It read to me like a little puzzle. If I understood this correctly, there was no way I could reach them while deliberately hobbling myself.

  The attacks came from a potent fire mage, or at least someone employing spatial craft to launch explosions from a distance. It could be a team, a deliberate pairing like Denis and me. It could also be one of those preformed alliances that came into the Colosseum already arranged. I’d considered that: history had examples of teams who were allied outside and managed to find one another early on.

  Even with those possibilities, whoever handled this best would be a spatial practitioner.

  I couldn’t swear my theory would hold; I ran the scenarios in parallel, stretching my head to the limit while dodging blast after blast. Yet this felt like the most workable explanation.

  Another option: the mage used a spatial artefact that granted enormous range. That would be the optimistic take, an artefact meant I could sweep the surrounding forest with my senses and pick them up, even notice massive mana accumulation. The pessimistic take was worse: a true spatial mage could mask mana buildup, conceal presence, and erect barriers.

  So even with my upgraded air sense — now capable of registering spatial signatures — I might be blind if a spatial caster was in play.

  That contradiction was, oddly, an opportunity. Instead of hunting for a presence they hid, I could search for the absence of presence. If a barrier shielded them, the surrounding space would show the gap. My senses were sharp; they could do this.

  When the next explosion struck I flashed Denis a grin and told him I had a plan.

  He cocked his head with a puzzled look; I didn’t need him to do much anyway. Moru, the floofy wolf, trusted me on instinct and was ready at once. His master could stand to take notes.

  “I’ll hang back a little when the next blast hits,” I told the wolf-kin, and immediately began part one. My fingers moved, weaving runes for Observer’s Mark. In the same motion I threaded the runes for Observer’s Suggestion. Both were essential for what came next. I tightened the sigils, made them small so no one would notice, and left them cold, no mana poured into them yet.

  Next: summon the clone. The logic was straightforward. In this suppressed form I couldn’t show my full speed or strength; shifting into half-dragon was out of the question, too conspicuous. An eleven-foot, golden-scaled beast with tentacles would draw every eye and reveal my true identity. Public transformations were invitations.

  So the clone would take the visible risk. It would do the dirty, obvious work, or, more precisely, do exactly what I instructed it to.

  And soon enough, the next explosion arrived and I was ready for it. The moment it hit, I let myself stumble just a touch. Heat licked across my back, and in that instant I pushed mana into the quantum nexus, letting my clone form inside the blaze. As the fire swallowed me whole, I surged mana into the runes for Observer’s Mark and Observer’s Suggestion, tagging my own clone with both spells. By then the flames had wrapped around me completely, hiding every trace of the spells.

  This time I hadn’t summoned the lazy clone or the curious one, I’d called up the terrorist. The violent one. As soon as it emerged, I shoved my intent straight into its head through Observer’s Suggestion. No direct orders were possible, but intent was enough.

  It vanished into the Shadow Dimension instantly. With timing to match, I hurled myself out of the blast with a hastily shaped Thunderclap, streaking a line of lightning through the inferno as I launched free.

  Everything here lived and died on timing. If I couldn’t use my full capabilities openly, that didn’t mean I couldn’t fake a situation where I technically could.

  Now my clone, with access to my full toolkit, would hunt down those sneaky bastards. I split my mind in two: one half dodged the ceaseless waves of explosions hammering us, and the other guided the clone through its work.

  My part was… almost done. Just one more element left, and that depended entirely on how quickly the clone found our mysterious pyromaniacs.

  It didn’t take long. Within two minutes, the clone had sniffed them out and already begun clearing them. Eastward, a few miles in that direction, in a cavern. Too far for direct control, but Observer’s Mark meant I could parse everything it sensed, even at that distance.

  It felt strange using the spell on something that was, in a sense, still me. I didn’t have the luxury to sit there and unpack the identity crisis.

  I followed the thread tethering us and saw what my clone was dealing with. And I immediately noticed it had Toma?’s body again. Even after I’d shifted from half-dragon to base drakkari, the clone’s form still defaulted to Toma?. Another neat confirmation that these clones were exact biological reproductions of me, as whatever potions ran through my system ran through theirs.

  Not that it mattered right this second. The real problem: the clone was naked. Very inconvenient, given that the Colosseum would absolutely broadcast these eliminations to the audience. But fine, I had contingencies. The crowd would see what happened to those two mages, that much was unavoidable.

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  So I had clone-Toma? stay put inside the Shadow Dimension for now, settling into position and preparing for its entrance.

  I felt its fingers shift, shaping a spell, and a grin tugged at my face. A moment later a veil of glitching darkness wrapped around its naked body, quickly overlaid with the flicker of Phantom Dragon Dance.

  They’d have a hard time figuring out who reached them, unless the clone chose to be generous. I even sensed the veil peel back for half a heartbeat, just long enough for clone-Toma? to flash a grin at the fire mage who had been aiming at me. Barely a second, but it was there.

  I almost smacked my own forehead. Apparently my fondness for theatrics had infected my clones too. The need to let the prey know exactly who got them… I couldn’t deny the little sadistic spark that came with outwitting people who thought they were clever. Or people who simply pretended to be. I shook the thought away.

  Denis and Moru stood sharp beside me. The forest around us burned, ash rising and heat rolling in waves, yet neither of them relaxed— not even when the explosions suddenly stopped.

  I sighed and pretended to stay tense as well, though I already knew the real reason the blasts had ceased: I’d made them stop.

  The fire mage was “dead.” Eliminated, at least. No one actually died here.

  After an extremely anticlimactic scuffle where the clone caught both mages off-guard, it finished them by brute force. Darkness-clad fists slammed through their defensive gear and into vital spots, the sheer strength difference doing the rest.

  Soon enough, both mages, the fire caster and the spatial one, were gone.

  Two minutes remained before the clone dissolved. Time for phase two.

  Return, I pushed through Observer’s Suggestion. And in doing so, I finally pinpointed the difference between using the spell on strangers and using it on my own clone.

  With others, I had to be delicate, too strong a push and the spell risked breaking.

  But with my clone, something else happened entirely. A different gateway opened. What I suggested registered almost as an order, interpreted cleanly and without resistance. Not full mind control, they still had room for their own nonsense, as proven by its earlier attempt to flash its face (and nearly its entire body) at the fire mage, but the influence felt solid, almost absolute.

  It was… strange. Powerful, but strange.

  I pushed that aside as Denis spoke.

  “You think they ran out of mana?”

  I scoffed. “As if they came in here without enough mana potions to outlast a small army.”

  Denis deflated instantly, staring at the ground. “Then maybe we should run. There has to be a limit to the mage’s range, right?”

  I didn’t know what their range actually was. Sure, there had to be some kind of limit to whatever cheap trick they were using, but considering how far we already were? I wasn’t exactly overflowing with optimism.

  “And run where?” I said. “We have no idea where those idiots are hiding, so the odds of us wandering straight toward them, or even skirting close enough to trigger another barrage, are pretty high. We might end up walking right into their sweet spot.”

  Denis groaned. “Can’t believe the first opponents we stumbled into were those guys. How unlucky are we?”

  I thought about it. And honestly? I was not shocked. Not with my luck. This wasn’t the first time I’d walked straight into an improbable mess. It wouldn’t be the second, or the third, or the tenth, or the last.

  A few seconds later, my Air Sense finally caught the familiar ripple of my clone drifting into range, and a sharp grin spread across my face.

  Time to give the spectators a real fight, something to explain the sudden, mysterious death of those two unfortunate mages.

  Fight me, I pushed through Observer’s Suggestion.

  Instantly, I felt the answering smile curl across clone-Toma?’s face.

  ***

  The fire around us kept burning in its steady, almost monotonous roar. Denis, Moru, and the ever-heroic ‘Toma?’ stood in the middle of the wildfire. Then, through the crimson flames ahead, something surged forward. Nothing visible, only the way the fire split around it gave its path away.

  Denis snapped his gaze toward the disturbance, staff rising as he shaped a spell. Poor fool had no idea whatever stepped through was toying with him. A shadow-wreathed fist materialized behind him, carrying enough force to pulp his skull in a single blow.

  But ‘Toma?,’ brave and gallant as ever, struck the ground with his boots and blurred forward, lightning trailing behind him. A lightning-wreathed fist collided with one wrapped in glitching darkness.

  Denis yelped and instantly conjured a barrier of vines while ‘Toma?’ intercepted the assault with a barrage of strikes too fast for the untrained eye to track.

  “BE ON GUARD! THERE’S SOME SORT OF MONSTER HERE!” shouted the valiant ‘Toma?,’ saving his hapless companion from imminent annihilation.

  Moru, the fluffy traitor-in-waiting, gazed up at him with pure admiration. One more second and it would’ve discarded its actual master for the gloriously competent ‘Toma?.’

  The vile shadow entity wasn’t stupid. It dissolved into smog and reappeared elsewhere, its arms sometimes twisting into vicious, clawed shapes. It practically wanted to look humanoid, as if mocking them. Even the intelligent, unmatched, utterly unflappable ‘Toma?’ couldn’t identify what sort of abomination it was, but he knew, in all his boundless certainty, that this thing was the reason the explosions had stopped. It had killed the mages. And now it had turned its sights on the resolute ‘Toma?’ and his considerably less impressive entourage.

  Of course, ‘Toma?’ decided he would protect these poor souls.

  Denis tried to assist, but he was embarrassingly outmatched. Only ‘Toma?’ could keep up with the monster, his reflexes, strength, and defenses matching it blow for blow. The skirmish lasted barely a minute, but the flurry of exchanges in that span could’ve kept a seasoned combat analyst busy for an hour just dissecting a single strike.

  Finally, the shadowed figure stared at the immovable ‘Toma?.’ After a brief pause, it withdrew. It recognized the impossibility of pushing past them.

  So it retreated— defeated and discouraged— by the fearless, incomparable ‘Toma?.’

  ***

  “What do you think, Lotte? I bet this is exactly how the Colosseum would’ve presented the whole thing to the audience!” I whispered, grinning to myself.

  [I suspect your rendition may be… artistically weighted in a particular direction] Lotte’s word appeared on the screen, her tone far too polite for the accusation it carried!

  “Bah! It was accurate! I just—” I hissed back, then stopped mid-sentence. I’d been narrating the perfectly unbiased account of events to Lotte when I felt it:

  a strange presence creeping toward us from the south.

  ‘Toma?’ (the very intelligent, unmatched, utterly unflappable Lightning Warrior):

  Currently pretending to be emotionally, spiritually, and cosmically drained so he can justify even more wolf cuddles.

  “I am… so weak… after all this fighting… argh!! Only soft fur can save me…”

  Denis (bewildered wolf-kin):

  Feels something is wrong but can’t pinpoint it. Resting after dodging a literal chain of catastrophic explosions. Already sensing another disaster sneaking up on them. (He is absolutely correct.)

  Moru (the Precious Floofy Wolf):

  Wrapped around ‘Toma?’ like a sentient comfort burrito.

  Whiiine–woof. Translation: “He’s nice. I like him.”

  Tail Status: Wagging with dangerous oscillation.

  Lotte (???):

  Thinking Jade’s narrative retelling of events is… suspiciously flattering to Jade.

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