Zteel

With Colt defeated, only Raphael and Khafra remained.

Raphael breathed heavily, wiping his face before defending another "Galestorm" attack with a wooden wall. Leaping out of the way as the many arrows of wind penetrated through his defenses, Raphael was again met with another heavy barrage of them.

"Damn it, he's relentless!" He thought. "How do I get myself out of this?!"

Unable to put up another wall in time, the many arrows obliterated what had been made, and a few of them managed to cut through his skin and wound him.

He tried to stand but fell back to the ground a few seconds later.

Tatius, who stood above some of the court's rubble, closed his eyes after aiming his bow at Raphael one final time. "I do kind of feel bad. My intention isn't to kill you, but I have a goal to finish this.

I trust you'll survive this, but if not, it's been fun."

Still unable to move, all Raphael could do was look up at Tatius as he cocked his arm back, ready to fire. A subtle yet growing whistling sound could be heard from the bow and visible ripples of wind could be seen emitting from Tatius's immediate surroundings.

"How'd I get stuck battling someone who doesn't care about killing in a friendly battle?" He chuckled to himself. "Sucks to be me, I guess."

He started to reflect on a particular moment in the past, one of the many instances in which he trained with Trifon by himself.

--

"How many times will I have to tell you, Raph? Leadership isn't only assumed; it must be earned as well."

It was night out and the rain continued to pour as Raphael hung his head low before Trifon.

He continued, "You want to lead your comrades in battle, but you don't even have the first idea of how. You cannot go on like this."

The thunder cracked and the night sky flashed.

"As your direct superior, I want to see you win. I want to see you succeed. I understand that you've built tremendous trust with Colt and Khafra.

You consider them family, as you should because you are. Your heart's in the right place, but your head needs to be refined."

Raphael's head remained low to the ground, still without a word to spare.

Trifon's hand reached out to his shoulder, but was swiftly swiped away. Instead, Raphael suddenly shoved Trifon back.

Unable to move him much, he shoved him again and again until he started throwing punches in a fury. Trifon simply knocked his hits and pushed him away by his head, keeping him away.

"Why do you always talk to me like I don't try hard enough?!" Raphael began to shout. "Like the problem is me?! Like I'm incapable of protecting the very things and people I care about?!"

He turned back to the ground, scrunched his shoulders and balled his fists, tears began to drop and blend with the drenched concrete court from beneath them. "You have no clue how hard I try…"

Trifon crossed his arms and sighed. "I've never said any of that. I see the work you've put in, I've just said I can tell your heart's in the right place.

You're just too prideful for your own good. Until you learn that to lead means to serve, and that leaders aren't made overnight or by a singular training session, you'll be unable to sufficiently care for the people you claim to care about."

"I'm not prideful," Raphael feebly replied.

"Oh? Then what are you?"

After some thought and an additional moment later, Raphael simply replied.

"Just eager to protect what's mine."

The rain began to pour even harder, and thunder cracked through the sky. Together, Trifon and Raphael stood in place.

--

Raphael snapped back to reality, where Tatius was prepared to release one final wind arrow aimed at him.

"Some leader, I am. I was the first to go out."

A defeated Colt, who too, was barely able to move, watched from a short distance.

"No…" he groaned. "Raph… I have… to help him." He rid himself of the court's rubble and attempted to stand.

Dragging himself to Raphael, he collapsed to the ground. He reached out as his vision turned blurry and his eyes struggled to remain open.

Khafra turned to see the trouble that her friends had been in.

"Raph!" She called aloud.

As she had her hands full with Enki, the intercoms had already announced Colt's defeat at the hands of Idalia. Having seen the physical state that not only he was in, but Raphael as well, she had to intervene.

Let alone the fact that one last attack from Tatius could very well end Raphael's life.

The crowd began to bellow, mixes between cries of concern and cheer.

Finally, Trifon stood from his seat. "Raph!" He called. Jora and Airrion, too, grew concerned.

"Huh… Killing anyone wasn't part of the plan," Airrion clarified. "I don't know what Tatius is doing out there."

"Get your cadet under control!" Trifon demanded. "There's no place for that, here!"

"Oh-ho-ho!! We've got trouble!!" The intercoms announced. "Tatius is showing no mercy! Is our inaugural tournament going to have our first official death?!"

"That kid's in trouble," Elwin smiled as he stood at ease to Noriko's side.

Her legs crossed, Noriko leaned forward in her throne with her chin rested on a hand. She appeared enthralled with the action taking place at center stage.

Nyota, Sage and Kilo continued to view the action from inside their atrium.

"What's going on?!" Kilo asked.

"I-I don't know." Sage stuttered. "It looks like—"

"Tatius is about to kill him." Nyota completed his thought.

"Well, does he know that?"

Sage replied, prompting Kilo to snap back. "For once, your question isn't stupid."

Nyota calmed the conflict down. "What he meant to say was that he doesn't believe what he's seeing either, and neither do I. These can't be the same people we fought alongside in the southwest… right?"

Back on the court, Idalia called to Tatius. "What is he doing—Tatius! What are you doing?!" She ran over to him.

"We're not trying to kill anyone! You've already won!"

Enki looked over as well. "Well, damn!" He laughed. "I didn't think we were killing anyone."

Finally, Tatius let go of the arrow.

"Wind Modus Operandi: Galestorm, Sonic Resonance!"

Colt remained helpless in defending his comrade, Idalia was too late in her attempts to stop Tatius's attack, and Enki simply watched from a distance.

Khafra noticed Enki was distracted, so without another second to spare, she hustled her way to Raphael in hopes of countering Tatius's attack in time.

As the arrow glided through the air, Raphael began to accept his fate. He looked onward as the arrow came for him, the sun beaming down as all observed from the coliseum seats.

"I'm not letting you die!!" Khafra eagerly thought.

The arrow released a rippling sonic impact through the air midway through its course. The impact moved much rubble and cut through much more as it traveled through the air. The wind arrow itself remained intact.

To everyone's surprise, however, the arrow was only mere meters away before Khafra stepped in front of Raphael.

"Sand Modus: Alcázar!!"

In an instant, a great fortress of sand began to materialize from nothing, defending the sonic impact of the arrow.

As for the arrow itself, the sand fortress hadn't taken its full shape, so it was just barely enough to block it.

The arrow pierced through what had come about of the blockhouse, causing its remains to begin to dissipate into the same nothingness from which it rose. Before the sand and dust cleared, only Raphael's view could see the impact it made.

"No…" He trailed. "Khafra!!!"

When it finally did, everyone on the court, let alone all those spectating, could see the impact of Tatius's attack.

"Khafra—" Colt coughed before slamming a fist onto the court. "No, damn it!"

The arrow had pierced through Khafra's side, and the wound it left was deep.

The blood that spilled bled through her garments before dropping to the ground.

Raphael was in complete shock. He thought he had been prepared to meet his end, but Khafra had given him another chance at life. But at what cost?

He wanted to be the leader of his team, he wanted to protect Colt and Khafra. And yet here he was, one of his closest friends deeply wounded in an attempt to keep him alive.

She slowly looked down before looking behind her to Raphael.

"I'm… alright…" She managed with a smile before falling to her knees and collapsing to the ground.

"Tatius, you idiot!" Idalia shouted. She grabbed him by the shoulders before slapping him. "What the heck are you doing?! We weren't supposed to kill anyone!!

For the love of the gods, I'd expect Enki to do something like that, but you?!" She turned around and covered her face with a hand in a panic.

"Oh, lighten up Idalia, they'll be just fine." Enki crowed, slapping Tatius on his back. "Good job, Tatius, didn't think you had it in ya!"

Tatius ignored and turned his attention to Idalia. "I-I didn't mean to kill anyone! It's just a friendly battle, you know? I was in the moment. It was an—"

"Accident?! Let me tell you something…" The Big Three's dialogue became inaudible in the grand scheme of things, as they had seemingly won the battle now that Khafra had been defeated.

After a brief moment of collective murmur, the entire stadium cheered.

"Khafra!!" Trifon stood from his seat in a fury.

"Hey, wait!" Airion and Jora reached out to him. Airrion had gotten hold of his jacket before he pulled away.

He turned back to Airrion and looked him intently in the eye, a look of vexation in his. "This is your fault," he breathed before turning to rush down the coliseum steps closest to where they had been seated, nearly along the special platform Noriko had been spectating the battle from.

Jora, in disbelief, watched as Airrion squeezed past him to chase after Trifon.

They were seated on a level higher than ground, so Trifon couldn't get to the court so easily. Nonetheless, this did not prevent security at the bottom of the steps from seizing him and trying to calm him down.

Jora had taken the moment to ponder on the chaos that ensued around him.

The vast cheer of the crowd, the outrage of his fellow instructors, as well as Noriko's still reaction. The barbaric scene that was laying out in front of his eyes was the exact scenario he had hoped to put an end to.

Noriko remained seated on her throne, Elwin stood to her side with a chuckle. She smiled before finally speaking.

"It's a shame, this is the match that was closest to completion. We'll have to address that."

Nyota, Sage and Kilo were still watching the battle's finale on the closest television.

"No way…" Kilo spoke as Nyota and Sage took off out of the atrium and down the coliseum's tunnel. He followed close behind.

The three watched the remainder of the action at the end of the underpass. Medics rushed past them and into the light to center court to tend to Squadron 1-D's cadets.

As Sage and Kilo talked to each other about what they had witnessed, Nyota was deep in thought.

He thought, "This is what they cheer for. This is what they came to see."

He looked outward toward Noriko from a distance. Though far, he was not pleased with what he saw.

A still reaction, she remained seated.

"I can only imagine what she thinks of all this. Overjoyed, maybe."

When the medics reached Khafra, both Colt and Rapahel watched as they tended to her wounds. She had lost a lot of blood and was rendered unconscious.

When they checked for a heartbeat, they signaled and announced that she did indeed have one, but needed to be rushed to an emergency room immediately.

"No…" Is all a defeated Raphael could conjure before he fainted, thinking back to the same instance where he had trained with Trifon. As he blacked out, medics adjusted him onto a stretcher, as they did Khafra.

Colt, too, remained flat on the ground unable to move. He watched as the medics first carried his comrades off the court and back into the coliseum tunnel before they had done the same with him. No other words were spared.

There was an intermission in the tournament lasting for a couple of hours to allow coliseum crew members to remove excess rubble from the court before Nyota, Sage and Kilo were set to battle the final representatives from Squadron 1–C.

Afterward, the tournament went on as though nothing had happened.

Trifon had seemingly left the coliseum entirely, presumably to wherever Khafra had been relocated. Airrion went to the atrium where the Big Three had returned.

Jora sat alone, observing the pending action that the tournament had left to offer. He was greatly stressed with its state of affairs.

Sage and Kilo were still getting ready in their atrium, preparing to meet back up with Nyota, who remained at the end of the tunnel.

He leaned against the cobblestone wall with a foot rested up against it and his arms crossed. He simply continued to observe his surroundings, the sky, the reparation of the court.

Finally he turned his attention to Noriko, who was still seated.

He shook his head. "I can't wait to figure out and expose who the 'real her' is."

Looking out toward the court, Noriko noticed Nyota looking in her direction, and the two made brief eye contact. She squinted her eyes intensively before Nyota turned his gaze as he heard his name called from within the tunnel.

It was Sage and Kilo who were sprinting in his direction. The brothers caught up to him. As they chatted, Noriko continued to scrutinize Nyota.

"Oh, Nyota Atar… you'll be mine to play with soon enough."

Eventually, Nyota, Sage and Kilo were called to center court, where they faced off against and defeated Squadron 1-C.