The semifinal took nineteen minutes, and Karl barely had to be in it.
That was the part nobody in the building understood yet.
The team that came out of the pods after the Shark Riders match was not the team that had walked into it. Dane stopped asking how long he had and started telling people how long they had. Sana took a fight in gold lane at four minutes that Karl would have called off, and won it, and did not apologize for it afterward.
Dori stopped waiting to be told where to stand.
Karl cleared his camps, walked to two fights that were already finished, and took the Lord because somebody had to.
"That’s it?" Elsa said, climbing out of her pod with her hair stuck to her forehead. "That’s a semifinal? I was promised suffering."
"Really confident, aren’t you?"
"I was promised suffering, Kazu."
Up on the board, the last name slid into the empty slot beside theirs, and the noise in the hall changed.
THE LOST WANDERERS.
Dori stopped chewing.
...
They had forty minutes before the final, and Karl spent nine of them sitting on a plastic chair in the corridor behind the stage with his hood up and his eyes closed.
The panel was already open behind his eyelids.
[Bonded hero: Raziel. Bond interaction: 0 percent.]
[Note: Link requires full synchronization. Raziel does not qualify. Standard dive only.]
’So if I take him, I’m in the body. Just like i started with charlotta.’
[Correct.]
’I see...’
Karl breathed out through his nose.
He had watched the Lost Wanderers all afternoon, and the thing that kept coming back to him was not Mira Solveig standing in doorways.
It was that they had beaten Fire Squad without a single hero in their comp that could be run down in a corridor. Everything they picked had weight. Everything they picked wanted to be walked into.
Charlotte was made of paper. She always had been. That was the trade, and he had spent two months making the trade work, and against a team built entirely out of walls the trade stopped being clever and started being a plan they could see coming.
’Open Raziel.’
The panel turned over.
[Raziel. Angel. Melee. Three-weapon cycle.]
[Blade one: reach.]
[Blade two: burst.]
[Blade three: restricted.]
[Mobility: low. Damage: high.]
The corridor was cold and somebody was testing the crowd mic on the other side of the wall.
Karl sat with it for a moment.
’Charlotte.’
The reply came slower than it had all day.
[Charlotte is present.]
’I’m not taking you into this one.’
Nothing came back for four full seconds, and four seconds in brackets was a very long time.
[Charlotte acknowledges the decision.]
’That’s not what I asked.’
[The Administrator did not ask anything.]
Karl opened his eyes and looked at the concrete wall in front of him, at a laminated sign about fire exits that had been there since before he was born.
’Say it properly.’
[She says she understands the pick.]
A pause.
[She says she has been standing in the arena in your place since the first day, and that she does not know how to be in the hall while you are in the arena without her.]
Another pause.
[She says she will watch. She says she will not embarrass you by asking again.]
’Charlotte.’
[Yes, Master.]
’I’m coming back for you.’
[She heard that one.]
...
The final was announced at seven forty in the evening and the building had not emptied by a single seat.
That was the part that got him, walking down. Four hours ago half of these people had laughed at a skull on a bracket board. Now the upper block was chanting three letters that were not even a name, and the merchandise stand at the back had run out of everything and was selling blank shirts.
"They’re rooting for us," Dane said, quiet, staring straight ahead. "Do you get that? The whole room’s rooting for us."
"They’re rooting for the story," Dori said.
"I’ll take it."
The announcer’s voice rolled out.
"On your left, the number one seed of this bracket, the Lost Wanderers. Roam, Mira Solveig, on Odrin. Jungle, Ivo Rask, on Kaine. And on your right, in their fourth match of the day, a team that registered with no name and is currently the loudest thing in this building."
The hall did the rest of it for him.
"Roam, Dori Calestina, on Thalos. EXP lane, Dane Ferrow, on Gorran. Gold lane, Sana Ibe, on Vesper. Mid, Elsa Marinet, on Trisla. And in the jungle, Kazu." A beat, and the announcer’s voice actually changed. "Not on Charlotte."
Karl heard the sound the crowd made and did not look up.
He put the helmet on.
...
There was falling this time.
He came down into a body that did not want to be moved quickly. Raziel stood a full head taller than Charlotte had, and his shoulders carried something between them that Karl could feel as weight, and when Karl took the first step toward the loading platform the ground answered.
"You are not what I expected," a voice said from inside his own chest.
’You’re going to be a problem, aren’t you.’
"Do you think so."
[Bond interaction: 0 percent. Rising.]
The countdown hit zero.
Mira Solveig walked to the river line before either jungler had cleared a camp, stopped at the edge of the grass where his vision started, and opened proximity chat.
"Kazu."
"Mira."
"I watched your last game twice." Odrin’s shield came down and planted in the mud, and she leaned on it. "You’ll get one of those tonight. Somewhere in the middle. And when you do, my whole team is going to be somewhere else on purpose."
"That’s the right plan."
"I know it is." She pushed off the shield. "Play your best. I’m going to."
Then she walked back into her own half, and that was the last friendly thing anyone said for twenty-eight minutes.