The Tokyo Dome wasn't just a stadium.
It was a cathedral to spectacle, noise, and public humiliation.
From the outside, it gleamed under the afternoon sun—white panels curving upward like a polished shell.
By 2025, it had been upgraded with mana-reflective barriers and hexagonal kinetic dampeners, which meant mages could unleash building-shattering spells without turning the snack stands into debris.
The official slogan was: Maximum Destruction, Minimum Liability.
Alex stood in the tunnel leading to the arena floor and tried very hard not to throw up.
The crowd was already roaring.
Fifty thousand voices, layered and echoing, created a living, breathing wall of sound that vibrated through the concrete and into his bones.
It wasn't just loud—it was physical. His ribs felt like they were being gently rattled by a giant hand.
I shouldn't be here, he thought, staring at the strip of light at the end of the tunnel like it was an executioner's doorway. I should be at home.
I should be eating discount yogurt and watching rug-cleaning videos. That's my speed. That's my league. This is the league where people explode for entertainment.
A monitor on the wall showed the previous match wrapping up.
A B-Rank woman with luminous blue eyes snapped her fingers, and frost spiderwebbed across the arena floor.
In four seconds, three D-Ranks were frozen into an elegant ice sculpture that looked disturbingly decorative.
The crowd applauded politely.
Another screen showed an A-Rank man built like a marble statue walking straight through a barrage of F-Rank firebolts.
They splashed against his skin like harmless sparks from a campfire.
He flicked his wrist. His opponents flew backward into the kinetic barrier with a dull, humiliating thud.
Alex swallowed.
"We are made of meat," he whispered to himself. "They are made of magic. This feels unfair."
Beside him, Renjiro Kaen leaned against the wall like he was waiting for a bus instead of imminent combat. He picked at his teeth with a splinter of wood, squinting at the monitor.
"Overcommitting," Renjiro muttered. "See that ice formation? Sloppy curvature. Amateur stuff."
Alex glanced at him.
Renjiro looked relaxed, but his knee was bouncing so fast it was practically vibrating through the floor.
"MATCH 14: FUJIMOTO, RANK B — VS — KAEN, RANK D & SCOTT, RANK F."
The announcer's voice boomed through the Dome, amplified by wind-elemental magic until it felt like the sky itself was speaking.
Renjiro straightened.
"That's us. Showtime."
Alex briefly considered faking a seizure.
The light swallowed them as they stepped into the arena.
The scale hit immediately. The Dome wasn't just big—it was vertical.
A rising wall of humanity stacked on top of itself. Lights, screens, banners, drones hovering overhead capturing every angle.
Somewhere, commentators were already talking about how short-lived this match would be.
The crowd reaction was instant.
"FUJIMOTO! FUJIMOTO! FUJIMOTO!"
In the center of the arena stood their opponent.
Fujimoto was sleek, handsome, and perfectly composed. His combat suit was tailored and gold-trimmed, hugging him like something designed by a luxury brand.
He held a polished conductor rod that hummed faintly with stored kinetic energy.
He looked like a hero.
Then the cameras cut to Team Blazing Singularity.
Renjiro, red hair slightly chaotic, squinting like he'd just woken up from a nap.
Alex, pale, narrow-shouldered, looking like he'd wandered in while searching for a restroom.
The laughter from certain sections of the crowd wasn't subtle.
"Is this the warm-up act?"
"Did they win a raffle?"
Fujimoto sighed the way someone sighs when handed paperwork five minutes before lunch.
"D-Rank and F-Rank," he said calmly. "I'll make it quick."
Renjiro pointed dramatically. "Big talk for a man wearing gold leggings!"
They did not look like leggings. They were highly advanced mana-thread combat fabric. But the damage was done.
The referee drone hovered upward.
3… 2… 1… BEGIN.
Fujimoto vanished.
Not metaphorically. He was simply gone.
The crack of a sonic boom tore across the arena. Alex shrieked and dropped to his knees, hands clamped over his ears.
Renjiro blinked.
There was a blur of gold racing straight toward him at impossible speed.
Oh no, Renjiro thought, clarity slicing through bravado. This is real. I am going to die in front of everyone.
Instinct took over.
He squeezed his eyes shut and threw his hand up in front of his face, palm out, the universal human gesture of please don't.
It was not a spell.
It was not a technique.
It was panic.
Fujimoto, traveling at near-sonic velocity, had calculated for a dodge, a barrier, a counter.
He had not calculated for someone blindly slapping the air.
The impact was catastrophic.
CLANG.
The sound rang through the Dome like a church bell.
Fujimoto's momentum did all the work.
His face collided with Renjiro's open palm with the full force of his own acceleration.
His body flipped backward mid-air, skidding across the arena floor and bouncing off the kinetic barrier in an undignified heap.
Silence.
Fifty thousand people froze.
Renjiro slowly opened one eye.
Then the other.
He looked at his stinging hand. Then at Fujimoto.
The B-Rank did not move.
Renjiro straightened his jacket and exhaled.
"Hmph," he said, turning toward the nearest camera. "Inverse Kinetic Rebound. Textbook."
The Dome erupted.
It wasn't polite applause. It was chaos. Underdog victory. Shock. Highlight-reel magic.
"KAEN! KAEN! KAEN!"
Alex, still kneeling, stared at the unconscious celebrity.
He just slapped him.
The scoreboard updated anyway.
WINNERS: TEAM BLAZING SINGULARITY.
—
An hour later, Alex stood alone in the arena for his "Skill Showcase."
His opponent was Kuro—nicknamed "The Butcher."
Kuro was enormous.
Thick arms, heavy boots, tattoos crawling up his neck and disappearing into his hairline. His spiked club hummed faintly with dark energy.
He looked less like a mage and more like someone who solved problems by breaking furniture.
"You look fragile," Kuro said flatly. "I'll try not to shatter you."
Alex's brain went very quiet.
Then very loud.
Why does he have skull tattoos? Did he earn them? Is there a ceremony? Do I have to get a skull tattoo if I survive? I don't want a skull tattoo.
"BEGIN."
Kuro charged.
Alex ran.
He did not cast.
He did not strategize.
He ran like a prey animal whose ancestors survived by fleeing slightly faster than someone else.
"AAAAAHHHHHH!"
The scream echoed through the Dome. It wasn't dignified. It wasn't tactical. It was pure, unfiltered fear.
Kuro swung his club, smashing tiles into fragments inches behind Alex's heels.
"Get back here!"
"No!"
They circled the arena once.
Twice.
Three times.
By the fourth lap, the match had stopped looking like a fight and started looking like a chase scene from a children's cartoon.
Alex's legs pumped desperately. His lungs burned. Tears streamed down his face.
Behind him, Kuro's breathing turned ragged.
"Stop… running…"
"YOU'RE CHASING ME!"
Kuro lifted his club one more time—
—and stopped.
He wobbled.
His face drained of color.
He dropped forward and hit the ground with a heavy thud.
Alex froze ten feet away, shaking.
"I didn't touch him," he said immediately, to no one in particular. "I didn't. I promise."
The referee drone hovered.
"MATCH OVER. WINNER: SCOTT, ALEX. REASON: OPPONENT MEDICAL COLLAPSE."
The crowd wasn't sure whether to cheer.
A few people clapped hesitantly.
Later, in the infirmary hallway, Alex overheard a medic speaking quietly.
"Chronic smoker. Lungs were already compromised. That kind of sprint? He was going down no matter what."
Alex sat on a bench with a juice box in both hands.
My first solo victory is cardio-based manslaughter by lifestyle.
He sipped his juice.
It tasted like apple and existential confusion.
—
That evening, the VIP lounge buzzed with reporters, influencers, and perfume thick enough to be visible.
Renjiro was in the center of it all.
He lounged across a velvet sofa like a conquering hero, surrounded by cameras and wide-eyed fans.
"So there I was," he was saying grandly, gesturing with a glass of sparkling cider. "Pacific Trench. February 2021. The Kraken had wrapped itself around the Tokyo-San Francisco mana cable."
Alex paused at the doorway.
He worked delivery in 2021.
"The World Council was ready to vaporize the ocean," Renjiro continued. "But I said, 'No. Give me swim fins and a toothpick.'"
Gasps.
"I wrestled the beast for six hours."
Alex stared blankly.
He once saw Renjiro cry because a vending machine ate his coins.
"I tied its tentacles into a bow and convinced it to relocate."
"Renjiro-sama, you're incredible!" one girl breathed.
Renjiro spotted Alex.
"Ah! My protégé!" he declared. "The Screaming Phantom! His Sonic Wail disrupted his opponent's internal organs today. Brilliant control."
All eyes turned to Alex.
His brain shut down.
He dropped his juice box.
"I just… ran," he said faintly. "He smokes a lot."
The girls blinked.
Renjiro laughed loudly and draped an arm around Alex's shoulders.
"See? Humble. That's true power."
Alex stood there, stiff as a lamppost, wondering how he had become part of a narrative that had absolutely nothing to do with reality.
Somewhere in the Dome, highlight reels were already playing.
Renjiro's "calculated strike."
Alex's "psychological warfare."
The underdog duo advancing.
Alex stared at the city lights through the lounge window.
I didn't cast a spell, he thought. Not once.
And somehow… I'm still here.