The following morning, Squad 4 did something that surprised almost everyone who expected them to begin an intense training regimen.
They rested.
No twelve-hour sparring sessions.
No exhausting ability drills.
No attempts to suddenly force themselves into a higher rank.
No reckless experiments.
For the first two days, George practically refused to let anyone train seriously.
"Recovery is preparation," he reminded them.
Alucard wasn't particularly happy about it.
"This is boring."
"You'll survive."
"I could be getting stronger."
"You could also be walking into the tournament exhausted."
Alucard grumbled something under his breath before dropping back into his chair.
Nathaniel agreed with George.
There was little reason to burn themselves out when they already had a week.
Their bodies needed to be fresh.
Their minds needed to be clear.
And more importantly, they needed information.
The six members of Squad 4 divided their time between rest and intelligence gathering.
Nathaniel spent hours going through every public record available on the five squads they already knew.
Combat footage.
Mission reports.
Tournament records.
Augment classifications.
Equipment registrations.
Public interviews.
Even old incidents that seemed irrelevant.
Anything that might reveal how someone behaved under pressure.
He wasn't looking for the strongest attack.
He was looking for habits.
People repeated themselves when stressed.
They favored familiar movements.
They protected certain teammates.
They hesitated when certain abilities were threatened.
Those details mattered more than raw numbers.
George focused on the squad structures.
He studied how different teams communicated and how their leaders responded when their formations broke down.
Ria helped identify noble families and combat traditions.
Several of the known squads contained members from prominent houses, and she could recognize certain equipment designs and inherited augment patterns that Nathaniel wouldn't have known.
Shirou spent most of his time quietly observing the tournament information and studying the environments expected to be used.
Urban sectors.
Open fields.
Industrial structures.
Ura-saturated areas.
She wasn't trying to develop some new technique overnight.
she was learning how her gravity could interact with different terrain.
Oliver was the hardest one to keep track of.
Mostly because he wasn't always in the room.
His information gathering happened through shadows.
He watched.
Listened.
Moved.
Returned.
Then disappeared again.
The five unknown squads gradually stopped being completely unknown.
Not because Oliver had uncovered everything.
He hadn't.
But small pieces began appearing.
A preferred weapon.
A strange formation.
A member who never seemed to speak.
Another who constantly stayed near their leader.
A squad that apparently favored speed.
Another that appeared to rely heavily on defensive positioning.
None of it was enough to build a complete profile.
But it was enough to start asking questions.
That was exactly what Nathaniel wanted.
They weren't trying to know everything before the tournament.
They were trying to know enough to recognize what they were seeing.
Nathaniel himself was surprisingly inactive.
He spent a considerable amount of time simply sleeping.
George noticed.
"You've been asleep for almost ten hours."
Nathaniel opened one eye.
"Correct."
"You usually don't sleep that long."
"I'm preparing."
"For what?"
"Doing nothing."
George stared at him.
Nathaniel closed his eye again.
"My body isn't going to complain about having a week to recover."
George shook his head and left.
Nathaniel smiled faintly.
The truth was that he had another reason for taking the week seriously.
Energen.
He had already decided how he intended to approach the tournament.
He wasn't going to walk in with his entire arsenal available.
That would defeat the purpose.
Instead, he would specialize.
Kinetic Muscle.
Authority.
Everything else could wait.
The decision meant sacrificing access to abilities that might otherwise save him in an emergency.
But that was precisely why he was making the choice now.
A tournament wasn't a battlefield where he could reveal everything and expect nobody to notice.
Every ability shown would become information.
Every technique would become a countermeasure waiting to be developed.
Two abilities were easier to hide than twelve.
So Nathaniel rested.
He ate.
He slept.
He reviewed information.
And when he trained, it was controlled and brief.
No dramatic breakthroughs.
No reckless escalation.
Just maintenance.
By the fourth day, the atmosphere around Squad 4 had changed.
They weren't nervous.
They were simply becoming familiar with the unknown.
George had assembled tactical notes.
Ria had created a list of recognizable noble techniques.
Shirou had mapped likely environmental advantages.
Oliver had accumulated fragments of information that nobody else could have obtained.
Alucard had complained about resting approximately thirty-seven times.
Nathaniel had documented all of it.
"Thirty-eight," Alucard corrected.
Nathaniel looked up from his tablet.
"What?"
"You missed one."
Oliver laughed from somewhere inside the wall.
George rubbed his forehead.
"This is going to be a long week."
A shadow opened beside the table.
Oliver stepped out.
"I found something."
Everyone's attention shifted toward him.
Nathaniel put down the tablet.
"Which squad?"
"One of the unknown ones."
Oliver placed a photograph on the table.
"We've got a better look at their formation."
George leaned closer.
"How much?"
"Enough to know their support member isn't actually their support member."
Ria's eyes narrowed.
"Explain."
Oliver smiled.
"They've been deliberately making the wrong person look important."
Nathaniel looked at the photograph.
Then he smiled.
"Good."
George looked at him.
"Good?"
Nathaniel nodded.
"It means they're doing exactly what we are."
The room became quiet.
Everyone understood.
The tournament wasn't going to be a simple contest of power.
Everyone was hiding something.
Everyone was watching someone else.
And everyone would be trying to figure out who was lying.
Nathaniel leaned back.
"Keep watching."
Oliver nodded.
"No problem."
He sank into his own shadow.
The room returned to silence.
For the next three days, Squad 4 would continue exactly as they had.
Rest.
Research.
Observe.
Recover.
Nothing flashy.
Nothing reckless.
Nothing that would give the other squads a reason to pay attention to them before the tournament even began.
Because when the gates finally opened, Squad 4 wanted to enter the arena at full strength.
And they wanted everyone else to think they had already seen everything they could do.
They hadn't.