For everyone else, the festival had already ended.
For them, it was just starting.
The courtyard's noise blurred into a distant roar—sirens, screams, shouts, the brittle edge of panic—fading into the background of two boys standing in the wreckage.
Ryo.
Max.
Blood drying on one uniform.
A hole freshly closed on the other.
Ryo's last words still hung in the air like a verdict.
"Because this time… I will kill you."
Max didn't answer him.
He just moved.
He launched forward with a speed that ripped cracks through the tiles beneath his feet. The air around him warped—heat pouring off his shoulders in shimmering waves, green embers leaking from between his knuckles.
Ryo didn't flinch.
He lifted one hand, palm lazily turned toward Max like he was calming a dog.
His voice was soft. Barely louder than a breath.
"Slow."
The world grabbed Max by the bones.
His body hit syrup—an invisible drag clutching at his legs, his shoulders, even his teeth. The heat around him stuttered; his sprint decayed into a heavy, throttled charge. It felt like running at full speed into deep water.
Max snarled, muscles screaming as he forced himself forward anyway.
He watched Ryo's eyes.
No panic. No effort. Only mild curiosity.
Max swung.
Ryo shifted half a step, letting the punch pass just off-center, the heat off Max's knuckles singing his sleeve. He raised two fingers, flicking them lazily toward the ground.
"Break."
The tile beneath Max's leading foot shattered like glass. His ankle dropped into a sudden hole; his balance went with it. His punch went wide, and his shoulder twisted as his body lurched.
He caught himself before falling. Barely.
Ryo stepped in. Elbow. Clean, sharp, driven into Max's ribs.
Pain burst hot through his side.
Max grunted, teeth bared, but his eyes never left Ryo's face.
Ryo hummed. "Man, you're such a loser."
He spun a lazy half-circle, hand slicing through the air with theatrical precision—just enough for Max to see the movement.
"Clear."
The heat around Max's arm—green fire licking up his skin—winked out, snuffed like someone pinching a candle between wet fingers.
For a heartbeat, Max's eyes widened.
Ryo watched his reaction, fascinated. "Useful trick, right? One word, and the world listens."
Max didn't respond.
He didn't need to.
He let his right arm hang, empty.
And then his left hand came up, palm open.
Green fire erupted—not from his skin, but from the air itself. A boiling sphere of sickly emerald light coalesced in front of his palm, twisting, pulsing, warping the space around it. It wasn't clean. It wasn't stable. It looked like rage given shape.
Ryo's brows lifted. "Cool."
Max fired.
The blast tore forward like a cannon of compressed flame and pressure, heat so intense it left a screaming white trail in his vision. The space between them distorted as the shot flew, the air around it shuddering like fabric under strain.
Ryo didn't run.
He didn't dodge.
He just lifted his hand and, with the same composure he might use to straighten his tie, spoke calmly:
"Stop."
The world obeyed.
The green fireball froze mid-flight—its surface still churning, still burning, but pinned in place like it had rammed into an invisible wall. The air around it screamed in protest, vibrations bending into a warped, whining note.
Ryo eyed the suspended blast thoughtfully.
Then he snapped his fingers.
"Return."
The world inverted.
The fireball flew backward, not just retracing its path, but accelerating—roaring straight back at Max with twice the speed he'd launched it.
Max's eyes flashed.
He threw himself sideways. The blast grazed his shoulder, heat carving a trench through his sleeve, scorching skin and cloth alike. Pain shot down his arm like lightning; the explosion behind him rocked the courtyard, blowing a stall off its posts and ripping a crater where he'd just been.
Shards of splintered wood and bent metal ricocheted everywhere. Students ducked, teachers dropped, debris smashed into the pavement.
"Oh my God—" someone sobbed.
"Get inside! EVERYONE INSIDE NOW!" a teacher screamed.
They ran for the Gym.
Doors slammed. Curtains were yanked shut. In seconds, the windows around the courtyard were full of faces pressed to glass, watching in horror.
Reina's among them.
Max didn't look at any of them.
His eyes were on Ryo. Only Ryo.
He pushed himself to his feet, shoulder smoking, blood running from his forearm in slow, red lines. His chest heaved. His legs shook. Heat simmered beneath his skin, too wild to be clean.
Ryo tilted his head. "Envy," he said. "You hit hard but you still think like a boy."
Max spat blood onto the tiles. "And you hide behind tricks."
"What a sore loser." Ryo laughed.
His gaze slid upward, toward the rooftops.
"This stage is getting boring. Let's go somewhere else."
Ryo pointed at the ground between them.
"Rise."
The world lurched.
The tiles bucked under Max's feet, then the entire slab of courtyard flooring screamed as the underlying concrete and rebar tore itself away from the earth. A platform of broken stone—thick, heavy, impossible—wrenched upward, taking both Max and Ryo with it.
Students in the windows shrieked as the two boys rode a floating mass of courtyard up past the second floor, then third, the wind whipping harder around them as they climbed.
The makeshift platform slammed into the rooftop with a grinding crunch.
Debris skittered across the school's flat surface, dust blasting outward in a gray halo.
They were above the school now.
The entire Cultural Exhibition spread below like an abandoned model—empty booths, toppled tents, scattered food, abandoned posters flapping in the sudden gust. Beyond the fences, the city stretched outward in layered grays and browns, distant buildings jutting up against a pale sky.
Up here, there were no crowds. No teachers. No sirens loud enough to cut through the wind.
Just Envy and Dominion.
Ryo stepped off the broken slab of courtyard first, brushing dust from his ruined blazer. The bloodstain was gone from his chest, but the fabric still clung and darkened where it had been.
Max followed, boots crunching broken stone, heat trailing off his shoulders in rising waves. The wind dragged at his shirt, tugged grit into his hair.
Ryo rolled his neck once, vertebrae cracking lightly. "No more interruptions," he said.
Max's reply was simple.
"Good."
He vanished.
One second he stood in front of Ryo.
The next, he was behind him—fire bursting from his feet in a violent kick of force, launching him forward in a blur.
Ryo turned—but not fast enough.
Max's fist crashed into his spine, sending him stumbling forward. The impact rippled over Ryo's back—a crack snapping from his shoulder down toward his ribs.
Ryo hissed, breath leaving him in a sharp exhale.
Max didn't stop.
He drove another punch into Ryo's side, then another, each blow detonating with a dull, heavy thud. Bones fractured under his knuckles; something tore in Ryo's shoulder; his head snapped sideways from an elbow hook meant to decapitate.
Max's fists moved faster than thought, his movements jerky and furious—not clean technique, not like in the dojo, but wild, vicious brutality.
Revenge.
He hammered at Ryo like he was trying to pound him through the rooftop.
"Feel it," Max snarled between blows, voice ragged. "Feel something—"
Ryo's hands stayed at his sides for too long.
Then, calmly, he lifted one.
"Redirect."
Max's next punch—aimed squarely at Ryo's jaw—twisted mid-swing, his own muscles seizing and rerouting the motion. His fist slammed into the rooftop instead.
The concrete cratered.
Pain exploded in his knuckles, shooting up his arm to his shoulder.
He hissed, stumbling.
Ryo exhaled control back into his limbs. "You're stronger," he said. "But sloppy."
Max's teeth ground together. He tore his fist free of the cracked rooftop and lunged again, this time launching another projectile—smaller than before, tighter, more condensed. A compressed bolt of green fire flared from his hand, shrieking straight toward Ryo's chest.
"Scatter," Ryo said.
The bolt obeyed.
It tore apart mid-air into a spray of smaller sparks—dozens of tiny green flecks streaking uselessly past Ryo, hissing into the sky like dying meteors.
Max swore under his breath.
Ryo watched him, dark eyes steady, the wind tugging at his hair. "See?" he said softly. "You keep throwing. I keep deciding."
Max moved anyway.
He closed the distance, ducked under Ryo's lazy open-hand swipe, and drove a knee into his gut. Ryo folded slightly, breath pushed out.
"Regenerate," he murmured before Max's heel smashed down on his shoulder.
Bone cracked. Reset. Cracked. Reset. Each strike met with a command, flesh knitting even as Max tore it apart again.
It was like trying to punch water into staying broken.
Ryo's head snapped back from a hook to the chin; his neck realigned with a wet click the moment after. Blood sprayed from his lip; it seeped back into his skin
like film in reverse.
"You're angry," Ryo said, mouth red. "Good. Anger is honest."
Max grabbed his blazer and hauled him closer, face inches away. He could smell the iron of blood, the sterile tang of whatever Dominion was, beneath the normal boy-scent of soap and starch.
"You killed her," Max whispered.
"Yes."
"You think I'm going to let you walk away?"
Ryo smiled faintly. "You think you can stop me?"
Max's eyes burned—a ring of toxic green
around his pupils.
"I don't think," he said. "I promise."
He slammed his forehead into Ryo's nose. There was a crunch; Ryo's head snapped back, blood bursting instantly from the bridge.
Ryo staggered—and slipped.
Right to the edge.
His heel hit nothing.
For the first time, he overbalanced. His body pitched backward, arms flaring slightly as he started to fall from the rooftop's edge.
Max grabbed him by the front of his blazer.
Ryo's eyes widened just a fraction.
"You're not getting the easy way out," Max growled. "You're going to feel every second of—"
"Down," Ryo said.
Max's legs buckled.
Not from fatigue. Not from choice. From gravity doubled, tripled—weight dumping onto his shoulders all at once. His knees hit concrete with a painful crack; his grip slipped.
Ryo's blazer tore under Max's fingers.
The student council president dropped off the edge.
For one breath, it looked like he was plummeting.
Then Ryo rotated mid-fall, body twisting, foot catching the edge of a lower structure—a jutting maintenance balcony. He kicked off it with effortless precision, flipping back up, landing on a different rooftop section like he'd choreographed the entire thing.
Max forced himself upright, fighting the invisible weight trying to crush him flat. His muscles shook, veins standing out in his neck.
Ryo watched him struggle.
"Stand," Ryo commanded.
The pressure vanished.
Max stumbled as the sudden freedom hit his joints. Ryo smiled. "See? It's not all cruelty. Sometimes I give back."
Max hurled another bolt of green fire without warning—smaller, faster, almost reflexive. Ryo flicked his hand—
"Stop."
Nothing happened.
The bolt slammed into his shoulder, blowing him sideways. Flesh charred; blazer snapped open; bone flashed white before being swallowed in scorched meat.
Ryo hit the rooftop and rolled, gritting his teeth.
He looked… surprised.
Max's chest heaved. His eyes burned brighter. The air around him shimmered with a heat that wasn't entirely physical.
"You're not the only one learning," Max said, voice low. "You talk too much when you think you're winning."
Ryo planted a palm on the concrete and pushed himself up, the skin on his shoulder bubbling, the smell of burned flesh sharp in the wind.
He didn't say "Regenerate" yet.
He watched Max instead, expression shifting from annoyance to focus. "Envy's waking up," he murmured. "Finally."
He wiped blood from his mouth with the back of his hand.
Then he pointed behind Max.
"Crumble."
The rooftop bucked.
Concrete behind Max exploded into a jagged sinkhole, the edge racing toward his heels like a living thing. He dove forward on instinct as the section he'd been standing on seconds before dropped away in a cloud of dust and debris.
He hit the ground hard, rolled—
And immediately saw Ryo in front of him.
Too close.
Palm already raised.
"Sleep."
The word hit like a hammer inside his skull.
Max's vision white-outed for an instant; his knees buckled. His body screamed to shut down—to drop, to surrender to darkness, to let everything stop.
But Envy woke him up.
Green fire blasted through his chest like a defibrillator. The command shuddered, bent, fractured—not completely breaking, but failing to finish its work. Max dropped—but only to one knee, catching himself with a shaking hand.
Ryo's brows pulled together. "…Impressive."
He stepped in, lifting his foot.
"Break."
The kick hit Max's sternum like a punishment.
Something cracked—multiple somethings. Pain detonated under his ribs, sharp and immediate. He flew backward, skidding across the rooftop, gravel and broken concrete tearing at his back through the thin fabric of his shirt.
He barely had time to suck in a ragged breath before Ryo was there again.
"Fall."
The world grabbed Max and slammed him down like a hand on a fly. His body smashed into the rooftop hard enough to leave a crater. His vision blackened at the edges.
Ryo stood over him now, silhouette framed by harsh sky. His shirt was ruined, his blazer hanging open, his shoulder still charred and blackened on one side. He looked less like a student and more like something pretending to be one.
"This vessel is weaker," Ryo mused. "Teenage bones, teenage muscles. But Dominion is still Dominion."
He lifted his foot again, aiming for Max's neck.
"This is over."
Max groped for anything—strength, anger, air—and found only one thing left: Sera's face, laughing on his bed. Sera shoving a cushion at him. Sera saying, I was worried.
The fire in his chest exploded.
He rolled.
Ryo's heel smashed into concrete where Max's throat had been. The rooftop cratered deeper, cracks spidering outward.
Max pushed himself up, vision swimming, ribs screaming. He swung, wild and desperate. The punch connected with Ryo's jaw, then his collarbone, then his ribs again, each strike weaker than the last but still fueled by something that refused to die.
Ryo let him.
For three, four, five hits, he didn't dodge.
He just took the blows, watching Max's face—memorizing it, maybe.
Then he caught Max's wrist.
His fingers tightened—iron around bone.
"Enough," Ryo said.
He yanked Max forward and slammed a knee into his gut. Air blasted from Max's lungs; his vision white-flashed.
Ryo let go of his wrist only to drive an elbow down into the back of his neck. Max dropped to one knee again, the world tilting.
Ryo stepped back a pace, rolling his wounded shoulder once. The charred flesh twitched. He finally touched his fingers to the burn and whispered, almost bored:
"Regenerate."
The blackened skin peeled, fell away, replaced by fresh, steaming flesh beneath. Burned cloth crumbled. The smell of seared meat faded.
Max watched it through blurred vision.
His fists clenched weakly.
He was hitting. He was landing. He was burning him.
And it wasn't enough.
Ryo sighed once, long, as if disappointed that the fun part was ending. He glanced toward the city beyond the school—streets, rooftops, glass.
"This rooftop is too small," he said quietly. "Let's widen the field."
He looked back down at Max.
"Fly."
The word didn't hit Max's body.
It hit the world beneath him.
The rooftop bucked like it had been fired from a cannon. Concrete exploded under
Max's feet, a violent upward shove slamming into his spine, launching him off the building like debris.
The sky flipped.
School. Rooftop. Ryo. All of it dropped away as Max was hurled backward, out, over the festival grounds, over the perimeter fence.
Wind howled in his ears, tearing at his clothes, ripping breath from his lungs. His stomach lurched as the world shrank below.
Then gravity remembered him.
He flew.
He smashed through a billboard first—canvas ripping in a jagged scream, metal frame bending on impact. One corner of the structure went with him, tearing loose as his body plowed through.
Then a glass bus shelter.
The world dissolved into shards and green fire as he crashed through the roof, glass exploding around him in a rain of glittering knives.
He hit the street.
Hard.
Asphalt cratered under his body; a parked car nearby jumped on its suspension, alarm blaring for half a second before dying in the shockwave. The world went silent in Max's head—no sirens, no
screams, no Ryo. Just a high, thin ringing that swallowed everything.
He lay there.
Face turned toward the empty streetlights.
Sky above.
City around.
Pain in every nerve.
He tried to move his fingers. They trembled.
He rolled onto his side with a ragged groan. His ribs were wrong. His left leg screamed when he put weight on it; his shoulder burned where glass had gone in and not come back out.
He pushed himself up.
Got to his knees.
Then his feet.
The world tilted, blurred, refocused. Buildings leaned in close, shadows stretching like they wanted to listen.
There was no one here.
No students. No teachers. No Dominion.
Just Max Hart in the middle of a cracked intersection, breathing like every inhale cost him something.
He stared at his shaking hands.
Blood. Dust. Tiny flecks of green flame still guttering along his knuckles, refusing to die.
He'd hit Ryo.
He'd burned him.
He'd punched a hole through his chest.
And in return?
Ryo had walked away. Regenerated. Commanded. And when he got bored, he'd said one word and thrown Max off a school like trash.
The realization slid in cold and sharp.
The fight had been one-sided.
Not because Max hadn't tried. Not because he hadn't wanted it enough.
Because he was missing something.
Ryo fought like a Vice.
Max had been fighting like a boy with a curse.
His breath hitched.
"What… am I not doing?" he rasped to no one.
The wind moved.
The streetlights flickered.
The shadows around him deepened, not with the coming evening, but like the brightness itself was being pulled away. The world lost contrast, colors dimming at the edges until only the green of his own flames held their weight.
And then, in front of him—
The air split.
Not with sound. Not with light.
With presence.
A figure stepped out of the space where reality had forgotten to exist—tall, lean, barefoot on ruined asphalt. He looked… close to Max. Too close. Same jawline. Same eyes. Same scar at the brow—except on this version, it looked older. Deeper. Like it had been cut a hundred times and never healed right.
His hair was darker, wilder. His posture loose, predatory. The heat around him was suffocating—pure Envy's flame, concentrated into a human shape.
He smiled.
It wasn't kind.
It wasn't human.
It was the smile of something that had watched civilizations burn and called it entertainment.
"Finally," the figure said, voice familiar and wrong all at once—echoing from inside Max's own chest. "You pushed it far enough."
Max stared, throat dry. "…Envy."
The Vice tilted his head. "In the flesh," he said, amused. "Well. Your flesh."
He glanced up at the cracked billboard, then the shattered glass, then back at Max's shaking hands.
"You did good for a human," Envy said. "But that's the problem, isn't it?"
He took one slow step closer, green fire licking at his heels, casting long, hungry shadows across Max's face.
"You're still trying to fight like Max Hart."
His grin sharpened, teeth flashing white in the dimming street.
"I believe you still remember my offer," Envy whispered, voice curling like smoke. "So what do you say?"
The devil's smile widened as it offered its hand.
And Max wasn't sure which answer scared him more.