The crowd was already forming outside the venue, two days before the fight.
Flyers littered the streets like confetti from a celebration no one had earned.ASH RETURNS — in red.SORI REBORN — in black.
Two names.Two ghosts.One blood-soaked ring.
Aara trained in silence.
Not in the gym they gave her — too clean, too crowded.
She found the alley behind her old school instead.Same cracked pavement.Same metal fence.
It wasn't nostalgia.
It was control.
If she could train where she used to cry, she could fight anywhere.
Jin watched from a distance.Didn't interrupt.
She'd never seen Aara like this.
Bare-knuckled. Bare-faced.Fighting air like it owed her something.
"She's not training," Haru said beside her."She's remembering."
"Remembering what?"
"The part of herself she had to kill just to make it out."
Inside, DaeCorp ran rehearsals for the broadcast crew.
Sponsors. Announcers.Carefully edited "trauma packages" that painted Aara like a fallen idol, and Sori as the weapon that would put her down for good.
They controlled the cameras.
But not the outcome.
Not yet.
Back in the alley, Aara finally spoke.
"She broke her jaw when I last fought her."
"Sori?" Jin asked.
Aara nodded.
"Third round. She smiled through it. Didn't fall until her eye swelled shut."
"And now?"
"Now she's corporate-owned. Revived.Which means she won't be sloppy this time.She'll come to win."
"So will you."
Aara shook her head.
"I'm not coming to win.I'm coming to end this."
That night, Haru went digging.
He had a flash drive — one of his father's old ones — stolen years ago.
Inside?
Sponsorship contracts.
Training logs.
Medical overrides.
But what caught his eye was a file titled:
SORI_GEN_II
He opened it.
And froze.
Sori wasn't just sponsored.
She was rebuilt.
Multiple surgeries.Augmented training cycles.Adrenaline override injections.
She wasn't coming into the fight to prove anything.
She was coming to dismantle Aara.
Like a machine.
He closed the laptop.
Grabbed his coat.
And ran.
Meanwhile, Jin stood outside the arena's back entrance, envelope in hand.
It was a counter-offer.
From someone inside Rae's camp — not DaeCorp.
No six figures.
Just a promise:
"If you fight under the Ash name while Aara burns out…You become the next queen."
She didn't tear it up.
She didn't sign it either.
She folded it.Tucked it into her pocket.
And walked back into the shadows.
At the gym, Haru slammed the door open.
Aara looked up.
"She's juiced," Haru said. "Chem-enhanced. They're calling her Sori Gen II. You walk into that ring — it's not fair."
"It was never supposed to be fair," Aara said.
"This isn't strategy. It's sabotage. They want you to lose. Violently. Publicly."
"Then I won't give them that ending."
"You'll get hurt."
"I've been hurt."
"You could die."
Aara stood.
Calm. Controlled.
"Let them try."
Jin entered behind him.
"You should at least consider withdrawing."
"No."
"Why not?"
"Because if I back out now, they don't just kill the myth.They kill the truth under it."
A pause.
Then, Aara added:
"You know what happens when the crowd watches a woman fall?"
Silence.
"They cheer."
"You think they want you to fall?"
"I think they're waiting for it."
The room went still.
Haru clenched his jaw.
"Then give them something else to watch."
The night before the fight, Aara didn't sleep.
She stood on the roof of the apartment.
City lights below.
Her old world ahead.
And the girl she used to be — the one who ran from this skyline — standing quietly inside her chest, waiting to be buried for good.
Jin joined her, quiet.
They didn't speak at first.
Then:
"If you lose tomorrow, you'll still be more legend than anyone in that ring."
Aara shook her head.
"If I lose, they rewrite the story.Erase the fight.Make pain look like weakness again."
Jin pulled something from her pocket.
The envelope.
She handed it over.
"I didn't take it.But I want you to know how close I came."
Aara opened it.
Read it.
Then folded it slowly and set it on fire using Aara's lighter.
She didn't ask why.
Didn't scold.
Just said:
"Thank you for telling me before it was too late."
They stood there together, smoke rising.
The ashes of betrayal never landing.
And when the city slept, Aara whispered — to no one, to everyone:
"I'm not coming to survive tomorrow."
"I'm coming to show them…"
"…she can't be killed if she's already burned."