The tournament started the next day. Because of the huge pool of fighters, the schedule was set up with thirty-two fights the first day and thirty-two more the second.

  Because Kest was a dark horse in this tournament, her champion drew one of the lowest seeds, meaning Warcry fought early. His match was scheduled for eggshell tide on Day One, which would have been somewhere around nine a.m. on Earth.

  We got to the kokugikan an hour early. A line of standby spectators wound around the sidewalk outside, hoping someone would leave and they’d get to fill the vacancy.

  On our way to the fighters’ entrance, somebody in line recognized Warcry. Suddenly, there a ton of IFC fans flocked to him. I pumped up Dead Reckoning like crazy and tried to keep everybody back, but nobody attacked. They just wanted to shake his hand or get his autograph or congratulate him on this fight or that championship. Warcry handled it like he got mobbed every day, scrawling his name on their HUD screens and posing for pictures.

  Finally, Kest called the fandom fest quits.

  “Always leave ’em wanting more,” Warcry said, grinning as I made a path to the door for them.

  Inside, the arena was packed, from the cushioned seating boxes to the standing room only nosebleed section to the concession and souvenir t-shirt stands. Selk’s version of jock jams thundered through the speakers to get the crowd pumped for the coming fights, interspersed with plugs for the products and brands sponsoring the tournament.

  At the authorized-personnel-only section, Kest took a set of stairs to go join the candidates and Electoral Council in the kokugikan’s luxury skybox. Warcry and I headed down an echoey hallway to the locker rooms.

  Maybe because this was his first legit bout in a couple years, Warcry seemed extra intense. He wrapped his hands and foot in silence. While I paced the room and listened to the music throb through the cinderblock walls, he knelt in the center of the floor with his fists planted on his hips and his eyes closed, breathing in through his nose and out through his mouth.

  A kokugikan staffer rapped on the door.

  “Five minute warning, Mr. Thompson.”

  Warcry bowed his forehead to the floor, then got up. He bounced around a little, getting the blood flowing to his leg again, and pounded his fists on his thighs, chest, arms, and chin.

  “Live or die.” He nodded. “All right, grav, let’s go.”

  Since I was all the entourage Warcry had for this tournament, I got to pull dual duty as bodyguard and cageside attendant—aka, packhorse for his water bottle and towels and mouthpiece case.

  As soon as Warcry appeared at the mouth of the tunnel, the crowd went nuts. You could barely hear the announcer call his name.

  Warcry hit the flames and stalked down to the cage, paparazzi bots filming every stride.

  That bipedal tiger, Peiparr, stood in the middle of the cage waiting for him, rolling furry shoulders and laying his ears back.

  Warcry didn’t like to know anything about who he was up against before the match started, but I’d looked Peiparr up the night before when the bracket came out. The tiger was a Curling Smoke cultivator, known for his grappling. He shifted away just when you thought you had ahold of him, then caught you in a choke from behind. He’d fought two IFC bouts in the heavyweight class, won one and lost one.

  The official had them bow to the Electoral Council up in the skybox, then to one another.

  If I’d been fighting Peiparr, I would’ve tried to hit him with Rigor Mortis as soon as the official started the match, and if I didn’t get that, I’d stay out of his reach and use Dead Man’s Hand for a submission hold. But Ten-level cultivators usually had some way of protecting their life point, and with a Curling Smoke Spirit, you’d have to assume his life point would be basically ungrabbable. So that would’ve been something to figure out on the fly.

  “Fight!” the official yelled, dropping his hand.

  Warcry streaked toward the tiger. Peiparr burst into a cloud of smoke. A heartbeat later, the tiger resolidified behind Warcry, claws stretched out for the grab. The ginger whirled, whipping his prosthetic back in a deadly flaming hook. His metal heel swished through a curl of gray where the big cat’s jaw had been a split-second before. Peiparr popped up in Warcry’s blind spot.

  Stolen story; please report.

  Warcry must have felt the tiger or smelled him, because he sure didn’t see him. Somehow he just knew Peiparr was there. He slipped the tiger’s incoming strike blind, then spun into that big punch-roundhouse combo he liked so much.

  The tiger dissipated before either shot landed.

  Without Ki-sight, they would have just been a blur of fire and puffs of smoke as they darted around the cage. It had to be infuriating, throwing shots that whiffed every time, but Warcry didn’t get flustered. He kept changing angles, changing attacks.

  He was feeling Peiparr out, I realized, looking for openings. Meanwhile, the tiger was going for the disorient and wear down strategy.

  Then all of a sudden, Warcry didn’t throw a shot behind him.

  Peiparr pounced.

  They smacked the floor of the cage. The tiger immediately switched to submission mode, clawing his way into a better position and looking for the lock. From underneath, Warcry shoved and twisted until he got his knee between them. He snagged a huge paw and yanked Peiparr off balance, sweeping with his prosthetic at the same time. Warcry rolled with the momentum, coming up on top, throwing blazing punches.

  The tiger burst into a smoke.

  But Warcry was ready for it.

  In one smooth motion, he rose onto his foot and threw a massive blind kick with his prosthetic.

  Peiparr resolidified with a metal heel blasting his chin into next Tuesday. The baseball bat ping of Warcry’s prosthetic hitting paydirt echoed through the kokugikan.

  The tiger’s furry white head snapped back. He stumbled, eyes rolling, trying to keep his feet, but Warcry crashed into him, raining fiery hammer fists.

  They slammed into the cage wall and bounced off. Warcry scrabbled to keep the top position. You could see Peiparr had no idea where he was or what was happening. He let out a bewildered snarl.

  “Match!” The official shouted, throwing himself between the fighters.

  Warcry stopped the barrage before anything hit the official.

  The crowd erupted. Warcry popped to his feet and stalked the perimeter of the cage, pounding one flaming, taped fist on his chest and then pointing out at the spectators.

  The tiger’s entourage was checking Peiparr out, splashing water in his face and making him follow a finger back and forth with his big gold eyes.

  Warcry got back around to them. Solemnly, he knelt and bowed to Peiparr, the way he usually did after a tournament bout he considered a good one. Sort of like a more meaningful and respectful version of Good game.

  The big furball pushed past his entourage and enveloped Warcry in a hug. Then Peiparr raised the ginger’s hand and paraded Warcry around the cage again, pointing at him and yelling at the crowd.

  That seemed like one of those above and beyond sportsmanship moves to me, but when Kest met us back in the locker room, she told us the tiger’s congratulation had created some controversy up in the skybox.

  “Peiparr’s candidate is furious. She’s claiming he must have known Warcry ahead of time and demanding that the Electoral Council investigate her champion for taking a dive.”

  “A dive?” Warcry stopped tearing the tape off his hands. “That’s bollix!”

  I agreed. “I don’t know what it looked like from up there, but that dude got his bell rung.”

  Kest shrugged. “If they can’t beat your champion in the ring or kill him outside it, they’ll settle for disqualifying him. Or assassinating his character.”

  “They can review every angle on that fight,” Warcry argued, stalking the confines of the little room. “That was a clean K.O. And you can tell them, I never saw that blighter before the weigh-in.”

  “Her strategy wouldn’t pay off, even if she was right,” Kest said. “It would be her own fault that she chose a champion who could be paid off.” She frowned. “Maybe I should look into buying some of these fights.”

  Warcry spun around to glare at her.

  “Don’t even bleedin’ joke.”

  She wasn’t listening. “I’ve got the money for at least one. I could probably get a candidate laughed out of the running if I made sure word came out before the fight.”

  Flames erupted down his head and shoulders.

  “Oi!” Warcry threw a wad of tape at her. “Keep up the talk, and I walk out, netskin. Trash reporters’ve been trying to out me for buying fights since me first bout. ‘He’s Ma Thompson’s brat, so he must have her money backing him.’ I never have bought a fight, and I never will. So if you’re thinking about it, you’d better buy yourself the whole bleeding tournament, because you won’t have a champ to fight it for you anymore. Get me?”

  “It was just speculation,” Kest said, which didn’t reassure him at all. “Anyway, I don’t think I’ll need to. Check this out.”

  She tapped her HUD screen. My Winchester and Warcry’s loaner HUD went off.

  “They’re unofficial,” she said. “The official polls won’t update until tomorrow, but still, it’s a good starter gauge.”

  It was a page of colorful graphs and scrolling comments about the electoral tournament. The first graph showed the popularity of the candidates, and the second showed the popularity of their champions. Kest had jumped to number twelve, which seemed like progress to me.

  The real attention-getter, though, was Warcry. He dominated the champion graph, Number One by a mile. The next closest was Gleurah, and he had less than half the votes Warcry did.

  The comments running underneath that graph had been pulled from the electoral tournament boards and IFC forums. People were going nuts over Warcry’s fight. Half of them were screaming in all-caps how Warcry Thompson was back, baby. The other half were negging him, saying stuff like yeah he won this time, but hadn’t fought as strong or as skillfully as he used to pre-incarceration.

  I frowned down at my cracked screen. “What a bunch of douchebags.”

  Weirdly, Warcry wasn’t bothered.

  “They’ll be talking out the other side a’ their faces by the last round, grav.” He sat down on the bench and started tearing tape and sports wrap off his foot. “Wait and see.”