Arthur planted both feet. Breathed once.

Okay. Remember what master said. Remember what you just saw.

He looked at Auros across the platform. At the posture, the stillness, the way the field around him sat steady instead of straining under the weight of everything he’d already thrown at Kreasial.

Seven minutes. He’s been running that field for seven minutes against Kreasial alone, and it hasn’t dipped once that I could see. Either his reserve is enormous or he’s better at hiding the cost than anyone I’ve fought so far. Probably both. I can’t bank on him running dry. I have to assume he doesn’t.

Arthur raised his hand. Two fingers extended, thumb cocked back, like a kid pointing a toy gun.

Open your eyes, Vexis.

’Open your ears, Arthur.’

"ALL PARTICIPANTS READY? BEGIN!"

Auros blurred.

One second he was standing still, the next he wasn’t standing anywhere Arthur could track, just a smear of motion eating the distance between them in under a heartbeat.

Water gathered on Arthur’s index finger, fast, aimed at nothing solid yet. He fired before Auros closed half the gap.

It hit him square in both eyes.

Auros’s stride didn’t break, the field around him absorbing most of the impact, but his eyes squeezed shut for a fraction of a second anyway. Water didn’t care about reinforced skin. That fraction was enough.

Arthur dropped low and Auros’s fist hissed past his ear close enough to move his hair.

In the sponsor section, Mareth leaned toward Velion. "Now I see what you see in him."

Velion didn’t answer. His eyes hadn’t left the platform.

"Still won’t last," Mareth said. "That battlemagus style is relentless. It’s a nightmare matchup for any mage."

Arthur’s palms hit the floor as he came up from the duck. He pushed an anchor outward through the stone, into the rubble at the platform’s edge, into the cracks Kreasial’s fight had left behind.

’Arthur, left!’

Arthur went right.

A spike of rock that had been about to clip his shoulder from the left passed through empty air instead.

"WOAH! VEXIS LESTILAUT HAS SOME KIND OF THIRD EYE OUT THERE! HOW DID HE SEE THAT WITH HIS BACK TURNED?"

Arthur snapped sideways and fired again. Same target. Auros’s eyes, twice in a row, and this time the field around him couldn’t fully stop the spray, droplets scattering across his vision in a fine mist.

Aetheric blood pulled from Arthur’s left hand. A piece of shadow detached from his palm and slid across the stone, merging into the rubble Auros had created, indistinguishable from the dust and debris already there.

Velion stood up. His eyes went wide.

"What is that," he said, to no one.

"Welya. Now that I closely look at vexis, That’s not how he’s ever stood."

"Don’t." She didn’t look away from the platform, knuckles still white on the railing. "Whatever it is. Just cheer for him."

Arthur kept firing, small shots, deliberately low density, barely more than the size of a fingertip each time.

Build the shape first. Let it flow. Don’t force it. This was nothing like the courtyard. In the courtyard he’d had time, and Roz watching, and nobody trying to put a fist through his skull between attempts. Here the channel had to form while his feet moved and his eyes tracked three things at once, with no room left to think about whether he was doing it right. He just had to do it, and hope the shape held longer than the last one had.

Auros’s hands retracted. He came in low, fast, a straight punch building behind the motion.

’Step back!’

The platform exploded outward where Auros’s fist landed. Stone and dust scattered in every direction.

Arthur’s left hand snapped down. Anchor number two.

A chunk of rubble caught him across the forehead before he could track it, opening a thin line above his brow. Blood ran immediately into his eye. He wiped it with the back of his wrist.

The dust cleared. Auros stood there, watching him.

"I’m done with your tricks."

"Oh." Arthur grinned through the blood. "I’ve got plenty more, actually—"

A fireball left Auros’s palm before Arthur finished the sentence.

Shit.

He dropped flat and it hissed overhead. He looked up in time to see a shadow already descending.

Auros, mid-air, mid-punch.

Arthur rolled. The shockwave from the landing caught his side and threw him sideways, out past the platform’s edge marker entirely.

He got his feet under him. Planted a third anchor on the way up.

Three now.

With all three down, Arthur dropped his perception into the network for half a second, just long enough to try reading the floor beneath Auros’s feet.

It came back garbled.

Every micro-shift in Auros’s stance sent a tremor through the stone, the field around him shaking the readings apart faster than Arthur could lock onto anything solid. He tried anyway, pulling the anchors taut, reaching for the bind that had worked on Alfia, that had worked on Calver.

It didn’t take. Not even close.

The cost hit him like a held breath finally released, his vision narrowing white at the edges for half a second before it cleared.

Okay. No bind. Not against that field. Later. Noted.

Whatever Auros was, he wasn’t standing still long enough for the network to get an honest read, and every failed attempt was aetheric blood Arthur didn’t have anymore.

On the bench, Roz’s ears tracked every anchor placement, one after another, and the failed bind alongside them. "He’s spending faster than he’s earning," he murmured, mostly to himself. "If this goes much longer, he won’t have anything left for the network at all."

Auros didn’t give him room to recover. Another fireball, already moving.

"FOLKS, THIS FIGHT HAS BEEN RELENTLESS, AND YET VEXIS LESTILAUT REMAINS UNTOUCHED!"

Arthur’s teeth ground together.

How much does this guy actually have left. Seven minutes of sustained output and the field hasn’t dimmed at all, hasn’t flickered, hasn’t done any of the things I was hoping it would by now, and somewhere underneath the part of me running numbers is a much less useful part wondering if this is a fight I can win or just one I can survive a little longer than I should.

’ARTHUR, DUCK!’

He didn’t see it through the dust.

A fist connected with his temple and the world tilted sideways. He hit the spectator barrier five meters back.

Ahh, fuck.

Everything spun. Pain radiated from his temple through his skull, down his neck, warm and immediate. Blood ran into his collar.

I didn’t feel him coming. My network wasn’t even open.

"Hey. Hey! Get up!’

His eyes rolled forward and stopped responding.

"VEXIS LESTILAUT IS DOWN, FOLKS! UNRESPONSIVE! IS THIS THE END OF THE FINAL CATEGORY?"

The crowd came up loud and ragged, the noise rolling through the upper tiers in waves, somewhere between disbelief and the specific kind of excitement that comes from watching something break.

Welya was on her feet before she’d decided to stand, both hands pressed white-knuckled to the railing, eyes locked on the platform and not moving. Velja, beside her, finally lifted his glass and drank, slow, watching over the rim.

At the sponsor table, Velion sat back down slowly, eyes never leaving the platform.

"Shame," Mareth said, already reaching for his own glass. "Was hoping for a longer one. Kid had a good run." He turned, still talking. "So. Who’s getting the recommendation this year? I want the Almonth kid on my list before anyone else gets to him, that’s the kind of name that—"

Velion’s hand came up between them, palm out, cutting him off mid-sentence. His eyes hadn’t moved.

"WAIT. WAIT, FOLKS, HE’S STANDING. HE’S STANDING AFTER A POINT-BLANK HIT TO THE HEAD. HOW DOES A MAGE SUSTAIN THAT?"

Auros watched the figure rise. Blonde hair, blood running from the temple down a pale jaw, something different in how the shoulders sat. Looser. Like the weight had shifted to somewhere new and was still settling.

Across the platform, Xavier’s arms were crossed, one finger tapping slowly against his forearm. He didn’t move otherwise. Whatever this was, he was filing it away rather than reacting to it.

"Aagh, fuck."

The voice came out rougher than it should have. Lower in the throat.

Huh. What the hell. Why’s my ear ringing like that.

The dust cleared. Auros stood a few meters off, expression unreadable. Below, two long pale hands, fingers spread, knuckles scraped raw. He looked at them the way you’d look at something familiar seen from an angle you’d never seen it from before.

Huh. Pain. Why’s my head hurt this much. And why does everything taste like copper.

It took a full second.

Then the mouth curled up at one corner, slow, like the muscles had to remember how.

Roz went still on the bench, ears dropping flat against his head. The bond felt wrong. Different texture, different weight, same body wearing it. He’d felt this exact shift once before, years ago, with a different caller entirely, and he hadn’t expected to feel it again from this one.

" YEAH!" The voice that came out was loud and delighted, nothing held back. "I’M BACK! VEXIS LESTILAUT IS BACK, BABY!"

Auros took one step forward, jaw tight, eyes narrowed at the figure across from him like he was looking at someone made the air around him shift.

"You lunatic."