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Isco couldn’t look away from the spectacle.

The Keepers had chained him to the wall behind the gate before dragging Kanna out. When they were finished with her, he was next. Watching Kanna, though, he dared to hope that there was a way out of this.

Through the grates another opponent rushed her. Isco’s breath caught as she stumbled back, the momentum of the heavyset fighter throwing her off her balance and causing her to trip over one of the fallen bodies.

She rolled through the carnage, trying to get free of the corpses that littered the stage. The fighter charged again in the same way, learning nothing from his first attempt. Kanna stepped aside when he was a breath away from her, swinging her knife up and across the man’s chest. He staggered, losing his footing.

She leapt on him, her knee in his stomach and her knife plunging into his chest as he fell.

Isco had never seen someone move the way that Kanna did. She was liquid, constantly flowing. Her weapons were an extension of herself, whereas her opponents seemed to treat theirs like attachments.

He wasn’t sure if the others were even trying.

Kanna had entered into the flow of the fights without remorse, without mercy. It was as if every instinct she possessed was attuned to slaughter.

The drugs in her system were fading as the day wore on, and as the bodies piled on the sands the crowd’s initial jeers became frenzied. They had begun throwing things at her from the stands, cups and discarded food and stones littering the ground.

Even Hautman’s wide toothed grin had pressed into a thin line. He had advertised a legendary event and he was delivering, but not in the way that he had hoped.

Isco almost missed the sounds behind him as the Keepers approached. One grabbed his arm, yanking him to standing. She began to unlatch the shackles around his wrist while two others removed the heavy bar that blocked the grate.

“What--”

He dug his heels in as they dragged him to the open maw of the gate, the sun on the other side hot on the sands. He was no match for the guards, who shoved him onto the stage.

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Isco stumbled and fell, blinking in the bright glare of the open air Theatre.

The inevitability of the situation had not prepared him for the moment that it presented itself. He had known his death was coming, and he’d doubted each breath he had since the moment he’d laid eyes on Kanna once again.

Anger flared in her eyes, her lips set into a thin line.

Three new fighters entered the stage across from him, drawing her attention. They moved in a loose formation, two swordsmen flanking a spear wielder.

Kanna closed the distance between them, an urgency in her movements. She met the first swordsman with a ringing of metal.

The spear wielder went for the opening, but Kanna kicked the swordsman back, launching herself out of the spear’s reach and throwing the first swordsman off balance.

The three attacked together, Kanna twisting in a macabre dance. The swords came for her, while the spear reached through them, forcing Kanna to dodge the bladed tip.

The spearman overreached and Kanna struck. She knocked the spear tip down with her blade and it dug into the sand. She leapt onto the wooden shaft of the spear, the snap of the weapon as good as a killing blow.

The spearman fell forward, stumbling into one of his allies. Kanna lashed out at the swordsman that was pushed off-balance and he went down in a spray of blood, his hands clutching his chest as if to hold his life inside of it.

With his weapon decimated, the spearman was left defenseless against Kanna's flashing blades. She opened his throat, and he sunk to the sands.

Her last opponent charged with a scream, his movements hastened by desperation. Kanna met his attacks, stepping to the side to avoid the fallen spearman. Her last standing opponent was attacking with all he had, fear driving him forward.

The crowd roared, its anger meaty and thick.

Kanna stepped to the side, slashing down the inside of his arm as she slid from reach. He dropped his sword with a scream, cradling his arm and gasping. Kanna drove her blade down into the back of his neck, cutting off his struggle.

Without any others on the sand, she turned to face Isco.

He wanted to run, but his legs wouldn't move.

The gash in Kanna’s arm that had been roughly mended had reopened, the blood a long line from her bicep to her elbow. Newer, shallower slashes danced over her arms and a deep gash in her leg seeped. Cuts where she had not dodged quick enough lined both sides of her torso, her own blood thicker and darker against the white shirt than that of her challengers.

Her breath was ragged, her eyes weary. The only thing that seemed to be holding her upright was the will to remain standing.

A chime rang.

Kanna’s glare left Isco. She turned to the gates as they opened again.