The spectators stare at you. You look back at them, donning an expression of puzzlement.
"What?"
Nobody makes an attempt to answer. After a long pause, you shake your head and leave the ring - the crowd wordlessly parting before you - heading in Cordelia and Briar's direction. The girls see you coming, and Cordelia frowns.
"Okay," she says in English, "what the heck was that all about?"
"I assume you mean the part where these hands of mine glowed with an awesome power?" you counter-inquire in the same language.
Her answering glare is eloquent.
"The big guy wasn't human, Cordy - at least, not entirely. I think he must have had a frost giant lurking in his family tree, because he was freaky strong even for his size, stupidly tough, and freezing cold to the touch."
"...explains why you went with fire, then," Cordy admits, dialling back on the glare. "Still, Alex, after all the trouble you've gone to in order to hide your abilities, was letting a crowd of hundreds of complete strangers see you cast obvious magic really the best idea?"
"Maybe not the best idea," you concede, "but look at the circumstances, Cordy. Lu-sensei more or less said that this tournament is set up for people with 'special talents,' and we've already seen two guys with visible non-human ancestry, plus a girl who's at least as strong and tough as they were. On top of that, while most of the crowd were staring at me like they'd never seen magic before, I saw a few who didn't look surprised at all. I'll bet you the cost of a meal at the hotel restaurant that we'll see more ki- and mana-based techniques before the day's out."
"No bet," Briar says, before Cordelia can get a word out. "I've been watching the crowd too, Cordy. There's a dozen kids here who could pull off something like Alex's little trick right now, and another thirty or so who could learn how to do it in a couple of years or less."
You think on the numbers Briar is giving you. Out of a bit less than four hundred competitors, maybe fifty have an inherent level of ki and/or mana strong enough for the explicitly supernatural applications - and by the age of ten, no less. That's very interesting. Of course, the sample pool is rather biased, being made up of the best candidates drawn from the ranks of the world martial arts community, but even if the distribution is off by two orders of magnitude - one in eight hundred humans, as opposed to one in eight - that still leaves something like eight million plus potential ki- or magic-users alive in the world today. And if those numbers are consistent back through human history, if not even higher in the periods where Darwinian selection was in full swing... well, you're starting to see how it is that the local branch of humanity managed to survive in the face of all its supernatural predators, before they had such modern conveniences as high explosives, automatic weapons, and carpet bombing.
Briar's advice to Cordy proves good: within two matches of your own, you see a Chinese boy who looks a bit like a young Bruce Lee strike his opponent in the chest with both palms, producing a flare of orange-hued light that sends the other boy flying ass over teakettle. Then Ayane's brunette companion dodges an attack by... flickering momentarily.
After that, the kids abandon all pretense of restraint. Those who have supernatural techniques start using them early, and often - there are several surprise demonstrations of enhanced strength and speed - while those without start conceding their matches at the first sign of a glow. There's so much to see, you have trouble keeping track of your earlier subjects of interest.
Cordelia gives you a disgusted look. "Thank you ever so much, Alex."
"It was bound to happen sooner or later," you say without any real shame.
Cordy snorts and walks off, called to her next match. Once again, you hear your number announced almost in time with your companion's. Your opponent this time is another Japanese boy with improbably-blond hair, this one a distinctive shade of orange that reminds you of how some of the girls back in Sunnydale have tried - and failed - to properly dye their hair. He wears a gi and wraps, and is talking to a girl with short, spiky hair, a beautiful woman who - by dint of her hair color - pretty much has to be his mother, and a scruffy-looking guy whose face reminds you of a goat. There are also a couple of little girls around Zelda's age hiding behind the woman's skirt, one with black hair, the other with brown. The boy is grinning cheerfully, right up until he turns around and sees you coming. Then he goes pale.