The enormous arena was roaring.
The stands rose upward in tiers, going all the way to the very ceiling, where old concrete floor slabs and rusty beams were lost in the semi-darkness. There were hundreds of thousands of people here. They were shouting, whistling, stamping their feet, and this noise rolled in waves, like a storm surf crashing against cliffs. The air trembled from the low bass of the music that burst from the speakers embedded in the walls. The smell of popcorn, cheap beer, and other people's sweat mixed into one thick, heavy cocktail.
September.
Summer was over.
It was 2024.
On the upper tier of the stands, right by the railing, stood five people. Pardon, in a black shirt with an unbuttoned collar, was holding a bottle of water in his hand but wasn't drinking, just looking down. Takamura, beside him, in a dark jacket, her hair gathered in a low bun, her glasses glinting in the light of the spotlights. Sua, craning his long neck like a heron, his huge eyes darting across the arena, missing nothing. Miyuki, arms crossed over her chest, lips pressed into a thin line, a slight furrow of tension on her forehead. Mika, standing slightly behind everyone, hugging herself with her arms, even though it was hot in the hall.
"Look," said Sua, pointing down. "Look, look. He's coming out."
Genzo came out from the right corner.
The arena exploded. Not just with shouts, but with a real roar that made your ears ring. Thousands of throats were screaming his name, interspersing it with other words, crude, unintelligible, full of anger and delight.
Genzo walked slowly. He could feel the floor vibrating beneath his feet. The concrete was cold even through the soles. The spotlight light hit his face, and he squinted but didn't lower his head. He had prepared for these two months; he was wearing light fighting shorts and a stretched-out T-shirt, from under which scars and bruises were visible, old, healed ones, like a map of wars on his body.
His grip strength had reached six tons.
Six tons, invested in his fingers, in his palms, in every movement. He hadn't tested it on simulators; he tested it on bones. On those who came out against him in dark basements and abandoned warehouses. Six tons meant he could break an arm like a dry branch. He could tear a piece out of a concrete wall if he wanted. He could choke a man with one movement.
He put in his mouthguard.
White plastic, cheap, bought in a sporting goods store for a thousand yen. He bit down on it a couple of times, checking if it fit snugly. His bite had also become stronger, another gift of the training.
From the left corner came Anton Kabov.
He was taller than Genzo, by half a head, maybe a whole one. Shoulders like concrete blocks. Neck, short, thick, almost merging with the trapezius muscles. Face, rough, with prominent cheekbones and deep scars above his brows. He wasn't smiling. At all. He walked like a lumberjack walks towards a tree that needs to be felled.
He was wearing only shorts and bandages on his fists. No T-shirt, no tank top. His torso was covered in tattoos. Something church-like, domes, crosses, and between them, skulls. Symbols of faith and death, intertwined into one tangle.
He didn't come out alone. Behind him, three others. Also Russians, but smaller, flanking him, like bodyguards or just his own people. Anton didn't notice them. Or pretended not to.
When he was walking towards the ring, not the ring, the cage, a huge octagonal cage with a metal mesh, a girl appeared in his path. She was standing at the edge, looking at someone in the crowd, not seeing what was happening. Anton didn't slow down. Didn't go around.
He just shoved her.
Sharply, roughly, with his shoulder.
The girl flew to the side, waved her arms, lost her balance and fell. Right into the dust that had gathered on the concrete floor by the edge of the stands. Her knees were bloody, scratched, abraded. Someone helped her up, but no one screamed. No one protested. Because everyone saw who did it. And everyone was silent.
"Get out of the way, woman," Anton threw over his shoulder, without even glancing.
His voice was low, guttural, like a bear that had learned to speak.
Pardon upstairs snorted. Shook his head. Turned to Takamura.
"See?"
"I saw," Takamura replied. Her voice was even, but a coldness appeared in it.
"He won't stand on ceremony," said Pardon. "He didn't come for sport."
"None of them came for sport," Takamura replied.
They exchanged glances. Takamura nodded slightly. Agreed. Without words, just a slight movement of her head, which was enough.
Down below, in the cage, Genzo was looking at his hands. He unclenched his fingers, then clenched them. Then unclenched them again. His knuckles turned white. Six tons. Six tons, which right now would decide whether he would go home on his own two feet or be carried out.
Anton entered the cage. The metal door clanged shut, dully, heavily, like the lid of a coffin. He stopped opposite Genzo. Looked down at him from above. And grinned.
"You," he said.
The accent, thick as molasses. The words enveloped like oil.
"Why did you come?"
Genzo raised his head. Looked into his eyes, dark, almost black, without luster.
"To fight," he replied shortly.
"To fight?" Anton bared his teeth. Big, yellow, one broken. "You don't know how to fight. You only know how not to fall. Those are different things."
"We'll see."
"We'll see," Anton agreed. "Just don't cry later. Mommy won't come."
Genzo didn't answer. He just clenched his jaw on the mouthguard a little harder.
The referee raised his hand. Shouted something, indistinguishable because of the noise. But Genzo and Anton didn't need words. They looked at each other like two machines standing at an intersection before a collision.
The referee looked at the two of them; he stood in the middle, and they were truly huge.
"Fight!" the referee yelled.
And the white light hit their eyes.
The first seconds, like the first breath underwater. The lungs burn, blood pounds in the temples, and you don't know if you'll surface.
Anton went forward immediately. No feeling out, no jabs, immediately power. Right hook, like a sledgehammer, on an arc towards the head. Genzo dodged, not much, only by centimeters, but he dodged. The air whistled past his temple, his hair stirred.
First strike.
Second, with the left.
Third, right again, already to the body.
Genzo took it on the shoulder. The shoulder went numb, but didn't break. Six tons. He could take it. But Anton wasn't striking with six tons. He struck harder. More powerfully. With the force that comes not from muscles, but from the rage that had accumulated for years in freezing cities, in bar fights, in prison gyms where there are no rules.
The referee tried to get closer, and immediately jumped back. Anton swung his elbow, and the referee had to duck to avoid getting hit in the face. He understood. He didn't want to anymore. He stayed in the corner and just watched.
The fight turned into something else. Not a sport. Not a competition. Just two bodies that wanted to destroy each other.
Genzo switched to defense. Anton chopped like an axe. But an axe doesn't know how to change trajectory. Genzo dodged, ducked, slipped. He used techniques Anton hadn't seen, throws over the hip, sweeps, hooks that came from wrestling, from judo, from street fights.
He caught Anton's arm, the left one, when he was winding up. His fingers dug into the forearm. Anton jerked, but didn't break free. Genzo spun him, with a jerk, using his own weight, his own inertia. He staggered, hit his shoulder against the mesh. The mesh hummed like a string.
Anton got angry.
He pushed off from the mesh and went berserk. The strikes rained down like hail, left, right, left, right, without breathing, without pauses. Genzo covered up with a block, but each strike broke through the defense. His arms went numb. His elbows burned. One strike hit the body, and Genzo was bent over, he spat out his mouthguard, but managed to catch it in mid-air and put it back in.
Blood in his mouth.
He struck back.
Straight left to the jaw. Anton shook his head, but didn't fall. Only grinned. Genzo added a right, to the liver. Anton bent over, but didn't flinch. He was like an old pine tree: branches break, but the trunk stands.
Genzo stood on one hand.
His fingers dug into the ground. His other hand behind his back, legs together, body like a string. He froze for a second. Then he pushed off.
The shockwave scattered the dust to the sides, beer cups cracked, metal frames began to creak. The ground on the arena shook a little. At the same moment, his legs went back, whiplash-like, fast, precise. Two soles flew into Anton's solar plexus.
He didn't have time to inhale or step back. The air was knocked out of his lungs with a dull sound. Anton was thrown back a few steps, he doubled over, gasping for emptiness with his mouth.
Genzo lowered himself onto his feet. Straightened up.
"That's it," said Genzo.
Anton exhaled. Hoarsely. Through his teeth.
"...good," he squeezed out. "Convinced me."
Pardon behind him whistled softly.
They exchanged strikes, like players exchange cards, quickly, greedily, without hesitation. Genzo used his knees, twice on Anton's thigh, once on his stomach. Anton answered with an elbow to the back of the head; Genzo ducked under, but the back of his head still ached.
Three minutes.
Five.
Seven.
The referee was no longer looking at the time. The spectators were no longer sitting, they were standing, screaming, banging on their seats.
Genzo didn't feel pain or fatigue. Each of his strikes was like a bag of cement dropped from a height. Genzo held on with technique, he calculated his trajectory, took Anton down to the mat, he grabbed his arms, he tried to choke him, but Anton just got up, shook him off like an annoying fly.
They bounced off each other, collided again, circled the cage, leaving spots of sweat and blood on the floor. Genzo hit Anton in the nose, there was a crack, blood ran down his lips, but Anton didn't even blink. He poked Genzo in the eyes with his fingers, dirty, forbidden, but the referee was no longer managing the fight.
Genzo was blinded for a second, and missed the right hook.
The strike landed on the temple.
The ground swayed.
Genzo fell to one knee, but got up. Because he couldn't not get up. Not here. Not now.
Anton looked at him. Blood was covering his T-shirt; Genzo had managed to split his eyebrow with an elbow. Anton looked tired. For the first time.
"Still standing," he said.
"I'm standing," Genzo exhaled.
"Why?"
"The dog barks, but the caravan moves on."
The judges deliberated for a long time. Three minutes, maybe four. Genzo stood in his corner, leaning on the mesh. Anton, in his, with a towel slung over his shoulder.
When a draw was announced, the stands exploded.
But not with applause.
They started roaring.
Thousands of throats demanded a winner. Demanded blood. Someone threw an empty bottle at the cage. Someone, a lighter. A second later, chairs flew, plastic cups, food wrappers.
A man in a tracksuit jumped onto the mesh and started pounding it with his fists, staring at Genzo.
"You didn't fight, you sorry bastard."
Genzo was silent.
Another fan, closer to Anton, was screaming in Russian, cursing, waving his arms. Someone behind him smashed a bottle against someone else's seat. Glass shattered into shards, someone cried out.
The riot didn't start from one moment; it had ripened in the air, like a thunderstorm, and now it broke through. People were coming down from the stands, jumping over the barriers, running towards the cage. They were forming into groups that turned into a crowd.
Some were for Genzo. Some, against. But there was no difference anymore. The only thing that mattered was that they needed to fight.
Genzo pushed off from the mesh when the first guy climbed into the cage through the lower crossbar. Genzo didn't think. He just grabbed him by the collar, pulled him towards himself and headbutted him, forehead to forehead. The guy flew back like a doll, sprawling on the floor.
The second one, already over the top, was climbing over like a monkey. Genzo caught him by the leg, yanked, and the man fell, hitting the back of his head on the metal threshold. He wasn't moving.
The third one, Genzo met with a knee to the stomach. He doubled over, and Genzo shoved him aside like a bag of trash.
The fourth, a big one with a shaved head, swung a chair. Genzo ducked, the chair flew past, hit the mesh. Genzo straightened up, grabbed the guy by the waist, spun him over his hip, and he flew into the crowd, knocking down two more.
Anton, meanwhile, was fighting off three. He was working with his elbows. One of the attackers fell with a split eyebrow, the second grabbed his arm, Anton twisted his elbow. The third backed off himself.
But the crowd didn't calm down. It rolled in waves, like the sea, like a tide that can't be stopped.
Genzo retreated towards the barrier, behind which was the passage. With his back, he pressed against the fence, a tall metal grating that separated the fighting zone from the service areas. Someone from the crowd pulled out a chain. Not a toy one, a real, heavy one. It whistled in the air. Genzo managed to move, the chain hit the grating, throwing sparks.
He intercepted the hand with the chain. Pulled. The guy holding the chain flew forward, and Genzo caught him by the crown of his head. A turn, and this guy's head forcefully went into the concrete floor. A dull sound, like a watermelon shattered. The guy went quiet.
Genzo looked at Anton.
Anton was looking at him.
Their gazes met across the entire cage, through the scrambling people, through the screams, curses, fighting.
Anton nodded.
Genzo nodded in return.
Then he turned and ran. Not out of fear, but out of tactics. He dived into the service passage, ducked under the tape that had already been torn down, and disappeared into the darkness of the corridor.
Anton stayed.
But not to fight; he wiped his face with the edge of his T-shirt, spat blood, and slowly walked towards the opposite exit. Those who tried to stop him just stepped aside.
Already in the corridor, in the silence, Genzo stopped. His hands were shaking. From the adrenaline boiling in his blood. He leaned his back against the cold wall, closed his eyes for a second.
"Ay-ush-en-ki."
He opened his eyes.
Anton was standing two steps away. His face was covered in blood, not only his own, but also someone else's. He was breathing heavily, but his eyes looked calm.
"How are you doing there?" Anton said.
"Alright, I guess," Genzo replied.
Anton took a step forward. Genzo tensed, but Anton didn't strike. He just patted him on the back. Heavily. Paternally.
"Not bad. I give you credit."
Genzo didn't answer.
"I thought you'd fall in the third minute," Anton continued. "You didn't fall. That's good. I respect those. Even if they lose."
"This day isn't ours," said Genzo.
"There are no draws in life," Anton grinned. "Someone always loses. Today the spectators lost. And we both won. With money? No. With respect. And that's worth more."
He turned away, took a step, then stopped.
"If you want a real fight, come to us. There are no judges there. And no mesh. Just snow and a cage welded by hand."
"I'll think about it," said Genzo.
"Think faster. Time is not your friend."
Anton left. Footsteps faded down the corridor.
Genzo exhaled. Spat blood, it was still flowing, the taste of iron.
From above, from the stands, shouts were still coming. The riot wasn't subsiding. But Genzo no longer heard them. He only heard his heart, which was finally slowing its pace.
Upstairs, by the railing, Pardon grabbed Takamura by the arm.
"We're leaving," he said.
Takamura didn't argue.
They ran.
Sua, ahead of everyone, his long legs flashing like spokes on a wheel. Miyuki, behind him, clenching her teeth, not falling behind. Mika, almost next to Pardon, her face was white, but she didn't scream.
Behind their backs, the stands were turning into a pandemic. People were fighting, smashing chairs, breaking posters. Someone was trying to get out to the top, someone was jumping down. The arena was humming like a disturbed beehive that wouldn't calm down until morning.
They ran outside.
The night was cool, September-like. The stars were pale, almost invisible because of the city lights. Pardon stopped, bent over, leaning on his knees with his hands, breathing heavily.
"Damn," he exhaled. "Damn, damn, damn."
Takamura was looking at the door they had run out of. Inside, they were still yelling.
"He'll come out," she said. "Genzo will come out."
"Are you sure?" asked Sua, and his voice trembled.
"Yes," Takamura replied. "Because he doesn't know how to stay in one place, our restless one, this fool."
Mika was silent. But her eyes were full of what cannot be called fear. Rather, anticipation.
The door creaked.
Genzo came out of the shadows. In a torn T-shirt, dirty, with dried blood on his lip and cheekbone. But walking. On his own two feet.
"Alive," he said hoarsely.
Pardon straightened up, clapped him on the shoulder, gently, as if afraid of breaking him.
"Did you see what's happening in there? We barely made it out ourselves."
"I saw," Genzo grinned crookedly. "I was the one carrying them out."
Sua exhaled in relief, grabbed Genzo's arm and squeezed it, hard, to the point of pain.
"Don't do that again," he said. "Never. I'm scared for you."
Genzo looked at him. At Pardon. At Mika and Miyuki. At Takamura, who was already lighting a cigarette. Although she never did it in front of him.
"A draw," said Genzo. "I didn't lose."
"You didn't lose," Takamura agreed. "But you didn't win either. And that's sometimes worse."
They walked away from the arena.
Behind their backs, the city, which never sleeps, was screaming. Morning came, overcast, gray.
Genzo came out of that same hospital.
The door slammed shut behind him. He looked at his boots, once dark, now with dark stains. Blood. Whose, he remembered. And it didn't matter anymore.
He lifted his leg and wiped the sole with his hand.
Inhaled the spring air.