The Tokyo strip was a skeleton now. Not dead, but certainly not alive. The neon signs, which usually screamed for attention, were muted by the Blovid curfew, casting a sickly, half-hearted glow on the wet pavement. It was late, far past any reasonable hour for Cassie to be out. But Cassie was dormant. I was the one walking the town.
The air was heavy, smelling of damp concrete and the distant, sterile scent of disinfectants. I didn't mind the silence. The quiet let me hear the faint hum; the residual buzz of Kyoki Piero’s voice echoing the Cyber Reavers’ strategy against us.
“You want to target my hands and my eyes? Good luck.”
I was on my way back to the apartment Colton rented, my apartment now. I watched my reflection pass in the dark glass of a closed pachinko parlor. The face was Cassie’s, but the coldness in the eyes belonged entirely to me.
Kyoki believed she had found the key to Cassie’s defeat: sentimental weakness. She focused on the soft, weeping heart of the girl inside. The girl who missed William and grieved over the separation from Sammy. Kyoki thought she could bait that homesickness, exploit the panic, and watch as Cassie broke down.
Fool.
I felt a slight tremor in my left hand, a remnant of Cassie's anxiety after the phone call, but I crushed it. Feelings were the enemy. Love, longing, fear; they were all anchors that trapped Cassie and kept me from doing the job. My existence wasn't a choice; it was a ruthless, singular purpose: to protect the core of Cassie against all threats, even the ones in her own bloodline. The Hurst family: they tried to keep me caged, to lose the beast and preserve the good girl. They didn't understand. They were the ones holding her back. They were a threat, too.
I stopped under the flicker of a single, strobing streetlamp. I had the barbed wire bat, “The Vain 0ne”, wrapped in canvas and secured in my duffel bag. It was the only sentimental object I could tolerate because it was, fundamentally, a tool for destruction.
Kyoki’s voice, amplified by the Reaver’s tech, replayed the section where she threatened to use Kami and Hara.
“If she says their names first…”
I smiled, a thin, predatory slash of a grin that felt foreign on Cassie’s face.
I knew Kami. I respected her. I knew the quiet, deadly assassin that lived beneath Kami's polite exterior. I recognized that same “Killer” instinct that I possessed. And Hara? He was just as driven as I was, though for a different reason. His only purpose was to protect Kami, to shield her from pain, to execute any violence required for her survival. I understood that fire. That was the only emotion I could truly appreciate in another person.
Kyoki thought she was threatening Cassie’s friends. She was wrong. She was threatening two fighters whose sole purpose was protection, just like mine. She would find no soft spot there.
“She’s fighting for home. Fiancé in Texas. Kid who calls her Aunt.”
Vanity doesn't fight for home. I fight for dominance. This Death Match is my specialty because it is pure, unadulterated survival. I don't need a game plan, and I don't need to study Kyoki's Speed or her Agility. That's Cassie’s job.
I walked on, the neon reflecting like slick paint in the puddles.
Kyoki can train all day long for Cassie—the girl who respects the Shin Breaker as a strategic move and the Sundrop as a spectacle. But she will step into that ring unprepared for Vanity—the one who will use that Shin Breaker to tear ligaments and use The Vain 0ne to crack her skull open.
I am not the one who needs to worry about the Reavers. They are the ones who need to fear the moment Cassie’s control snaps. Because when I finally emerge, full and complete, I won’t just be winning a championship. I’ll be taking a life. And I will not apologize for it.
The city lights blurred, and I felt the cold, hard certainty of the job ahead. Kyoki Piero was the wall, and I was the demolition charge.
The damp air of the Tokyo street clung to me, but I didn't register the chill. Cold was a neutral state, a background hum against the rising, feverish certainty of my purpose. I didn't hurry to the apartment; I walked, letting the silence of the curfew wrap around me like a perfectly fitted suit of armor. I was the sentinel, the beast allowed out after dark, and the night belonged to me.
I am Vanity. I am the dark; the only emotion I possess is the cold, perfect logic of survival. This Death Match will not be a spectacle; it will be a purification ritual, and Kyoki Piero is simply the sacrificial lamb.
I looked up at the sterile, muted reflection of the city, and the yearning for Texas was nonexistent. Home was a word that meant vulnerability. It meant the expectation of goodness. It meant the subtle, constant pressure from the Hurst family to keep me locked away—to keep me from fully emerging. They were terrified of the ruthless, sadistic truth of what Cassie had become, what she needed to be to survive this world. My only job was to preserve this body, and if that meant burning the bridges back to Texas to ensure Cassie’s survival, then I would light the match myself.
The warmth of family was a liability. Kyoki could train all she wanted for the girl who fought for a phone call home; she would never be ready for the entity who saw the phone as a superfluous distraction.
"You're paying for loneliness, Reaver," I whispered to the empty street. "And I pay only in blood and aggression."
Kyoki and Takeshi Nomura thought they were so clever. They had run the numbers. They had quoted Cassie’s attributes like they were reading a scouting report—Strength, Agility, Stamina. They understood the strategy that Colton, bless his naïve, protective heart, had advised.
“She wants to turn me into ground traffic... Grind the gears until the Redline Reaver starts coughing smoke.”
Yes, Cassie's plan was elegant: use the Shin Breaker to eliminate Kyoki's Speed advantage, lock her up in the Black Sheep to attack the spine, and exploit the high-cost nature of her chaotic offense. It was Colton's plan—strategic, sound, and predictable.
I, however, don't follow plans. I execute necessities.
I knew Kyoki's entire approach hinged on two moves: the feigned selling and the counter-targeting.
“Let her think the plan is working. Give her your limp, give her your winces.”
They intend to lull Cassie into complacency, forcing her to expend all her Stamina and emotion on a setup, only for Kyoki to spring up and end the match with the Bloodline Implosion.
I scoffed, the sound dry and humorless. That move only works on a wrestler fighting with emotion. I have none. When I hit, I won't be looking for the wince. I'll be looking for the precise angle of the knee joint. I will not stop hitting her, not because I am angry, but because I need to confirm the damage. I will not rely on her acting skills. I will use the weight of this body, not to beat her, but to inflict terminal damage.
I will turn her strategic limp into a surgical necessity. By the time we deliver the final move, it won't matter if her back is functional, because she won't have the will to get up.
“She wants your legs and your back? You take her hands and her eyes.”
Yuriko Ikeda’s advice—to break Cassie's hands on chairs and flood my vision with glass—was sound. It was designed to nullify the effectiveness of “The Vain 0ne” and disrupt Cassie’s already struggling vision in high-chaos situations. It was meant to make her hesitate.
"You can't blind a predator, Reaver.”
You can't take the hands of a fighter whose true weapon is ruthless aggression. My fighting style isn't based on sight or feel; it's based on instinct. If I can't see the opening, I will create one by shattering whatever is closest to me. If Kyoki slams my hand in a chair, I will use that chair to snap her forearm. My defense is always a higher-level offense.
The pain won't shock me. It will only push Cassie further back into the corner of her mind, giving me full, glorious control. Every spark of agonizing pain from my own body will be a release—a confirmation that I am fully present, fully armed, and entirely dangerous.
This Death Match is not just about a championship title; it is about the evolution of the self. It is about the final, bloody declaration that Cassie is no longer exploited by invaders or held down by family expectations.
I turned the final corner toward the apartment building. The streetlights here were buzzing, erratic, perfectly fitting my mood.
Kyoki wants the belt because it chose her. She said…where I want the wreckage because it confirms my existence.
“ 'The Vain 0ne' is coming for you, Reaver. And I promise you, when I emerge from that carnage, still standing and covered in your blood, Cassie will be further gone than ever before. You will never be ready for me."
