Compared to Alyssia, Tristan and Carrot, Clifford and Archie did not know how to best control their strength and always fought with most of their power.
The three of them had reached a high enough level to be able to gauge their opponents and match their strength and properly control themselves in battle but Archie and Clifford had much less control over themselves.
Those that faced them usually suffered a heavy injury outside of sparring, resulting in either broken bones or sword wounds.
It was partly because of their lack of experience but also the result of them joining Alyssia, Tristan, Carrot and Nica at a later date leaving them some distance apart in terms of skill.
Meanwhile somewhere backstage, there was a meeting between several cloaked figures as they met up in secret.
A document was passed that contained many details on the participants to the people that approached the single cloaked figure.
After looking at the information, a bag full of coins was thrown to the person who handed over the documents.
When they left, the others returned to their room together after taking some detours around to see if they had been followed or not.
They entered the room and looked over the information but the taller man had remained silent as the others began to speak among themselves.
"There are some interesting people participating this year."
"Stop looking at that group."
"Yeah! We are supposed to focus on the karate championship."
"Sorry, sorry."
"Wait.."
"There is a Fishmen among the competitors this year."
"But it is a girl, they could not be that much of a problem right?"
"You must not know then.. do not underestimate a Fishmen even if it is a woman."
"Yeah! They possess ten times the power of a normal human, they are already far ahead of us from a young age."
The tall man looked down at the documents in silence. "First we observe the results of the first round but if she shows very high strength and skill... I want one of you to sacrifice yourselves. If one fails, the next will have to try to achieve where they failed."
A sinister look appeared in his eyes as he said. "Show no mercy and use any trick up your sleeves, just stop any strong opponents from getting to the finals."
The men among the group nodded and then returned to their rooms to prepare for the next day.
In the shadows, some participants were playing dirty and trying to exploit the system and rules of the competition.
They had illegally bought the information on the participants and drew up a plan to allow their boss to enter the finals without meeting a strong opponent who could defeat him.
The most sinister part was that they were prepared to use whatever means they could to remove those in the way at the cost of being disqualified or receiving some deductions from their points scored during a match.
Using dirty methods to heavily wound or kill someone within the ring just to stop them from advancing was what they were prepared to do and some of Alyssia's crew members would be caught up in it along with the female Fishmen named Monera who Alyssia had met previously.
Much like some of Alyssia's thoughts about danger being around the corner, events began to play out in a way that put some peoples lives in danger.
A character like Monera was never shown to exist and did not fight against the New Fishmen Pirates in the future timeline which is a strange thing itself, someone with her strength would not simply sit back and leave everything to pirates and would even join the battle but since she did not appear, it could mean that she was unable to because of an injury or death.
A Star Shark Fishmen was a memorable type that would be noticed since the amount of strong shark type Fishmen or Merfolk were slightly lower compared to the other types with some rare exceptions like Hody Jones, Jinbe, Arlong, Sharley and some others.
Not only do they have stronger potential and strength if trained seriously but they also have a powerful bite and a sharp fin on their backs that is capable of cutting through tough defences.
These advantages she had made her a target.