POV: Ryuu Takeda
Location: Red Null Combat Pit → Locker Grid
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| Match 03 — Crimson vs. Coilman & Vice
Type: Duo Bout — Unsanctioned
Aura: Suppressed (Red Null blackout field active)
No name board. No preamble. No warning.
The crowd was already murmuring when the gate clanked open—two fighters stepping into the rust-lined arena with no announcements, just intent. Coilman and Vice.
You didn't need more than that.
The moment they entered, the silence changed. Spectators leaned forward. Syndicate whisperers near the rail started flicking bet-slips. Someone upstairs wanted blood—but they wanted it calculated.
This wasn't a match.
This was a test.
They sent two. That meant someone upstairs—maybe Bone Clerks, maybe Watchers—wanted to see how long the "Crimson" would last against Two enemies.
Ryuu, already stripped to the waist, stood still in the ring center. No stance. No flare. The veins under his skin pulsed in silence like the air around him had been trained to stop breathing.
Coilman came first—tall, wrong-limbed, shoulders that rolled like they weren't attached right. His neck cracked with every step. The man moved like something rebuilt from spare parts that never quite agreed to sync.
Vice followed two steps behind. Shorter. More compact. Twin rods in his fists, reinforced at the base with pulse-sink metal. His grin was wide and violent—teeth chipped, gumlines bruised. He didn't walk—he prowled.
Vice struck first. No hesitation.
His rod came sideways, clipping Ryuu across the jaw with a bone-rattling crunch.
The crowd hissed. A few winced.
Ryuu didn't.
Pain didn't slow him anymore. It reminded him.
His footing slid back half a step. Not to retreat—just to adjust the angle.
Vice reeled in for a second strike.
Ryuu was already moving.
He caught the rod's return path with his wrist, twisted under the arc, redirected the force with a left-step shift, and let the rod swing wide. His other hand came up fast—an open-palm strike, straight to Vice's diaphragm.
The hit landed like a heartbeat breaking in reverse.
Vice folded in on himself, coughed once, and dropped to a knee with his eyes wide and unfocused—like his lungs had been convinced they didn't belong in his body anymore.
Coilman pivoted behind the mess, seeking an angle—too slow.
Ryuu turned.
The world narrowed.
No wasted motion. No inner monologue.
Just muscle, memory.
He dropped low, one foot sweeping Coilman's stance. Then he spun up—not with power, but with precision. A strike traced along the nerve line behind the man's ribs. Fast. Quiet. Specific.
Not a strike taught in any modern fighting style.
Not a technique listed in the Federation's system logs.
A strike not taught—but remembered.
Ghost Form: Severline.
A whisper of movement.
Coilman's body locked. Then crumpled backwards like someone had unplugged his spine.
The fight was over.
But Ryuu didn't move.
They think I'm trying to win.
I'm not.
He looked past the crowd. Past the ring.
To the memory of Haruki's watch strapped tight to his wrist.
To the echoes of things that wouldn't bleed — but still hurt.
I'm not here for victory.
I'm here because they took something.
And I'm going to burn everything they built to get it back.
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Dead silence from the crowd.
Not respect.
Not yet.
Just attention.
Eyes blinked. Shoulders shifted. Syndicate runners muttered into headsets.
Because this wasn't just a win.
This was a signal.
That something had arrived here not to fight—but to end things.
Crimson didn't roar. Didn't flex. Didn't ask for his name to be raised.
He just stood, breathing slow, hands lowered.
Like a man who'd broken things before…
…and knew exactly where to aim to break them again
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| Interlude — What the Crowd Says
The pit never really went quiet, not even between fights.
Just changed who was talking.
"Crimson, huh? That new one?"
"Doesn't have a sponsor. Look at his boots—those aren't pit-issue."
"Doesn't matter. You see how fast he cracked that first guy?"
"Yeah. Didn't even bother to posture. That's the scary kind."
"Probably juiced. No one moves that clean unless they're ghost-dosed."
"Nah. Juicers twitch. He didn't twitch. He just decided."
"Maybe a washed Knight kid. Or an Echo-fed dropout."
"Don't care what he is. Put a thousand on him. He's not fighting to win—he's fighting like it owes him something."
"He didn't even check the blood after that jaw hit."
"Cause he's not here for the fight, dumbass. He's here for someone."
"Like who?"
"...Doesn't matter. Whoever it was, they're already dust."
"Think he's a Named in hiding?"
"Not yet. But he's not Tier 1 either. Watch his eyes. That's not a pit-fighter. That's a bomb."
"He's gonna draw a Sigil judge if he keeps that up."
"Good. I wanna see who they throw at him next."
"I don't."
"Why not?"
"Cause this guy ain't climbing ranks."
"Then what's he doing?"
"...Burning the ladder."
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| Below the Pit — The Signal Beneath
After, as med-units scraped Coilman away, Ryuu's vision wavered.
Not pain.
Weight.
His legs buckled—not from exhaustion, but from something slipping through. Not from this pit. From before
A static pulse—not external.
Internal.
He fell to one knee. Memory flashed.
White room. Black gloves. Buzzing light.
A machine with wires—tied to a child.
A panel etched with:
`PROJECT S.U.I.T — PROTOTYPE_11`
A scream.
Kaito's voice—distant, terrified—"Ryuu, don't—!"
Then silence.
Oxygen vanished.
He gasped—awake in the pit again.
The crowd noise returned in fragments. A medic passed behind him, muttering about pulse ratios. But Ryuu didn't hear it.
Because now he remembered the machine.
Not what it did.
But that he had survived it.
And someone else hadn't.
A fracture beneath the world's skin had just shifted.
---
| Terminal Report — Match Summary
The locker HUD updated.
[CRIMSON — 3:0 — OFF-CYCLE ELIGIBLE]
`NEXT STATUS: THREAD TEST - TIER PENDING`
`RELIC TRACE: VERMILLION BIND DETECTED`
`PROTOCOL REMARK: OBSERVER INTEREST NOTED`
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Ryuu walked back to the locker grid.
He took nothing but the watch.
Didn't speak. Didn't glance at the credit packet.
He hadn't come to get paid.
He had come to remember.
And now?
Now they remembered him.
"The beast with a brother's blood shall howl beneath the iron moon."
Red Null hadn't buried Crimson.
It had given him a name. And that beast had just taken its first step.
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"Some threads don't break. They just burn in a different shape."
— Red Null Side Scripture, Line 27.B
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