Year: 2015
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The night after the Cruz fight was not for sleep. It was for pain. A deep, bone-bruising ache radiated from Kyon's left side with every breath, a stark receipt for the Bull's brutal hook. Thorne worked on him in the hotel room with a bag of ice, a grim look on his face. "No breaks. Good. But it's a deep bruise. It'll drain your stamina, make it hard to twist. Volkov will find it. He'll dig at it like a miner looking for gold."
The fatigue was more than physical. It was a soul-deep weariness from the cumulative toll of the tournament: the mental strain of solving Jones, the high-wire act against Mendez's speed, the cerebral war with Sharpe, and the sheer, concussive violence of Cruz. He was a blade that had been honed through four successive grindstones, each finer and harder than the last. Now, he faced the final stone: Alexi Volkov.
They spent the pre-dawn hours not on tactics, but on survival. Thorne had him sip a nutrient-rich shake, forcing calories into a system that wanted only rest. Dr. Kozlov, who had flown in for the finals, examined him, her fingers probing the purple-black blossom on his ribs. "You can fight," she said, her accent sharp with disapproval. "But it will hurt. You must breathe shallow, protect it. If he lands there cleanly again…" She didn't finish. She didn't need to.
The final fight was scheduled for 8 PM, the main event of the entire national tournament. The day was an exercise in controlled agony and monastic focus. Kyon lay in the darkened room, visualizing not victory, but survival sequences. He saw Volkov's expressionless face, his mechanical jab, his thudding body shots. He felt, in his mind, the flare of pain from his ribs. He practiced, in imagination, moving through the pain, pivoting on a breath held tight in his chest.
Thorne's final briefing was stripped bare of complexity. "Forget fancy. Forget pulling counters. This is a trench war. He will come forward. He will jab. He will throw combinations to the body. Your job is threefold: First, make him miss. Every slip, every weave, is a small victory. Second, make him pay. You cannot out-volume him. So when you counter, it must be with authority. A hard jab that stops him in his tracks. A straight right that snaps his head back. You need to earn his respect early, or he will walk you down and drown you. Third, and most important: you must out-will him. He is a machine. You must be a ghost with a heartbeat. You must want it more, even when your body is screaming to quit."
He paused, his eyes boring into Kyon's. "Colonel Jenkins and every judge in the building will be watching to see if you have the 'effective aggression' for the Olympics. Tonight, you show them you have something better. You show them you have an unbreakable will. You show them that a Phantom can't be killed, because he was never really there to begin with. He's just a memory of pain that haunts you."
The weigh-in was a circus. Media, scouts, fans. Volkov stood across from him, a study in impassive, Eastern Bloc efficiency. He was pale, with close-cropped hair and eyes the color of a winter sky. He looked at Kyon not as an opponent, but as a task to be completed. He gave a slight, meaningless nod. No words. The Silencer had talked. The Bull had threatened. The Siberian just… waited.
As evening bled the last color from the desert sky, the convention center underwent its final transformation. It was no longer a sports venue; it was a coliseum. The single ring sat under a canopy of blazing lights, surrounded by darkness packed with roaring humanity. The air thrummed with anticipation. This was the story: the undefeated, unstoppable pressure of Volkov versus the uncanny, untouchable artistry of The Phantom.
In the locker room, the ritual felt funereal. Thorne wrapped his hands with a solemn, deliberate care. Miguel was there, his usual smile gone, replaced by a tense focus. "Él es una piedra, hermano," Miguel whispered. "You cannot break a stone with a hammer. You must wear it down with water. Be the water."
Kyon nodded. He put on the USA robe, the colors feeling heavier than ever. He touched the silver necklace, then the original stone in his pocket. Solid. Unyielding. Be the water. But water froze in the face of a Siberian winter.
"Wilson vs. Volkov! National Championship Final! Fighters to the ring!"
The roar that greeted them as they emerged from the tunnel was deafening, a physical wave that pushed against Kyon's chest. Volkov walked first, a stoic march, acknowledging no one. Kyon followed, the hood of his robe up, his world narrowed to the square of light ahead.
He entered the ring. The lights were hotter than the sun, bleaching everything to a stark monochrome. He removed his robe. The contrast was now iconic: Volkov in simple blue trunks, muscular and dense like a fireplug; Kyon in black, sleek and long like a shadow.
The referee, the most experienced official in the tournament, gave his instructions. Volkov's eyes were empty. Kyon's were pools of dark, focused intensity.
The bell rang.
Round 1 was a feeling-out process of immense psychological weight. Volkov came forward behind a piston-like jab. It wasn't fast, but it was perfect: straight, stiff, and thrown with the consistency of a metronome. Pop. Pop. Pop. It measured, probed, and scored. Kyon slipped the first few, his movement still fluid, but the jab kept coming, a fence being built around him.
Volkov's footwork was deceptively good. He didn't chase; he cut the ring with small, efficient steps, herding Kyon towards the ropes. Kyon circled, flicking out his own jab, trying to establish a counter rhythm. His jab landed on Volkov's high guard, but Volkov didn't react. He ate it and took another step forward.
With a minute gone, Volkov threw his first combination: a double jab to the head, then a hard, straight right to Kyon's chest. It was a scoring punch, but more importantly, it was a test. Can you take my power?
The punch thudded against Kyon's sternum, knocking a gust of air from him. It was solid, heavy. Kyon backed up, resetting. The message was sent: Volkov's fundamentals were brick and mortar.
Kyon's response was a swift counter. As Volkov stepped in behind another jab, Kyon slipped it to the outside and fired a straight right of his own. It cracked against Volkov's temple. Volkov's head snapped sideways. He paused, blinked once. The first crack in the glacier. He looked at Kyon, a flicker of something—not anger, not pain, but recognition—in his winter eyes. Okay. You can hit.
The rest of the round was a tense, high-level chess match. Kyon landing the cleaner, sharper single shots. Volkov controlling the ring, landing the heavier, thudding blows to the body whenever he cornered Kyon. The bell rang with Kyon likely edging it on cleaner punches, but Volkov owning the real estate.
In the corner, Thorne was urgent. "You're winning the battle of quality. But he's winning the war of position. You cannot let him back you up consistently. You need to take the center sometimes. Jab and move, but move forward sometimes too. Make him think. And protect that left side!"
Round 2. Volkov adjusted. He began doubling and tripling his jab, using it not just to score, but to blind, to obstruct vision. Behind the flurry of jabs, he started digging to the body. A stiff jab to the head, then a hard left hook to Kyon's ribs.
Kyon saw it coming. He twisted, pulling his left side away. The hook landed, but it was a grazing blow. Still, the impact sent a lightning bolt of white-hot pain from the bruised rib through his entire nervous system. He gasped, his vision spotting for a second.
Volkov saw it. The machine registered a weakness.
He pressed forward, his expression unchanging. Jab, jab, right hand to the body, aiming for the same spot. Kyon covered up, taking the shots on his arms, but the cumulative force was draining. He felt like a tree being struck by a steady, relentless axe.
With thirty seconds left, Kyon tried to fire back. He threw a one-two. The jab landed, the cross was blocked. As he pulled his hand back, Volkov stepped in and unleashed a short, brutal three-punch combination to the body: left hook, right hook, left hook again. All to the ribcage.
The world dissolved into pure, nauseating agony. The third hook landed directly on the bruise. It felt less like a punch and more like a surgical instrument being driven between his ribs. Kyon's legs buckled. He stumbled backward, crashing into the ropes, his mouth open in a soundless scream of pain.
The crowd roared, smelling blood.
Volkov moved in for the kill.
But the bell rang.
Kyon slumped onto his stool, his body shuddering, every breath a knife-twist in his side. Thorne and Miguel were in the ring instantly. Thorne forced an ice pack against the ribs. "Breathe! Look at me! Breathe through it! It's pain, it's not break! You're still here!"
Kyon's vision swam. He could hear Thorne's voice, but it was distant, muffled by the roaring in his ears and the screaming pain. He spat into the bucket, the saliva tinged pink.
"He found it," Kyon gasped. "He won't stop."
"I know," Thorne said, his face etched with a fear Kyon had never seen there. "So you have to make him stop. You have to hurt him. Badly. Next round, you sell out. You forget the body. You go upstairs. You look for the right hand. You put everything you have left into one shot to shut his lights off. You understand? There's no more boxing him. There's only surviving him. Now, get up."
The bell for Round 3 was a death knell.
Kyon rose, his body moving on autopilot, the pain a constant, shrieking companion. Volkov came out like a executioner, cold and precise. He went straight back to the body, a surgeon returning to his incision.
Kyon tried to move, but his feet were leaden, his twists sent fire through his core. A Volkov jab split his guard. A right hand to the body made him sag. He was backing up in straight lines, the geometry of his defense collapsing.
A minute into the round, Volkov trapped him in a corner. He threw a left hook to the body. Kyon dropped his right hand to block. It was a feint. Volkov instantly changed levels and threw a right uppercut aimed for Kyon's chin.
Kyon saw it coming a fraction too late. He tried to pull back.
The uppercut caught him cleanly on the point of the chin.
CRACK.
The sound echoed through the suddenly silent arena.
Kyon's eyes rolled back in his head. The lights, the noise, the pain—everything vanished into a white, silent void. His body went completely limp. He crumbled, folding onto the canvas like a marionette with its strings cut.
He was out before he hit the floor.
The referee began the count. "ONE… TWO…"
On the canvas, in the dark silence of his mind, there was nothing. No thought. No memory. No promise.
Then, from a depth beyond thought, a single, primal signal fired. A spark in the void.
GET UP.
"THREE… FOUR…"
His body twitched. A neural pathway, forged in a thousand moments of survival—in alleys, in hallways, on this very canvas—reacted. Muscles contracted. His glove pushed against the mat.
"FIVE… SIX…"
He rolled onto his hands and knees, his head hanging, drool and blood stringing from his mouth to the canvas. He couldn't see. He couldn't hear the count. He couldn't think.
But he was moving.
"SEVEN…"
He planted a foot.
"EIGHT…"
He pushed himself upright, swaying violently, his arms at his sides, his chin on his chest. His eyes were open, but they saw nothing. They were vacant, glassy, focused on some distant, internal horizon.
"NINE…"
He took a stumbling step forward, almost falling again.
"TEN!"
The referee looked into his eyes. He saw no consciousness, no recognition. He saw a body standing on instinct alone. He hesitated for a split second, his instinct to stop the fight warring with the rule that a fighter on his feet at the count of ten may continue.
He wiped Kyon's gloves. "Can you continue? Show me you can fight!"
Kyon, hearing nothing, understanding nothing, took another shuffling step forward. His right hand came up in a pathetic, automatic imitation of a guard.
The referee, with a deep breath, waved Volkov back in. The fight continued.
The crowd was on its feet, a collective gasp of horror and awe hanging in the air.
Volkov, the machine, saw a defenseless opponent. He moved in to finish.
Kyon was gone. The boxer named Kyon Wilson, the thinker, the Phantom, was absent. What remained was a prehistoric creature of pure survival. A ghost, in the truest sense.
Volkov threw a straight right hand to end it.
The body that was Kyon didn't block. It didn't slip. It moved. Without thought, without technique, it executed a perfect, instinctive pull, letting the glove whisper past its chin. The movement was so pure, so efficient, it was eerie.
Volkov blinked, thrown off. He threw a left hook.
The body weaved under it, coming up on the other side, its own left arm flicking out in a blind, slapping jab that caught Volkov's nose.
It wasn't a punch thrown by a boxer. It was a reflex. A rattlesnake's strike.
Volkov, confused, stepped back. He was facing something he had no blueprint for. He wasn't fighting a man; he was fighting a survival algorithm made flesh.
He pressed again, throwing combinations. The body in front of him became smoke. It absorbed shots on its arms, rolled with punches to the head, but it never fell, never broke posture. Its eyes remained vacant, its breathing ragged but steady.
And then, it attacked.
Not with strategy, but with accumulated, desperate rage. It lunged forward, swinging wild, looping hooks. They were ugly, technically bereft, but they were thrown with the terrifying, unconscious power of a system in its death throes. One such hook, a wide, sweeping right, crashed through Volkov's guard and landed on his ear.
Volkov staggered, his icy composure finally cracking into surprise and pain. He hadn't been hurt by skill, but by the chaotic, unpredictable fury of a broken thing that refused to break.
The bell rang, saving Volkov from the bewildering onslaught.
The body that was Kyon stopped swinging, turned, and walked on unsteady legs to its corner, guided by some deep-seated muscle memory. It sat on the stool.
Thorne and Miguel looked into his eyes and saw a void. "Kyon! Kyon, look at me!" Thorne shouted, slapping his cheeks lightly.
No response. The eyes were fixed, pupils dilated.
"He's concussed. He's out on his feet," Miguel said, his voice tight with fear. "We have to stop this."
Thorne looked at the vacant face, at the heaving chest, at the body that had just risen from the dead and fought back with pure animal instinct. He looked across the ring at Volkov, who was sitting with a newly concerned expression, a trickle of blood from his ear.
He made a decision. Not as a trainer, but as the man who had pulled this kid from an alley. He reached for the towel.
A hand shot up and grabbed his wrist. The grip was iron.
Kyon's head turned slowly. The eyes were still unfocused, but a light was flickering deep within them, fighting its way up from a fathomless well. A sound emerged from his bloody lips, a guttural, mangled word that was more vibration than speech.
"N… No."
He wasn't back. Not fully. But the will, the promise—never lose again—had resurfaced from the wreckage of his mind. It was the only piece of him left intact.
Thorne stared, his heart breaking and swelling at the same time. He looked at the referee, who was watching closely. He leaned into Kyon's ear. "Then listen to my voice. Just my voice. Nothing else exists. My voice is the only thing that is real. Do you understand?"
A slow, almost imperceptible nod.
"Okay. This is the last round. You have three minutes. You cannot box him. You cannot out-think him. You must become a storm. You must hit him with everything you have until either he falls or you do. There is no more defense. There is only attack. Do you understand?"
Another nod.
The bell for Round 4.
Kyon stood up. His eyes were still not right, but they were now fixed on Volkov with a terrifying, single-minded intensity. The Ghost was gone. In its place stood something raw, elemental, and enraged.
Volkov came forward, expecting to finish the fragile survivor.
He was met by a hurricane.
Kyon charged. He threw caution, technique, and pain into the wind. He marched forward, eating Volkov's jabs, absorbing his body shots, and firing back with wild, sweeping hooks, overhand rights, and brutal uppercuts. It was not boxing. It was a street fight at the highest level of athleticism.
A Volkov right hand landed on Kyon's jaw. Kyon's head snapped sideways. He didn't wobble. He roared—a raw, animal sound—and fired a left hook that cratered into Volkov's ribs. Volkov grunted, backing up for the first time in the fight.
The crowd was in a frenzy. This was bloodsport. This was mythmaking.
They stood in the center of the ring and traded. Blow for blow. Volkov's technical, thudding power against Kyon's desperate, concussive rage. Kyon's face was a mask of blood from his nose and a cut over his eye. Volkov's nose was bleeding, his eye swelling.
With a minute left, both men were exhausted, operating on will alone. Volkov landed a combination: jab, cross, hook. The hook sent Kyon spinning. He fell against the ropes, his legs gone.
Volkov moved in, looking to end it.
Kyon, hanging on the ropes, saw an opening. As Volkov stepped in, Kyon used the ropes to launch himself forward, a final, desperate spear of a punch—a right hand thrown with every last ounce of life in his body.
It was not a textbook cross. It was a primitive, perfect arc of vengeance.
It landed on Volkov's jaw with the sound of a butcher's cleaver hitting bone.
Volkov's eyes glazed over. His knees unlocked. He crashed to the canvas, his head bouncing once, then lying still.
The referee leaped in, starting the count.
Kyon stood over him, swaying, his arms hanging, his breath coming in ragged, wet sobs. He couldn't see. He could only hear the count.
"…SEVEN… EIGHT… NINE… TEN!"
The bell rang, signaling the end of the fight, but it was unnecessary.
The referee grabbed Kyon's wrist and raised it high.
Winner by Knockout… and NEW National Champion… KYON "THE PHANTOM" WILSON!
The arena exploded. But Kyon didn't hear it. The world was tunneling to a point of light, then to darkness. His legs gave out. He collapsed backwards into the ring, out cold before he hit the canvas.
Chaos ensued. Medics from both corners rushed in. Thorne was at his side in an instant, turning him onto his side. "Stay with me, kid! Stay with me!"
Kyon was loaded onto a stretcher, an oxygen mask over his face, and rushed to the on-site medical facility, then to a Las Vegas hospital for a full neurological work-up.
The diagnosis: a severe concussion. Significant bruising. No permanent structural damage. But his brain had been rattled hard. He would need rest, a long recovery.
He woke hours later in a quiet hospital room. The first thing he saw was Thorne, asleep in a chair, his head in his hands. The first thing he felt was a pain so profound and all-encompassing it was a new state of being.
And on the bedside table, next to a vase of flowers, sat the large, gold National Championship trophy. And beside it, the two river stones.
He had done it. He had kept his promise. He had refused to lose, even when he was no longer there to witness it.
The Phantom had faced the Glacier, and in the end, it was not skill, or strategy, but the unkillable ghost of his own will that had prevailed. He was the national champion. But the cost was etched in every ache, in every blurred memory of that final, brutal war. He had reached the pinnacle of the amateur world. And he had learned, in the most violent way possible, the price of the climb.