Day Five: Afternoon

[Reijin]

"For someone that can control fire, its a bit lame that you managed to burn yourself."

Bra was standing near the Gaean trained Saiyan as he was holding his arm under a rushing stream. Using his other arm, he splashed water back at her in response. "That fight was not really worth the trouble. Not that it was any trouble, but I didn't even get any satisfaction from it."

Kicking a rock into the water from boredom, the heiress shrugged. "You are the one that pulled me away from the damn fight. I'm not the one that chickened out."

Reijin looked up at her and shook his head. "That is not at all what we did. We didn't retreat; we strategically withdrew."

She looked at him through icy blue eyes and smirked. "Is that what you prefer to call it?"

He rose to his feet and shook the water from his arm, using some of the bandages they'd attained to begin wrapping around his burn. He knew they weren't medically strong enough to heal the wounds, but at the least they could prevent further infection and stop bleeding. "I figured out during the fight that we killed that Changelings father. I think that was Koola, for that matter, although Changelings tend to look the same. I've fought with him before on both sides, and he's a very capable fighter."

"So you decided to run," she dripped sourly.

"No!" he snapped, growing impatient. "Let's put it this way," he decided, knowing this was likely to piss her off. "Put yourself in that fight. You already know your father was killed. Now what would have happened if you were actually there while the fight that caused his death was going on?"

Throwing him a glare, she clenched her fists. "I'd have let nothing prevent me from skinning them alive," she announced, her eyes flashing angrily.

Nodding, he pulled his gloves back onto his hands, adjusting the spiked knuckles till they were in place. He leaned down to grab his gun before responding. "Yes, exactly. So you see my point? In his anger, he'd not have thought a thing for his own safety. He'd have completely given up the struggle to win this event and in a state of beserker rage he'd have given his life to see ours end. Now this is ok, when you are going to die regardless. But when you have a goal in mind and not just a slight chance, but a damn good chance, at living, then you take a step back and think things through." He slid the gun into his belt.

"So we now let him stay pissed off and hunting us, and hope he doesn't find us."

"No, we now lure him into a trap if he decides to follow us. That was a fight we would have won, no doubt. But given that he cared nothing for his safety at that point, we'd have sustained far more damaging injuries in his attempt to take us down with him. Which means that someone else down the road will have an easier time taking us out."

"I guess," she finally sighed. "I don't tend to get so overly complicated on thinking things through," she admitted. "But that doesn't stop me from kicking their asses on a daily basis."

Acknowledging this, he approached her. "Yeah, I know. But that's why we are going to win. We are a great team. I don't see anyone standing in our way at this point, if we keep our heads strong enough. The two of us will straight out dismantle any of the other competition. Especially given the lack of injuries we've attained. I'm sure that unless people have been crouching in small holes the entire tournament that they are in a lot worse condition."

"How do you know?" she questioned. "Just taking a guess?"

He rolled his eyes. "Mostly. But you can't deny that we've both been bitching about the lack of fights on our ends the entire tournament. And listening to the list of the dead every morning tells me that out of those left, a large majority of them have had to have been involved heavily with the fighting."

She seemed to not really be listening to him at the moment, and was more focused on something inside of her head. "I understand," she said after a moment, though she didn't seem to be responding to her.

Just what was going on inside of the girl's head, Reijin had no idea. But he had to wonder.