An empty, grey void sat at the centre of Sagar's stomach.

His loins, which had recently been so awake and alive, now ached dully. The wind had gone out of his sails, the air from his blimp, the swagger from his strut.

What's the point? What's the point of any of this?

He had landed a kiss on a woman. A real kiss. And on a real woman! And it had been returned. A real connection. He could still practically taste her soft lips on his own, slightly salty from sweat, could still remember how they had parted and stirred in response to his.

But he had thrown that all away, as quickly as he had chanced upon it. He had broken their kiss and literally thrown the woman out of the arena, all in an effort to win a shiny green rock he wasn't interested in anyway.

Of course, he did have his reputation to think of, and it wasn't like the great Captain Sagar, Scourge of the Imfisi skies, could have let himself lose a fighting match to a woman...

But still…

A real kiss.

He had run after her straight afterwards to try to apologise and talk to her some more, and caught up with her in the dugout, managing to catch her by the hand.

She spun to face him, all well-defined lines and short dark hair, and he was hit by her beauty again. Her cheeks were glistening, though recently dabbed–she had been crying.

"Look, Hiuna," he said, painfully conscious of the other quarter-finalists in the enclosed earthen chamber–the baldy, another shorter Farrian, and some Frikian woman, "I'm really…sorry. I shouldn't have taken advantage of you and finished the match like that. Please accept my apology." He could barely believe his own ears, but he meant every word of it. He looked into her eyes, green like new life. "I feel like we had a connection, and I can see that I've upset you."

Hiuna yanked her hand out of his grasp. "I'm not upset because you took advantage of me, you chump!" she snapped. "I'm upset because I lost the match! My whole life I've been trying to prove myself in the face of men like you, and the moment I get my chance to do so, you go and do that and hit me out of bounds! Argh! Don't come after me!"

She turned to leave, but Sagar grabbed her and again.

"Hiuna, please–"

"Get off me!" the Farrian woman shouted, and palm-punched him in the chest with her spare hand, pulling the other one free in the process.

Sagar landed on his arse with a thump. He watched Hiuna running off out of the dugout's far exit.

Huld was staring at him.

"What are you looking at, baldy?" he said.

A moving pillar of stone smacked upwards into Sagar.

He was knocked backwards and into the air with a painful jolt.

As he sailed through the air, he realised that had been so distracted and lost in his memory that he had completely missed the announcer calling the start of the match and that the baldy had whacked him with an earth attack and was going to have hit him out of bounds in one strike.

He summoned the wind, and powerful currents caught him, then held him in place in the air as he held out his arms, levitating weightlessly.

The crowd cooed with surprised wonder. He lapped it up.

Might as well give them a good show, he thought. Though the truth was, he didn't care about this stupid tournament anymore. What he cared about was getting Hiuna to accept his apology, and he was pissed off that she hadn't, mainly at himself.

Baldy was looking up at him from the arena floor, chunky brow wrinkled, barefoot and green-robed, still with his hands held out in a ridiculous pose from having launched his earth attack.

Might as well channel my anger somewhere, Sagar thought.

Keeping part of his concentration on the air currents cushioning him in the air, Sagar thrust his palms forwards and shouted "Windaaaaaaaaarrrraahh!"

A gale-blast of air wooshed forwards from his hands, hard as a hurricane.

The baldy set one foot in front of the other and raised his arms above his face, crossing them and making fists to shield himself from the wind in a defensive stance. He even made some of the stone of the arena floor rise up and secure itself in two moulds around his feet to hold himself in place.

Behind him, the audience members in the path of the gale screamed. The ones at the front clutched the wooden barrier to avoid being blown away. But they didn't have anything to worry about–they were only getting the blow-back; Sagar was focusing the brunt of the attack on Huld.

On Huld, who remained completely still and unmoved by the wind. It was as though he might not have even bothered taking his defensive stance at all.

Well, the old timer wasn't lying then, Sagar thought. Looks like my wind powers are completely ineffective against the element of earth.

But he had known that much from that stupid temple. It didn't matter. He hadn't expected the attack to do anything anyway.

Sagar leaned forward, dipping himself into the massive gale that he was directing at Huld. At the same time, he ceased the pressure from the gusts that had been keeping him up in the air, and instead changed their course to push him forwards, launching him even faster into his own wind attack.

The gale caught him and he rode it, his hair and the loose parts of his shirt flapping around him. The exhilarating sensation of weightlessness took him, for a moment replacing even the dull ache for Hiuna, as he flew straight at Huld.

He came in fast, stretching out both his arms in front of him for a double-fisted-punch.

He smashed into Huld's stomach, below the monk's upraised arms…

…and glanced off him, hitting the arena floor on his side and rolling over a few times.

He came up.

The gale having ceased, Huld dropped his defensive posture and broke his stone-shackles, then began to walk towards Sagar.

Kufe it. The baldy was tough. Of course Sagar had known that too, but he hadn't realised just how tough. He hadn't had occasion to hit him before now.

He called the wind, setting up another vicious gale to whip at Huld.

The monk put one open hand up to shield his eyes, but he kept on walking. At least the wind served to distract him somewhat.

This time Sagar ran at him, using the gale to lend him speed, but instead of rushing in head-on, when he was a few paces away he kicked off from the floor and sprang to the right, then jumped back towards the monk with a flanking side-kick.

Huld's hand snapped out and caught Sagar's leg in mid-air, fingers constricting around it tightly.

Uh-oh.

The monk twisted, and twirled Sagar in a circle around him once, twice, thrice, several times, getting faster and faster. The audience members became increasingly blurry.

Then Huld let go and threw Sagar out of the arena.

Weightlessness took him again. He soared through the air, over the audience, who craned their heads up to track him. He was going to land among them, well out of bounds.

Well, at least he would have if he hadn't been able to fly.

He summoned the wind again and used it to catch him, then divert his course, sending him flying back head-first towards Huld.

A calm smile on the monk's face. No surprise, no shock or awe or frustration or even a defensive stance this time. Just a calm smile.

Arrogant kufer.

Before he made impact with the monk, Sagar dived early, instead making impact with the arena floor with his two outstretched hands.

His arms bent, and he flipped over and pushed himself off the floor at an angle, launching himself at Huld feet-first in a double-handstand-kick.

The monk stepped out of the way and punched Sagar in the stomach.

He smacked against the floor on his front.

Ouch. His head rang.

He rolled over onto his back, then froze as the monk's massive bare foot appeared above him, about to stamp down.

He rolled again, with the wind, to dodge out of the way as Huld's foot crashed down to the ground, sending a shockwave through the stone floor that jolted Sagar as he rolled. He leapt up to his feet and staggered backwards the edge of the arena.

The monk just watched him carefully.

"Damn you!" Sagar yelled at him, furious at his immovability.

The skypirate started to run again, calling the wind to lend him speed, not straight at the baldy this time, but round him, in a wide circle around the perimeter of the arena. He ran faster and faster, keeping his wind projection up against his back, and sent random gusts of air at Huld, flinging them out with his hand at erratic intervals.

The monk didn't even bother rotating to watch him. He just stood there in the centre of the arena, and on each pass Sagar glimpsed that same infuriating, calm smile.

Sagar kicked off the floor, darting inwards at Huld from behind, rushing along the ground with the wind.

He landed a right-handed punch in the small of the baldy's back.

This time monk didn't even move.

Sagar howled with rage and threw a barrage of follow-up punches, calling the wind to lend each of them force.

Huld took the full force of each blow on his back. Sagar must have hit him ten, twenty, thirty times, feeling the force of his punches reverberating through his fists, but the monk remained unmoved.

He ran out of steam, and came to a rest with one fist still against the monk's back, panting and drenched in sweat and with aching arms.

Now Huld turned, slowly, to face Sagar as he dropped his throbbing arm, still with that stupid smile on his face.

"How are you so strong?!" Sagar asked in desperation, only loud enough for just the monk to hear.

"No matter how much the wind howls," Huld said, "the mountain will not be moved by it."

Sagar's lip curled. "Don't quote your stupid religion's proverbs at me, baldy!" he yelled.

"Very well," said Huld. "I won't."

The monk kneed Sagar in the face.

The skypirate wasn't aware of what had happened until he was flying backwards, nose and mouth bright with pain. He flipped over in the air involuntarily, and landed on his back at the edge of the arena, head just poking over one of the border tiles, looking up at the dark cloud-filled sky.

He put a hand to his agonised mouth and it came away wet with blood. His tongue found that his front two teeth had come loose. He would need the old timer to heal that after this was over.

The cheers of the crowd filled his ears, loud and resonant with bloodthirst, almost drowning out the announcer's count. They must be very glad to see one of their own dominating his foreigner opponent in a semi-final.

Huld's knee had kicked up so quickly that Sagar hadn't even had a chance to react. The baldy was strong and fast.

Sagar didn't see a way that he could win this. Much as he hated to admit it, he was outmatched by the monk. Not only were his wind attacks completely ineffective against the Earth-Emerald-touched baldy, but the man was just a stronger, faster and better hand-to-hand fighter than him.

Kufe it, but this match is pointless. It was just like all his attempts to get with women: doomed to failure from the outset. He ground his teeth, and almost let out a growl.

But damn him all the same if he was going to just give up this easily. Captain Sagar Edbini, Scourge of the Imfisi Skies, did not give up this easily. He would see this through to the end; he wasn't going to go down without a full, proper, finished fight. He had a reputation to protect.

At least the monk hadn't followed up straight away with another attack. Apparently he was waiting to see whether Sagar was going to get up or not.

Sagar turned over onto his front with a groan and began to push himself up.

He stopped when he saw a face nearby, staring intently at him. A tomboyish but female face with short black hair.

"Hiuna?" he said.

She was standing in the small cordoned-off area of the crowd reserved for other combatants to watch from, currently its only occupant, right up against the wooden barrier. Only about six paces away from Sagar.

"Did you really mean it?" the woman said, her deep frown indicating deadly seriousness.

"Mean what?" asked Sagar, still on his hands and knees.

"What you said. Did you really kiss me because you wanted to?"

Sagar blinked. He remembered what she was talking about, and found he didn't need to lie: "Yes."

"Did you really regret throwing me out of the arena like that?"

"Yes."

"Did you really think that we had a connection?"

"Yes."

"Prove it."

Sagar got up fully now. The people in the audience around them were staring at them quizzically, starting to mutter and whisper and grumble, but he didn't care.

"What do you mean 'prove it'?" he asked Hiuna. "How?"

"Forfeit this match. You might never have been in it anyway if you hadn't thrown me out of bounds when you did. If you really regret it, you won't mind forfeiting now. If you forfeit, then…we'll talk some more. That's all I'm promising."

She folded her arms and looked up at him, defiant challenge sizzling in her face. But not just that. In those bright green eyes, that tight line of mouth, there seemed also to be some desperate hope that he would show himself true by forfeiting this match.

Two different forces smashed together inside Sagar's heart. On the one hand, there was his reputation, and his pride, and his ego, to maintain, and his tempestuous fury at not being able to beat Huld. On the other hand, here was Hiuna, whom he had recently kissed, and who had kissed him back. She was only promising that they would talk, but Sagar found that that would be enough for him. He just wanted to be near her again.

"Sagar of Imfis!" the announcer yelled out of all a sudden, yanking him out of his thoughts. "Are you going to carry on with this match?"

The skycaptain turned. Huld was still waiting calmly for him in the centre of the arena wearing his infuriating serene smile; a green, immovable mountain.

Sagar made his decision.

"No," he said loud and clear to the announcer. "I yield."

The crowd issued a collective gasp, then immediately erupted into a complaining chorus of boos and jeers.

Sagar ignored them, walking out of the arena, and went to go and speak with Hiuna.