Chapter 136| A Different Kind of War

The intermediate stage began with a format shift substantial enough that the tournament organizers dedicated an entire rest day to briefing the remaining sixteen parties on its particular demands, and Allen sat through the presentation with focused, considerable attention, understanding immediately why Myria had spent the preceding evening reviewing team-battle tactics with renewed intensity.

"Full party engagement," the briefing official explained, gesturing toward a considerable holographic display of the redesigned arena. "No individual duels. Every member of both parties fights simultaneously, across a battlefield roughly triple the preliminary stage’s size, until one party’s entire roster is incapacitated or yields."

"Considerably more chaotic," Vivian observed afterward, studying the arena’s expanded schematics with professional focus.

"Considerably more suited to us," Myria countered. "Individual duels reward pure technical skill. Team battles reward genuine coordination. We have five years of marriage’s worth of coordination that most of these parties simply cannot replicate on command."

Their opening intermediate opponent, Obsidian Vale, arrived with a reputation built almost entirely around defensive attrition — five Hunters whose combined abilities favored patient, grinding engagements that wore opponents down through sheer sustained pressure rather than decisive, early strikes.

"They’ll try to turn this into a war of attrition," Myria said during their final preparation session. "Long engagement, minimal risk, wait for us to overextend. We don’t give them that luxury."

The match began the following morning, the expanded arena’s considerable scale immediately apparent as both parties spread across terrain considerably more varied than the preliminary stage had offered — elevated platforms, defensible chokepoints, open ground that favored neither approach exclusively. Obsidian Vale settled immediately into a tight, defensive formation, clearly intent on forcing exactly the grinding engagement their reputation suggested.

Allen watched Myria’s expression shift into focused, tactical calculation, and understood, without needing explanation, exactly what she intended.

"Kinetic field," she said quietly. "Now."

Allen activated the ability without hesitation, the familiar, fractional slowing of the world settling over his own perception as its enhancement spread across his party, and Fallen Crown surged forward with sudden, coordinated speed that Obsidian Vale’s defensive formation, built to absorb patient pressure rather than overwhelming tempo, simply wasn’t prepared to properly counter.

The engagement that followed unfolded with a speed and precision that left the stadium’s considerable audience audibly startled, Irene’s flames overwhelming the formation’s left flank before its defenders could properly reposition, Vivian’s patient precision finding gaps in coordination that five years of shared combat experience made almost instinctively visible, Everlyn’s vines disrupting whatever careful positioning Obsidian Vale’s captain attempted to salvage, and Allen himself pressing directly through the formation’s weakened center with Myria at his side, the two of them moving with the seamless, wordless coordination that had carried them through considerably more dangerous engagements than a tournament’s intermediate stage.

The match ended in under six minutes, Obsidian Vale’s captain yielding with visible, stunned recognition of exactly how thoroughly his own party’s careful strategy had been dismantled before it ever had the chance to properly begin.

"We never got to actually fight," he admitted afterward, shaking Allen’s offered hand with rueful acceptance. "Not really. You simply decided the engagement was over before we’d finished planning it."

"That’s usually the goal," Allen said, though he offered it with genuine warmth rather than dismissiveness. "You’ll get another shot next tournament, I’d imagine. Considerable talent, just matched against a party built specifically to counter patient attrition."

---

Allen found Haruki afterward, waiting near the competitors’ medical station rather than the usual gathering corridor, and something in the young man’s posture, tense and carefully controlled in a way that didn’t match his usual unguarded enthusiasm, sent a flicker of concern through Allen’s earlier satisfaction.

"Everything alright?" Allen asked, approaching carefully.

"Just finished a mandatory physical," Haruki said, managing a smile that didn’t quite reach his eyes. "Tournament requirement, after that preliminary match. Nothing serious."

The physician emerging from the station moments later, however, carried an expression that suggested otherwise, and Allen caught the brief, professional exchange between her and Haruki’s own tactical coordinator, voices low enough that only fragments carried — ’considerable strain,’ ’pushing past safe thresholds,’ ’strongly recommend reduced engagement pace.’

"Haruki," Allen said carefully, once the physician had departed. "Is there something you’re not telling me?"

Haruki’s expression flickered, genuine discomfort briefly surfacing before he visibly, deliberately smoothed it away. "It’s nothing that changes anything," he said. "My awakening was fast, remember? Eight months from zero to S+. That kind of growth doesn’t always come without cost. My body’s still catching up to what my ability can actually do."

"That sounds like something that changes quite a lot, actually," Allen said, concern sharpening.

"I can manage it," Haruki said, firm and immediate. "I’m not backing out of this tournament, Allen. Not after everything we’ve already fought through to get here. My team needs me, and this—" he gestured vaguely, encompassing the stadium’s considerable weight, the tournament’s mounting stakes, everything they’d built together across the preceding weeks, "—this matters too much to walk away from over some manageable strain."

Allen studied him carefully, recognizing, with uncomfortable clarity, the exact same stubborn, considerable determination he’d once carried through his own reckless early growth, back before Myria had finally, patiently taught him the difference between courage and simple, unsustainable risk.

"Just be careful," Allen said finally, unable to fully articulate the unease settling in his chest. "Whatever happens in this tournament, it’s not worth your actual wellbeing."

"I will be," Haruki said, though something in his tone suggested the promise carried less certainty than he intended it to. "I promise."

Allen let the reassurance settle, though the physician’s overheard fragments lingered uncomfortably as he made his way back toward his own party, and he found himself, that evening, mentioning the exchange to Myria with quiet, unresolved concern.

"There’s nothing we can do about another party’s medical circumstances," Myria said gently, though her own expression carried genuine sympathy. "Not without overstepping considerably."

"I know," Allen said. "I just have a bad feeling about it. Can’t quite shake it."

Myria didn’t offer easy reassurance, simply drew him close instead, and Allen let the evening’s earlier victory settle alongside that unresolved, quiet worry. He thought back to their very first conversation at the training facility weeks earlier, Haruki’s unguarded warmth, his fierce, underdog determination that had reminded Allen so clearly of his own reckless early growth — and found himself wishing, not for the first time, that he could simply hand someone else the hard-won patience it had taken him an entire, difficult year to properly learn.

"He reminds me of who I used to be," Allen admitted quietly. "Before you taught me that surviving mattered more than proving something."

"Then perhaps he simply needs someone willing to teach him the same lesson," Myria said gently. "Whether that’s you, or his own team, or simply time enough to learn it the hard way, the way most of us eventually do."

Allen let the thought settle, unresolved but no longer quite so sharp, the tournament’s intermediate stage now properly underway and Haruki’s own fierce, stubborn determination carrying him forward into whatever considerable trials still waited ahead, regardless of whatever cost his body might yet demand for it.