The Crystals

"Okay, we are going to do it like the standard tournament fashion of Cant World. You win, you get to the later fight and fight the next winner. The number of participants will keep getting half until there is only one left," the organizer shouted.

"What an explanation? Did you understand that Lazuli?" Zohaifa asked.

"People already have this knowledge, so it became a norm to try to either skip it or make it shorter," Lazuli answered.

"Wow! Such bravery in front of the Government," said Zohaifa.

"They already know that their government won't bother unless there is economical influence," replied Luna.

Lazuli pretended she did not hear that and told Zohaifa, "You don't need to know. Just fight whoever they require you to fight. But do observe the system. All the tournament of Cant World takes place the same way."

"Okay," said Zohaifa, "And Lazuli, what are the names of Luna's students? I want to know who they will be fighting."

"The boy is IV and the girl is Khadija."

"Ivy? Isn't that a girl's name?"

"It's the letter I and V."

"You can see the fighters and their position in the chart," the organizer declared.

The chart says as follows:

Zohaifa vs Gijima

Marium vs Khadija

Lazuli vs Hagan

IV vs Flirtic

"Cool," Marium exclaimed, "My mom will fight Hagan and both of your rivals will be clashing each other. Isn't that great Zohaifa?"

Zohaifa's gaze went blank as his knees started to shake. "Why am I the first fighter?" he said in a nervous tone.

"You are not anxious of fighting Flirtic anytime he wants but afraid of being the first one to fight in this tournament?" asked Marium.

"It's different. How am I going to know what we are supposed to do? We don't have to say anything, right? Which way is the entrance to the arena?" said Zohaifa.

"Just follow him," said Lazuli indicating Gijima.

Zohaifa followed him while he walks in confident steps while trying to avoid a conversation. He was successful in avoiding them. But a conversation might have relieved him a bit. Avoiding it made him even tenser. When he entered the arena with the audience shouting from all sides, a gush of nervousness invaded his heart as his body started playing with his biochemistry.

Zohaifa hid every emotion inside him and took steps as confident as Girijima while both of them were walking side by side. Zohaifa started to sweat badly while his temperature was rising. But amidst that heat, he sensed a sprinkle of coldness on his right arm. Is it drizzling? No, it was sweat from his opponent Girijima.

"He's just as nervous as I am!" Zohaifa thought to himself.

Both of them stood in the middle of the arena on the elevated platform, face to face with each other, but Girijima tried to avoid eye contact while trying to still look tough with his eyebrows frowned.

Hearing this Girijima's eyebrows relaxed and he could manage a smile.

"Sure," he said.

They were distanced by the referee, both of them on two different sides of the platform.

The bell rang!

Both Zohaifa and Girijima rushed at each other to make the first move. Girijima threw a punch with his full bodyweight thrown at Zohaifa. But Zohiafa dodge to the side and threw his knee at Girijima, intending to use the motion of Girijima's punch against himself. Zohaifa smiled at his clever trick.

But Girijima used the force of Zohaifa's knee to bounce himself back and dash towards the opposite direction. He used the dashing speed to circle Zohaifa and throw random punches.

"That Girijima must have trained his abs well. It looks like he used Zohiafa's trick against him. But physically speaking, if he just took Zohiafa's hit and then started dashing with his own power, it would have hurt at least half as much as this one. But he thinks using Zohaifa's force was worth it," a person from the crowd remarked.

The person next to him exclaimed, "Wow! You seem to know a lot about this. Who are you? A fighter?"

"I am just a fellow named Red-1."

Zohaifa started to adapt to Girijima. He managed to throw a few poor punches of his own.

"Your punches are so annoying! But so was Lazuli's", Zohaifa said.

"Don't get too used to it. There is a surprise left."

"Huh?" said Zohaifa.

"Full Gear!" Girijima said.

Suddenly he started to move faster than he did and jumped around inside the platform to show off his speed.

"Can you keep up with me?" Girijima taunted.