Blood filled my mouth like copper pennies, the metallic taste overwhelming as I lay broken on the cold concrete. Each breath felt like someone was driving rusty nails through my chest, and the flickering streetlight above cast dancing shadows that made the whole scene look like something out of a nightmare. The kind of nightmare you wake up from sweating, except this was real, and there was no waking up from what was happening.
"Look at the great boxing analyst now," Daichi Sasaki's voice cut through the ringing in my ears, dripping with the same arrogance that had made my high school years hell. Except now he had professional credentials to back up his cruelty—a regional championship belt that hung over his shoulder like a badge of authority. "Where's all that technical knowledge when you actually need it, Kai?"
I tried to form words, tried to tell him exactly what I thought of him and his pathetic excuse for a boxing career, but all that came out was a wet, gurgling cough that splattered more blood across the pavement. My body had given up the fight even though my mind refused to surrender. Ten years. Ten fucking years since we'd graduated from high school, and this piece of shit was still making my life a living hell.
I should have seen this coming the moment I decided to expose what he was doing to those amateur fighters at his gym. Daichi Sasaki, rising professional boxer, using his growing reputation to systematically break down young fighters who looked up to him. Kids who came to train with dreams of making something of themselves, only to become psychological punching bags for a sadist with a boxing license.
When I'd gathered the evidence—photos of bruised teenagers, recorded testimonies from kids too scared to speak up officially, documentation of training "accidents" that happened with suspicious frequency—I thought I was doing the right thing. I thought the boxing commission would care that one of their licensed professionals was abusing his position.
Instead, I'd signed my own death warrant. And worse, I'd signed Yuki's.
"Please..." The voice was barely a whisper, broken and desperate. It took me a moment to realize it was coming from Yuki, my beautiful fiancée who knelt just a few meters away. Her white engagement dress—the one she'd looked so radiant in just hours earlier at our celebration dinner—was now torn and stained with dirt from the alley floor. The engagement ring I'd saved for two years to buy caught the stuttering streetlight, reflecting our shattered dreams back at me in fractured pieces.
"Please what, sweetheart?" Daichi crouched down beside her, his championship belt sliding forward as he moved. "We're just getting started here. The night is young, and we have so much to discuss about your fiancé's poor decision-making."
Kenji Mori, Ryo Tanaka, and Sho Watanabe—the same crew that had made my teenage years a nightmare—closed in around her with predatory grins that made my stomach turn over. These weren't high school bullies anymore, they were grown men with money, connections, and the kind of confidence that came from never facing real consequences for their actions. Kenji flexed his hands, knuckles already bloodied from the thorough beating they'd given me. Ryo straightened his expensive suit, looking every inch the successful boxing promoter he'd become. Sho cracked his neck, the sound sharp and ominous in the narrow alley.
"You brought this on yourself, you know," Daichi continued, his attention swinging back to me like a pendulum. "Should have minded your own business instead of playing the hero. Did you really think some nobody college graduate like you could touch me? I'm a champion now, Kai. I have people in my corner you couldn't dream of reaching."
The "people in his corner" were what made this whole situation so hopeless. Corrupt officials, promoters who cared more about profit than ethics, and a system that protected its investments even when those investments were human garbage. I'd learned too late that exposing Daichi's crimes would require more than just evidence—it would require power, influence, and connections I'd never bothered to cultivate.
I tried to crawl toward them, my broken ribs grinding against each other with every movement, sending waves of agony through my torso. Vision blurring, consciousness threatening to slip away entirely, but I had to reach her somehow. Had to protect her. It was the only thing that mattered now.
"Look at this guy," Kenji laughed, his voice thick with amusement. "Still trying to play the knight in shining armor." He drew back his leg and drove his boot into my spine with the precision of someone who knew exactly how to inflict maximum pain. Fire shot through every nerve ending I had left, and I felt something important tear inside me.
That's when I heard the sound that would haunt whatever afterlife awaited me—Yuki's scream as they dragged her deeper into the shadows of the alley. The horrible sound of fabric tearing. Her voice breaking as she begged them to stop, pleaded with them to let her go, promised them anything if they would just leave her alone.
This was my fault. All of it. Every single second of her suffering could be traced back to my decision to get involved, my arrogant belief that I could make a difference. I'd spent my entire adult life as a spectator to the sport I loved, analyzing every technique, studying every fighting style developed over the past fifty years, memorizing the careers of every significant boxer in modern history. But when it actually mattered—when the woman I loved needed a protector—I'd been as useless as a paper champion.
All that knowledge, all those hours spent watching fights and breaking down strategies, and I couldn't throw a punch to save the most important person in my world.
If I could go back. If I could have just one more chance to do things differently...
"Don't worry about missing the wedding, Kai," Daichi's voice echoed off the brick walls, each word a knife twist in my chest. "I'll make sure to take real good care of your girl. Always wondered what it would be like, you know? The pure little artist who thought she was too good for guys like us in high school."
Something fundamental broke inside me then. Not physically—my body was already destroyed beyond any hope of recovery. But something deeper, something that had been holding me back my entire life, snapped like an overstretched rubber band. The rage that filled me wasn't hot and wild; it was cold and pure and absolute, burning through the pain and fear like acid through flesh.
I'd been weak when I needed to be strong. Passive when I should have fought. Gentle when the world demanded a monster. I'd chosen the safe path, the comfortable path, the path that kept my hands clean while evil flourished around me.
If there's any justice in this universe, I thought as the darkness crept in from the edges of my vision, if there's any god or devil listening, give me another chance. Let me go back and fix this. Let me become what I should have been from the beginning.
The thought crystallized in my dying mind, sharp and clear and unbreakable:
I'll make them pay for this. All of them. I'll become the monster they created tonight, and I'll destroy everything they hold dear. I'll learn to fight, really fight, and I'll use every piece of knowledge I've accumulated to tear their world down brick by brick.
It was a promise, an oath sworn in blood and witnessed by the shadows. The last coherent thought of Kai Nakamura, failed protector and broken man who had let the most important person in his world suffer because he was too weak to matter.
It would be the first thought of something far more dangerous.
The darkness took me then, but that vow remained, burning bright in the void like a star against the infinite black. Somewhere in the distance, I could still hear Yuki crying, but her voice was fading now, becoming part of the eternal silence that was claiming me.
Next time, I promised the darkness, next time will be different.