The arena knew his name before he walked out.
That was the difference between Fight 5 and everything that had come before it. The previous fighters had been received—cheered for, acknowledged, given the home crowd's warmth or the visiting sections' territorial noise. But what built in the Aurelius sections as the arena crew finished resetting the floor for the fifth time was something with more specific shape to it. Not general support. Anticipation organized around a particular name, around a particular fighter, around the stories that had been circulating through the stands since the bracket was revealed and Jelo of Aurelius had appeared in Fight 5.
The people who had been here all day had watched four fights.
