The people who were gawking at him gawk a little bit more at this display of sorcery. Kaede merely smirks.

In the centre of the stadium there is a floating sphere of water, looking pretty much like water inside a spherical bulb would look, minus bulb.

Pretty. Theo is curious about if the water is magical or not – if it's even got pyreflies, which non-training water might not – but will refrain from trying to alter it to check.

The water will consequently remain unchanged.

On two sides of the sphere there are triangular goals, and floating lights indicate position and various other details. The teams step into the sphere from raised platforms behind their goals, and swim in formation, six members to a team. Playing the Aurochs are the Luca Goers, the same ones Theo had the pleasure to meet in Kilika.

Theo takes in the scene.

Tidus swims towards the other team's Captain, who offers his hand to be shaken and then pulls it away at the last second and apparently silently taunts him. Tidus makes angry gestures and swims back to his position.

Wow, dick move.

Theo can't really do anything about it from his current position, like by telling the captain that it was a dick move, though

The game begins.

There is a lot of tackling and some using magic and a ton of swimming.

With the exception of Tidus himself, the Luca Goers seem to be very obviously the superior players.

Oh well.

Woo Tidus!

Two minutes into the game, Tidus scores a goal, and the audience goes wild. The commentators are very surprised.

Woo Tidus!

Blitzball looks like fun. Theo's having an interesting time watching it. Would probably enjoy actually playing it more, though.

Four minutes in, the Goers score.

A further minute in, and it's half time.

… Really?

"Blitzball games only last ten minutes," Kaede explains. "It's how the whole tournament can happen in an afternoon."

"I mean, I guess that makes sense, but I expected more like at least a half hour and maybe just not many teams." He shrugs. "Ten minutes is really short."

"Yeah, it is," he shrugs. "To be honest it's like sixty percent of the reason why I even tolerate this game," he confides.

"I mean, I don't think I'd want to become a spectator long-term – I'm pretty sure I'd prefer actually playing – but I didn't think it'd be too bad to watch a single match of 'presumably less than three hours'." Shrug. "If it's ten minutes that just means I maybe watch a few others and then try learning to play if I ever get some downtime."

"Yeah, but this is the final match of the tournament, so."

"Oh," says Theo. "I would've expected more matches than this."

"There are only six teams: Aurochs, Psyches, Goers, Beasts, Fangs, and Glories."

"… I would have naively expected more teams than that."

"...we don't have a very many people."

"Yeah. When I say 'naively' I mean I was being silly and not thinking it through."

"Yeah."

"There are quite a lot of people in the other mortal world. Or other bit of it, or however this is related to it." Shrug. "Quite a few daeva too."

"Yeah. Maybe we'll have lots of people, too, when we no longer have a giant monster."