"Alright, Mai, stop trying to talk him out of it. If he likes to brag, just let him." Andy also cut off Mai Shiranui's words.
But Mai glared at him, "Hey, cutting people off while they're talking is really rude, and also, who gave you permission to call me that?"
"But he…" Andy froze for a moment, feeling a bit wronged, and pointed at Aiden.
"How are you the same as him?" Mai stood up, pointing her fluttering fan outward. "Leave. You're not welcome here."
"Damn it…"
Andy didn't dare get angry at Mai, so he could only glare fiercely at Aiden. "You bastard, just you wait, I'm definitely going to teach you a good lesson."
"Anytime."
Aiden shrugged indifferently.
After watching the furious Andy leave, Aiden sat down between Mai and Yuri, softly comforting them as he watched the fight happening in the ring.
At this moment, the match in the ring had already begun, and the first to appear for the Art of Fighting team was Robert, Takuma Sakazaki's disciple and the student of the Kyokugenryu dojo.
Aiden remembered this guy quite well, of course, from the games.
Back when he didn't know how to play well, Robert was his favorite pick, because that character was ridiculously cheap. Just spamming Flying Swallow Hurricane Kick could clear the entire game without taking damage, and even beat most players of similar skill.
Another similar one was Terry, his Rising Tackle was also extremely cheap, able to keep people juggled in the air forever.
But usually, using these two characters led to serious consequences. Back in the arcade days, Aiden saw plenty of people get so mad before the game even ended that they jumped straight into real-life fighting. Those scenes were way more entertaining than the game characters.
Of course, cheap moves were a game-mechanic issue, but in the story, Robert's actual strength was nowhere near Maki.
Just like what was happening in the ring now, Maki hadn't even shifted her stance. She simply relied on the clones created by the Yata Mirror, and Robert couldn't even put up a defense.
And her clones weren't like the ones in the game. They didn't vanish after attacking once, they stayed active for a long time and even used Kagura-style ancient martial arts.
"Big Sis Maki is actually this strong." Yuri looked at Robert, who was being pummeled by seven or eight clones, and exclaimed, "That idiot Robert is about to get beaten into a pig's head."
"..."
Aiden gave her a speechless look. "If I remember correctly, isn't Robert your dad's disciple?"
"That's what they get for not bringing me to the tournament. They all deserve to get beaten into pig heads." Yuri never forgot how her dad and brother left her out of the competition.
Thinking of it, she cupped her hands around her mouth like a megaphone and shouted toward the ring, "Go, Big Sis Maki! Beat that idiot Robert into a pig's head!"
Speaking of raw combat power, the Kagura family was the weakest among the Three Sacred Treasures clans, but the gap wasn't huge. Using game terminology, the Kusanagi and Yagami families were T0, while the Kagura family was slightly weaker, at T0.5.
But even if Maki was weaker compared to the other two clans, in the eyes of other fighters she was still absolutely overwhelming and almost unbeatable.
Of course, this excluded Chizuru. Her strength was at the level of a normal fighter, far too different from her sister.
So, unsurprisingly, the entire Art of Fighting team got swept 1v3 by Maki.
And from beginning to end, she barely moved at all. With the Yata Mirror's clones shifting between reality and illusion, she could freely switch between her real body and her clones.
To defeat her, the first step was simply to find her real clone, but the Yata Mirror also had special abilities like teleportation. It was absurdly strong.
After Takuma, the last member of the Art of Fighting team, was defeated by Maki, the announcer declared the morning matches over.
The winner of the winners' bracket would be decided in the afternoon, while the eliminated teams would compete tomorrow in the losers' bracket to decide the loser-bracket champion. Then the day after tomorrow, the winners' bracket champion and the losers' bracket champion would face off in the final match…
Anyway, the morning matches went smoothly without any accidents. The audience was quite satisfied, and some even formed fan groups on the spot.
Discussion threads on major online forums were exploding with activity.
And unsurprisingly, most of these fan clubs were for the female fighters. The biggest, of course, was Athena Asamiya's, after all, she already had a massive fanbase as a singer.
Next were the Women Fighters Team and the Kagura sisters. Even though the Women Fighters Team later got swept 1v3 by Athena, it didn't hurt their popularity at all. Female fighters were rare to begin with, and besides, they were all so pretty.
As for the Kagura sisters… well, most fans supported the older sister, Maki. The younger sister was kind of included by default, since the two looked so similar that fans didn't really differentiate.
But the fighters had no idea all this was happening.
Under the organizers' arrangements, except for a few who were seriously injured and needed hospital checks, everyone returned to the event hotel to rest.
———
After eating the lunch prepared by the organizers, noon passed quickly, and it was now afternoon.
When the fighters returned to the stadium, they were greeted with a surprising sight.
Groups of spectators had already clustered into distinct fan sections. Many held banners and signs with the names of the teams or fighters they supported.
"Wow, fan groups already! That was fast!" Sie Kensou said in amazement while chewing on a bun.
Since these were winners' bracket matches, only four teams had access to the fighter's rest area. The other four losers' bracket teams went to sit in the audience.
The Women Fighters Team sat together with Shermie's group, which made Aiden nervous, he was afraid they'd start arguing over something tiny.
"It's a world-class competition, after all… come to think of it, we fighters are basically athletes, right? And sports have celebrities too, so celebrities having fans is normal." Athena said this after waving to her largest fan group in the stands.
"I see…"
Kensou nodded blankly and scanned the stands with great interest, only to be disappointed when he couldn't spot any fan group supporting him.
"What the hell, not a single person supports me?" Kensou shouted, unsatisfied. "Why!?"
At that moment, seeing that Mai, Yuri, Shermie, and the others were chatting peacefully, Aiden relaxed and commented, "Because you're not handsome enough. Look at that guy..."
"That guy has fans."
Aiden pointed at Benimaru Nikaido.
"Let me see." Kensou scanned the stands again. Then he swallowed hard. "Never mind. I think I don't want fans anymore."
"Why?" Chizuru tilted her head beside Aiden.
"You'll know once you look." Aiden pointed.
Chizuru followed his gesture, and froze.
She saw a large group of middle-aged women waving banners and flags with "Benimaru Nikaido" written on them.
Aiden stroked his chin with a grin. "His face and physique… tsk. No doubt, a killer of aunties."
It was true. And honestly, forget his face and physique, the biggest contributor was Benimaru's revealing, ab-showing, overly-flamboyant leather outfit. That host-club-nightlife-pretty-boy style was exactly what middle-aged women loved.
Not far away, in the Japan Team area, Benimaru also spotted that horde of middle-aged fans. He was currently clutching his head in agony.
Clearly, he was very unhappy with the age demographic of his fanbase.
Kensou glanced at Benimaru sympathetically. "Good thing I'm not that handsome… but hey, Aiden, don't you dare dress like him. You're even more handsome than he is. If you ended up with a fanbase like that, ugh, just thinking about it is terrifying."
These past few days, his master and junior martial sister had been discussing taking Aiden as an apprentice, so Kensou had already started treating Aiden as his junior brother. Calling him "Aiden" felt natural.
Aiden found the nickname amusing but didn't object. He simply pushed Kensou's arm off his shoulder and said, "Relax. My fans are all… well, let's just say very high quality."
After saying that, he pointed toward Mai, Shermie, and the others. They had lifted a banner with his name on it, who knew whose idea that was. Even with his thick skin, Aiden felt his face heating up.
Kensou looked up and immediately showed an envious expression. But he wasn't jealous, he just began quietly asking Aiden for flirting tips…
While they were talking, the announcer's voice echoed, announcing the start of the winners' bracket drawing.
Not long after, the draw results came out.
Japan Team vs. Psycho Soldiers
Kagura Team vs. Fatal Fury Team.
Finally, they got matched with the Fatal Fury Team.
After the announcer announced the results, Aiden looked toward the Fatal Fury side, and instantly met Andy's provocative stare.
Andy had been waiting for this day for a long time. He couldn't wait to "teach" Aiden a lesson.
Aiden raised a middle finger at him dismissively, answering his provocation, then looked away, no longer paying him attention.
Honestly, he didn't take Andy seriously at all. As far as he was concerned, once he activated his profession, there would basically be no one in the King of Fighters world who could threaten him… okay, fine, maybe Fully Awakened Orochi could, Rampaging Ash could, Fully Awakened Saiki could, and Igniz could also pose a real threat. But that was about it.
Goenitz, Kyo, Iori, etc., they could barely qualify as opponents. Everyone else wasn't even worthy of that, at least for now.
So if it weren't for Mai, Aiden wouldn't bother acknowledging Andy's existence.
Then the match began.
The truth was, Aiden wasn't familiar with Kyo and the others. Even though he occasionally used Kyo and Iori in the games back then, aside from thinking their super moves looked cool, he didn't find them very useful. Terry and Robert, on the other hand, had those wonderfully cheap moves.
So Aiden's attention naturally fell on Chin Gentsai and the others.
For the Psycho Soldiers team, the first to go up again was Kensou. He had only taken light injuries in the previous match, nothing serious for a fighter. As long as there were no broken limbs, fractured bones, or damaged organs, such minor wounds healed quickly with just a little rest.