I did not spend the next three days in the ring. I spent them in the infirmary of the Fourth Division. It was not a sterile, white room like the one at Echo. It was a converted warehouse that smelled of disinfectant and old coffee. My ribs were bruised, my face looked like a crushed plum, and my whole body felt as if Utak had used it as a trampoline.
But the physical pain was not the worst part. It was the silence. Nobody visited me. There were no encouraging words. There were no flowers at my bed. Only Rioji stopped by once a day. He stood in the doorframe and stared at me as if I were an experiment that had not yet completely failed. He said "Stand up when you no longer have to scream while urinating. We have work to do." Then he left again. Was it a love-hate relationship? No. At that time, it was only hate. But it was a hate that kept me warm. I would prove to him that I would not stay down.
The Theory of Silence
On day four, I was back in the training room. I expected the cage. I expected Zayne or Utak to be ready to crush me into the ground again. But the room was empty. Only Rioji sat in the middle in a cross legged position with his eyes closed. A single candle burned in front of him. "Sit down," he said without opening his eyes. I limped toward him and sat down opposite him. The metal floor was cold. "Are we going to fight?" I asked cautiously. Rioji opened one eye. It was dark and unfathomable like an oil drum. "Fighting? You can barely sit without whimpering. No. Today you will learn what you hate the most." He pointed to the candle. "Silence." I stared at the small flame. "Is this a joke?""The only joke here is you, Shinsei," he growled. "Your problem is not a lack of strength. Your problem is that you are a total mess. You have four radio stations in your head that are all playing at full volume at the same time. Red, Blue, Violet, Green." He leaned forward. "You must learn to mute three of them. Isolation. That is the magic word." "Isolation. So, being alone. I am good at that."
And so the hell began. It was not the hell of blows. It was the hell of boredom. It lasted for hours. It lasted for days. I had to sit. I had to breathe. And I had to try to do nothing. I was supposed to imagine my blood turning red. Only red. No thoughts of Aria (Violet). No perception of movement in the room (Blue). No connection to the air (Green). Only heat. Only focus. It was torturous. My mind wanted to race. I wanted to think about revenge, about Shade, and about the voice from the file. Every time my concentration drifted away, Rioji flicked my forehead. It hurt terribly. "Wrong. You think too much. Be free. Be a stone. Be a muscle."
The Wisdom of the Street
After two weeks, I was allowed to stand up again. But it was not for the ring. I was assigned to cleaning duty. I had to sweep the workshop, sort parts, and change the oil on the training drones. It felt like a humiliation. But it was part of the plan. While I worked, I observed the others. Zayne often sat in a corner with a holographic chessboard in front of him. He did not move any pieces. He only stared at them for hours. He was training his mind. Utak lifted weights that were so heavy that the steel bars bent. He laughed while doing it and talked to the weights as if they were pets. Lynora was everywhere and nowhere. Sometimes I felt her gaze on the back of my neck, but when I turned around, she was gone. One evening, while I was trying to wash the lubricating oil off my hands, Zayne stepped next to me at the sink. He did not look at me. He washed his hands meticulously. "You are trying to be like Rioji," he said quietly. I flinched. It was the first time he had spoken to me outside of the ring. "He is the master. I do what he says." Zayne shook his head. "Wrong. Rioji is a tank. He breaks through walls. You..." He turned off the faucet and finally looked at me. His eyes were cool and calculating. "You are from the slums, right?" I nodded and tensed up. Was this another insult? "So what?""In the slums, you do not win fairly. You throw sand in the eyes. You bite. You use the environment." He dried his hands. "You are trying to fight clean to prove that you belong here. But that is your mistake. Your strength is not discipline. Your strength is that you fight dirty. Use that. Combine the Red with the dirt." He walked to the door. "A pawn does not become a queen by pretending to be one. It becomes a queen by crossing the board and surviving." He left me standing there. I stared at my hands. Dirty. Scarred. Fighting dirty. Perhaps the chess player was right.
The First Step
A month had passed. My ribs had healed. My muscles had become harder. They were not huge like Utak's, but they were wiry and tough. I had learned to push back the white flood inside me. It was still difficult, like holding a door closed against a storm surge, but I managed to leave a crack open. For Red. Rioji called us together in the middle of the night. He stood in the ring with a wicked grin on his face. "Enough meditation. Enough cleaning. It is time for a test." He pointed at me. Then he pointed at Utak. "Kyro versus Utak. No resonance weapons. Only bodies. And Kyro..." He looked at me warningly. "If I see even a single spark of Blue or Violet, I will break both of your legs. Only Red. Isolated." I stepped into the ring. Utak cracked his knuckles. He no longer seemed like a playful child. He seemed like a boulder waiting to roll. "Ready, pup?" he asked, grinning. I took a deep breath. I blocked everything out. The fear. The doubts. Aria. Shade. I found the small, red spark in my chest. I fed it with my own blood and my own sugar. Ignition. My muscles became hot. My veins stood out. A faint, red glow settled over my skin like a film. It was not much. It was only a fraction of what Utak could do. But it was controlled. "Come here," I said. Utak charged. He was fast for his mass. He was a battering ram. A month ago, I would have tried to block him. I would have been crushed. But I remembered Zayne's words. Fight dirty. Just before Utak hit me, I dropped down. Not away, but underneath him. I used the smooth metal floor and slid on my knees through his legs. Utak struck the empty air. I was behind him. I kicked my leg up, reinforced by the red spark. It was a kick to the back of the knee. CRACK. Utak stumbled. He did not fall because he was too heavy, but he went down on one knee. A murmur went through the rows of spectators. Utak spun around, his face red with anger. "You little rat!" He swung. It was a backhand strike that would have torn my head off. I saw it coming. This time, I could not dodge. I crossed my arms. I pressed the red spark into my forearms and made the flesh as hard as concrete. BAM. The blow hit me. It hurt. It hurt a lot. I slid three meters across the floor and the soles of my shoes smoked. But I was still standing. My arm was not broken. The red aura had held. Utak wanted to follow up, but Rioji whistled. "Enough." Utak stopped immediately. He breathed heavily and stared at me. Then he began to grin. "Not bad. For a rat." He reached out his hand. It was a paw as large as a spade. I hesitated briefly, then I took it. His grip was firm but no longer crushing. It was recognition. "Thank you, Utak. You are incredibly strong." Rioji walked slowly toward me. He smiled. He looked at my arms, where the red glow was slowly fading. "Your technique is still ugly," he said. "You move like a stray dog running away from a broom.""I am getting better. From a little rat to a stray dog, that is not bad." He looked me in the eyes. "But you isolated. You did not explode. And you forced Utak to his knees. For three seconds." He turned around and left. "Tomorrow we start with conditioning. You will not vomit in my ring anymore. Carry on." "Yes, Boss." I stood there, the pain in my arms throbbing like a beat. I looked at Zayne, who was leaning in his corner. He nodded to me almost imperceptibly. I looked at Lynora, who was grinning down from the balcony. And at Utak, who slapped me on the shoulder so hard that I almost fell over. I was still the pup. I was still the weakest. But I belonged now. And I had learned that my origin was not a flaw. The dirt of the slums was my armor, and I will make it my weapon. And the red rage in my blood was my sword. I was ready for the next step.