“How long was I out…?” Kimura lightly muttered.

“About Four hours Kimura.”

Kimura turns his head to see Ayameko sitting on a metal chair as she watched the next match going on from a standing flatscreen TV. Where…did they even get that…? Kimura looked at the TV confused as he slowly shifted his body.

Upon moving Kimura felt a sharp tension pain in his right shoulder, left arm and his entire right hand down to even his fingertips. He dropped back onto his back as he took deep breaths to try and dullen the pain.

“Let your body heal, you overexerted for one match.” Ayameko commented while looking at the TV.

“How bad was it…” Kimura softly replied.

“Imagine your muscles being ripped apart all at the same time while your nervous system has an aneurism and your heart beating faster than a AMV music video.”

“That’s…oddly specific…” Kimura commented.

“Hey that’s the nurse’s comment not mine.” Ayameko replied.

“Whatever…but why are you the only one staying here when you could be watching the match over at our station?” Kimura points out.

“I…don’t know honestly, it’s just a gut feeling that’s all…and plus I promised Naoki I’d switch out every couple of hours.”

“I guess…” Kimura sighs as he looks at the tent’s tarp at the top, “I’m just gonna take a longer nap…wake me up when you feel like it.” Kimura commented as he dozed back off to sleep.

“Sure thing…” Ayameko replied.

***

Upon the battlefield being broadcast onto some TVs and screens around the area, the fight nonetheless was engaging. Teisho Academy and Vixen Academy were fighting for the second round. A student wearing a robe jumped back as she slammed her hand onto the ground, suddenly a rocky fin emerged from the ground as it jumped out, a rock shark had formed lunging at the Vixen student.

“Pity.”

The Vixen student caught the snapping rock jaws of the rocky shark as a rocky tentacle wrapped around his left leg. He looked at the tendril as he broke the rocky shark in half, shifting his weight as he kicked his wrapped leg, throwing the rocky octopus towards the Teisho student.

Shit!

They swiped their hands up from the ground as the air infront of them became compact, the rocky octopus breaking on impact and causing dust to burst. She coughed a bit as she looked around, the dust slowly settling as she suddenly turned her head to the left and ducked down, narrowly being hit by a left hook.

That was close.

She backed up and out of the dust as she stomped her foot on the ground, lifting that foot in the process slightly as a small portion of the ground cracked. She waited silently as she began to focus on it.

“……”

Then suddenly something flew out of the dust as it startled her, causing her to flinch and react, lifting her leg and throwing a piece of the ground at the jacket, seeing it fly and hit the jacket.

A Jacket? But where did-

Just as she thought of that a rough outline of her opponent came through as the Vixen Student, wearing a sky-blue colored t-shirt, grabbed her ankle and slammed her back onto the ground. The initial impact of the slam caused the ground to crack where she landed as the Vixen student yanked her ankle towards him.

As if time itself had slowed down for him, he was quick enough to land a straight and clean punch right at her face, slamming the back of her head against the ground. It caused another piece of the ground to crack as it had knocked out the Teisho student.

He stood up popping his left shouder in as he winced in pain a bit as the crowd went wild. I didn’t think that rock hit my shoulder…and with such force too… he thought as he looked and waited for the nurses to bring her on a stretcher.

***

A couple of hours passed as Ayameko walked towards the middle, her hands in her pockets as she was assigned to a separate tournament. At the same time, a Student from Tartarus Academy came walking down to the center as well. Both participants were participating in a one-on-one dual tournament.

“Now most of you might be wondering why we are holding two tournaments, well this is where both tournaments are intertwined, the winner of this tournament will fight the new best academy of the world in a Two on four challenge!” The Announcer shouts.

“Hey, aren’t you the guy I poked holes into?” Ayameko tilts her head a little to the right.

“Aren’t you the bitch that got lucky earlier?!?” The man responded.

“……”

Ayameko decided not to respond back after that as she clearly knew she had to dig someone a new grave for that comment. However, the announcer came towards them with his microphone.

“Alright you two, I need names and naming scheme…” He asked both.

“Ishida Ayameko, Old-World.”

“Jack Ruharven (Ru-harv-en), New-World.”

“Thanks for the information.” He nodded at them as he ran back to his stationary stage.

The Announcer got on his stage as it rose him up a bit as he began announcing and hyping up the one-on-one battle. Amidst the hype, Ayameko backed up slightly as she took her hands out of her pockets, her hands having the same fingerless gloves that Kimura wore.

Crack…Crack…

Ayameko popped her knuckles as she and Jack got ready to fight. 3…2…1… Ayameko thought as at the same time the announcer shouts, “FIGHT!”.

Jack rushed at Ayameko as she took three steps forward, in two seconds they were nearly face to face as Jack threw a couple of punches with Ayameko on the backseat, taking steps back as she began slipping and weaving around.

“The aggression is just out there huh.”

“Is he hitting them? Or missing purposely?”

“She’s leaving so many openings to fight back, why isn’t she fighting back?”

The crowd was obviously confused as Ayameko kept slipping past punches, dodging left right and center as she stopped kicks and leg checks by raising her leg up as she was sweeping through all offensive attempts.

“Why isn’t she fighting back?” Suharu commented.

“I don’t know, it’s either to embarrass him or she’s just toying with her food…” Erudis commented as well.

Naoki was more focused on the fight than the other two first fights. Meanwhile, Ayameko hums her favorite tune while dodging seamlessly. Jack was tiring himself out as her humming stopped, an elbow came flying to his face as it connected square on his nose, breaking it in one blow.

Jack stumbles back as Ayameko leans forward, shifting and sways her body to the left throwing a devastating left hook onto his left side. Jack buckled slightly as he grits her teeth throwing a wild punch with his left fist as Ayameko sways to the right. She grabs his forearm and punches underneath the armpit then flips him over her shoulder.

With a loud BAM Jack smashed against the ground as Ayameko looked down at him, tapping his cheek with her shoe.

“Hey, you’re not done yet are you.” she asked in a cold monotone voice.

“fuckin’ hell…” Jack groaned a bit in pain.

“And here I thought you’d beat the shit out of this bitch, well look who’s the bitch now.” She snickered with a smug look.

Ayameko then backed up a bit as Jack got up slowly, she crossed her arms once again as she watched Jack’s movements. Jack got back onto their feet as their eyes began to glow, she furrowed her brows as she recognized what was happening. Unlike Kimura, Ayameko snaps her finger as she manifested a dark entity from her shadow.

The Entity lunged towards Jack as he leaned back, the entity stood there with its faceless head staring right at Jack’s face. Ayameko walked over as she walked behind him, digging her hand into his shadow as she pulled out a second entity from his shadow, the shadow bearing similar physical qualities as Jack.

“Thanks for the shadow.”

She gave him a smug look as the shadow sinks into her shadow. She then backed up once more from Jack as the Shadow Entity followed Ayameko, standing a few feet away from her.

“Ready to give up now?” Ayameko asked again as she awaited his response.

“……”

Jack was figuratively and literally outmatched as Ayameko clicked her tongue as her entity moved behind her and sunk into her shadow like the other one did. Just as it did Ayameko sneezed as this gave Jack a split-second window.

It happened so fast that everyone watching didn’t even know how it happened, including most of the monarchs there. Jack’s fist was two centimeters away from Ayameko’s left eye, Jack was unable to move as his shadow was engulphed by Ayameko’s self-conscious shadow.

“You almost had me there, storing up some kind of energy for me to let my guard down huh?”

“If…If only I was a fraction of a second faster…”

“It wouldn’t have mattered…I was two steps ahead.”

Ayameko smirks as she waves at James, suddenly the shadow underneath him opened, swallowing him whole into whatever place she had in there.

“HEY! YOU CAN’T DO THAT!!!” Another Tartarus academy student shouted from his station.

“Oh? And what are you gonna do about it?” her eyes glared over.

“Ayameko! Just abide by the rules!” Korvos shouted.

“Fine fine! Jeez man y’all can’t take a joke…” Ayameko complains slightly.

Mere moments later Jack came flying out of her shadow as he landed on the floor, his eyes were widened as if he’d seen a ghost or two. Ayameko looks at him and then she shrugs it off like it wasn’t her business, walking back towards Haven’s station.

Naoki on the other hand frowns a bit by her actions, Suharu sighed briefly as Erudis seemingly enjoyed the match. Korvos sighed as well as he looks at Ayameko who was walking up the steps to their station.

“What?”

“You didn’t have to do that, it was unnecessary.” Korvos told her.

“Well, you’re not going to get a message across if you’re going to be a boy scout about it.” Ayameko replied.

“I mean…you could have just left it there and not have him enter whatever your shadow is.” Naoki tells her.

“……”

“Uh oh…I think I made her mad…” Naoki slightly clutched his phone a little tighter.

“…No, no you’re right, I went a little overboard.” Ayameko surprisingly apologized.

“I am?” Naoki was surprised as he recomposes himself like he was right, “I mean- Yeah, I was right.”

“That smells like bullshit.” A sudden masculine voice was behind her as she turned around.

Kimura was behind her as he rubbed his chest a bit, his left fist was in a light hand cast. Ayameko chuckled a bit as she walked over to Naoki and Tomoyo, sitting down beside Tomoyo. Kimura walked over as well as he sat down across from her, sitting beside Naoki. Naoki on the other hand was looking at the two as both seemed a bit uncanny, their overall mood was somewhat similar with both in a good mood but neither of them seemed to be letting up on their weirdly ominous vibe.

***

As more matches began to continue, Kimura was off in the nearby forest, searching for something as he walked over a couple of logs.

“It has to be here somewhere…”

Kimura looked around more as he pulls out his phone, looking at a scanned image as he sees a symbol carved onto a tree, His eyes lit up with curiosity and intrigue as he hurried over to it. He looked at the symbol as it has an “H” etched into it as it looked weird, having two extra lines pointing out from where the middle line is supposed to have one.

“This symbol looks weird…”

Kimura brushed his hand lightly on the wood as he looked at his phone, swiping left to pull up another photo, cross referencing the image and the symbol. It looked nearly identical as the symbol had an “H” etched into it and had the weird two diagonal lines near the middle.

“This is it! This is where mom was when she was here!” Kimura exclaimed excitedly.

He looked around the area to see if she had left anything there, searching in a 4ft radius as he would find nearly nothing except a few bottle caps left there. Kimura kept searching until he went northeast, upon going northeast he had to go through more logs, seeing some of them were broken.

These trees seemed more damaged than the rest of the forest, he continued his search as he crawled underneath a fallen tree, crawling through to the other side. When he reached it, he saw a robot, slightly rusty but still functional from how it looked. There were slight dents on the body with some shallow cut marks and some rather old blood stains.

“Huh? A training bot? I thought these were decommissioned…”

Kimura squatted down, taking a good look at the bot as he tapped it a bit on the head and the body. Kimura examined the head more as it sported two beam-like eyes with one eye seemingly broken.

He examined the arms as they seemed to be in tip top shape along with the legs, however the legs were more rusted than the arms. Kimura kept examining the bot as he remembered something he learned on the internet.

“These bots should have…” He mutters as he turns the head a bit to look, seeing a USB port.

“Aha! A USB port!”

Kimura takes out a small flash drive from his pants as he inserts it into the dummy’s USB port. It began to shake violently as Kimura stood up and backed up a bit, after a while it suddenly stopped as its one working eye began transferring what was on the hard drive onto a 3d holographic projection.

He watched as it began to rebuild the data from the ground up, making a 3d holographic projection of his mother when she was younger. Her hair was slightly longer than shoulder length but not too long as her hair was red in color, her golden eyes made her stand out as the recording then began.

“K-K-Kenji? Is this stupid bot working??” The audio stuttered as the hologram showed his mother kicking something.

“Ah it is working! Finally! Damn thing wasn’t working properly for the pa-past three days…Anyways, Kenji I’ve r-r-r-re-e-recorded some more stuff onto this t-t-t-training bot, I’m still recovering but go show those other fuckers from the o-o-o-other academies what you’re made of! I’ll see if I can sneak in l-l-l-later, bye Kenji.”

The recording stopped as Kimura frowned a little, He thought it would be more than just more recorded messages. But to his surprise there was a bit more juice in that flash drive than just a recording.

The bot suddenly turned on itself as it rose up, standing about two feet taller than Kimura as it looked down upon Kimura. He took a step back as the robot scanned him suddenly, Kimura looked down to see the scanning process as it finished at his head.

“C-c-c-Cannot i-i-i-identify, p-p-please pUuut your hand out.”

The training dummy puts its hand out as Kimura looks at it, feeling slightly tense about it he reached out placing his hand on the robot’s hand. Within a fraction of a second Kimura feels a sharp prick on his middle finger,

“Ow!”

Kimura moved his hand away as he looked at his fingers, seeing blood slowly seeping out of where he got prickled from.

“A-a-a-ana-l-l-ly-lyzing…”

This robot seems to be processing the blood it pricked from my middle finger as it started making an internal analysis. While he waited for it to be processed, Kimura walked around the robot itself, however while he walked, he noticed the head was always keeping an eye on Kimura, the head even spun around to look behind itself when Kimura walked behind it.

It’s keeping an eye on my every move…

Kimura then stopped in front of it as it finished analyzing. He looked at it as if it suddenly sprung to life.

           “Analyzation finished…! Copying fighting style…”

“Huh?”

Kimura was caught off guard by the robot’s sudden clarity as it raised it arms into a fighting position. He stepped back a bit as it stood in position, Kimura sighed as he began hopping off one foot to the other keeping himself in a bouncing motion.

Now I think about it…it kind of looks like dad’s fighting pose…

Kimura tilted his head slightly to the right as he had to get another angle to look at the robot’s fighting pose. It was in a slightly hunched position as it kept its arms up close to their head. Without hesitation the robot lunged towards Kimura headfirst, he jumped back to gain more distance as it suddenly got closer somehow, throwing Kimura off rhythm as he raised his guard, blocking a straight punch.

The punch sent Kimura sliding back farther than he anticipated, he lowered his guard as Kimura felt that punch as the robot stood back in position, angling their right arm at a 45-degree angle as their arm just covered their broken eye.

The robot ran forward as it lunged towards him, Kimura backed up again as he saw it extended once again as Kimura’s right cheek was grazed by the punch and leaving a burn mark where the punch grazed him.

Kimura tried throwing a counter punch as the bot seemingly swayed back as Kimura missed the landing. BAM!! A right hook connected against Kimura’s face as he dropped to his knees, his knees buckled as Kimura took a second to shake off the concussion.

The robot didn’t let Kimura shake it off as it grabbed his head and slammed its knee against it. His head jerked back from it as it took the initiative throwing haymakers left and right as Kimura rose his arms up to guard the oncoming attacks.

Kimura’s body was rocked left and right by the punches as a right hook broke through his guard, Kimura’s eyes were widened by the sheer force and aggression that this singular training robot was applying to him.

Without a second thought the robot suddenly opened its robotic mouth and flames came out of it, scorching Kimura with bright orange flames. Kimura blocked his head with his sleeves as he took the full brunt of it. It feels like I’m being hit with six full force flamethrowers!! Kimura thought to himself as he jumped back, tossing his burning jacket onto the ground and stomping the fire out.

“That’s like the fire dad does…and his fighting style too…”

Kimura looks at the bot as the bot takes on the fighting stance again, hunched over slightly with his right arm at a 45-degree angle as it covered its broken eye once again.