Doing your best to ignore the spectacle taking place in the ring, you fix your attention on Tatsuki, giving her a very deliberate once-over. Gorn wasn't shy about punching her in the face; she's going to have some nasty bruises there, and likely under her gi as well where he was hitting her in the chest and stomach. For all that, the only indication of blood is her split lip. You have to hand it to the Mohra; he knows how to throw a punch.
"What?" the girl asks, in the tone of voice that dares you to say something, anything, for her to get mad at.
"You're a mess," you reply bluntly. "Did you want Briar to fix you up a bit? Take the edge off?"
Cribbing forthrightness from Cordelia seems to do the trick, or at least put Tatsuki off-balance. "...please," she says.
Without a word, Briar flutters forward, producing a scaled-down, honest-to-goodness magic wand from somewhere - you suspect a dimensional pocket, but you've never been able to confirm it - which she taps lightly to Tatsuki's injuries. The fairy's aura intensifies briefly with each tap, while the bruises diminish slightly and Tatsuki's split lip heals over, leaving a few drops of dried blood. Tatsuki gives her right arm a slight, experimental shift afterwards - did Gorn hit her there, too? - and then looks in Briar's general direction.
"Thank you."
"You're welcome," Briar replies, causing no obvious reaction in the girl. The fairy sighs, evidently a little disappointed that this added proof of her existence isn't enough to get Tatsuki's belief in her up to the point where the girl can see her. You wonder if the binding spell has a hand in that.
"So," Ayane says then, "you lost."
"I did," Tatsuki answers, setting her jaw.
"Do you know why?"
The spiky-haired girl frowns. "He was better than me," she admits. "Stronger, faster, tougher, more skilled... I think he figured out what I was trying to do about two-thirds of the way to the edge of the ring."
"And was there anything you could have done differently to change the outcome?"
Tatsuki thinks it over. "Short of learning how to shoot energy bolts like Godzilla Junior, here, I don't think so."
"I resent that remark," you mutter. "I do not look a thing like an iguana."
"By the time I knew that he'd figured out what I was doing, I didn't have enough room left to get away," Tatsuki continues, ignoring your grumbled protest. "Not with that guy's speed and strength."
Ayane nods. "So, now you know some of the things you need to work on, so that your next opponent can't beat you the same way Gorn did."
"...I suppose so."
Ayane and Tatsuki start to discuss tactics then, with Taki adding her two cents' worth and Tifa pitching in every so often. Cordelia hangs back a bit to regard you.
"You were saying something about a seal?" she prompts, speaking quietly enough that the rest of the group shouldn't notice.
"It's a serious piece of work, Cordy. Way more complicated than anything I've ever tried to cast. I can't even be sure of half the stuff it's doing to her. What about you, Briar?" you add, glancing at your partner.
She shakes her head. "I took a glance at the thing while I was healing her. If it's out of your league, kiddo, it's not even playing the same sport that I do. That said, I don't think whoever made the seal meant for it to hurt Tatsuki; it doesn't feel malicious at all."
"Do you suppose the Kurosaki family might know something?"
"I have my doubts about that," Briar replies. "Okay, yeah, it's really suspicious that Strawberry Boy, his crazy old man, and his best friend all have seals on them - but the seals on the Kurosaki boys are completely spiritual constructs, this one's pure magic, and they're all really damn complicated. Whoever put these things together was a master, and it's very rare to find a master of the magical arts who's also a master of the spiritual arts."
True, although if you have your way, there'll soon be at least one more such person in the world. Heh.
"It's not much more common for two master-level practitioners to share a territory, though," you point out.
"Not in Hyrule, no. Not in any world where magic lives out in the open, and the population density's anything close to a sane level. In this world, though? You could probably squirrel an entire wizards' guild away in a town the size of Sunnydale without drawing too much attention, as long as you were creative with your excuses for the weirdness that always crops up when you have so many magic-users living in the same space long-term."
And the sad truth is, you can see that. Heck, Sunnydale already has the Hellmouth and a heap of resident demons - what would a couple hundred wizards be on top of that?
"So what do you plan to do about whatever's been done to Tatsuki?" Cordelia asks.
Good question.
Assuming that you don't inform Tatsuki of the seal, and thus spend the rest of the intermission either explaining to her why you refuse to mess with it or actively messing with it for fun and profit, what would you like to do with the seven minutes or so you have left before the third round?