Firecrackers blow up in the sky near a massive stadium as the day of the tournament begins.

“Reporting in from the City-H’s famous Revile Stadium, named after the famous Ghost Revile, this is your reporter, Ashley Freeburg.”

A reporter is reporting from outside the famous Revile stadium of City-H.

“The tournament where we get to see young Ghosts and young Heroes go against each other will begin in about six hours. But you can already see a huge crowd going inside the stadium.”

The reporter says.

“Even the famous SS-Rank heroes such as Bleeds have been reported to have entered the stadium.”

The reporter continues.

“And just like every year, it seems this year as well, we are having a massive audience that will break the record of the previous year.”

Inside a locker room,

Jau, Clayton, Ellie and Mizuki have already arrived.

“All the teams need to report 5 hours before the tournament has begun. Our team has already reported but…”

Mizuki is looking at everyone and sighs.

“Yeah, it’s strange, Ryuga is still not back from his training.”

Mizuki says with a disappointed tone.

“He will be back.”

Jau says.

“Yeah, don’t worry. He is a man of his word. He will definitely be back.”

Clayton says.

Mizuki sighs.

“I hope so too.”

~GHOST WORLD ACADEMIA~

Somewhere at a station near the Dark Elf territory.

“HUH?!!!!! YOU MEAN TO SAY THAT IT WILL TAKE ME SIX HOURS TO REACH BACK TO MY WORLD?!!!!”

Ryuga screams at Ecio out of panic.

“Yeah…Sorry man, I forgot to wake you up early. But, I just thought that you slept late yesterday after training that hard…You know, you needed rest.”

Ecio says.

Ryuga sighs.

“I guess I will not be able to participate in the first round but that’s fine. I am sure my team can handle it.”

Ryuga grins.

A train arrives at the station,

“See ya later, Ecio.”

Ryuga rushes inside the train as he says his goodbyes to Ecio.

“See ya.”

Ecio smiles as the train leaves.

“Hiro, your boy has grown stronger. Much stronger than you were at his age.”

Ecio chuckles.

“Go show them what you are capable of, Ryuga. I will be watching you.”

~GHOST WORLD ACADEMIA~

“We are back and live again from the Revile stadium. I am reporter Ashley Freeburg as always. It seems that a bunch of school boys and girls have gathered here already to support their schools in the tournament and if you don’t know the rules of the tournament already, don’t worry, I will explain them to you.”

The reporter says.

Inside the locker room of Deadly Fields,

Ellie is drinking some kind of soft drink.

“You know, that reporter sure seems to be speaking almost as if he knows everything about this tournament.”

Ellie says.

“Of course he does, not only is he a reporter but also the host for this tournament.”

Ellie spits out her soft drink on Jau’s comment.

“EXCUSE ME?!”

Ellie questions with a shock.

Of course, Clayton was equally shocked as well.

“Oh yeah, you guys don’t know…”

Mizuki says with a nervous smile.

“Don’t know what?”

Clayton asks.

“That’s the S-Rank hero, Shadowplier.”

Jau says.

“Shadowplier…”

Ellie tries to think but she doesn’t seem to know that name.

Mizuki sighs,

“Figures, you wouldn’t know since most of the time he only uses is ability to be a reporter.”

Mizuki says.

“Meaning?”

Clayton asks.

“He has the ability to create a multiple clone of himself. I believe the max amount I have seen him create is up to 15 but there can be a possibility that he can create more than 15 clones.”

Mizuki says.

“That’s a pretty good ability if you are intelligent enough to use it.”

Clayton says.

“Yeah, I agree.”

Ellie says.

“It would be a pretty good ability if not for his clone which keeps on getting darker the more he creates it. It’s easy to distinguish who is real and who is not.”

Jau says.

“That’s a trash ability.”

Clayton says.

“Wow, what a quick turn of comments.”

Mizuki says.

“Anyways, it seems that he is explaining the rules of the tournament, so you guys better pay attention.”

Jau says.

“It doesn’t matter anyways…”

Mizuki whispers to herself.

~GHOST WORLD ACADEMIA~

Ashley Freeburg begins to explain the rules of the tournament,

“As you all know that we had about 200 schools and over 1000 teams entering the tournament. We had them duke it out in the background and out of them, 12 teams qualified. The reason only 12 teams qualified was because four teams were already pre-selected. Those four teams come from the school, which were the runner-up and winner from the previous year. This year, we have Deadly Fields and Noble Fighters from Ghost World Academy! The runner-up of the last year’s tournament.”

Ashley Freeburg shows great compassion while speaking.

“And yes normally, one would have two teams coming from that academy but the winner of the previous year Suzuki High School have decided that they will only send one team named Suzuki High Team.”

Ashley Freeburg looked quite disappointed.

“This also means that whoever their secondary team’s draw was, that team will be lucky, since they will go straight to the next round without having to fight them.”

Ashley says with a big sigh.

“I wish we had more action.”

Ashley looked sad.

“But do not worry, for that very reason, this year we have introduced the loser’s bracket!”

Ashley says with a big grin.

Inside Deadly Fields’s locker room,

“Loser’s bracket? What’s that?”

Ellie asks.

“Oh yeah, you guys don’t know about this yet since they only implemented it this very year.”

Jau says.

“I am surprised you knew about it Jau, since even a lot of higher ups did not know about it. In fact, I only came to know about it because of my mother’s documents.”

Mizuki says.

“Yeah, the old hero I worked for told me about it. Apparently, she and Shadowplier are good friends. So, she came to know about it beforehand.”

Jau says.

~GHOST WORLD ACADEMIA~

“One might ask, what does the loser’s bracket hold? Why hold a loser’s bracket? The loser’s bracket is there because sometimes you might get unlucky and lose and to prove that you are a true talent and not just some lucky bastard who got into the finals using your luck. (For that, you need to have immense amount of luck) We have chosen that whoever loses in the round of 16 will go up against the other team. For example, the loser of the first match will fight the loser of the last match of round of 16 and the loser of the second match will fight the loser of the second last match and so on.”

Ashley explains with strange gestures.

“In this way, whoever wins in the first round of loser’s bracket moves on and fights the losers of the second round, which is the round of 8.”

Ashley grins.

“And the finals will be between the team who has won all their matches in the winner’s bracket and the team who has won all their matches in the loser’s bracket. This tournament will go on for two and a half-day. Meaning today’s half day and tomorrow’s full. While the finals of the tournament will be at 00:00 sharp on the final day, 6 hours after the loser’s bracket finals.”

Ashley says with a grin.

“Now, now, those were the basic tournament structure. There are still rules that need to be explained.”

Ashley acts as if he is trying to calm someone down when no one is there.

“In total, there will be 3 rounds per matches. A team has to win two rounds to qualify. Before the start of every round, we will spin the coin to decide whether a match will be a double team match or a normal one-on-one match. Heads means that we will have a one-on-one match and tails means there is a double team match-up that will be taking place.

Rules of all the matches are simple, you have a massive ring and you need to knock your opponent off it or knock them out cold. That could also work.

If you try to kill or harm your opponent severely even when the opponent has given up or knocked cold, that round’s victory will go to your opposing team.

Placing weapons and traps before the match starts is against the rule but bringing them with you and placing them after the match starts is totally fine.

You can’t use the same teammate in the same round. You have to rotate between your team to win the battle. In case you have only 3 teammates, we every match will be a One-on-One.

Finally, if a match is going on and your teammate has not given up. Please do not interfere. Or else that will be considered as a loss of your team.

Pretty simple rules and not so hard to follow. I hope you all can enjoy this tournament and abide by the rules.

The tournament will start at 4:00 PM sharp and we already have made the draw for the matches!”

In the Deadly Field locker room,

The television suddenly shows the draws that are made for the upcoming matches.

“Of course…We had to have the hardest out of them all.”

Ellie says with a nervous smile.

“That is one tough draw…I won’t deny.”

Jau says.

“We need our OST for this battle. Without him…We can’t form any tactics to win.”

Clayton says.

“I knew this was coming but still…This battle is unwinnable…”

Mizuki whispers to herself.

MATCH NUMBER 1

Deadly Fields

(Ghost World Academy)

VS

Suzuki High

(Suzuki High School)