Chapter 199: Sherlock’s disappointment

Jelo and Ken had always known this moment would come. Even without saying it out loud, they both wanted to settle it—to finally know who was stronger.

Ken already suspected the truth. Deep down, he knew Jelo was probably stronger than him. But for some reason, he still believed he had a chance. Maybe not to win—but at least to stand his ground, to push Jelo to his limits, maybe even force a draw.

Now, there was no more doubt.

Jelo was stronger.

A simple conclusion. Clear. Undeniable. No need to overthink it.

Everything was in Jelo’s favor—his skill, his potential, his system. Every exchange had made that clearer. Every second Ken had spent trying to close the gap, Jelo had simply widened it again, not with arrogance, not with effort that showed—but with a kind of quiet inevitability, like water finding its way through stone. He hadn’t crushed Ken. He had simply outpaced him at every turn, answered every move before it finished forming, made the whole thing look less like a fight and more like a demonstration.

He was on a completely different level.

Ken lowered his head, disappointment weighing heavily on him. He hadn’t truly expected victory, but he had believed in himself enough to think he could keep up. To lose this decisively… it stung. Not the sharp, clean sting of a wound taken in the heat of the moment—but the duller kind, the kind that settled in the chest and stayed there. He pressed his fist against his side, not from pain, but because he needed something to hold onto.

He had trained. He had worked. He had prepared in every way he knew how.

And it hadn’t been enough.

Not even close.

His jaw tightened. He stared at the ground for a moment, at the scuffed surface beneath his feet, and let the feeling sit. He didn’t push it away. There was no point. Denying it would only make it worse.

Still, this wasn’t the end.

He would just have to train harder. Become stronger. He didn’t know yet what that looked like—what it would take to reach the place Jelo already occupied—but that uncertainty didn’t frighten him. If anything, it steadied him. He had a direction now. A real one, not an assumption or a hope. He had seen the gap with his own eyes, and that meant he knew exactly how far he had to go.

That was something.

From the sidelines, Sherlock watched in silence, equally disappointed. He hadn’t expected this outcome—not at all. In fact, he had been confident that all his students would defeat Tongen’s. Not out of arrogance. His students were good. Tested, experienced, built through years of structured training and real pressure. Against a group this young, with this little time under their belts—he had thought it would be closer to a lesson than a competition.

But reality didn’t always match expectations.

You win some, you lose some, he reminded himself. It was a phrase he had used before, usually to steady others. It felt different when he had to apply it to himself.

His gaze shifted back to Jelo, narrowing slightly.

The boy hadn’t celebrated. Hadn’t looked to his teammates. He had simply finished, and now he stood apart from the others, expression settled, breathing measured, like the fight had cost him almost nothing. Like his body had already moved on even if the moment hadn’t.

Who is this kid?

No… that wasn’t the right question.

What is he?

Sherlock had seen talented fighters before. He had trained them, evaluated them, watched them develop across years of careful work. He understood the difference between a student with good instincts and one with something deeper—a kind of ability that didn’t come from repetition alone, that couldn’t be fully explained by hours logged or techniques drilled. It was rare. In his career, he had encountered it maybe three or four times.

He was looking at it now.

For someone so young to fight like that—to possess such ability, such control—it wasn’t normal. And the most unsettling part was that Jelo didn’t even seem fully refined yet. There were edges to his movement that hadn’t been smoothed, moments where raw instinct overtook technique and still somehow worked, angles that suggested a style still being discovered rather than one already mastered.

And yet the results spoke for themselves.

The potential he carried was enormous. Not the kind of potential people said about students they wanted to encourage. The kind that made you pause mid-thought. The kind that made a man like Sherlock, with decades of experience behind him, quietly recalculate everything he thought he understood about the ceiling of what a person this age could become.

This wasn’t something he could ignore.

Tongen is hiding something, he thought. Something big.

It wasn’t accusation exactly—more like recognition. Tongen had never been the type to boast. He kept his own counsel, moved quietly, said less than he knew. Sherlock had always respected that about him, even when it was frustrating. But this was different. This wasn’t modesty. You didn’t field a student like this without knowing exactly what you had. You didn’t stand calmly on the sideline watching him dismantle your colleague’s roster without understanding the full weight of what you were watching.

Tongen knew. He had always known.

Suddenly, Sherlock snapped out of his thoughts and stepped forward. There was no use dwelling on it now. Answers, if they came at all, would come later. For the moment, there was still a match to oversee.

“Jelo wins this round,” he announced, his voice carrying the same authority it always did, steady and practiced, revealing nothing of what had moved behind his eyes just seconds before. “Now, for the final round.”

Atlas and Elon stepped forward.

Atlas was determined. After seeing Jelo’s victory, he didn’t want the momentum to end. He wanted to keep the winning streak alive—to prove that he had grown, that he had improved, even if he wasn’t the strongest among them. There was something energizing about watching Jelo perform like that, something that made his own blood run a little faster, made his hands feel steadier. He had trained alongside Jelo. He knew what that looked like up close. And something about seeing it validated out here, in front of everyone, made him want to meet that standard—not match it, not yet, but honor it.

He stepped forward with resolve.

Elon followed, his expression completely blank. No emotion. No hesitation. He didn’t roll his shoulders or shift his weight or do any of the small unconscious things people did when nerves were present. He simply arrived at his position and stopped, as though he had been placed there.

He stared at Atlas for a moment, as if studying him—not the way an opponent sizes up a threat, but the way someone reads a problem before beginning to solve it. Patient. Methodical. Analytical in a way that had nothing performative about it.

Then—

“Begin!” Sherlock shouted.​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​

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