The following morning, Izan didn't wake up like someone who had been given a second chance. He awoke as if he'd already used it up. His body was heavy, not from hurting, this body barely processed pain in the way it should, but from fatigue that subsumed muscle. Every inhale had the taste of last night's mud, last night's terror, last night's despair. The room was dim. A weak line of sunlight slipped through a crack in the wall, slicing across the floor like a blade. The air smelled of smoke, old wood, and something faintly sour,poverty had a smell, and this place carried it like a permanent stain. Izan sat up slowly. The house, if it could even be called that was barely standing. The ceiling beams appeared as if they were one strong wind away from falling down. The walls were patched with mismatched boards, fabric, and whatever else could be nailed into place. The bed beneath him was thin and unevenly stuffed with straw. When it moved, it squeaked as if in complaint. For a moment he didn't know what hurt more his body or his mind. His mother was gone. Taken desperately pulled from this place as if she were owned. And all he could do last night was lie on the floor as if he were a broken toy. His hands shook and he got up. He hurried to the kitchen, two steps, perhaps three, because the whole house felt small and cage like. A pot sat by a dying flame, the smell of soup lingered though faint. Like it was seeking survival as well. There was a chipped bowl and a plate on the table and beside them, a note. Izan froze. As if he could catch and drop it just as it would disappear, he gingerly lifted it. "I know you will rise stronger than ever. As long as I am alive, you will never be alone. With love, your mother." His throat tightened. He didn't know that he was crying until it landed on the paper and darkened the ink. In his former life, he had money enough to purchase attention, to purchase silence, to purchase comfort. However well heeled the flooring, however well heeled the house, he always ate alone. He always slept alone. His parents were always, always "busy," always "traveling," always keeping on doing their best to promise the next visit would follow soon. He considered letters to be the closest thing close to family there were. Even they always felt like receipts. But this note this, this note wasn't paperwork. It wasn't in terms of being a duty to do it, it was love. Izan sat down and brought a spoonful of soup to his mouth. It was thin, mostly broth, hardly any meat, but it struck him more than any meal that he'd eaten in silk covered dining rooms. Because it wasn't expensive, it was sacrifice. He swallowed, burning his chest,what could have made something so small seem so heavy? He wiped his eyes with the back of his wrist. There was no time for break. He had one month. One gold coin,and then, something worse than debt, a hostage. Izan stood and put on a little calm from his trembling hands. He walked outside. The slums welcomed him as they always had like a predator in guise of city territory. People filled the street like shadows. Children with hollow eyes, men with hard faces. Women hawking food too cheap to be real food. It was as if the buildings were tired of standing. Clotheslines extended between the rooftops like spiderwebs. The atmosphere buzzed with sweat, smoke, cheap wine, and sewage. The further he walked the more he saw the invisible lines. A corner where, like it or not, the graffiti changed style. A group of guys from the same cloth as they had long ago on their arms. A woman who lowered her eyes as soon as he entered a particular alley. Territories. He heard it more than once:
"Don't go past that street. That's their side."
"Four gangs run this place."
"Police don't come here unless they're paid."
The slums weren't just one thing, they were four kingdoms. And none of them had mercy. Izan kept walking anyway head down, mind still spinning. He needed money. But more important he needed capital. For in every world, how different the rules seemed on the surface, at the core remained the truth:
You have to have money to make money. He wasn't strong enough to receive it. So he had to build it. A bank wouldn't loan to a sixteen year old from the slums. He knew that, still he tried. Because hope wasn't a tactic, it just occasionally bought time. He made it to the first bank and nearly laughed. Even the bank looked poor. The marble was cracked. The metal gates were rusted. The guards looked bored; but their eyes were sharp. The people behind the windows weren't wealthy; they were desperate, merely better dressed than the rest of the slums. Izan smoothed out his shirt as best he could and approached in. A banker who worked at the counter looked him up and down. His eyes lingered on Izan's bruises, his frayed sleeves, his old shoes. "What do you want?" the banker asked, already getting annoyed. "A loan," Izan said. "For a business." The banker snorted. "A business." Izan laid his plan out on the counter. He had carefully composed it, pages of numbers, projections, risk calculations, repayment timelines. His mind, his old mind was good at this. He could create a profitable machine out of scrap. The banker looked through the pages. His expression changed. He flipped faster. Then slower. By the time he was done, his annoyance had changed to something else. Interest. "You wrote this?" he asked. "Yes," Izan said. The banker paused, then stood. "Wait here." He vanished to the back. A moment later, came another man elder, heavier, dressed better now, the boss. The boss didn't bother with looking at the papers first. He looked at Izan. At his hair. When his skin was the most sensitive on the planet. As clothes were on his hands, his lips curled. "You're from the slums," the boss said. "I am," Izan replied matter of factly. Once the boss tapped those papers. "You stole this plan from someone?" "I wrote it." The boss didn't care. "We don't lend to your kind," he said. "You people disappear. You people don't pay." Tightened Izan's jaw. "My plan" "I don't care about your plan," the boss chimed in. "Get out." The words weren't loud. But they were final. Izan left the bank with papers clasped in hand. The sunlight seemed worse then. But then he went to the next bank. Then the next. Then the next. Different buildings, same rejection. Some laughed at him. Some didn't even let him speak. One told him, "Come back when you're a man." Another said, "Come back when you're rich." And one just looked at his bruises and said something else, softly, "You should stop trying before you get hurt." Izan almost laughed. Hurt? His world was built on hurt. By the time he walked off the last bank, the sky was going orange. His feet ached. His stomach was empty. And his hope what little he had given him was being strangled. Outside the last bank, a man leaned against a wall as if he was waiting. A thug, the manner in which he stood made it clear that he was not simply a street rat. He wore simple garments but seemed confident. Like the street was his. He smiled as he stepped out. "You looking for a loan?" the thug asked. Izan stopped. His instincts screamed no. This was the wrong door to open and every smart part of him knew it. But smart didn't count when time was running out. "I am," Izan said. The thug nodded toward an alleyway. "Follow me." A long time they walked as they passed through streets, the mood changed daily. Loud markets became silent corners. Crowds became watchful units, busier than busy. The air got colder. The smell got worse. Finally, they entered a tiny shop nestled between crumbling buildings. The sign was faded and incomprehensible. The windows were covered. The thug pointed. "Go in." Izan stepped inside. A bell rang softly. There was tobacco and old paper in the room. Behind one desk, a man had his ink-stained fingers. He did not look up immediately, as if he knew who entered. When he finally opened his eyes, they came calmly. Predatory. "Izan Coro," the man said, as though tasting the name. "The boy who believes he can borrow his way out of hell." Izan was gripping his papers tighter. "You're a loan shark," Izan said. The man smiled. "Call it what you want. I solve problems that banks won't touch." "And your interest?" Izan asked. "Sixty percent," the loan shark said without embarrassment. "Paid weekly." In his former life, Izan would've slammed his face open for those terms. But his other life had ended with him beaten to death under cheering lights too. Different life, different rules. "What's the collateral?" Izan asked already, knowing the answer would hurt. The loan shark squinted a little. "You." Izan's stomach twisted. "If you don't pay," the man said on, "you work and when you work you belong to me till I choose not to." The words were a silk ribbon wrapped in a leash. Izan glanced down at his plan. He was reading it again in his mind. His mother's note went to his mother. He reviewed the one month deadline. And he signed. He needed one thing to start his business: A location with traffic. Somewhere people went by every day. In a place where people were desperate and lived and worked and begged. Desperation abounded around the slums. He rented a small storefront with cracked wood and a door that barely closed. He cleaned it himself. He hammered nails into the wall. He wrote simple signs. He sold them on his old loan to buy a little safe inexpensive, but heavy. He purchased paper and ink and a stamp to make it look official, and then he opened. At first, nobody trusted him. A sixteen year old operating a "bank" in the slums? It sounded like a joke. But Izan didn't sell hope. He sold logic,he asked people questions like a blade. "What do you sell?" "How many customers do you get daily?" "How much do you spend on supplies?" "What happens if the market slows?" Most people were confused. Some got angry. But the few who responded well the ones with real businesses, real hustle were the ones he lent to. Small loans, small interest. Fast repayments, word spread. Because the real banks didn't assist slum people, they didn't lend to them. They didn't view them as human assets, Izan did. Day after day, more people came. Food vendors, repairmen,tailors,street sellers, women trying to expand stalls, men trying to buy tools.His tiny shop filled with voices and signatures and nervous hands clutching coins like they were oxygen. And for the first time since reincarnating.Izan felt something like control,two weeks passed. His money grew, his clients multiplied,and one night when he counted the coins in his safe his hands stopped shaking. He had enough to pay, enough to move, enough to make the month possible. He closed early, heart pounding not from fear, but from relief. He stepped outside, and the relief died instantly. More than twenty men stood in the street. Bats,Pipes,Metal rods. They didn't speak, they didn't need to. They rushed him all at once. Izan tried to raise his guard, but the first pipe smashed into his ribs and the world tilted. A bat hit his shoulder,another struck his back. His knees buckled, the hits came like rain. He couldn't fight twenty men, he couldn't even fight one properly. He fell,they kept hitting him. His body absorbed it in a way that terrified them. Even as his face swelled and blood spilled, he stayed conscious longer than he should've. One of them muttered, "What the hell is wrong with this kid?" Another answered, "Just hit him harder." The last thing Izan saw was the orange glow of flames. His shop. Burning. Then everything went black. When he woke up, the air smelled like smoke and death. His shop was gone. Charred wood. Ash, a melted lock, the safe had been broken open. Everything was stolen,every coin,every chance. Izan sat in the dirt and cried not like a child, but like a man who had seen hope die too many times. Then he stood, And ran. He ran to the loan shark's place, lungs burning, vision shaking. Inside, it was worse than he imagined. The same twenty men were there laughing, drinking, celebrating like they had won a festival. And behind the desk, a man sat calmly with a cigar in his mouth. The loan shark,he looked up as Izan entered, as if he had been expecting him. Izan's voice shook with rage. "Why? Why did you do this?" The man exhaled smoke slowly. "I don't tolerate competition," he said. "Not in my territory." "You set me up," Izan hissed. The loan shark smiled wider. "No. I tested you." He leaned back in his chair like a king. "From now on," he continued, "you belong to me." The room spun. "You'll be my slave for life," the loan shark said, laughing softly. "And if you're lucky, I'll let you live long enough to regret thinking you had a choice." The name people whispered about suddenly carried weight in Izan's mind. The Mountain Hunter. A man known for hunting men the way others hunted animals. A fighter so brutal the slums respected him like a natural disaster. Izan's vision narrowed. He charged. For a split second, time slowed and Izan's body remembered the champion again. That straight right. That execution disguised as a punch. His feet planted. His hip turned. His shoulder snapped forward. His fist flew. It was clean. It was sharp. For the first time… it was almost perfect. The Mountain Hunter blocked it. While sitting down. But his expression flickered just for a heartbeat as if the impact surprised him. Then he smiled, and fired a jab. It was so fast Izan didn't even see it. The punch appeared in his face like a teleporting blade,pain exploded. His head snapped back, Izan tried to breathe. The Mountain Hunter stood, and everything changed. The air felt heavier, like the room had become a ring. Jabs rained down precise, consecutive, drilling into Izan's guard until his arms shook. The Mountain Hunter's timing was cruel. He hit between breaths,between blinks. Izan's guard cracked, and then, an uppercut rose like a beast from the earth. It struck Izan's chin with a force that turned his body weightless. His eyes rolled white, his legs collapsed. He hit the floor without knowing he was falling. Darkness took him. Through the blur, he heard voices. The Mountain Hunter looked at the shoulder he used to block that straight right, it hurt. Far more than it should've. The realization irritated him. He kicked Izan hard in the stomach, as if punishing him for being strange. One of the men shifted uneasily. "Boss calm down. You'll kill him." Another nodded. "We still need him. For the mountains." The Mountain Hunter exhaled smoke. And smiled like a man who had just discovered a new toy.