The arena had been reset for the semifinals.
Not just cleared—reset with a deliberate formality that hadn't been present between the first-round fights. The floor crew worked differently now, their movements more careful, the attention they gave each section of stone more thorough. The bracket on the screens above had been updated to reflect the new stage—the first-round results logged, the semifinal pairings displayed, the path to the final visible for the first time in concrete rather than theoretical terms.
The crowd that had filled the arena for the first round had come back for the semifinals with something additional in them—not just the investment that built across a day of watching but the specific awareness that from here forward every fight was an elimination fight. Every loss permanent. Every win a step toward something that had been waiting since the bracket was revealed.
The announcer raised the microphone.
"Class 3 semifinals begin now," he said.
