang away. "Don't hurt me! I didn't make the rules!"

Camilla shoved the bracket into Blake's chest, then stormed off down the hall and out the door. The scattering of students watched her go in silence.

"Well, she's certainly first in the temper rankings." Victor, who stood a little ways away in his own group, chuckled.

"Yes..." Grace stared after Camilla. She turned back to Blake and Jacob, a big fake smile on her face. "I think we'd better leave her alone for now. I'll take you two up on that studying offer."

They made their way to the nearest common area along with a couple groups of other students. Blake spread the bracket on one of the tables and they scanned it over.

"You guys mind if I look at yours?" Tobi asked, hovering near their table. He was wearing a baggy 2Pac shirt. Jacob had seen him around, but hadn't really spoken to him much since that awesome night they'd all been out on the commons in front of Schumann Hall. Their class was filled with people like that. People he recognized, could trade a word with, but didn't really know anything about.

"Hey, Tobi, how's it going? And yeah, man, of course." Blake said.

"Not too bad. Hoping for a good seed here." Tobi turned to Grace. "I didn't catch your name?"

"Grace Lin."

"I recognize that name. You're the pink mage."

"Sadly, yes."

Jacob noticed Ms Smith glancing at the bracket.

She squeaked when he saw her. "Um, can I look at yours too?"

"Yes. Of course." Jacob said. "What's your first name?"

"Keighleigh."

The five of them peered over the bracket.

"Ah, I see. Tanaka got the first seed." Blake shook his head. "No wonder Camilla was upset. I wonder what gave him the edge over her?"

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Jacob scanned the list. He noticed his name and blinked. "Oh my God they got me at eleventh."

"Wow! Eleventh, dude! Almost top ten, nice!" Blake patted Jacob on the back.

"Nice, man. Shouldn't have expected anything less from a white mage." Tobi grinned.

Jacob nodded. He wasn't sure how to feel. He'd been hoping for something in the low twenties. He'd never even dreamed he'd be this high.

"Aw, 80th. Dead last..." Keighleigh whined.

"Someone's gotta be," Blake said.

She folded her arms and left.

Tobi pointed at the bracket. "23rd, right there, that's me. Not bad. Should be able to win that first match fairly easily. You guys mind if I take a picture of it?"

"Go ahead, bud."

Tobi pulled out his phone, leaned out over the bracket and snapped a pic. "Gotta go look up who the people I could face are, lol." He glanced at Jacob. "You woulda cut top ten any other year, bro."

"You think?"

"I know." Tobi nodded. "My brother's a couple years ahead of us. Just got a Ranger position in New Mexico. I remember the strength scores from his year." He tapped Camilla at the 2nd seed and Tanaka at the 1st seed. "No one even close to these two." He hovered his finger over Victor, who'd received the 3rd seed. "Even this guy's decently stronger than anyone in his class. Strong year. Hell, I might have even been top fifteen. But what can you do? Anyway, should be fun regardless. I hear it's like March Madness. I'll catch you guys later. Thanks."

"No prob, bud," Blake said.

Tobi left.

"March Madness?" Grace asked.

"Yearly college basketball tournament." Blake waved his hand. "Don't worry about it. Not really your thing."

The trio went back to scanning in silence.

"Ugh, 62nd." Blake shook his head. "Damn it, I was hoping to get a bye for the first round."

"What did you need for that?"

"48th. I wonder if my test scores hurt me. Aw, who am I kidding, I'm just not that strong."

"At least you've got us to help you." Grace smiled.

"That's true. I guess I am the outlier here. Man, but I'd do anything to be strong like y'all. Speaking of which, where you at, Grace?"

"There!" Grace said. "Oh, brother, 9th is pretty high, don't you think?"

"But you're really strong."

"Yeah, duh, but I have no Consumption ability."

Jacob frowned. "Would that affect ranking?"

"Of course," Grace said. "They take all sorts of stuff into account. Strength, the test, balance of your three types, and whether or not you've been around magic."

"What do you mean?"

"Camilla could explain it better than me."

Silence.

"Well... Why don't you give it a try?" Blake smiled.

"Ugh, I guess. Look at me and Jacob. If you take my raw strength total I'm a fair bit higher than him, but he's fairly strong in all three, and I have like no Consumption. That might make us pretty even. But then they probably factored in that like, I have a prominent magical family and have been around magic my entire life."

Jacob frowned. That didn't exactly seem fair.

"Look at Archie." Grace pointed. "He's strong, but he definitely got a boost in ranking because his family is magical royalty."

Jacob scanned down the page. Archie had gotten the 6th seed.

"Oh, damn, Jacob you're gonna have to fight him," Blake said.

Jacob scanned the bracket. Blake was right. If he won his first two matches and Archie won his first two, they'd face off in the... Round of 16? And if he won that he'd face off with...

Victor.

Jacob looked over to where Victor was standing around with his own little group. Victor was already looking at him. He grinned and winked. Jacob winked back. He shouldn't get ahead of himself. He didn't know the names of the first two people he would be fighting. He was waiting on the victor of the fifth play-in game between the 54th rank, a girl named Maria Levesque, and the 75th, a boy named John Altman. Two people he'd never heard of.

Jacob frowned. "What are the rules? I don't think they ever mentioned them in class."

Blake and Grace shared a look.

"Non-magical family, remember?" Blake said.

Grace nodded. "Hard to believe."

"You get dropped in the middle of this arena, in the stadium," Blake said. "I think the matches next weekend are a ten minute time limit, but it almost never goes to that. There are three ways to win: Immobilize your enemy. So, knock them out or trap them or something. Make your enemy give up. So if they say 'I yield' they lose. And the most common method: pushing them out of bounds."

"Okay, what about magic? Are we allowed to use any spell?"

"Well, pretty much as long as it's not lethal. You can't deliberately injure the other person. Obviously they will let you fight and punch and blast people but you can't deliberately try to kill or injure them."

"Hmm..." That might actually hinder the stronger mages a little, balance the playing field. Interesting. Pushing people out of bounds? He wouldn't have thought of that, but it made sense. It would add a layer to the strategy people used. You'd have to factor in what win condition your opponent was going to try for.

They scanned over the rankings in silence for a little while. Tanaka at 1st, Camilla at 2nd, Victor at 3rd. Sophia at 4th. A guy named Diego Marquez who Grace had mentioned coming from a strong family at 5th. And Archie at 6th. Jacob found his eyes drawn to Tanaka ranked 1st. He'd been as strong as Camilla, sure, but Camilla knew how to cast a bunch of spells already, and her family was magical royalty.

Then he remembered what Blake had said: "They're saying he fought a Deputy who came to take him to the Academy in Japan. But get this: This kid beat the Deputy."

A Deputy? Camilla could fight, but could she beat a full on Deputy? Jacob wasn't so sure.

"What was Tanaka's affinity?" Jacob asked.

"Jeez, high hopes, eh?" Blake laughed. "It's necromancy."

Jacob shivered. "Like raising the dead?"

Blake shrugged. "Don't know. Grace?"

"Hmm? Necromancy? Yeah, raising the dead. Talking to them. Sensing them. All sorts of stuff related to dead people."

"'I see dead people.'" Blake droned. "Doesn't seem like it'll be much use in a tournament cage match. Not like they're gonna throw bodies on the floor." Blake chuckled.

Jacob barely heard him. Raising the dead? Talking to the dead? Yeah, maybe not that useful in a fight, but what if...

It clicked.

He knew how to catch the vampire.

Goddamnit, why hadn't he thought of this before! A plan began to form in his head.

He jumped up out of his chair.

"What's up?" Blake asked.

"Nothing. I... Just realized something is all." Jacob said.

He needed to find Tanaka, but where would the guy be right now? He checked his phone. Shit. There was only ten minutes until Decomposition Basics.

But Tanaka would be at that class.