Final Fight Week began during a Pathology practical.
The announcement appeared on every student's phone while we were examining blood-smear slides.
KING VERSUS KING SLAYER: FIVE DAYS REMAIN.
JP VERSUS KM: FOUR DAYS REMAIN.
OFFICIAL WEIGH-IN AND FINAL MEDICAL EXAMINATION: THIRTY-SIX HOURS.
Our lecturer confiscated three phones before the second notification finished vibrating.
"If VT can identify leukemia from a blood smear, he may teach the practical," she said. "Until then, microscopes."
JP returned to his stool.
"My opponent has ninety-one percent of the public vote and I still fear her more."
"She controls your grade," NC replied.
"KM controls whether my nose remains in the center of my face."
"A grade lasts longer."
At the opposite bench, Bunny and Cherry tried not to laugh. June adjusted the microscope while NS copied the cell findings into their worksheet. TZ stood between both tables because the lecturer had assigned him to share the only working staining tray.
The power ration had damaged one refrigerator overnight. Half the prepared slides were unusable. Water pressure in the laboratory taps had fallen low enough that we cleaned the glassware from stored containers.
The university called it temporary disruption.
The workers called it the beginning.
I lowered my eye to the microscope.
The cells refused to stay still.
For one breath, the circular field became a distant red light reflected across broken glass.
I lifted my head immediately.
The room remained where it belonged.
Kitty watched from beside me.
"How long?" she whispered.
"No missing time."
"That wasn't my question."
"One second. Maybe less."
She wrote it in the private notebook the sponsor neurologist had never requested.
"My monitor is gone," I said.
"My eyes aren't."
I looked across the room.
NS was already looking at me.
Neither of us returned to the microscopes until the lecturer told us to.
Controlled contact meant Mr. Kim was allowed to hit me without allowing me to hit back properly.
He wrapped a body shield around a senior volunteer and instructed him to pressure me toward the fence. I could defend, pivot, frame with the uninjured forearm, and use light palm contact with the healing wrist.
No full punches.
No hard grappling.
No reckless proof that conditional clearance meant complete recovery.
"Again," I said.
The senior moved forward.
I circled away from his strong side, touched the fence with one heel, and escaped before he closed the angle.
"Better," Mr. Kim said.
Across the divider, NS struck pads hard enough to interrupt our count.
June held the timer. TZ called combinations. NS's coach gave him a new target after every strike, but his eyes returned to my side between rounds.
"Again," I said.
Mr. Kim lowered the shield.
"Your round is finished."
"I can continue."
"That is not the question."
JP entered the cage wearing tape marked with four small squares. He had filled none of them.
"My turn," he said.
"You trained this morning," I replied.
"That was cardio. This is character development."
"Your character needs rest," Mr. Kim said.
JP looked at the round clock.
"KM does not rest."
"KM also has twenty pounds, six years of club training, and enough Engineering friends to carry him home. You have XH with one wrist."
"I also have comedy."
"Comedy does not improve your liver's tolerance for body strikes."
JP stepped out of the cage.
His phone lit on the bench.
He had sent Thoon a photograph of the four squares after morning training.
Her reply contained one word.
GREAT.
JP read it three times.
"Is that good?" he asked.
Anna looked over his shoulder.
"It is grammatically positive."
"Why does it feel like she signed a delivery receipt?"
"Because your survival target has become customer service."
He placed the phone against his chest.
"She replied. That is progress."
Kitty shook her head.
"Men have crossed oceans for less evidence."
"Exactly. History supports me."
JP smiled, but he returned the phone to the bench with its screen facing upward.
He waited for another message that did not arrive.
Jihye discovered the first coordinated accounts that afternoon.
Twenty-four new student profiles followed the tournament page within the same minute. Each used a portrait cropped from an old university event. Three belonged to students who had graduated. One belonged to a student who had died before Foundation Year.
"They aren't selling tickets," she said.
We sat inside an unused seminar room because the main library had closed its upper floors during the power cuts. Anna connected her laptop to a portable battery. NC guarded the door while JP tried to understand the account map on Jihye's screen.
"Maybe they are aggressive sports fans," he said.
"Aggressive sports fans do not schedule posts through the same hidden referral route," Jihye replied.
"What are they preparing to post?" Kitty asked.
"Nothing yet. They are aging the accounts so they look older when they share it."
My phone vibrated.
PL had sent a blank photograph.
I increased the brightness.
Four words had been written in black against the dark corner.
REMEMBER WHAT I TOLD YOU.
The image disappeared before I could save it.
"PL?" Anna asked.
I nodded.
Jihye closed the account map.
"Then tonight."
Thunder moved across Yandong although the weather application showed a clear sky.
The first account posted the video at 11:47 p.m.
The caption contained no accusation.
Only a question.
IS THIS WHY THEY CHANGED CORNERS?
The clip lasted nineteen seconds.
It showed NS entering a room after June. The image jumped to a blurred angle through a partially closed door. Two bodies moved close together beneath poor light. June's face appeared for less than one second. NS's watch reflected near her shoulder.
The video ended before anything became clear enough to prove.
It looked stolen.
It looked compressed from repeated sharing.
It looked real because nobody could see enough to identify the lie.
Within two minutes, six prepared accounts reposted it.
Within five, a campus gossip page added June's name.
Within eight, the national tournament tag placed the video beside our fight poster.
My phone vibrated across the dormitory desk until it fell onto the floor.
JP reached it before I did.
"Don't open the comments," he said.
"Give it to me."
"Jihye says wait."
"Give me the phone."
He held it behind his back.
"PL warned you. Call the people in it."
Kitty stood near the door with NC and Anna. She had already watched the clip once.
"It is fake," she said.
"How do you know?"
Her face hardened.
"Because I know what VT does. Why don't you?"
"I asked how you know."
"And I answered."
Jihye arrived with her laptop open.
"The first six accounts received the same file before the public upload. Their timestamps are coordinated. The room angle is wrong between frames nine and ten, and June's earring changes sides."
"Mirrored video," Anna said.
"Only her face is mirrored. The background isn't."
JP handed me the phone.
"Call her."
I pressed June's name before pride could create another reason not to.
She answered on the fourth ring.
"It's fake," she said immediately.
Voices moved behind her. Bunny was reporting accounts. Cherry was asking somebody to remove a copy. TZ spoke to a tournament official.
NS said something I could not hear.
"Are you with him?" I asked.
June became silent.
Kitty looked away.
"Everyone is here," June replied. "We are trying to stop it."
"That wasn't what I asked."
"You called to verify the video. I told you it is fake."
"You were in a room with him before."
"Yes, XH. I have been alone with the person I am dating. That does not make this video real."
The word dating struck harder than the image.
"Why did you answer like you were waiting for the question?"
"Because I knew you would need me to prove myself to you."
"You slapped me in front of him and walked away. You don't get to act surprised that I ask."
"And you started dating Kitty while still measuring every decision against me. Does she know that?"
Nobody in my room moved.
Kitty had heard every word.
"This isn't about her," I said.
Kitty opened the door.
"It never is," she said.
She left.
June heard that too.
"The video is fake," she repeated. "Everything else is a problem you created without VT's help."
The call ended.
Outside, rain struck the dormitory windows hard enough to sound like thrown gravel.
I found Kitty outside the female dormitory stairwell.
NC had followed her but stopped when she saw me approaching.
"This is a terrible time to make another terrible choice," she said.
"I need to talk to her."
"You needed to talk before June said it for you."
Kitty entered the corridor without looking back.
I followed until the security door closed between us.
"Kitty."
She stopped on the other side of the glass.
"The video looked real for a second," I said.
"That isn't why I left."
"Then why?"
She turned.
"Because you called June while I stood beside you, and the first thing you needed to know was whether she was still with NS."
"Anybody would have asked."
"No. Anybody would have asked whether she was safe. You asked whether she still belonged to him."
"She doesn't belong to anyone."
"You understand that sentence only when it protects you."
The hallway lights flickered above her.
"You know what happened between us was real," I said.
"Which part? The part where we hide? The part where you hold my hand until June enters the room? Or the part where dating me makes you feel less humiliated because she chose him?"
"I didn't choose you as revenge."
"Maybe not consciously."
"That doesn't make it true."
"It doesn't make it false either."
Rainwater moved beneath the entrance door and spread across the tile between us.
"Are you still coming to the fight?" I asked.
Kitty laughed once without humor.
"Of course that is the question you ask now."
"You are my corner."
"I know. I signed responsibility for your brain before you decided whether I had your heart."
"Kitty."
"I will be there. I will hold the towel. I will stop you if you cannot protect yourself. But tonight, I am not going to protect you from what June said."
She walked to her room.
I remained outside the security door.
NC leaned against the opposite wall with her arms folded.
"Do you want advice?" she asked.
"No."
"Good. I only had insults."
She went upstairs after Kitty.
I sat beside the closed door while the storm covered the campus with the kind of noise that made every apology sound too small to hear.
June placed her phone facedown.
Bunny and Cherry had closed the curtains, but light from dozens of screens continued entering the room. Every report removed one copy after three more appeared.
"The platform says it does not violate policy because the image is too blurred to confirm nudity," Bunny said.
"That is why they blurred it," Jihye replied through TZ's speakerphone. "Unclear enough to survive moderation. Clear enough to destroy her."
June sat on the edge of the bed.
NS knelt in front of her.
"Don't read anything else."
"They are using my face."
"I know."
"People who saw me in class today are debating what my body looks like."
NS took her phone and switched it off.
"Then they lose access to you tonight."
June looked toward him.
"XH believed it for a moment."
"XH believes whatever lets him remain angry."
TZ ended the call with Jihye and approached them.
"She found signs it was manufactured. We send those findings to the university and police cyber unit."
NS stood.
"The police closed VT's nightclub case."
"Then we make the refusal public."
"And give the video another week of attention?"
"What do you want to do?"
NS looked toward the black tournament bag beside the wall.
"Finish the fight."
His phone vibrated inside it.
The message came from an unknown encrypted account.
YOU SHOULD KNOW WHAT YOUR BROTHER SAYS WHEN YOU LEAVE THE ROOM.
A video attachment waited beneath the sentence.
TZ saw the file name.
"Don't open it."
NS pressed play.
The recording began with real footage from XH's sponsor interview. His face, voice, and posture matched the press-room material.
Then the questions changed.
An unseen interviewer asked what XH thought of NS's family.
XH's voice answered.
"His father is a kiss-ass tycoon who buys loyalty and calls it respect. NS learned everything from him."
The image cut to XH sitting in the campus café.
"Kitty is the one I can date in public. June comes back whenever she gets tired of pretending NS is enough."
The final clip showed XH smiling.
"NS thinks June chose him. He doesn't understand that she is only punishing me."
The video ended.
June had heard the first sentence but not the rest. NS lowered the phone before she could see the screen.
"What did he say?" she asked.
"Nothing you need to hear."
TZ held out his hand.
"Send it to Jihye."
"No."
"The public video is fake. This arrived from an unknown account on the same night."
"His face is clear. His voice is clear."
"That makes it more suspicious, not less. Call him."
NS remembered the tunnel.
He remembered XH pulling his collar.
He remembered every reporter asking whether his father purchased his place and whether June was another thing wealth had placed beside him.
The fake sentences fitted too neatly inside wounds that already existed.
"Call him," TZ repeated.
NS opened XH's contact.
For several seconds, his thumb rested above the button.
Then he blocked the number.
"He can explain with his hands," NS said.
VT watched both storms from the same control room.
Outside, thunder shook the glass despite the clear forecast.
Inside, the public video passed one million views.
The prediction market moved with it.
NS rose to eighty-two percent.
XH fell to eighteen.
JP remained at nine.
The cyber team leader asked whether to release the uncompressed version.
"No," VT said. "Clarity gives people facts. Blur gives them permission."
On one screen, XH stood alone outside Kitty's closed dormitory door.
On another, NS struck a heavy bag after midnight while TZ watched without starting the timer.
Both men had been warned to call.
Only one had done it.