The arena had not recovered from the last fight.
Steam still hissed from cracks the builder-bots hadn't finished sealing. Entire corners of the stone plate trembled under their own weight. The barrier shimmered in and out like a heartbeat trying to regulate itself after several near-fatal shocks.
Spectators were perched forward, gripping their seats—not with excitement, but with the tense, shared recognition that the tournament had crossed into a new realm. Something about the air felt thinner. Heavy at the edges. The roar of thousands had become a nervous hum.
Even Jimmy, who had screamed his throat raw two rounds ago, spoke quieter than usual.
"Uh… hey folks. If any of you need a moment to breathe, hydrate, scream, or cry into your popcorn… too bad, because it looks like the system's already calling the next match."
Julian didn't look up from his screen. "If the arena floor collapses entirely, consider this my formal resignation."
"Don't resign! We need you if the computers explode again!"
"I said if the floor collapses. The computers exploding is… manageable."
Jimmy's left eye twitched. "Julian, man, you gotta stop saying things like that in that calm voice."
Swift wasn't listening. He was gripping the rail so hard his knuckles had gone white.
Down beside him, Jake fidgeted, tapping his foot at three different speeds, none of them synchronized.
Danny stood in front of both of them.
He wasn't glowing. His aura wasn't rising. He wasn't showing any of the telltale signs of preparing for a match.
But something in him felt… wrong.
Not broken.
Not unstable.
Contained.
Like he was swallowing a storm.
The arena recognized it. The stone under him hummed faintly, tiny vibrations skittering through the old scars left by Wolf King's battle.
The announcement rang out.
"Next match: DANNY of the Golden Lineage versus GRAVEMIND ORATOR."
The crowd murmured uncertainly—half expecting Gravemind to be some horrifying fungus-beast, half expecting it to melt, explode, or dissolve like every other strange thing in this tournament.
Danny stepped forward.
Jake blurted, "Dude—are you sure you're okay? You're doing the quiet thing. Like, the extra-quiet thing."
Danny placed one hand lightly on the rail. "I'll handle it," he said.
He wasn't lying.
Swift felt a chill anyway.
The lift platform hissed as it lowered Danny to the arena floor. Steam curled from the still-hot stone beneath their feet.
Danny walked toward the center.
Each step seemed to deepen the cracks the builder-bots hadn't yet sealed.
The opposite gate creaked open.
The Gravemind Orator crawled out in a mass of twisting vines and interconnected fungal mouths. Mushrooms pulsed along its shoulders like diseased lanterns. Spores drifted as it shuffled forward, its posture jerky and sagging, like a puppet with too many strings.
But there was something wrong with the way it moved.
Too balanced.
Too conscious.
Too… intentional.
Danny stared.
The Gravemind's mouths all curled into unsettling smiles.
Then Danny said, quietly:
"Take off the disguise."
The arena fell into perfect silence.
The Gravemind froze mid-step.
Its heads tilted.
All its mouths grinned wider.
Then the whole thing ruptured.
Fungal skin peeled away. Straw poured out like confetti. Vines shriveled to ash. Mushrooms deflated. What remained beneath the discarded biological costume was tall, thin, and all too familiar.
A man in a battered brown coat.
Straw hat tilted low.
Face resting in that lopsided half-smirk that always seemed one breath away from a threat.
"Evening, lad," Sedge Hat said.
The arena detonated.
"SEDGE HAT?!"
"BUT HE WAS ELIMINATED!"
"HE FAKED IT?! HE FAKED IT?!"
"WHY DOES THIS KEEP HAPPENING!"
Jimmy nearly toppled over the announcer's table. "JULIAN—JULIAN, EXPLAIN. EXPLAIN THIS. EXPLAIN IT TO ME."
Julian tapped his console once, baffled. "Chi clone. My scans detected a duplicate early in the tournament. He must have sacrificed the wrong one on purpose."
"So he's been a literal mushroom man for three rounds?!"
"Apparently."
Up in the fighters' section, Shadeclaw licked a fang. "The straw fox hides deep."
Wolf Queen's tail flicked in delight. "How delicious."
Wolf King leaned forward, gaze sharpening in predatory recognition.
Jake clutched his head. "IT'S ALWAYS THE OLD MEN WITH HATS! EVERY TIME!"
But Swift wasn't yelling.
He was watching Danny.
Danny didn't gasp. Didn't flinch. Didn't even look surprised.
He looked like someone who had been waiting for this moment.
Sedge Hat strolled closer, thumbs hooked casually into his belt.
"Now then," he said, voice smooth, "you've grown. Taller. Sharper around the eyes. I like it."
"What do you want?" Danny asked quietly.
"Same thing I've always wanted." Sedge gave him a little shrug. "To see how far you've come."
Danny's jaw tightened. "You never stopped following me."
"Oh aye. Long time now. Years. Maybe more." His grin widened, and something ancient flickered in his expression. "Thought you'd have figured it out earlier, if I'm honest."
Danny's voice barely moved the air. "Why?"
Sedge Hat's grin didn't fade.
Instead, it softened.
"You need to understand it," he said. "And you need to hear it from me."
Danny's breath hitched—not enough to be visible, but enough for someone watching closely to feel.
Sedge Hat spread his arms as if presenting something grand.
"I killed your family."
The world stopped.
Not metaphorically.
The air felt still. The dust in the cracks seemed to hang motionless. Even the shimmering lights of the barrier paused in place.
Danny didn't breathe.
Neither did Swift.
Neither did the arena.
Sedge Hat continued, unhurried.
"Your nest. Your golden kin. The proud dragons who thought they could hide you away from the world. Burned. Silenced. Cleared off the board before you could ruin the balance."
Danny's hands curled.
A hairline crack split the ground beneath him.
But Sedge Hat wasn't finished.
His voice grew quieter, almost thoughtful.
"And then," he said, "came the others."
Danny's heart clenched.
Swift tensed. "Others?"
Jake froze. "Uh—others others?"
Sedge nodded, tapping his temple as if flipping through memories.
"The fishing village on the coast," he said. "Where a kind woman stirred soup and called you her boy. You vanished at sea for a day. When you returned—well. You know."
Danny's breath stuttered.
Sedge Hat lifted a second finger.
"The mountain temple. A quiet place. Monks who took you in, taught you to meditate. You went out to fetch water. Came back to wind where voices used to be."
Danny's aura flickered, faintly gold.
Sedge Hat lifted a third finger.
"The old couple in that tiny apartment. Sweet folks. Bought you a coat in winter. You worked nights to help them. Came home one day to an empty street."
Danny's pulse thundered in his ears.
Images flooded him—
Faces smiling at him, calling him family.
Homes that smelled like warmth.
Hands that held his.
Doors that opened when he came back—
Until they didn't.
He remembered returning to places that had been safe and finding nothing but silence. He remembered thinking: Maybe I brought this with me.
Maybe the universe doesn't want me to belong.
Sedge Hat lowered his hand.
"And many more."
Danny's entire body trembled.
"Why?" he whispered.
Sedge Hat shrugged gently.
"Because dragons of creation don't get to live small, lad. You can't hide from what you are. Too much creation without destruction? The world gets crowded. Stagnant. Somebody has to prune the cycle."
His smile turned soft and cruel.
"And every time you tried to start fresh, to settle, to belong—"
He tapped the brim of his hat.
"There I was."
The crack under Danny's feet glowed.
A faint gold at first.
Then brighter.
More.
More—
Swift felt the shift like a punch to the chest. "Danny—"
Danny wasn't hearing anything.
The air around him vibrated. The stone under him began to fracture outward in a circle.
Julian's monitor blared multiple warnings. "Chi levels rising—no, surging—he's breaching safe thresholds!"
Jimmy pressed his face to the glass. "OH NO. OH BAD. OH VERY VERY BAD."
Danny lifted his head.
His eyes were molten gold.
"You killed them," he whispered. "All of them."
Sedge Hat tilted his head. "That's right."
Danny's aura erupted.
Golden fire exploded outward—not flame, but creation energy so dense and bright that the arena lighting dimmed in comparison. The barrier flickered violently, struggling to filter the radiant force.
Danny vanished.
He reappeared in front of Sedge Hat, fist already colliding with his chest.
Sedge Hat flew backward—slammed through a stone pillar and cratered into the far wall. Dust exploded outward.
Before it settled, Danny was already there, hand closing around Sedge's throat, dragging him up, and hurling him through the air again.
"YOU TOOK THEM FROM ME!"
The roar shook dust loose from the rafters.
Every punch Danny delivered cratered stone. Every step melted the floor beneath him. The arena could barely tolerate his presence, screaming under the pressure of golden fissures racing across its foundation.
Sedge Hat dodged once, twice—his body splitting into illusions, hats scattered like afterimages—but Danny tore through them.
When Danny hit him again—Sedge's coat ripped, and he hit the ground with a sickening thud.
He rolled to avoid a burst of golden energy that turned a fifteen-foot section of stone into molten slag.
He laughed, breathless and pained. "Good—good, lad. That's the truth in you. Creation with no limit."
Danny didn't answer.
He was already on him, golden energy blasting from his fists.
Sedge ducked, weaved, twisted—but Danny's rage was faster.
He hammered Sedge into the arena floor.
Into the wall.
Into the air.
With every blow, Danny's voice broke more.
"EVERY TIME I TRIED TO LIVE—YOU TOOK IT!"
"EVERY TIME I TRIED TO BELONG—YOU DESTROYED IT!"
"EVERY TIME I FOUND A FAMILY—YOU KILLED THEM!"
Golden energy flared so violently the crowd shielded their faces.
Jake sobbed into his hands. "He never told us… he never told us any of this…"
Swift's heart shattered.
Danny wasn't a boy who didn't know his heritage.
He was a boy who had tried again and again to build a life out of the pieces left behind—and had those pieces ripped from him every time.
Danny hoisted Sedge Hat by the collar and slammed him into the central pillar hard enough that the entire structure shifted.
Cracks raced through the arena like lightning.
Sedge coughed, blood on his lips.
"You're holding back…" he wheezed.
Danny's hands trembled.
"I want to kill you," he whispered. "I want to end you. I want to break everything the way you broke me."
Sedge smiled through blood. "Then do it."
Danny's fist drew back.
Golden light built.
But—
He hesitated.
Just a breath.
Just enough.
Because killing Sedge Hat wouldn't bring anyone back.
Because killing Sedge Hat would make him exactly the thing Sedge had been sculpting him into.
Because Danny was not destruction.
He was creation forced to answer violence.
His fist shook harder.
Sedge Hat watched, studying him, absorbing every nuance of restraint.
Then he exhaled and tapped the brim of his hat.
A dimensional tear opened under him—layers of folded space spiraling downward like a drain.
Danny lunged—
Too late.
Sedge Hat sank into the void, battered and bleeding.
"Not running," he said softly. "Just… waiting. Next cycle, lad."
The tear closed.
Danny's fist hit the stone.
The arena nearly died.
Golden force erupted outward in a radial blast—splintering the floor, fracturing pillars, sending a shockwave that slammed into the barrier with a deafening crack. The entire coliseum rocked.
When the light faded, Danny knelt in the center of a crater, breathing hard, hands shaking.
His golden aura flickered, sputtering like a dying star.
Swift and Jake ran to him.
"Danny—Danny!"
Danny didn't look at them for a long moment.
When he did, his eyes were dim gold, full of grief too deep for words.
"He killed them," Danny whispered. "Every family I tried to make. Every home I tried to keep. Every time I tried—he was there."
He dug his fingers into the broken stone.
"He didn't just kill my past. He killed my future."
Swift knelt, placing a steady hand on his shoulder. "Not anymore."
Jake nodded, wiping his nose with his sleeve. "Yeah. You have us now. No hats allowed."
Danny closed his eyes.
Just for a moment.
Up in the stands, Wolf King watched with something dangerous in his gaze.
Not contempt.
Recognition.
A predator acknowledging another power learning to wake.
Shadeclaw's grin had faded. "He will change," he murmured.
Wolf Queen smiled slowly. "Oh… yes."
Danny rose shakily to his feet, supported on both sides by the only two people the universe had not yet taken from him.
As they guided him away from the scorched arena floor, Danny whispered one last thing—more to himself than to anyone else:
"This isn't over."
And deep in the void where Sedge Hat had vanished—
something old laughed.