Harriet sat still among the murmuring crowd, elbows on his knees, eyes fixed on the giant holo-screen. To the others, it was just a blur of flickers. Two silhouettes in a black forest but to him, it was a puzzle. A test of timing and nerve.
"Two shots for Gyro… one for Albert," He whispered under his breath. "That should mean Gyro's ahead but it's not that simple."
He folded his arms. Albert has wasted one early in the beginning. The recoil pattern, the faint shift in his angle. It wasn't aimed to hit, it was to locate. Clever, but costly. That single miss left a time gap, a rhythm break in the momentum of his thinking. In a game where every second is stretched into eternity, a small crack meant a lifetime.
Albert, meanwhile.… Harriet squinted. He wasn't acting like someone who was losing. He was measuring, learning with each step. The way he fired that last bullet. It wasn't pure luck. He had built the whole thing on one point of reference, like a mathematician sculpting in darkness. Humans have a specialized neural system for detecting where others are looking, which is an evolved survival mechanism. This system can be triggered by subtle visual cues, even in peripheral vision, leading to the "feeling of being watched or surrounded."
"He's adapting to Gyro's geometry!" He murmured. "If he can figure the shape of Gyro's motion pattern again…."
He paused, leaning closer, eyes glowing with excitement. "Then the next time isn't about reflex. Whoever remembers the other's movement better.… wins."
He chuckled quietly, almost proud. Albert Newton or whoever he really was, wasn't someone who lost to odds. He built his wins from scraps—patterns, mistakes, rhythms. Even Gyro's perfection could be out-thought if Albert let him think he was still in control.
"Four bullets left for each," Harriet whispered, smirking faintly. "Two geniuses walking blind in a world of zero sound.… it's not luck anymore."
His eyes gleamed at the screen.
"It is about who can see without seeing."
Inside the sealed arena, the forest had become a grave. Only two men staggered through emptiness, chasing ghosts they could neither see nor feel.
Albert Newton moved with care sharpened into obsession. His every step was a calculation, his every pause a prayer to the unknown. He could no longer tell if his eyes were open or closed. Everything was darkness now.
Gyro staggered somewhere to his left, dragging his boots through wet soil. The pain in his back meant nothing; his nerves were muted, his sensations stripped.
What remained was thought and thought was a curse. His mind whispered fragments of his father's voice, the smell of old smoke, the sound of dice rolling in a basement.
" I gamble your soul too, son."
" I will bet your mother today "
" Hey moron! Come here I said! "
" Let's see, who stops me from betting your future. "
Both men's revolvers hung like crosses from their hands.
Tom suddenly halted. The world tilted, stretched. He heard nothing, yet the silence was deafening like a scream beneath water. He realized he could hear his own heart not in beats, but in resound. The Dark System kicked in inside him, translating instinct into visionless geometry. He knew Gyro was close not by distance, but by the way the void bent around him.
Their bodies collided violently, two shadows thrashing in nothingness. The dull vibration of violence without witness. Tom's revolver fell from his grasp. Gyro struck his ribs with mechanical precision but his own movements faltered. He couldn't tell if he was hitting flesh or air. Tom countered, elbowing where a face should have been.
Then, it happened.
The Dark System flared. Tom's mind flickered and for a second—just one—he saw. Not Gyro's body, but his shadow and in that shadow, a child alone crying beside a coffin of his mother. A boy kneeling in front of gambling chips, his father's corpse hanging by a rope behind him. The revelation hit like lightning. Tom stumbled back, breathless, staring at what only he could see.
Gyro froze for a second. His mind which was stripped of senses, he saw something too. In Tom's void-shaped outline, he saw another face layered beneath. Not a detective.… not a man.… something hollow, stitched from countless deaths.
Both dropped to their knees, trembling, staring into a silence so vast it tore at their sanity.
Tom's lips quivered. He tried to whisper, "Who are we really fighting?"
No reply came.
Gyro began to laugh soundless, broken, like his body was trying to remember what laughter meant. There was no one to respond.
He raised his gun but his hand shook violently. Not from fear of dying, but of understanding too much.
Both men knelt in the blind forest shaking, undone with their business.
BANG!!!
Gyro fell backwards feeling an unknown relaxation.
Albert Newton with another shot!!!
It's now a Tie?!
What little light seeped through the digital canopy flickered, ghosting the outlines of two hunters chasing each other's absence. The Audience was all shut and intensed by their performance in confusion that who will end up winning.
Our Tom Greyrat beneath the false name, knew one thing, the rules never said Builds were forbidden. The announcement had spoken of no "abilities," but Builds were systems, not spells. They were philosophy made from codes. Most likely Gyro knew it too. Maybe he was holding something back just as Tom did.
He rolled his shoulders, revolver warm in hand. The tally was even now—each had fired multiple times, one bullet left for judgment. But the scoreboard flickered silently,
Albert Newton — 4 attempts
Gyro Regardo — 3 attempts
The extra mark had appeared while no one saw. The crowd didn't notice. The announcer didn't mention it. But Tom felt it in his chest, as if reality had quietly bent to favor Gyro.
The system itself might be testing me.
Gyro's silhouette moved through the blinding void, more confident now. He knew his senses were gone but his memory of the terrain that guided him. Every root, every tree, mapped into instinct. He whispered inside his head, Mother, I'll win this time.
Tom, however, had stopped thinking about victory. He was thinking about truth.
"This thing…." he muttered under his breath, activating its passive rhythm. The shadows bent differently. He saw faint distortions around Gyro's outline out of ripples of guilt, of pride, of vengeance. Every emotion Gyro had buried just to keep breathing all along.
Both of them began to move again. Slowly at first. Then faster, faster, faster!
Their boots pounded the soil as if running from the same ghost.
Tom ducked behind a half-collapsed tree trunk. Gyro mirrored him from the opposite side. They were circling without knowing it. The audience, watching through screens, leaned forward. Quiet, as if silence itself had joined the gamble to watch with them.
Then, something strange happened. A second heartbeat echoed in Tom's ears. Not his own. It came from the Dark System's vision. A reverberation of Gyro's soul trembling.
He raised the revolver, whispering to himself, If he can feel that, he'll fire first.
Gyro's survival instincts kicked in. He couldn't see, couldn't hear, but the tension in the air tilted. He took the revolver high above.
Proprioception and Kinesthesia, the "sixth sense" that provides the unconscious perception of where the body and its parts are in space without visual cues but also extent and speed of movement.
Both fired at the same moment.
The screens flared white.
When the light faded, Tom was standing, smoke spiraling from his barrel, chest heaving. Gyro stood across from him. A faint red mark blooming on his side.
Tom blinked. Did I win?
An impact came up.
Three sharp stings in his abdomen. Not one, but three.
He staggered backward, breath stolen. His revolver slipped from his grip, clattering into the leaves.
The silence shattered into the announcer's roaring voice—
"GYROOOOOOOO REGARDOOOOO—VICTORY! THREE ATTEMPTS, THREE BULLETS SUCCESSFUL!"
The crowd erupted.
Tom knelt, blood trickling from his lips, half-smiling in disbelief. Somewhere between confusion and admiration, he whispered,
"He.… predicted me predicting him."
The screens zoomed in on Gyro, who stood tall, chest bleeding but eyes resolute. The man who'd sworn never to gamble again had just won his dead father's game without a single sense.
Tom smiled faintly as his vision dimmed.
He'd lost. But what he had seen in Gyro's shadow was something even the Dark System couldn't explain. A man's will to suffer for meaning.
The forest simulation dissolved into smoke and data shards collapsing into darkness. The ringing of gunfire still clung to the steel walls of the underground coliseum. The announcer's voice rose sharply through the static, trembling with excitement and cruel ceremony.
"RESULT CONFIRMED! Gyro Regardo is the winner of the debut match of this season!! One point gained for victory! No kill, no bonus point!"
The crowd erupted again, though this time it was less cheer, more reverent murmur. On the screens, two bodies stood between the flickering trees. One upright, one barely standing.
Tom's legs gave way. Pain struck like a collapsing star. His body screamed though his senses remained half-dead from the match's lingering seals. The holographic text blinked before his dimming eyes,
[ Organs Lost: Gallbladder. Pancreas. Both Kidneys ]
He could feel the void where they used to be. A lifeless walking being, slow-bleeding space that wasn't quite pain. He wandered if that is what it feels like being a zombie.
The announcer continued with pride, "Gyro Regardo has regained his heart, one lung, and appendix! Cheated Death by victory's merit!"
Far edge of the ring, Gyro stood quiet, trembling slightly, blood crusting on his side. He didn't raise his arms or bow. Their gazes met, Tom lying on the cracked ground. Gyro standing in silhouette under the flickering lights.
Tom wanted to say something. His throat was dry. Words only came in whispers.
"You didn't…. have to hold back.…"
Gyro blinked but said nothing. His expression was unreadable. Neither pity nor pride. Just a hollow calm, the kind only those who've survived too many losses carry.
He just said one thing,
" If it was a real battle, the result could have been different. "
A pair of medical assistants rushed in, pushing a rolling bed with iron wheels that screeched against the metal floor. They lifted Tom gently, his trench coat heavy with dust and blood. His revolver dangled from his hand before slipping away, clattering softly on the floor.
Gyro followed beside as they rolled Tom away through the corridor, eyes fixed forward.
Tom tilted his head weakly toward him. "You…. were fight like someone trying to erase himself."
Still silence. Only footsteps.
Gyro stopped walking before the corridor's turn, his shadow stretching across the light. Tom thought he might finally answer.
Gyro only whispered, barely audible,
"We both did."
Then he turned away as the bed rolled on, vanishing into the sterile white of the medic's chamber.