NS reached me before I reached the center.
His lead jab touched my forehead first.
The right hand followed behind it.
I raised both gloves in time to absorb most of the punch, but the force moved my head and pushed me backward. Before my feet reset, his shin struck the outside of my lead leg.
The audience reacted to the sound.
NS did not.
He stepped left, removed my escape, and jabbed again.
"Circle!" Mr. Kim shouted. "Do not follow him!"
I tried to cut toward NS's body.
He was gone before my hook reached him.
His return punch touched the healing side of my wrist. Pain climbed through the wrap and opened my guard. A straight right entered through the center.
My knees touched the canvas.
The referee moved between us.
"One. Two. Three."
The arena disappeared.
I was upside down inside something red.
The steering wheel pressed against my chest. Broken glass covered the road above me, except roads were not supposed to be above anyone.
Blue lights flashed far away.
A woman's hand reached through darkness.
"Hold my hands, I'm here."
"Four. Five."
The cage returned.
NS waited in the neutral corner.
KM and his four Engineering friends stood near the front barrier.
"Stay down, King Slayer!" one of them shouted. "You couldn't protect JP or your girl!"
They laughed.
I placed one foot beneath me.
"Six. Seven."
Kitty held the white towel against her chest.
June stood behind NS.
I rose at eight.
The referee checked my eyes and made me walk forward.
"Defend yourself."
The fight resumed.
NS did not rush.
That made him worse.
He used the jab to place me where he wanted, attacked the leg when I became still, and struck the body when I raised my guard too high. Every movement prepared the next one.
I fought the way anger had taught me.
NS fought the way repetition had disciplined him.
When I threw hard, he moved.
When I hesitated, he hit me.
"Give up," he said after another body shot. "What are you still proving?"
I answered with a left hook.
It touched his shoulder.
His right hand touched my face.
The first bell ended with me against the fence.
Kitty pulled me onto the stool.
"Look at me."
I did.
"Where were you?"
"In the cage."
"Before you stood up."
"Nowhere."
"You stopped hearing the count."
Mr. Kim pressed ice beneath my eye.
"Pupils equal. Tracking intact."
Kitty did not look relieved.
"Tell me if it happens again."
Across the cage, June wiped sweat from NS's face. TZ spoke quickly into his ear.
NS kept looking at me.
"He is waiting for your right hand," Mr. Kim said. "Stop loading it. Touch the body. Make him defend something smaller."
The bell rang before I could answer Kitty.
I entered Round Two behind the jab.
NS slipped outside it.
I jabbed again without throwing the right.
He waited for the pattern that did not come.
My left hand touched his chest. The next touched his chin.
For the first time, his feet stopped.
I stepped forward and drove a hook into his ribs.
The Med Track section rose.
NS caught my next punch with one glove and entered the clinch. His forehead pressed beneath my jaw. A knee struck the inside of my thigh. Another hit the body.
I locked an arm around his neck.
He turned before I could close it, pinned me against the fence, and separated with an elbow across my guard.
"That is all?" he asked.
"The recording was fake."
"Stop saying fake like it changes what you think."
"Ask me what I think."
"You had years to say it."
His left hook struck the body.
I lowered my elbow.
The right uppercut lifted my head.
The canvas reached me before I remembered falling.
"One. Two."
The cage became a road again.
NeverMore Palace glowed beyond the trees. Warm windows, white lights, and an entrance prepared for people who believed I was still coming.
A figure in white stood beneath the arch.
I could not see her face.
Somebody else waited behind her, holding something small inside one hand.
The ambulance remained far away.
"Hold my hands, I'm here."
"Three. Four. Five."
My eyes opened.
KM struck the front barrier with both hands.
"She is in his corner, XH!" he shouted. "You gave her away before the fight even started!"
His crew answered together.
"Push-over! Push-over! Push-over!"
June heard them.
Kitty heard them.
NS heard them.
Something cruel entered his expression before disappearing.
I reached one knee at six.
The referee counted seven.
I stood at eight.
"Walk toward me."
I walked.
"Hands up."
I raised them.
NS attacked as soon as the referee moved.
I covered the first combination and escaped the second. A kick struck my forearm. A jab opened the small cut beneath my eyebrow.
Ten seconds remained.
I stopped retreating.
NS expected another step backward. My right hand finally reached his cheek.
The punch moved him half a step.
The crowd remembered I was still in the fight.
The bell rang.
NS returned to his corner without looking back.
I needed the fence to find mine.
The second knockdown moved the live audience count past the number recorded during JP's final round.
Inside the control room, producers replayed the uppercut from three angles. One camera had captured the moment my eyes stopped following NS. Another stayed close enough to show my lips moving during the count.
"Can we isolate what he said?" the director asked.
The audio technician increased the cage microphones.
Only the referee's count and KM's crew could be heard.
PL stood behind the production desk.
"He has experienced visual episodes before the fight. The corner should be told."
"His physician cleared him," VT replied.
"The physician you appointed."
"The physician whose signature the university accepted."
The medical adviser watched the replay.
"Four knockdowns across five rounds would normally justify a very low threshold for stoppage."
"He has had two," VT said.
"I am warning you before there are four."
VT looked at the ten-count graphic appearing beside my face.
"The referee remains independent. The corner remains responsible. The fighter remains able to stand."
"You designed a system where every responsible person can blame the next one."
"That is how systems remain operational."
The director asked whether to cut to commercial.
VT watched Kitty reach toward the white towel.
"No. Keep both corners on screen."
The King and King Slayer symbols appeared beside us.
"The story only works while he keeps getting up."
Kitty cleaned the cut beneath my eyebrow.
"Who said it?"
"Said what?"
"You moved your lips during the count."
I remembered the hand.
"A voice."
"Whose?"
I looked at her.
Then at June in the opposite corner.
"I don't know."
Kitty followed my eyes.
"Of course you don't."
She reached toward the towel.
I caught her wrist.
"Not yet."
"You have been knocked down twice in six minutes."
"I answered every count."
"JP answered until he didn't."
The sentence struck more cleanly than NS had.
Mr. Kim leaned between us.
"XH, if you lose orientation, fail to defend, or experience another prolonged visual episode, the corner stops it. No argument."
"I understand."
Kitty placed the towel back beneath her arm.
"I am not Thoon," she said. "Your suffering buys nothing from me."
"I know."
"Then come back without making me pay for it."
The third bell rang.
NS expected me to chase.
I made him come forward instead.
He jabbed.
I touched the body.
He kicked the leg.
I stepped inside and punched the ribs again.
The strikes did not hurt him enough to change the fight. They changed the questions he had to answer.
For one minute, we exchanged without either man controlling the center.
I caught his jab and landed a short hook. NS answered with a knee. I drove him against the fence. He turned me. I turned him back.
The audience stopped chanting names and began reacting to each breath.
"This is what you wanted?" NS asked from the clinch.
"You blocked my number."
"You had nothing worth saying."
"I didn't insult your father."
"You think his money makes me less than you."
"I think you act like discipline makes every decision moral."
His forehead pressed harder beneath my jaw.
"There. That voice. That is the one in the recording."
He separated with a right hand.
I saw it late.
The punch landed behind my ear.
My hands reached the floor before my knees.
The referee counted.
The arena became a damaged driver's seat.
Blood covered one side of my vision. A phone rested beyond my fingers with the screen fractured and a call still open.
The palace entrance appeared inside my mind although it could not have been visible from the road.
The woman in white waited beneath its lights.
Another woman stood near the steps.
Both faces remained beyond focus.
"Hold my hands, I'm here."
The voice came from closer than the ambulance.
"Six. Seven."
I rose at nine.
The referee took both my gloves.
"Can you continue?"
"Yes."
"Walk left."
I did.
"Walk right."
I did.
He allowed it.
Kitty lifted the towel.
I looked at her through the fence and moved my head once.
No.
Her eyes filled.
She did not throw it.
KM's crew saw the exchange.
"He learned from JP!" KM shouted. "Maybe they can share an ICU room!"
Mr. Kim turned toward the barrier.
"Say his name again and I will remove you myself."
Security moved between the corners before KM could answer.
NS attacked.
Anger made his first punch obvious. I slipped it and reached the body. The second caught my guard. The third struck my chest.
We remained upright until the bell.
When I returned to the stool, Kitty did not ask who the voice belonged to.
She already hated every possible answer.
At City Square General Hospital, NC watched the end of Round Three on JP's phone.
Anna stood beside the ICU glass with her back to the screen.
"Is he still standing?" she asked.
"Yes."
"Turn it off."
NC looked at JP beneath the monitors.
"What if he wakes up and asks who won?"
"Then we tell him both idiots are alive. That should be enough."
NC switched off the broadcast.
The phone screen became black.
JP did not wake.
Round Four belonged to NS from the first second.
He attacked the damaged leg until I could no longer hide the limp. He jabbed beneath the swelling eye. He forced my guard high and punished the body.
I landed enough to remain dangerous.
He landed enough to decide everything.
June called for him to move after each combination.
TZ called for control.
NS heard only the parts that helped him continue.
"Just give up," he said after another right hand. "What is the point?"
"You first."
"I am winning."
"Then why are you still angry?"
He kicked the body.
I caught the leg and drove forward. We reached the fence together. For several seconds, I held him there and punched the ribs with the free hand.
NS framed against my face and escaped.
The next jab split the cut wider.
Blood entered my eye.
The referee paused us long enough for the physician to inspect it.
"Vision?"
"Clear."
"How many fingers?"
"Two."
"Continue."
NS waited at center.
"She is watching you lose," he said.
He did not need to say which woman.
I looked toward June.
That was the opening.
His left hook struck my jaw.
The lights turned sideways.
"One. Two. Three."
The red car rested upside down at the corner of an empty road.
The engine made a sound like breathing through water.
My hand would not reach the broken window.
Far away, paramedics moved beneath ambulance lights. They were close enough to see and too far to touch.
NeverMore Palace waited somewhere beyond them.
A woman in a white gown stood at the entrance.
Someone held my hand inside the wreckage.
"Hold my hands, I'm here."
"Four. Five. Six."
I returned on one knee.
The audience had become one sound.
Kitty held the towel with both hands.
June stood frozen behind NS.
KM and his crew counted louder than the referee.
"Seven! Eight! Stay down!"
I stood at nine.
The referee studied me for what felt like another full round.
"Defend yourself."
NS walked forward.
Ten seconds remained.
I raised both gloves.
He struck them until the bell ended Round Four.
Kitty pulled me onto the stool.
Mr. Kim checked my pupils while the cage physician climbed onto the platform.
"Four knockdowns," the physician said. "I need a clear response. Name, location, and round."
I answered all three.
"Any double vision?"
"No."
"Nausea?"
"No."
"Do you understand that another inability to defend ends the contest?"
"Yes."
The physician stepped away without looking satisfied.
Kitty reached for the towel again.
I met her eyes.
No.
This time, I understood the look JP had given me.
It was not courage.
It was not wisdom.
It was the terrible moment when pride, dignity, love, reputation, and every unfinished promise became heavier than fear. In that moment, surrender felt less like survival and more like allowing somebody else to write the ending.
JP had chosen the battlefield over the shame of stepping away.
Now I understood why.
That did not make either of us right.
It only made the towel harder to throw.
Kitty pressed it against her chest.
"One more round," she said. "Come back to me."
Across the cage, NS stood before the stool could reach him.
June caught his arm.
"You proved it. Stop chasing the knockout."
NS looked at me.
"He is still standing."
The final bell rang.
The King crossed the cage to finish the King Slayer.