NOVEL NEXT Ch 2.84: Fifty-two
“Why do we have to be at the front again,” Carline heard Prisma ask as Elaina’s next opponent walked onto the stage.
“Quiet down, you’re hidden enough,” Tira said. It was true, from what Carline could tell. The three of them had formed a barrier around the girl already, but the four bouncers surrounding them besides was easily enough to make sure no one could see the girl. Well, no one except Flora, Tira, and Carline herself of course.
Thank the stars Carline had Elaina to stare at. She was pretty sure she’d be able to maintain some decorum around a naked Prisma, but without the distraction on stage she knew she wouldn't have been able to make at least a couple of glances towards the girl.
“And another goes down, twenty in a row! Can the Naked Sword Demon even be stopped?”
“No!” the crowd cheered in unison.
“The next contestant was unfortunately disqualified, but let’s be honest, he probably never stood a chance anyway. Bring on number thirty!”
Carline gasped as she saw Ivis walking on stage. He looked different than before when he was gawking at the stage with Waine, more scared, not how she would’ve expected him to look in this scenario. “Go easy on me?” she was pretty sure she heard him ask.
Elaina was, apparently, disinclined to acquiesce to his request. Three times in quick succession Shein called start, and Elaina smacked him across the head. Not hard enough to cause any serious damage, but definitely a bit harder than she’d hit people prior.
Carline couldn’t honestly say she was having a bad time. She was nervous for some final trick to be played, but as it stood it seemed the tournament was a foregone conclusion. With both [Unseen Watcher] and [Viewer Rating] active, she could easily maintain Elaina’s stamina for the second half of everything, so long as Elaina remained naked, of course. That clause that gave her a power boost the more attracted to her target was quite handy, actually.
All she really had to do was stay back and enjoy the show.
***
Elaina wasn’t physically tired, but she was beginning to accumulate mental exhaustion by the time she’d made it near the end of the event. “Number three takes the stage,” Shein said as her next opponent came up, taking the sword from the bouncer and shaking in place. Like the previous opponent, this one seemed to be a real rich dude. Probably rigged their way in at the start of the event. But that didn’t matter at this point. They’d come expecting a poker tournament, not a poke-her tournament with swords. After just a single point, he surrendered and made his way off stage.
“Go ahead and move Elaina’s party back,” Elaina heard Shein say. “Don’t want them interfering with the matches.”
Elaina shot a quick glance back at her friends, seeing one of the staff approaching them. Carly looked up at her with a concerned look, but Elaina just waived them off. She knew the next two rounds wouldn’t be decided based on her losing stamina. She could hear Tira protesting yet again, but Elaina turned back to focus on the match.
“And now, between the Naked Sword Demon and the next opponent, we begin the next bout.”
For only a moment, Elaina was confused. No one had been called onto the stage, and no one had come on the stage either. The bouncer who’d taken and handed off the sword was still up there, holding the training rapier, falling into a fencing stance. So that is the game you’re playing, Elaina thought.
A muffled confusion seemed to run through the crowd. Elaina’d had a feeling something like this was going to happen though, a way for Mirage to maintain control of the subcore at the end of the tournament. There was no doubt in her mind that this bouncer had technically qualified for the fencing portion of the tournament though. It would be trivial to run the first table of the night and ensure the spot went to her. And this is only the second to last fight; the real final boss hasn’t even come out yet.
“Start!”
The bouncer was good, skilled, but nowhere near the level of Prisma. Round one was easy, a couple quick exchanges and a tap on the arm to give Elaina the point. If this is the second best they have to offer, maybe this won’t be too bad.
Round two was much the same, a quick series of thrusts and swipes from Elaina, but at the end something strange did happen. The light caught Elaina’s eye funny, and she lost sight of her opponent’s sword. Still, she was able to retreat at the time, refocus her vision, and take the point with a swipe to the leg with a riposte after the bouncer closed in again.
Round three was where the trouble began. The two were standing there in stance, same as before, but the instant Shein called start Elaina lost sight of the bouncer’s weapon again. There was no denying it either, it wasn’t a rick of the light, the sword simply disappeared. “What the—”
Before Elaina could finish the question, she’d been stabbed in the stomach, and the sword reappeared as it poked into her flesh. She looked to the side, seeing the crowd yelling and cheering, nothing seemingly amiss to them.
They’re here, Elaina realized. Whoever it was in Shein’s employ that could make people, make things invisible was here. But how would they get around without a bracelet? A stupid question, she realized. It did of course leave the question of how exactly the person was able to make both other people, objects, and seemingly themselves invisible. That wasn’t how aspects worked, after all. You could only target yourself, other people, or objects.
Unless you have a class.
It wasn’t something anyone in Elaina’s party had achieved naturally yet, but she was sure she remembered Temmie mentioning that it was possible to expand your aspect’s targeting through class levels. Elaina herself also had a situational way too extend restraint to herself, but it also came with freezing herself in place. She glanced around the stage. Such a stipulation wouldn’t be too bad for an invisibility aspect, she realized, and Mirage had had the subcore for a while already. Fuck, this might be way worse than I realized.
“Start!”
Another lunge from the bouncer, another invisible blade. Elaina tried her best to guard where she thought the sword would be, but she swung through air entirely, feeling the crack of the blade across her elbow a second later.
“Well well, the worst off the Naked Sword Demon has been since her first bout! Has she finally met her match in Mirage’s own Mille?”
Elaina was in trouble, and she knew it. The only thing she could think to do was to appeal to the crowd’s sense of justice, pressure Mirage into playing fair, but the crowd still didn’t think anything was wrong, somehow. Was it just cause they were untrained, already had trouble following the swords? They were almost all drunk too, now that she thought about it. Are they really going to get away with this? “Start!”
Elaina braced herself for the inevitable, an invisible thrust that would ruin everything, but it didn’t come. Mille made a show of attacking, but she wasn’t actually trying, and the sword was visible the whole. Elaina knocked the weapon aside and won the match with a strike to the chest.
They’re toying with me, again. That pissed Elaina off more than even the cheating. She knew she still had one more opponent, and she also knew that she wasn’t going to be playing a fair game.
“And that’s contestant number two defeated! An unprecedented streak of victory by any tournament’s standards, so give it up for the Naked Sword Demon!”
The crowd began chanting the words, “Naked! Sword! Demon!” over and over, and the distraction of that began to cloud Elaina’s mind more, turn her on more. Fuck, I can’t think about that now! I have to focus, win this. There was still one thing she could hope to use to turn things around, after all.
“The Demon has lasted through hours of grueling exercise, and you can certainly tell she’s exhausted by how much she’s sweating, how it glistens as it drips down her body.” No, don’t focus on that! “But, my friends, all nights must end. It’s time for the final match, and one way or another, she will be leaving the stage.”
Shein didn’t call a number though. She placed the microphone back in its stand and walked out onto the stage, taking the sword from the bouncer herself and and turning to face Elaina, tip raised.
“Are you read to face number one, Elaina?”