Yu was sitting on the edge of her seat, biting her lip. Her leg was bouncing under her hand and she was breathing heavily.

“She’ll be fine,” Yu told herself repeatedly between nibbles from a meat roll as she looked down at a circle she knew held her friend, along with nearly thirty other people out to murder her.

Sitting in the same seat as yesterday, Yu’s master watched her with interested eyes. Then he reached forward and touched something that Yu hadn’t noticed before. Or rather she had, she just thought they were decoration. He touched a gem and smaller version of the floating displays appeared in front of Yu. Her master touched another crystal and the view switched to a different fighting circle. And another and another, until Li’s appeared.

Yu was distracted enough to forget her stress for the moment as she reached forward to touch the display.

“Tell me, do you have faith in your friend?” Her master’s voice brough her anxiety back in a rush.

“Of course I do!” Yu snapped. His eyes did not stray from hers as he stared. She exhaled. “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean that. I’m just nervous. Yes, I have faith in her. That doesn’t mean it isn’t scary.”

He nodded. “Understandable. Do you believe she is strong enough to win? I have not followed the progress of your companions much, so can you be objective enough to give me an honest assessment?”

Yu looked to her lap, remembering the last years of intense training. The early mornings, grueling daily workouts and skill practice, regular sparring matches, both one-on-one and many-on-one. All the hunting to earn skill scrolls and time in the illusion centers. They had done the work, the question was about Li herself.

She was a passionate fighter who loved battle for the sake of fighting and growing. She was not always thoughtful in her strategy and planning, but she did give one hundred percent of herself once a fight began. However, Li’s biggest advantage, by far, was that she was very, very fast, as Wind Warriors tended to be. Yu herself could only keep up because of her enhanced senses and Flaming Acceleration Qi skill. So…

“I do,” Yu said with a nod still looking down. “Circumstances and opponents obviously matter, but to answer your question, yes, I believe she’s strong enough to win against most cultivators at her own stage.”

“Then focus on that belief as you wait and watch. Do not allow yourself to be swallowed by doubt in your friend or yourself. If your judgement is truly objective, trust in it.”

Yu looked up at him then surprised and curious.

He really is different. Or at least he seems that way. More… relaxed and supportive, maybe? Less critical of everything I do, definitely.

It was, frankly, a bit of a jarring shift, if not an unpleasant one. Yu wondered if what he had said the prior day was the truth. Was everything he’d done before because of the restriction and preparing for her Release?

What does that mean? Is he not going to be an insane lunatic to me anymore? He won’t change his outside façade, that’s for sure. He still needs it to be left alone. But maybe he’ll turn into a real master? Do I even know what that is?

“I should add that the only exception is when your foresight takes part in your decision-making. Then objectivity can be put to the side. Trust in your affinity above all else, although its direct intervention will likely be rare. It is doubtful something that is not of substantial relevance will trigger its nature. You have not had the opportunity to practice manual control of that skill, and without compression it will be difficult to use anyway, so simply be patient with yourself.”

See? That’s exactly what I’m talking about! Who is this man and what did he do with my cruel, critical, and cantankerous old master?

“Ladies and gentlemen, cultivators and mortals, welcome to the final day of the elimination round! The second half of our mass-melee contests will begin shortly, but before they do, I would like to remind everyone what is next. Once all semi-finalists are decided, there will be a random drawing for the one-on-one matches, which will begin the day after tomorrow and will take two to three days, depending on the length of the matches. This grants everyone at least one full day of rest and, of course, recovery for those who have access to a healer.”

That’s surprisingly good news. It means I have an extra day for my body to get back to normal so the grumpy healer can let me be.

“Speaking of, for you Water and Wood healers out there, a board has been posted at the entrances to the arena’s various treatment rooms with the names of those willing to pay for healing and what they are offering. Feel free to sell your services through the arena staff, who will take only a small transaction fee.”

Yu shook her head. If she could use Qi right now, she might even be tempted, depending on the fee. One could never have too much silver, or favors for that matter. Healers just had it great.

“Alright, announcements are over. It is time to fight! The warriors are prepared, you in the audience are prepared… Judges, on you!”

In a mirror of the previous day, all the judges, also floating on jade disks, looked at each other. As before, they nodded, stood straight and opened their mouth. However, there was a deviance just as they were about to begin the fights.

A flash and bang came from one of the stages Yu had not been paying particular attention to. All the floating screens changed to a scene where a brown-haired man in scuffed metal armor and wielding a curved saber with rings along the spine was alight with fire and swinging down at another man in green and brown robes.

Yu watched as the victim, with the whites of his brown eyes showing wide, tried to block with a wooden staff. But it was clear he would not make it in time. It was then that another flash happened, causing the screen to turn white.

When it cleared, the enchanted display showed the attacking man with a melon-sized smoking hole in his torso. The view was such that Yu could see though the hole toward the floating judge, who was pointing his index and middle fingers at the offender.

“Well, well, well,” the announcer called, clearly amused. “It appears we had someone who wanted a bit of an advantage. As you can see, moving before the call to begin is… inadvisable. Now that that’s over, back to you, judges.”

The judges returned to their positions and, this time without disturbance, simultaneously called, “Fight!”

Yu leaned forward in her seat, hands clasped so tightly onto her robes that her joints creaked.

***

Li was shaking as she stood in her place on the stage. She had not slept a wink the prior night, which she had expected. She had thought a lot that night on what Yu had said and how she had said it.

At first, Li had been angry, thinking her friend did not believe she was strong enough. And, well, Li had to admit that perhaps that was fair when one looked at it from Yu’s perspective. She was a monster after all. Nobody could do what she could in a fight, and Li’s abilities just did not compare. So maybe it was fair for Yu to doubt her.

Then she had remembered Yu’s tear-filled face as she begged, begged Li to back out. That had not been doubt, but fear, which for Yu was saying something. Li wasn’t sure her friend really feared much of anything. That crazy old bastard of a master, maybe. But otherwise, she didn’t think Yu was afraid of much, not even her own death.

No, the only things that Yu feared, weren’t really about herself. Well, maybe losing control, but otherwise the only fears Li could come up for Yu with were about her friends and family. Which brought her thoughts back to the begging.

Li had actually considered it. There would be no shame in deciding to not participate after the first day’s bloodbath. And yet, Li did not find herself dreading the fight. Maybe there was a tiny bit of fear, but mostly, the sight of those battles excited her. The opportunity to go all out, with no restrictions, made her heart beat faster and her blood surge.

It was like when Yu had taken her hunting for the first time. She couldn’t stop herself from wanting to launch herself at something that could hurt or even kill her, and come out standing while her victim was at her feet.

Li loved fighting. It felt like what she had been born to do.

So there she stood, in her little area of the fighting circle, about to participate in the most violent thing she had ever seen, and she was shaking, not with anxiety, but anticipation. She couldn’t wipe the smile off her face as she leaned forward, her daggers in her hands, the right facing forward and the left backward.

Li actually was not a huge fan of knives and daggers, but they were the weapons she had trained with the most. So she would fight with them. Kill with them.

Adjusting her grip, tightening and loosening her fingers, Li needed the judges to let her go.

Say it!

Balancing on the balls of her feet, knees bent, Li bounced in place slightly, the anticipation nearly painful.

Say it!

She let loose a little Qi from her dantian, making her feel like a taught bowstring. She felt the power of the Heavens and Earth coursing through her meridians, swift like the wind, ready to explode with unspent power.

SAY IT!

And finally they did. “Fight!” echoed around the arena, and Li released the energy at last.

Li reveled in the feeling of the wind caressing her skin and hair as a whirlwind swirled around her. The legs of her sect pants flapped around her ankles as the tiny cyclones propelled her forward. The world blurred slightly as she ran towards her first opponent, a young man seeming no older than her, wielding a straight sword. Both he and the sword were covered in fire, which only made her grin widen.

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She must have trained against this style of Fire Warrior combat hundreds of times over the last two years. Her fellow faction members made for excellent preparation against this man whose eyes widened at her approach.

He started to move away from the occupied Ice Warrior who he had apparently just decided to attack from behind, and turn towards Li. But it was far too late. Her speed made it so she was next to him before he was even fully turned, and he had no chance to bring his sword into a defensive position. Li’s right knife, edge covered in a layer of wind thinner than the blades themselves, swept across the wrist holding his sword.

Li spun, watching as that weapon, along with the hand holding it, flew away. Despite that, she did not stop moving her left hand as the dagger’s wind-covered blade slid across the man’s neck.

Only years of hunting along with “killing” her fellows in the sect’s illusion centers stopped her from jerking to a halt and staring at the man she just murdered.

She forced her face away from him, and as soon as the sight left her vision, she pushed any thoughts of guilt off and moved onto her next target, the Ice Warrior from before and the man he was fighting, an Earth Warrior.

Li’s speed had barely slowed as she pushed the air from beneath her feet. In two strides and one breath she was at the pair. She threw herself into the air, doing something she had seen Yu do numerous times and had subsequently been taught by her. Li flipped upside down and to a height where her head slid in between the pair of warriors. She spun in the air, her arms out, the dagger blades running along both throats as she flew by.

Yu felt no resistance from the left and blood streamed out of the neck of the Ice Warrior. However, the sound of metal clinking on stone followed resistance from the right dagger. Li winced as she completed her flip and spin, landing on the ground with her back facing the Earth Warrior.

Instincts born from training for years against a combatant like no other kept her alive. Without stopping her momentum, Li jumped again, this time sideways. She turned in the air, using the explosion of force of her opponent’s missed blow to push her farther away. She landed facing him as he was pulling his stone-covered fist from deep in the ground where she had just stood.

An Earth Warrior was a bad matchup for Li. Wind Warriors were speed-focused, using that to either cause specifically-targeted mortal wounds or many smaller wounds, bleeding out an enemy. Earth Warriors were the exact opposite. Like a pangolin they were slow, but heavily armored and very strong.

Li had to make a choice. She could either attempt to wear him down until he exposed a soft point, or move onto another combatant. She knew what she should do, and the reminder came in the voice of Yu. “Don’t bang your head against a stone wall. I can’t get through armor either, so I know. Just move onto a softer target or run if there isn’t one.”

She should run. Logically, she knew that. But her heart, her martial heart, would not allow it. Their trainer in the Combat Center had tried to explain to them about finding their inner “martial heart.” It wasn’t their soul so much as it was their motivations and personality when they fought.

Every person had a different unique reason to fight, and the martial heart was that purpose. And when a fighter went against that purpose, they hurt themselves. Not physically, but the action of doing something diametrically opposed to one’s martial heart, built what he called a “heart demon.”

Bao Qing’s grandfather – before Yu’s master popped him like a soap bubble – had thought his grandson’s battle against Yu placed a heart demon in him, which was why Qing had halted in his cultivation and did not speak for a while. That old bastard happened to be wrong, but the point was, going against one’s martial heart was detrimental to a cultivator’s path to growth.

And Li was a fighter. She fought because she loved the act of fighting. Because she loved the thrill of defeating those bigger and taller and stronger than her. That was her martial heart.

So here Li stood, opposite a man who had numerous advantages over her, and her heart told her she needed to fight him. That running would create a demon in her that would distract and demotivate her.

That, plus what she could see happening just a bit away from them, told her what she had to do. So, she felt a manic grin form on her face as she threw Qi at her skills, wind whipped around her, and she flung herself at her opponent.

***

“No! What are you doing?” Yu yelled at the enchanted display showing Li charge at the man covered head to toe in stone.

“Is your friend a battle maniac?” her master asked her.

Yu did not answer as she watched her reckless friend enter a fight she should have in no way taken on.

Don’t try to cut the walking rock! Damnit, Li!

Yu knew her friend was, indeed, a battle maniac. She loved it. Even when she lost, she always wore a smile when fighting. But that was also the problem. Li often did not plan or think clearly once she was fully engaged.

Watching as her friend dashed by the warrior in a whirl of wind and sparks, Yu found herself leaning so close to the screen it was all she could see. Li flashed by the ponderous Earth wielder over and over, her knives giving off sparks as she carved tiny little furrows in the man’s impenetrable defense.

“You can’t breach my stone defense, little girl. Just give up and run along before I step on you,” the man rumbled.

Yu glared at him through the display, but was relieved to see that the warrior’s armor prevented quick motions, and his fists and feet never got close to her friend. But Yu also knew that a battle of attrition was a terrible outcome for Li. She was burning Qi much faster than he was, and as he had to have at least eighty meridians to even qualify to enter the tournament, there was no way she would outlast him.

“Interesting approach, and very clever by your friend.” Yu jerked her head at him, confused. She thought Li was being foolish. “In this case, you forget, disciple, that, despite what the display is showing us, this is not a one-on-one match.”

Yu’s eyes opened wide as she turned back to the screen. Only moments after she did, a spear of glistening steel came whistling from out of view. Li vanished in a whirl of dust, appearing a few paces away as the warrior’s armor, so robust against her blades, was destroyed by the spear. The tip of the steel weapon punctured through to the front, where it embedded itself into the fighting circle floor.

“Earth stops wind, but metal crushes earth,” Yu heard Li say to the dying man.

Yu nodded as she heard one of the many sayings about various affinities. Each affinity had strengths and weaknesses, especially against each other. For example, “Water quenches fire, fire burns wood.” There were numerous such sayings, all acting as reminders that no matter how powerful one thought they were, there was always a weakness to exploit.

In this case, Li must have seen the Metal Warrior finish off her opponent and then used her useless fight against the walking rock to draw the woman’s attention. A Metal Mage was a poor opponent for Wind, because mages could not armor themselves directly, which left them open for a Wind Warrior to use her speed to get close and cause a catastrophic wound. However, they were very strong against Earth Warriors.

Yu laughed as she watched Li give a little hop and wave to the Metal Mage, then turn to her next opponent, a Fire Mage, and nearly fly away in a burst of whirling debris.

“Do you see now?” Yu’s master asked her. “This seems to be a repeated issue for you. Your focus on your loved ones blinds you. Or at least narrows your vision to just them and that moment.”

Yu leaned back in her seat and nodded. “Yes. I do see that. I was just so worried.”

“Indeed you were, to the point that you forgot the entire premise of battle. Perhaps that is something you should reflect upon.”

“It’s not like I can just turn off my emotions though.”

“Of course you cannot, nor am I asking you to. You are too young for such things. I say this only to draw your attention to a flaw, not because I believe you can change your behavior in a few hours.”

Yu was not sure she agreed with the term “flaw,” but what he said did merit her reflection. She had, after all, gotten so into that individual moment of combat, that she forgot more than twenty other fighters were there.

She looked at the big screen and corrected herself. Nine… err eight now. It looked like the last were each in a pairing, facing off to find the final four.

Yu looked back at her friend, as she was battling an Ice Mage. Li was dancing amid a flurry of ice spikes being flung from the constantly moving hands of the mage. Yu noticed cuts to Li’s robes and blood flowing from numerous wounds all over her body.

Even with those wounds, Li was doing an outstanding job of using her speed to both evade the attacks and close the distance to the mage. Warriors were at an inherent disadvantage against mages. It was just hard to get close.

At that moment, Yu wished Li had access to whip skills, like she did. It was interesting to Yu that every single affinity had some form of a whip skill, but they were not all equal. Unfortunately, the Wind Affinity version, like the Water, Light, and Darkness ones, required compressed Qi – at least the ones available at the sect did. So, sadly, as a Wind Warrior, Li had no choice but to get within dagger-reach of her opponent. And, of course, the closer she got, the harder it was to dodge projectiles.

Li apparently came to that same conclusion because, she gave a look of frustration and then narrowed her eyes. The wind circling Li slowed just for a moment, and then, crouching low, stopped dodging and started deflecting the spikes with her knives.

Yu nodded, appreciating the change in tactics.

It was the only choice left.

Li’s face reddened with the additional effort and focus required, but Yu knew it would be worth it if she could hold on. Ice shattered in a smattering of clinks and crunches, creating numerous small cuts all over Li’s body. But she held on, pushing through the pain and stress on her mind and body.

Until she missed one. A spike punctured Li’s left forearm, and Yu nearly cried out with her. This caused Li to stumble slightly, missing another that embedded into the left shoulder. That arm fell slack, and Yu feared for her friend. But their years of practice together included fighting through injury. This allowed Li to continue. In fact, she seemed to double-down on her focus.

Her right hand and arm became a blur, blocking spike after spike, causing shards of ice to pile around her. Li slowly was forced to slide backward, one finger width at a time, but still her focus did not waver and her right blade did not slow.

Yu saw it then, the moment she and Li and been waiting for. Yellow light flashed from her friend’s eyes and Li bent low. She took another spike to the side, but then there was a cracking sound, and Li vanished from view. Less than a full breath later, a burst of wind exploded out from where she had just been standing, flinging shards of ice and stone in a spray from the arena circle floor. Then the display showed the Ice Mage, frozen still, his face wide with shock as he looked down and saw the hilt of a dagger sticking out from his chest where his heart was.

Behind him, crouched, panting, and leaning forward on her good arm, was Li. Blood was dripping from her wounds, but she was alive, and her smile was so wide Yu nearly cried with relief and joy.

Li then raised her head and scanned the arena. Her victory marked the end to the third of the four remaining one on one battles in her circle.

Yu saw all the other surviving participants were injured. One was worse off than Li, the other about the same. All three of them were looking at each other, probably thinking about their chances in a fight. Yu watched as they seemed to come to some sort of agreement and all turned away and sat down, viewing the last two work out who would be the finalist.

Taking the stress-free moment for the opportunity it was, Yu finished off her last meat roll so she could honestly tell the healer she had eaten everything he had sent.

As far as the end of the final fight went, they did not have to wait long. The Metal Mage that had “helped” Li before, blocked a stream of fire with a raised plate of steel that she then pushed toward her opponent. It sort of melted in Yu’s eyes and became a spear just like the one she had used on Li’s Earth Warrior, impaling the fire mage before he could dodge.

And with that, Yu nearly collapsed in relief. Then she saw Li wincing and she stood, ready to go to the arena floor to help her friend.

“The sect provided healers to its participants for this event,” her master said calmly from his seat.

Yu stilled and then nodded. “Right. I knew that.”

“Indeed you did. Now, I believe you promised healer Da Bing to return to the estate for his evaluation.”

Sighing, Yu nodded. As much as she wanted to help Li and then celebrate with her, like he had said, better healers than her were provided and she could see Li tomorrow during her off day.

“Oh. That Bao boy’s match is in the last set of the evening. You will likely be asleep, but I will see that you find out the result.”

Yu’s eyes widened. She had been so Li-focused, that completely forgot about his fight.

That was really horrible of me. Ugh, after everything, to just forget about him. I’m a terrible person.

“I don’t suppose—”

“Absolutely not! I refuse to deal with that troglodyte of a healer for anything less than a life-threatening situation.”

Slumping, Yu nodded figuring it had been worth a try. But she had promised. Still…

Poor Bao Qing probably has nobody rooting for him. In fact, he probably has more people hoping he’ll die than the rest on the stage put together.

Yu walked to the box’s exit, making the decision to do better.

I’ll try talking to him after. Take him to a meal to celebrate his win maybe? I have to do something. He’s been working so hard, and on more than just fighting. Forgetting was awful of me. He really does deserve a second chance, if for nothing else but his bottomless determination to earn one.

What does it say about us, and how sad is it that I, an old enemy, am the only person willing to give it to him?