While the Tournament of Elements was the only tournament that I ever fought in, I don't think I'd enjoy having to fight in another one again. After the craziness that was fighting in those rounds, I'm not sure I could handle being tossed in again. I didn't even fight in many of the rounds, but Chen made sure that what we did see was enough.

Chen had a very clear bracket established from the beginning of the tournament, meaning that we knew what order everyone fought in. The first few rounds were simple elimination by getting the jadeblade, just like the first round. The first few matchups were ones that I only was able to watch, but it was interesting to see what exactly he had in store. Now, I'll be assuming that many of you know of all of the elemental masters at this point. I'm planning on putting a big character reference in the back of this book. There are a lot of people that were involved in this tournament. At the start, there were 16 of us in the tournament including my team. Keep in mind these names right now: Neuro, Bolobo, Gravis, Griffin Turner, Ash, and Paleman. They're the ones that were involved in the first part of the tournament.

The original bracket that Chen had created had Karlof facing off against Tox. Since he was eliminated, Chen moved some matches around, meaning that Jay thought he had the day off. We were all still rattled about what we'd discovered. I told my dad -who I should mention snuck into my room we shared so he wasn't sleeping out in the jungle- about this, and he agreed that it was best not to say anything just yet. He said that Chen would be looking for any chance to eliminate us if we left any sort of evidence that we were the intruders. Since we were ninja, we were going to be the top suspects and targets. We needed to keep our heads down and play along unless we wanted to turn the entire island against us. Chen had plans for us, and being ready for them was what was important.

The first day of the tournament was a very action-packed one. Chen wanted the first few rounds to be eventful, and assigned everyone an arena. Chen told us to go and eat lunch, and while we did, he was getting everything ready. During lunch, Cole and Jay reminded me very loudly that the two of them were still fighting. I don't know what I expected, but I'd been secretly praying it wouldn't happen. I mean, I knew Jay had talked about Cole when I went to get them, and vice versa, but the two were just like little kids! They literally started arguing over who had dropped their grudge first. I guess, not having a childhood like them meant I didn't get why they were fighting like that. Sometimes, I feel a little glad I skipped right to a young adult.

While the two were fighting, Chen was already getting ready to have his fun with us. He called together the first three matches, and told us to all assemble for the first one. I once more have to ask just how much money Chen managed to amass, since he not only built personal arenas to each and every fight that took place, but they weren't just simple matches either. He had built that entire island like he was some sort of millionaire mansion. How much money does a noodle shop make?

The first round was between Griffin Turner and Gravis; Speed versus Gravity. The entire place was decked out to look like they were fighting over a cherry blossom tree that was perched on the edge of a cliff. When you sat down, it was like the sun was actually shining on you, and you actually would see some cherry blossoms flying off into the crowd as the fight progressed. Chen always had us sit in seats on one side of the arena, while he and Clouse were on a raised platform with Chen's throne always there. He loved to lord over the matches, and he said it was to 'be able to see all the action!' or something like that.

Watching the two of them left a lot to think about. They were incredibly fast and it was like you trailed a second behind what Griffin was doing. The jadeblade they were fighting over was on the top of the tree, and the two were getting there as fast as they could. By the time you even saw where Griffin was, he was already moving somewhere else. Gravis was being pretty tame all things considered, and at first I thought the match was just going to be completely one-sided. I guess Griffin realized that he couldn't see the blade once he was in the three, so he had to race from branch to branch to try to find it. This gave Gravis the advantage.

Griffin struck like a bullet. He would zoom in, kick or punch Gravis, then he'd be gone. He used the entire tree like it was the perfect camouflage. Eventually, he angered Gravis to the point that he showed off he could use his gravity control over other things. He took all of the blossoms that were floating in the air and turned them all against Griffin, smacking him with them. You could see from how fast they were flying they were hitting like a punch to the gut. Griffin tried to zoom off, but he was thrown off his game. When Gravis turned his attention away to levitate the blade to himself, Griffin shot through the air in those few seconds and grabbed it. Chen apparently only cared who physically held the blade, and not who touched it with their element first. We got our first taste of Chen's love for trapdoors when he not only opened one underneath a floating Gravis, but then dropped a sandbag on him so he'd fall into it. I don't even know how he managed to line that up.

The next match was… a lot more underwhelming. Neuro and Bolobo were fighting -Mind versus Nature- and the first minute of the fight was literally just them staring at each other. They were inside a massive rocky, moonlight arena, which was like the top of a big, barren rocky plateau. I actually kinda got impatient and asked if this would be the whole fight. Neuro, however, was reading all of Bolobo's mind and then, right as Bolobo struck, he leapt up on top of the plants that erupted from the ground. It was pretty clever, all things considered. Neuro nearly managed to claim the blade by doing it, but Bolobo dragged him back down and the two fought.

Bolobo managed to ensnare Neuro in vines. I actually thought the entire match was set there, since it gave Bolobo the chance to use his plants to bring him the blade. Neuro was struggling to get out, and I even smugly told my dad that 'nature usually wins' or something like that. I… can't say that I was really good at commentary. Either way, Neuro blasted Bolobo with mental energy, which distracted him enough to let Neuro race up the vines again and claim the blade. Neuro never even landed a single punch on Bolobo.

The match that I was far more interested in, though, was the match of Kai versus Ash -Fire versus Smoke. Chen had constructed the arena to be a perfect massive wooden bridge over pillars of rock overtop of a lake of actual lava. The jadeblade was in the center of the bridge. Kai can withstand being on fire, but he can't actually go into lava. Kai went straightforward into attacking, but Ash did just what he did with me and turned into smoke whenever Kai would go in to attack him. The first few attacks knocked the blade onto the rocks in the lava. Kai didn't seem to get how to attack Ash; strategizing wasn't always Kai's biggest strong suit. It didn't help that the bridge was continually breaking and flipping, and Ash knew just how to fight to his advantage.

Kai used Spinjitzu to get back from being thrown off the bridge -I actually think that counts as a time we remembered to use it- and Ash responded by breaking him through most of the planks on the bridge. Kai finally began using his flames, and the entire bridge just.. .snapped. I mean, I don't know what Kai was expecting. I yelled out for him to use his power, but I had thought he'd be a little more… smart about it? He almost went right into the lava and was only saved by the pillars.

I will admit, the way that Kai got through that match was pretty clever. He noticed if he threw attacks out fast enough, he'd actually overwhelm Ash and manage to land hits on him. So he did that until he'd gotten Ash mad and got him to go for the blade. Kai threw fireballs right at him, forcing Ash to turn into smoke on instinct to not get hit. And the second he did, Kai dove through him and grabbed the blade. Whenever people say Kai isn't smart, I just say he isn't very adaptable.

At that point, we were safe. Kai got through, and without Jay having to fight that day, we all went back up to our rooms to rest. I wasn't sure yet how Chen was deciding the order of the matches, but it looked like if he needed me, I'd be there. After a few hours of rest and getting to indulge in the frankly awesome rooms Chen made all of us, my dad got us together to go and get food.

I want to make clear that it had only been a few hours since Kai's match. Cole and I were getting ready to fight. I saw that I was going to fight Chamille, but oddly enough I almost never saw her around the place. She was more or less just vanished after the ceremony. I was still thinking halfway through how we could work more within Chen's tournament, when we saw that Chen had done.

In order to punish us for sneaking into his ceremony, Chen had Clouse alter the bracket to force Cole and Jay to fight each other. Just that morning, they'd been feuding over their childish argument again, and now it was going to get physical. Clouse was right there to make clear he'd done that with us knowing it had to happen. The match was set for the next day.

My dad gave me a bit of advice concerning this: the two needed to find a way to work together, or they would be out of this tournament for good. The thing was, one of the two of them had to lose. I was terrified, since I knew that we had come to that island to become a team again. We'd barely gotten time to talk to each other again, and now Chen was going to rip us apart. He was going to take away everything we'd worked for until then!

I considered going right to Chen and demanding he change the bracket back. The thing was, my dad told me if I did that, he'd ask me to provide a reason why. If he was able to link me in any way to the ceremony, he'd have grounds for kicking us out by saying we were out of our rooms to the rest of the tournament. Given they already didn't like us, there wasn't anything we could do. We just had to sit back and let the two of them fight… or so we thought.

After seeing Neuro, I was pretty impressed at his ability to win without looking like a guy that had been taught how to fight. Kai was the one that suggested that we talk to Neuro. Neuro was pretty hard to approach, since he looked so imposing and mysterious. He didn't look like a very friendly guy. He wasn't at first, since the first thing he did was read Cole and Jay's minds and tell them that Cole thought Jay wouldn't last in the fight and Jay thought Cole was the least valuable ninja. I wish I could have been upset with Neuro, but I was more or less just annoyed they got into squabbling again.

The nice thing about a Master of Mind, however, is that they can read your mind to see if you're lying or not. All I had to do was tell Neuro to read my mind and see that Chen was playing us. It was like I'd suddenly unlocked something in a video game, since he immediately started asking us how he could help. He agreed to help us almost instantly.

I wanted to avoid Cole and Jay fighting, so we decided to try to send Neuro in to find something out. Chen had a restricted floor where he often had his Kabuki… dance for him, or something (I really don't know why he would have a bunch of girls dancing for him, Neuro was really dodgy answering what he saw). Clouse caught him in the act, and instead of trying to press further, he instead tricked Clouse into letting him get a small glimpse into his mind. Once he did, he came back and reported to us.

Unfortunately, because of the fact Chen had his eye on us, we weren't able to do anything else that night. Chen held the match first thing in the morning right after breakfast, so we all ate in nervous silence. Cole and Jay were giving each other death stares the entire time at breakfast. I had hoped that the two of them would actually decide to act like adults and try to think of a way out of this, but it was more like they actually wanted to fight! I wanted my dad's advice the night before, but Chen decided to make sure my dad couldn't get back into my room. I had to go through that entire time worrying about the fact I was about to be one less ninja than I wanted us to be. And it didn't feel good.

I've thought a long time as to why Jay was actually so offended that Cole might have been into Nya. It wasn't like Cole had ever made a pass at Nya, or had even done anything to make her uncomfortable. That was all Jay's fabrication. I thought a bunch on it that night. And, I think I figured out part of it. It was something Neuro said: Jay thought Cole was the least valuable ninja. I don't know why Jay would think that. Jay never seemed like the type of person to put people down. I thought a lot more about him, and then I remembered that his True Potential had been about a lot more than just Nya.

I think, Jay felt threatened. What I mean by that is Jay worried that he wasn't worthy of being on the team. I noticed the more I thought about it that Jay was always the one that doubted himself the most. I mean, Kai didn't even take time to worry about that, and Cole was always just, chill about it. Jay always felt like he was worried about it, or, I think he was. When he 'landed' Nya, as he calls it, it gave him confidence that he was worth being on the team. He put a lot of value in the fact someone like Nya loved him. And then, when he thought that she might be into Cole… he felt like he was going to lose that. Cole only started to fight back for the same reason anyone does when someone starts heckling them. Jay was always going after him, and Nya dragged him into the middle of it. I mean… I don't think he ever really liked Nya, and he only went on that date to just get Nya to tell Jay she loved him and get it over with. She only made it worse by not saying anything definitive.

Now, like I said before, I think the entire thing was stupid. Cole never even had interest in Nya until she pointed it out, and even then, he was aware that Jay was with her. Jay took things to the extreme and decided to act like Cole and Nya were dating from the get go. It was always Jay who instigated things. It was Cole's fault for going along with it too, but just… I don't get why he was taking it too seriously. That's all I really want to say on it at this point, since we couldn't do anything to stop Jay and Cole.

I was talking with Cole before he went out to his fight. I felt like I'd failed somehow. It was too soon for this to happen. I didn't want to lose my team already. I'd had to do so much to get them together, and now they were falling apart. And that didn't exactly bode well for us. I wasn't at peace with it! I tried to tell Cole that he could control how he fought Jay, and to remember Chen was the enemy. There was still time for him to make peace with Jay. But Cole pointed out that it didn't' even matter, since if the best way to defeat your enemy is to make them your friend, how do you defeat a friend?

My dad reassured me that I'd done all I could, and I wasn't at fault. I wasn't sure why, but that really did help. My dad was the reason I was confident as I was on the island. He'd come with us, despite disagreeing with what we were doing, and was doing all he could to help guide me. He was there, right beside us, doing all he could to keep us together. I could tell just from the way he talked, he wasn't happy about this either. From there on, I just had to pray they fixed it themselves. I'd never felt so sick to my gut having to watch a fight go down. One of them was going to lose, and Chen was going to break us apart.

I didn't feel good watching it start. The two were actually fighting for real. Jay was going off like some massive bug zapper and Cole was throwing rocks at him. The two were shouting and punching at each other. I think I even saw some of the others laughing at how angry the two of them were. They weren't holding back, and it looked like the team really was going to fall apart. I knew that if they defeated each other like this, they'd never be brothers again. With how hard Jay was attacking him, I was afraid that he would actually try to hurt Cole. Then I realized if Cole actually hit Jay hard enough with a rock, he could actually do a lot worse.

I think dad saw how worried I was. I wasn't able to look away. I must have looked like I was going to throw up. He reached over and put his arm around me, and told me that this was their fight. I don't know why, but that made me gasp like I'd been holding my breath. I couldn't relax, but he drew me out of the dark places. He knew when I needed him.

Cole was the one that broke first. He stopped attacking as soon as he actually managed to knock Jay over. I think it hit him he was actually going to hurt Jay. Neither of them were going after the jadeblade, which was the entire point. I couldn't hear what he was saying, but I could tell that he had gotten through to Jay. He talked Jay down from attacking him. The two actually understood what I was saying. They wouldn't get anywhere from fighting. They were going to play right into Chen's hand. They couldn't be each other's enemy.

I was incredibly happy to see that. I really wish that it'd worked out that way, and Chen would have just been forced to call the match. The two began to fake fight each other, which bored Chen. He sent out several vehicles into the arena to try to force them to fight by force, but the two of them were working together. As a leader, that alone made me more relieved than I could even imagine. I thought, for a few moments, Chen would let us have this.

In order to force the two of them to actually fight, however, he hit a button that caused the floor of the arena to start breaking apart. Either both of them would lose, or one of them would have to actually claim the jadeblade. I went from happy, to relieved, to angry all in the span of a few seconds. I think I actually stood up like I was going to go and fight with Chen, but my dad took hold of me. He didn't say anything, but I knew that I couldn't go and do anything. It happened fast form there, since Chen was willing to end the match soon. Cole managed to get to the jadeblade and draw it. Jay stood on the falling floor, getting ready to accept his loss.

...then Cole threw the blade and gave it to Jay. Chen declared this Jay's victory. Jay said that Cole told him that he had to go on and win this for him, and that Nya was his. Then, Cole was gone. I knew what was coming the second I saw Cole throw it, but watching him fall was… painful. I knew he was going to be okay, but it meant we'd lost. We were already down one member… again.

Chen's tournament of deception was in full swing, and we'd already fallen to part of it. My dad assured me that we'd have more chances, but I didn't know what we could do. If we tried to make a move on Chen, he'd take us out. If we kept playing this game, soon, only one would remain. Our time on the island was limited… and it was about to get even weirder.

Lloyd slowly looked up from his seat towards Cole, "So… how'd I do with that?"

"What do you mean?" Cole blinked, "Like, how'd you do with what?"

"With, capturing the fact that everything happened and, all that stuff?" Lloyd asked curiously, "Like, I was talking about you, and you didn't say anything, so I figured it was alright."

"You pretty much got it," Cole crossed his arms, "You're probably right saying that I got dragged into it by Nya. And I never really had feelings for her. I was just doing that because I wanted to settle things."

"And you're not, you know, upset that you gave up on that?" Lloyd asked, "I know that sounds, weird, but you were pretty into it at the time and-"

"Jay and Nya are meant to be together," Cole affirmed to Lloyd, "And it wasn't my place to get involved in the first place. Better I just stay out of it. And like I said, I don't like thinking about it either. So don't worry about it."

"I know it's weird to sit and watch someone else talk about you," Lloyd pointed out, "So I always check."

"Don't worry about that," Cole stood up, "If I got an issue with it, I'll let you know. I'm not the kind of guy to cut you off or anything."

"Thanks," Lloyd paused, "You mind if I go onto the next chapter? I'm kinda still on the tournament and all that so, I think it'd be better if we just got it all done up to when we had to go and hunt down Nya."

"You sure?" Cole asked, but sat down all the same, "I mean, I don't mind. Do you still wanna work out afterwards?"

"...Sure," Lloyd stated with a nervous smile. Just the thought of how Cole had pushed him to complete the set of reps on the bench made his arms burn in memory pain. Cole didn't seem to notice the sheepish grin and instead gave a pump of his fist.

"Awesome!" Cole sat back, "Trust me, you follow the plan I worked up and you'll be stronger in no time!"

"H-Heh, yep, of course I will!" Lloyd grimaced, "Thanks for doing that with me, Cole. Couldn't, do it on my own."

"Don't mention it," Cole smirked, "Let's rock this chapter out so we can get to it!"

"S-Sure thing," Lloyd straightened himself up, "I guess, form here on out you'll be learning some more stuff. If you got questions then you can ask, but I'll try to explain it all."

"Sweet," Cole leaned in, "Let's do this."