The Colosseum hadn't truly quieted, not even after the arena lights dimmed and the crowd began to pour out in a mess of laughter, confusion, and shouted theories. Every corridor hummed with fragments of disbelief.
"Did he really give up?"
"Was it scripted?"
"No way. Look at her face; she was genuinely furious."
"Maybe it was part of his strategy…"
"Strategy? That man quit mid-explosion!"
By the time the arena floor was cleared, the match had already been uploaded, clipped, and dissected into every conceivable format. The showman who didn't show. The confession of lunacy love. The world outside had already turned it into a comedy. Inside the Colosseum, though, it was anything but funny.
Lise hadn't spoken since she left the stage.
Her armour still glowed faintly silver as she sat on a bench in the preparation hall, head bowed, gauntlets resting against her knees. The metallic sheen that had once been her pride now felt like a mirror mocking her. Every word he'd said replayed, uninvited, in the back of her mind; not the showman's tone, not the drama, just the simple fact that he hadn't taken her seriously.
A knight lived for the duel and honour.
A fighter that lived for the contest.
To have her fight turned into a stage act and then ended with a shrug and a smirk, it was worse than defeat. It was disgusting.
Her reflection in her breastplate warped slightly with every shaky breath. She clenched a fist until the leather under her glove creaked.
"Disrespectful," she muttered. "Completely, utterly…"
She stopped. Her throat refused to finish the sentence.
Somewhere inside her chest, behind the anger, behind the humiliation, was a faint pulse of something else. Fascination. Or maybe frustration that he of all people had walked away untouched. He'd seen her strength, recognised it, and still decided to toy with it. The insult cut deeper for that reason.
Lise stood abruptly, forcing herself to breathe through the sting. There would be a rematch, she promised herself. Not out of pride, but to erase that look on his face. That lazy, satisfied calm.
Meanwhile, in the administrative box above the arena, the teachers and officials were locked in a very different battle.
"So, to be clear," said one of the judges, rubbing his temple, "he said… and I quote… 'I can't be asked anymore?'"
"Correct," another confirmed, expression flat.
"That's a verbal surrender," the head referee said. "Clear forfeiture under tournament regulation."
"Even if it was… dramatic?" a younger official asked weakly. "He did say it during a showy bit. Maybe…"
"No," snapped the principal, face a shade of purple rarely seen in nature. "There's no clause for 'theatrical ambiguity'; a forfeit's a forfeit."
A murmur ran through the box.
Someone at the back muttered, "Half the crowd thinks it was performance art."
"Then half the crowd is wrong," the principal hissed. "He made a mockery of the tournament. We can't have that precedent."
The decision came down hard and formal: Lise Valkera wins by forfeiture.
Officially logged and unceremoniously stamped.
Outside, the crowd was still split. Some called Tanaka a legend; others called him an idiot. But among the faculty, the verdict was unanimous: the rules didn't care for poetry or declarations of love, only for the words that sealed the outcome.
And Tanaka Ewu, by his own mouth, had lost.