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Chapter 1 - Chapter 1: The Fall

Tokyo. 11:47 PM. Somewhere beneath the rain and neon.

The cage was too small, and the blood coated it.

Jace Takeda winced at the sweat searing his eyes, his vision already a blur of red streaks and ghost lights. The makeshift ring was ringed by chain-link fence, rusted at the seams. Fluorescent tubes buzzed overhead, their lights popping like dying stars.

He could feel the left hook before he could see it.

Whump.

The punch landed with a wet crunch to the side of his face and turned his world around. His legs gave out. His body fell onto the mat like dead meat, arms open wide, head snapping off the canvas.

The crowd was not sane.

A hundred voices bellowed behind the cage. Most of them were drunk. Some were stone-cold sober. None of them cared who he was.

"Get up, you little cunt!"

"I bet five thousand yen on your punk ass!"

"Let him die! That's the real finish!"

A boot struck the fence, clanging the metal like a prison riot.

Jace did not stir. He could not. His jaw hurt. His mouth was full of blood and a broken tooth. He had copper and bile in his mouth. He attempted to lift an arm, but his shoulder groaned in pain. His body would not listen to him.

His left eye was already swollen shut. He saw out of the right a shadow. A man pacing back and forth across the mat with brutal patience. Big Mikey. 6'4", maybe taller. Thick neck. Ripped through the arms like he bench-pressed Harleys. A junkyard fighter with fists as hard as bricks and scars as black as tattoos.

Mikey spat on the mat. "You still breathin'?"

Jace blinked. He wasn't sure.

He wasn't always like this.

There had been a time when he stood on podiums.

Three years before, he'd been wearing red and white for Japan's national wrestling squad. Junior division champion. Olympic hopeful. Coaches were labeling him a phenom. Sponsors were lining up. His mother had wept during his first TV interview. His kid brother, Kenji, used to put his medals out as toys.

That was before the scandal.

Before the girl.

Before the night all fell apart and his back snapped like a dry reed on a failed back suplex. Three vertebrae splintered. Nerve impairment. Contract ended. Reputation destroyed by rumor and greed.

Worse still was what followed.

Kenji laughing-eyed, smiling walking across the road to school. A delivery van racing through a red light. No stops. No hesitation.

The scream echoed in his mind.

And now here he was. No home. No family. No name.

Only blood. Concrete. And the sound of a crowd screaming for his life.

The bell never rang. There were no rounds in the Black Tooth Pit.

Only KO or quit.

And Jace didn't quit.

His fingers flexed. Barely. But it was enough.

He rolled onto one elbow, then onto his knees. The agony screamed at him. His ribs burned with each ragged gasp.

Big Mikey grinned, circling him like an animal. "Still movin', huh? Damn. You've got heart. I'll give you that."

Jace's mouth opened. He spat a chunk of blood onto the mat. His voice was a rasp, gravel through a blender.

"Heart won't keep your teeth from falling out."

Mikey grinned huge. "Guess we'll put that theory to the test."

And then he charged in.

The first punch shattered Jace's rib. He heard it snap within his chest, a dry twig splintering. The second slammed him into the cage, his spine jarring against metal. The third

He didn't feel.

Everything went dark.

Somewhere, in the darkness…

Silence.

Then:

[VITAL SIGNS FAILING…]

[EMERGENCY OVERRIDE INITIATED.]

[MARTIAL ASCENSION SYSTEM BOOTING.]

Jace felt. nothing.

No weight. No pain. Just floating.

Like he was drifting in space.

Then a voice mechanical, sexless, cold cut through the void.

[You are 6% healthy.]

[You are a failed boxer.]

[Potential has been found, though.]

[Will you fight again?]

Yes

No

He couldn't think. Couldn't breathe.

But something within him stirred. A scream buried deep beneath the trauma. The urge that never dissipated, not even when his future was taken from him.

He thought of Kenji once more, grinning from the hospital bed.

His mother, eyeless, staring beyond him.

The coaches who abandoned him.

The surgeons who informed him he'd never box again.

His hand readjusted.

Yes.

He awoke in pain.

White-hot. Whole.

His lungs spasmed. Fire in his chest. His face was cut open.

But he survived.

Somehow, amazingly… still alive.

He lay on a dirty mattress that reeked of sweat and metal. The ceiling over him was cracked plaster and crackling light. Pipes groaned in the walls.

A man sat beside him, pulling a drag on a cigarette.

"Still breathin'," the man growled. "Didn't count on that."

Jace moaned. "Where…"

The man flicked the cigarette out of the window and moved in closer to him.

"Welcome to the Iron Den."

Jace tried to sit up. Stupid idea. His back spasmed and he gasped for breath.

The guy pushed him down softly with one big hand. Jace got a good glimpse of him now late 40s, perhaps 50. Balding, but stocky. Broken knuckles, smashed nose, dead eyes. A bull neck and cauliflower ears that spoke of war.

"You brawled in the Pit last night," he told him. "Lost badly. Nearly bled out in my alley."

"I recall," Jace growled. His voice was not much more than animal. "You… rescued me?"

The man shrugged. "Didn't rescue you. Just pulled your ass inside before the rats had you for lunch."

He rummaged through a duffel bag and plopped something beside Jace a pair of bloody, torn fight shorts.

"That's all you had. No phone. No ID. No shoes. Just fists and failure."

Jace remained silent.

The man bent, stretching. "Name's Ryuu. I own this dump."

"This place?"

"Once was a dojo. Now it's another thing. I don't take rent. I don't do pity. You want to sleep on that mat, you train. You want to train, you bleed. You want to quit"

He spun around, eyes as hard as steel.

"I toss your body into the garbage."

Jace craned up, wincing through pain.

".What's the catch?"

"No catch. Just one rule."

A heavy silence.

"You quit once, and I don't let you back. Not even to die."

Jace stared at the man for a long time.

Then nodded.

"Crystal."

[MARTIAL ASCENSION SYSTEM STABILIZED]

[STAT PANEL UNLOCKED]

[Temporary Buff: Iron Reboot – +10% Physical Recovery, 24 Hours]

[INITIATING FIRST TRIAL: TEST OF IRON]

[OBJECTIVE: SURVIVE 3 DAYS OF TRAINING]

[Failure = Lockout. Death Highly Probable.]

Jace blinked. The words hovered in the air like holograms, throbber dimly.

He alone could see them.

What in the devil's name is this?

Delusion? Neural implant? Post-concussion psychosis?

He felt for the metal in his temple.

Nothing.

But still, the panel was there.

He slowly sat up, and all of his muscles howled.

He was shattered. Shattered. Alone.

Something had shifted, however. Something deep. Something invisible yet there.

He felt the edge return. Not all of it but a spark. The same fire that had burned when he was fifteen, when he first dropped a full-grown man onto the mat and read the shock in their eyes.

A chance. But insane.

He'd do it.

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