Boros Kael's voice cut through the after-roar like a blade. "Those that remain," he said, slow and bored, "have made it this far. You stand among the top fifty. Make no mistake — this stage decides who gets a chance at Libra Academy. Lose in the rounds to come and you will be admitted; lose earlier and you go home. Fight well."
The words landed heavier than I expected. Top fifty. Libra Academy. I had thought about it in the back of my head, but hearing it confirmed by Boros — that cold, unimpressed man — made the goal feel suddenly close and fragile, like a blade balanced on edge.
I stayed by the bend, letting the world spin a little as medics tended to Raizen and the crowd churned around fresh gossip and hot takes. My chest still thrummed from the cheetah fight; my blue aura had only barely cooled. I was thinking about nothing in particular when the announcer barked my next match.
"Number Forty-Seven versus Number Nineteen!"
A beat of confusion rippled through me — Nineteen? I had seen that number before, but my mind was on the next face stepping into the ring. A stocky boy appeared, bigger than most sixteen- or seventeen-year-olds I'd seen that day. Brown hair, brown eyes, ordinary at a glance — nothing elegant, nothing flashy. He walked like someone who'd been taught to smash with discipline.
I stepped forward toward him; he stepped forward toward me. We met in the center and sized each other up, the referee's shadow falling over our heads. Before the whistle, on a whim, I lifted my gaze and let Heavenly Eyes sweep him once — a flick of instinct I'd used before. Beast type: Wild Hog. Muscular, stubborn, direct. Interesting.
The referee called the start.
He surged forward with surprising speed. Not like Raizen sudden vanish-and-strike, more blunt and relentless. His fists came at me like hammers — each one meant to crush bone and breath out of you. I danced away, letting the momentum carry the blows into empty space. His power was destructive, but predictable. I could read the arc of his shoulder, the weight shift before the punch.
Then he did something I hadn't expected.
He tapped a watch at his wrist. His right forearm blurred, and metal slid and clacked into place — an arm transformed into a cold, mechanical maw. The barrel at his wrist glowed. He laughed, high and ugly, and fired.
At first I thought it was a gimmick. Then the beam struck a pillar with the force of a battering ram. The crowd hissed as dust and stone exploded outward.
"Amitrono 3000," someone near me muttered. "Costs like… 465,000 B. Must be filthy rich to afford that."
He kept firing, ridiculous speed and accuracy. Each beam traced a deadly line where the gaps were closing. The thing about projectiles is that you either outrun them or you don't — and he was pushing them closer each time I dodged. The arena that had been a chessboard now looked like the inside of a furnace.
I felt the pressure building: a dozen blasts, each one shaving the space between us. If I stayed at range, he'd eventually angle a shot I couldn't avoid. If I closed recklessly, the cannon would vaporize whatever edge I had left from yesterday's grind.
Decision made itself for me. I gathered my breath, and then I moved.
[Dash] Activated.
The world compressed. In a blink I covered the distance between us — a motion so fast it felt like falling and catching myself in the same heartbeat. He grinned, then as my shoulder connected with his arm. I grabbed the mechanical muzzle, fingers locking on hot metal, and then carried him up.
And slammed him to the ground. The impact cracked the plaza beneath us; grit sprayed into the air. Pain arced down his arm as the cannon flared, a sputter that left a blackened ring around the barrel. He howled, twisting free and scrambling up, the gun arm smoking and singed.
He fumbled to raise the cannon again. Desperation had replaced his confident grin.
I didn't give him room. I grabbed a loose chunk of broken pillar — a lump of stone the size of a man's head — and slammed it into the muzzle just as the weapon coughed its next blast. The result was a concussive backblast that threw both of us apart and left the arm mangled and half-burned.
Smoke curled up from the ruined cannon. He slid to his knees, clutching the stump where the mechanism had been. The medical team burst into the ring, dragging him away as he groaned and cursed, face contorted in pain and disbelief.
The referee moved forward, crunching gravel under his boots. He checked the wreckage, watched the boy slump, then raised his hand. "Winner: Number Forty-Seven."
People shouted. Some cheered; others murmured about the arm cannon, the rich kid with expensive toys—whatever the story, it ended with me standing and still breathing.
I retreated to the bench to sit, sliding my back against the cold wood. My body hummed with a dozen tensions: the dash, the impact, the heat of metal against my palms. The medics waved to me, gave the okay-sign after checking my vitals. I nodded. I'd fought three matches and taken them down; at least today my body felt honest about the cost.
As the crowd settled, a hush spread through the arena like a winter tide. Someone on the loudspeaker announced results from the preliminaries — and then the announcer's voice came again, slower this time: "By the end of today's rounds… only two participants remain."
My stomach dropped into my feet.
Two?
I rose to my feet, crowd noise blurring into one low roar. I scanned the ring. Then I saw him — Denji, standing off to the side, his presence quiet and lethal like a held storm. He had forced the other students to forfeit or been paired with opponents who folded before the bell. People had been avoiding him; no one wanted to face an S-rank. That left him standing while others fell away.
A cold, thin line of fear trickled down my spine, not the shaking, coward kind — something sharper, an honest recognition. This was the summit. He was the mountain.
Everyone else's faces were a wash of disbelief, thrill, and a bit of pity. I heard snatches of conversation:
"Are they serious? Renji versus Denji for the final—today?"
"Why would anyone stand Denji? He's S-rank…"
"I don't envy him."
My heartbeat steadied, not from fear but from a rising, hot clarity. I had wanted this. I'd wanted to know limits. The arena had given me chances and answers, and now it handed me the only question that mattered: how far could I go?
I walked toward the ring while the crowd's noise swelled around me. Each step felt heavier and cleaner than the last. If I fell to Denji tomorrow, I would have done everything I could to stand tall. If I rose — well, that would be a story nobody here would forget.
For the first time that day, under the arena sun and the weight of a thousand gazes, I felt truly alive as I entered the arena to face an S rank .