Alesha looked at the bloodied tip of her spear with a snarl.
Why? Why why why, why why?
Just what was going on??
After being told the Games would end in a tournament between 22 final Participants, Alesha had expected to have to fight for her life.
Instead, the two opponents she'd fought as part of the tournament went down too easily.
The final fight was all that remained.
[Why are you upset?] Rogork asked. [This means there are only two more opponents left, then we can go back!!]
Alesha didn't properly understand why she was upset about it being easy either. Was she craving a challenge? Did she feel like having to fight for her life was a better excuse when she killed humans? Perhaps she disliked the feel of killing people like they were sheep?
Or was it something else entirely?
Did part of her… want to die?
No, it wasn't that. The other reasons were at least partially true, but that one… not anymore. After her talk with Gurkash, things weren't magically better, but at least she felt like she deserved to live and see her family again.
She flicked the remaining blood off her blade, then readied herself for her next fight.
In just a moment, the other two surviving Participants would enter the stage.
The three of them would then fight to the death.
Alesha didn't know or care who remained -- she was going to be the one to come out on top.
She had to survive this.
After all she'd been through, after all she'd done, she wouldn't let it be in vain.
Two gates opened across the arena, a Participant emerging from each one.
Surprisingly, Alesha recognized them both. One of them was Collin, the vampire who'd caused her to go into a panic attack when they'd first met. The other was a burly man with vibrant green hair, whom she'd seen in passing a few times in the cafeteria.
It didn't take long for them to approach the center of the arena.
Just as the announcer was about to start the match, an unexpected voice interrupted him.
"LET IT BE KNOWN -- I FORBID THE DEATH OF ALESHA WILLIAMS," a somehow familiar, sultry woman's voice boomed across the arena. "HER KILLER WILL NOT REST IN PEACE."
A chorus of murmurs, gasps, boos and hisses rippled through the stands.
The announcer stuttered, then spoke quickly in an attempt to reign in the crowd's displeasure. "Ah-ah! L- ladies and gentlemen, that was the Venerable Toltura, Goddess of Chaos! It appears the female participant known as Alesha Williams is under Her protection! Will these Participants heed her words, or will they lie down and die quietly like she demands? Watch the match to find out! Aaaaaand, 3-2-1 match start!"
The three Participants stood there, dumbfounded, for several seconds before the first of them realized the match had officially begun.
The green-haired burly man lunged quickly at Collin, ignoring Alesha. He struck out with spiked brass knuckles.
Collin ducked his blow, quickly stabbing at the green-haired man's gut with a long dagger.
The green-haired man twisted just enough to turn the potentially fatal gut wound into a glancing blow. As he did so, he snatched at Collin's long, platinum-colored hair and yanked him downward.
This action caused Collin to stumble and moved his knife-wielding arm out of the way just enough for the burly man to slam his knee up into Collin's face with force.
Collin, however, dissolved into a cloud of bats before the blow could strike, reforming behind the burly man a moment later.
Collin stabbed him from behind, smiling strangely.
The burly man, not expecting this, was barely able to move enough to avoid a strike directly to the spine. Instead, the knife struck between a pair of ribs, somehow managing to miss any vital organs.
Collin abandoned the knife inside the burly man's back and quickly jabbed with another, which slashed the skin of the burly man's arm as he spun to face Collin.
Alesha held her spear at the ready, not sure whether to intervene or not. A part of her just wanted to let them fight it out, then go after the weakened victor.
At this rate, though, Collin would come out on top with nary a scratch.
Should she intervene? Take advantage of the chaos to land a few blows?
[Nah,] Rogork said. [Is it worth the trouble? Besides, you don't even know all his moves. It's not like you fought right beside him even when you were on the same side.]
As Alesha deliberated what to do, their fight continued.
Collin attacked with hit-and-run tactics, easily weaving between the large swings of the burly man. Clearly, the burly man was strong, but had he gotten too used to relying on that strength in these battles? It was conceivable that the man had simply gotten lucky so far.
Striking a chuuni pose with one hand over his face and the other flamboyantly extended, Collin hovered midair and leaned back just a hair as he dodged yet another strike from the green-haired man. "Verdant-haired mortal, you dare to fight against a Progenitor Vampire? Know your place, you pathetic worm!"
With that, a storm of blood blades burst from Collin, whipping about and slicing the green-haired man's leather armor into pieces.
Alesha clutched at her head, feeling her blood run cold at the sight. Collin's control over the blood blades was impossibly precise. The whirlwind of blades must have consisted of at least 20 separate blood blades, and Collin's extreme control over them frightened her. Due to Battle Foresight creating overlapping images of where each and every blade was about to be, the storm of blood blades seemed even more complicated to her than it actually was. Even knowing this, she was still intimidated.
Should she feel fortunate that until now, she hadn't had to fight this man?
Or afraid that, as part of the final fight, she now had to?