Aside from the incident a few days back where she led you into an ambush by an irritable giant cephalopod - which to be fair, was largely accidental on her part and a result of your own decisions - Briar has yet to steer you wrong. As such, you decide to heed her warning. You also take a moment to study the readings you're getting off the two nonhumans in the ring, and then weave an abjuration spell that should no-sell any attempts by either of them to turn you into a drooling thrall. It's a fairly basic spell, actually; at your current level of ability, you're able to project the normally single-target protection in the form of a circle, which settles over the rest of your group and several nearby fellow spectators.
"What was that mumbling and lightshow about, kid?" Sakaki asks.
"A protection spell," you reply, shutting your eyes. "Hopefully to stop them from taking over our brains."
"Huh." You can sort of sense Sakaki looking at you, then at the ring. "I gotta say, I don't think it's brains they're interested in."
The fight starts a moment later. One of the two demons - you're honestly not sure which - lets out a chilling scream of challenge, and is answered in kind. Your burgeoning magical awareness registers two surges of supernatural energy, both clearly tainted with demonic power and basically indistinguishable. Your circle of protection thrums audibly as it turns away something, right before the rows closer to the ring erupt into particularly spirited shouting. Even over the sudden ruckus, you're able to hear the succubus's whip crack several times, several ringing clangs of metal on metal, and one distinct impact of metal on stone. More organic-sounding strikes follow, fist against flesh and bone.
"Oh, the brutality!" the Announcer cries out, his voice giving no indication that he's been affected by the demonic auras. "Numiah tries to strangle Cambiel with her whip, only to get too close and end up in a back-breaker! She's down, folks, could this be - no! It was an illusion, Numiah's just appeared above Cambiel, she's got him by the horns, and OH, she's pulled him straight into a flying knee to the face! Ladies and gentlemen, a little-known-fact about this match is that our two competitors are actually brother and sister, but you'd never guess it to see them fight each other!"
You're seriously tempted to peek, but you stick by your decision and trust in Briar. There is a benefit to sitting here with your eyes shut; it gives you the opportunity to work with your non-visual sensory abilities. With your mind-shielding spell in place, any potential weakness that ki scans might open in your mental defenses is accounted for. On the other hand, since you're dealing with a more overtly demonic succubus (and her brother), you don't get much out of the nonvisual probes beyond a vague sense of the fighters' locations.
Gained Abjuration F+
Gained Ki Sense F++
Gained Listening F++
Gained Mage Sense F-
The match is fierce, and short. Cambiel takes a beating, but manages to drag his smaller sibling into close quarters, at which point his size and strength simply prove too much for her. The Announcer calls it, the auras fade, and the lower seats start to calm down.
"Well," Sakaki says, his fierce grin not precisely the sort of thing you wanted to see first when you opened your eyes again, "that was fun."
You glance at the ring, and wince. The demonic brother and sister are both a mess: Cambiel's bleeding in a couple of places where his sister's whip caught him; both of them are pretty heavily bruised; and it looks like one of Numiah's wings has been bent the wrong way. As a Big Brother, you find the scene more than a little offensive. It doesn't help that Cambiel fetches his javelin, sort of smirks down at his sister, and then walks out of the ring, leaving her to the medics.
"Okay, now that's taking it too far," Sakaki admits with a more-intense-than-usual scowl.
"He beat up his sister, and you're upset that he's a bad winner?" Cordelia asks.
"They both agreed to get into the ring, little miss," the big man replies. "Once you do that, you've accepted that you're gonna get hurt. Male or female, family or perfect stranger, it makes no difference; an opponent is an opponent, and if you don't take them seriously, you're being rude and asking to get your a-um, butt kicked. But there's fighting a good fight, and then there's just being a smug ja- er, jerk." Sakaki stumbles over a couple of words, glancing back at Lu-sensei for some reason.
The medics are just getting Numiah onto a stretcher now, taking extra care with her injured wing. Down in the waiting area, you can see Hayate's friend Ryu and a particularly tall, muscular, ruddy-faced young man carrying a huge wooden club going through last-minute warm-ups and eyeing each other thoughtfully as they wait for the ring to be cleared.
Before the match begins, there's a question about what to do with your circle of protection. It will cost you no extra mana to keep it running for the rest of this round, the break, and a good part of the third round besides, and it might come in handy in some of these matches - Beryl's upcoming bout springs to mind, as does Cambiel's next match. It'll also be helpful if you get attacked in a more physical sense. However, the protection might not work against all of the potential sources of mental influence who haven't been eliminated yet, and its presence adds another magical aura that will complicate the readings you get from your divinations. It'd be easier to scan the fighters if the spell were gone. Plus, anybody with magical perception is going to wonder why you're going around with a shield up.