Ricardo grabbed Sophia's head mid-motion.
No hesitation. No delay.
He slammed her downward into his knee with brutal precision.
The impact echoed through the arena like a crack in reality itself.
Sophia's body bounced back slightly, but she didn't fall completely.
Instead, a green flame flickered into existence in her hand.
Not fire born from destruction—
but from balance.
The surrounding space warped instantly.
Heat spread outward in a controlled wave, burning everything it touched into ash without destroying structure itself. It wasn't chaos.
It was correction.
Ricardo stepped forward again.
Calm.
Unshaken.
"You are still a failure," he said coldly.
That voice.
That tone.
Something inside Sophia snapped.
---
Her vision shifted.
The arena blurred.
The present collapsed into memory.
She was smaller.
Covered in bruises.
Red marks across her arms and face.
A deep scar across her right eyebrow.
She was lying on the ground, unable to stand properly.
And all around her—
were bodies.
Her adopted brothers and sisters.
Each one broken in different ways.
Each one a result of training that wasn't training.
It was survival through punishment.
Ricardo's system of control.
His "discipline."
---
Sophia's eyes in the present darkened.
Then she smiled.
Not because she was happy.
Because something inside her had finally stopped breaking.
---
The sky above the arena changed.
A signal activated.
Weapons began to rain down.
Hundreds.
Thousands.
Imperial-class weapons.
Half of them belonging to systems long erased or sealed away.
The battlefield became a storm of falling blades.
Ricardo looked up slightly.
For the first time, his expression shifted.
Not fear.
Recognition.
"You stole that much?" he muttered.
The weapons crashed down.
Both fighters were caught in the storm.
Steel and energy pierced the ground, the air, and everything between them.
The arena itself screamed under the pressure.
---
Sophia stood in the center of it all.
Unmoving.
Eyes empty.
Darkness spreading through her gaze like ink in water.
"I don't belong to you anymore," she said quietly.
Ricardo stepped through the falling weapons, bleeding but still walking forward.
"You were always a failure," he replied. "Nothing more."
Sophia tilted her head slightly.
And the world responded.
More weapons fell.
Faster.
Denser.
Like judgment itself had been unleashed.
---
Then—
silence.
The storm stopped.
Both stood in the ruined battlefield.
Breathing.
Still alive.
Neither defeated.
Neither victorious.
---
A system voice echoed across the arena:
"MATCH RESULT: DRAW."
The announcement lingered in the air.
No celebration followed.
No relief.
Only tension.
Because now there was only one thing left.
The survivors.
The remaining fighters from all teams.
Would now face the final phase.
Mark Angelo.