The black leather armor still clung stiff at the joints, red-thread outlines catching torchlight as Kai stepped into the sandpit. The arena's chants rolled down like a storm tide. He laughed once, sharp enough to carry.
"I should warn you," he said, flexing his hands, "this will hurt."
His opponent didn't posture. Just a lean man with shorn hair and a scarred jaw, a short blade steady in his grip. His voice was flat, honest.
"I used to be an assassin for the Concord. Before they threw me here."
"Noted."
The gong struck.
The man's strike was mercilessly fast. The blade punched into Kai's chest, slipping between ribs, hot blood rising. Velnix lashed outward instinctively, hurling the assassin back—but the damage was done.
"You'll bleed out in less than two minutes," the man said, voice grim. "I'm sorry."
Kai only sighed, lowering his gaze to the blade jutting from his body. Then he drew the wound into himself, red light curling and twisting. Flesh sealed over in glowing threads, leaving nothing but scarlet energy cloaking his hands. The crowd roared, drunk on spectacle.
He darted forward, aura blazing, and landed one hit. Just one.
The assassin's eyes went wide as identical wounds tore open across his chest and back. He staggered, blade falling, blood pouring onto the sand. He dropped to one knee, gasping, disbelief carved across his face.
The crowd screamed its approval, but Kai barely heard it. His chest felt hollow.
He crouched, grabbing the man's collar before he collapsed fully. The assassin's gaze was clouding already, lips shaping a curse or a prayer—Kai couldn't tell. Without thinking, he pressed both hands to the bleeding gashes.
The aura shuddered. Instead of burning outward, he forced it inward, back into broken flesh. His own chest seared as the stab wound reopened, blood trickling down his armor. He gritted his teeth, forcing the conversion to bend.
He had split the injury between the two of them. Survivable for both.
The assassin blinked. The blood slowed. Skin knitted over, shaky but holding. His breath came ragged but steadier.
The crowd went quiet. Confusion swept through them like a ripple. Healing wasn't what they'd come for.
Kai leaned close, voice low. "Surrender."
The man swallowed, still shaking. His hand rose slowly, palm open to the arena overseers.
A bell rang. The fight was called.
The crowd erupted—not with cheers, but with a storm of boos. Coins clattered, curses spat from a hundred throats. Mercy wasn't entertainment.
Kai straightened, chest still bleeding where he had split the wound with the assassin, and stared up at the screaming faces. His own healing was ragged, incomplete—but he'd made sure the other man lived. That decision carved deeper than the fight itself.
He turned his back on the noise and walked toward the gate. The assassin would live. The crowd would hate him. Both truths weighed the same.
Engraved. Burned in. Not the look of a dying man's shock this time, but the raw relief of someone spared.
The gate slammed behind him, muting the arena's thunder, though the echo still rattled in his chest. Blood dripped from his armor with every step, his wound half-sealed, half-weeping. He ignored it.
Matt was waiting in the staging hall, arms crossed. His shadow pooled unnaturally around his boots, restless with agitation. "You're insane," he muttered. "You should've let him drop. That wasn't your problem."
Kai shrugged, throat raw. "He didn't deserve to die in here."
"None of us do," Matt shot back. "That's the point."
Further down the hall, Drake was lounging against a pillar, slow-clapping with mock enthusiasm. His grin was too wide, all teeth and calculation. "Touching. Truly. The merciful stray spares his victim. Do you know how much coin you just cost me, Kai?" His voice carried the lazy threat of someone used to getting paid regardless.
Kai met his gaze, unflinching. "Then stop betting on me."
Drake chuckled, pushing off the pillar. "Oh, you'll keep fighting. You're too valuable now. But the audience doesn't pay for mercy—they pay for blood. Remember that." He jabbed a finger against Kai's chestplate where the red thread glinted. "Next time, give them what they want. Or they'll take it out on both of you."
A horn sounded from the arena—another match underway. The crowd's muffled roar seeped back through the walls, impatient, hungry.
Kai sank onto a bench, feeling the pain creeping in now that the adrenaline was fading. His aura had burned through too much blood trying to mend two bodies at once. The assassin's face kept flashing behind his eyes—not the shock of dying, but the stunned relief of living.
It should have felt like a victory. It didn't.
Matt dropped beside him, still bristling but softer now. "You know they'll twist this, right? Mercy makes you look weak here."
Kai tilted his head, staring at the floor. "Then I'll just have to win again. And again. Until they stop calling it weakness."
The words tasted hollow, but he said them anyway.
Across the room, a handler entered carrying a tray of bitter-smelling tinctures and bandages. "You'll need this," she said, barely looking at him. Her eyes darted toward the arena doors, as if worried someone would see her tending him too kindly. "They don't like it when fighters patch each other up. Makes the spectacle feel less… final."
Kai accepted the bandage, wrapping it around his chest without answering.
The noise of the arena surged again—another death, another cheer.
He tightened the bandage until his ribs ached, then whispered under his breath, "Then I'll just keep ruining their show."
Matt glanced sideways at him, a ghost of a grin tugging at his mouth. "That's more like you."