Kazahiro's knuckles were raw again.
Not from the street — but from hours spent slamming his fists into the sandbags until he couldn't lift his arms. The warehouse had become a second home, its walls echoing with the rhythm of breath, strike, silence.
Goro watched him now from a distance, arms crossed, silent as always.
"Again," he said.
Kazahiro stepped forward. Jab. Cross. Pivot. Intercepting footwork. Again. And again.
It wasn't about looking good. Goro didn't care about that. He cared about precision — about cutting through movement like a blade through paper. Kazahiro had learned to keep his body tight, to let go of wasted motion. It was brutal, boring, repetitive — but he felt sharper. Quicker. His rage was quieter now. Focused.
"Do you know why you're doing this?" Goro asked one day, mid-training.
"To get stronger."
Goro grunted. "Wrong. Strength is a tool. I'm teaching you to control it. The world you come from — that gutter — it breeds chaos. But there's another world. One that moves behind the noise."
Kazahiro furrowed his brow. "What world?"
Goro didn't answer.
Instead, he walked over to a rusted cabinet in the back of the warehouse and pulled out an old black binder. The leather was cracked, its edges worn smooth by time. He tossed it onto a crate.
Kazahiro opened it slowly.
Inside were photographs. Fighters. Not like the ones in street brawls or alley scraps. These men wore suits before stepping into rings. Some were bruised, bloodied, grinning like they'd just closed a million-dollar deal with their fists.
The logos behind them weren't gyms. They were corporations.
"What is this?" Kazahiro asked.
Goro lit a cigarette and looked away.
"A future. For the few who survive long enough to earn it."
There was silence.
Kazahiro looked down at one of the photos — a man standing barefoot in a ring, his chest heaving, a steel briefcase beside him. The audience around him wore tailored suits. One of them, an older man with a sharp beard, held up a placard marked with a symbol Kazahiro didn't recognize.
A triangle inside a circle. Simple. Cold.
The next photo showed that same man later — smiling in front of a skyscraper.
"What is this place?" Kazahiro asked.
Goro exhaled slowly. "You'll understand when you're ready."
Kazahiro didn't press further.
But that night, after training, when he lay on the cracked mattress in his room, surrounded by the creaks and groans of a city collapsing in on itself, he couldn't get the image out of his mind.
A world where money and power clashed behind closed doors.
And in that world… fighters weren't thugs.
They were weapons.
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