The bracket had reached its final four.
Three Aurelius fighters and one Solmara—the configuration the semifinals had produced, the home crowd holding a specific kind of investment that was different from anything a neutral crowd produced. Three of the four remaining fighters wore Aurelius colors. Three of the four remaining fighters represented the academy whose arena this was, whose tunnels they had walked out of all tournament, whose sections had been the loudest single-academy response in the stands all day.
The announcer raised the microphone.
"Class 2 final four. Fight one. Mark of Aurelius Academy against Varen of Aurelius Academy."
The crowd produced the specific noise they had produced for the Drex versus Cullen Class 3 final—the complicated sound of a support base being asked to split between two of their own, the warmth present in both directions simultaneously, the investment real on both sides and therefore impossible to direct cleanly toward either.
