The heavy, reinforced steel doors hissed shut behind Sora.
The moment the door closed, the roar of three hundred thousand cheering spectators was instantly severed. The blinding, artificial daylight of the arena was replaced by the dim, cool fluorescent lighting of the staging tunnel. The silence in the corridor made Sora's ears ring.
She took one step forward, the adrenaline that had been flooding her nervous system finally beginning to recede. And as the adrenaline vanished, the reality of her physical condition crashed into her.
A blinding, white-hot spike of agony erupted from her right thigh where Shila's kick had landed. Sora gasped, her vision swimming with black spots. Her leg simply refused to support her weight anymore, not after what she had done with the pole.
Her knee buckled, and she tripped forward, crashing heavily onto the cold concrete floor of the tunnel.
She grabbed her thigh, her fingers trembling as they brushed over the place.
