NS did not wait for me to recover from the stool.
He entered behind a jab and drove the right hand through my guard. My back reached the fence before the first ten seconds left the clock.
"Defend!" the referee shouted.
NS punched the body.
I lowered one elbow.
His hook struck above it.
The cage lights moved, separated, and returned.
"You don't have to prove anything else," NS said.
His voice sounded far away.
"That is not what you believe."
"I believe you cannot beat me."
He threw the right hand again.
I moved beneath it.
For four rounds, I had reacted after NS decided what would happen. This time, I moved before he finished deciding.
My left hook struck his ribs.
He stepped back.
I followed with another.
The punch landed against the same place.
NS raised his elbow to protect the body.
My right hand reached his cheek.
The audience changed from noise into one sudden breath.
NS had spent twelve minutes hitting a man who kept standing. He was still faster. He was still more accurate. He was no longer fresh enough to disappear after every mistake.
I touched the body again.
He answered with a knee.
We collided at the center.
His forehead struck mine. My hook entered beneath his arm. His elbow opened the cut above my eye. My right hand reached his jaw.
Technique remained inside the cage.
Control left it.
NS pushed me away and returned to the jab.
I slipped the first and absorbed the second. The third touched the damaged eye. He moved before my counter, but his retreat had become one step slower than it had been in Round One.
"Body first!" Mr. Kim shouted.
Kitty stood beside him with the towel unfolded.
"Come back to the corner!"
June called for NS to reset at the center.
TZ called for him to breathe.
Neither man obeyed his entire corner.
NS kicked my lead leg. I almost fell, caught the fence with one glove, and pushed away before the referee could begin a count.
He followed with a straight right.
I covered and drove my forehead into his chest, forcing him backward through position instead of power.
"You should have called me," I said.
"You should have been worth calling."
"You knew the public video was fake."
"June did not speak about my father."
"Neither did I."
NS struck my ribs.
"You think it."
"Then beat me for what I did, not what VT made you hear."
His next punch entered harder.
"I am beating you for all of it."
The round clock fell beneath two minutes.
We separated at the center with neither of us willing to become the first man who needed space.
KM stood behind the front barrier with a bandage above his eyebrow.
"You needed four rounds to learn one punch!" he shouted.
His crew laughed.
"JP lasted longer than your pride will!"
I heard JP's name.
The next punch came from somewhere below anger.
I stepped outside NS's jab and drove a straight right across his face. He turned with it, recovered, and tried to circle.
I cut off the exit.
My left hook struck the body.
The right followed above it.
Then another hook.
NS covered and moved toward the fence for the first time in the fight.
The King chant stopped.
The King Slayer chant began.
I jumped into the next straight punch, carrying everything left in my legs behind it.
My glove struck NS above the cheek.
He touched one knee to the canvas.
The referee stepped between us.
"One. Two. Three."
June held the fence with both hands.
TZ watched NS's eyes.
"Take the count," he shouted.
NS rose at five.
The referee asked him to walk forward.
He did.
"Continue."
For the first time, NS looked at me without certainty.
"Give up," I said. "What is the point?"
His own words reached him.
He smiled through the blood on his lip.
"Now you understand why I asked."
He attacked.
The final round reached its middle with both of us unable to hide the damage.
My lead leg dragged after every exchange. The injured wrist sent pain through my forearm whenever the punch landed badly. Blood blurred the lower half of my left eye.
NS breathed through his mouth. One side of his face had begun swelling. He protected the ribs I had found too late.
We met in the clinch near the sponsor side of the cage.
NS pressed my back against the fence and drove a knee toward the body. I turned enough for it to strike the hip.
The referee moved left to see our hands.
NS moved with him.
For half a second, the referee's view disappeared behind NS's shoulder.
I looked at June.
I looked at Kitty.
I looked at VT above the tunnel.
Then I made the worst decision available.
My right glove drove beneath NS's belt line.
The protective cup absorbed part of it.
Not enough.
NS folded and released the clinch.
The referee had seen only the separation.
"Fight!"
Kitty's face changed.
June screamed toward the official.
"Low strike!"
The crowd covered her voice.
I knew what I had done.
I continued anyway.
The King Slayer had stopped asking what he needed to become.
My hook struck the body.
The next struck the jaw.
NS stumbled along the fence.
I drove a short uppercut through his guard and followed with two punches to the ribs. He covered, moved, and returned a right hand that almost ended everything.
My knees bent.
The fence kept me standing.
NS stepped forward to finish.
I threw from the fence.
The punch struck his mouth and opened the cut inside his lower lip.
Blood entered his teeth.
He spat it onto the canvas.
"You cheated," he said.
"You believed a lie."
"That doesn't make you honest."
He was right.
We continued.
Thirty-eight seconds remained.
NS threw the combination that had knocked me down in Round Two.
Left hook to the body.
Right uppercut through the center.
The body hook landed.
I knew what followed.
Instead of raising my head, I changed level beneath the uppercut and drove both arms around his hips.
NS widened his stance and pushed my head down.
I abandoned the takedown and wrapped his neck.
My right forearm entered beneath his jaw. My left hand locked over the wrist. I raised the elbow and pulled his head against my chest.
The guillotine closed.
NS drove me backward into the fence.
Pain exploded through the healing wrist.
I tightened the grip.
"Hands!" TZ shouted. "Fight the top hand!"
NS caught my wrist and tried to create space beneath the forearm. I turned my hip, stepped around his leg, and pulled him toward the floor.
We landed with NS above me and one knee trapped between my legs.
The choke remained locked.
Twenty-nine seconds.
June screamed for NS to lift his head.
Kitty screamed for me to hold the position.
Mr. Kim shouted something about the angle.
I heard only the blood moving inside my ears.
NS stacked his weight forward. His shoulder pressed across my throat while he tried to pass the trapped leg. The pressure closed part of my own airway.
I pulled harder.
His blood from the split lip ran across my forearm. He coughed once and red touched the canvas beneath us.
He did not tap.
"Let go," NS forced through the choke.
"He won't let me..."
The words came from my mouth without permission.
NS stopped fighting the wrist for half a second.
"What?"
I tightened the guillotine until the healing bones beneath the wrap felt ready to separate again.
"He won't let me go."
I no longer knew whether I meant NS.
Maybe I meant VT.
Maybe I meant every locked door, every wager, every unfinished promise, and every version of myself that had followed me into the cage.
JP falling entered the same image as my grandmother's empty bed. June's slap entered beside Kitty's closed dormitory door. NS's face became the blurred recording, then the driver-side window of a red car resting against the road.
"It's his fault," I whispered.
NS drove his shoulder deeper across my throat.
"Let go."
"He won't let me go. It's his fault."
The clock reached twenty seconds.
The arena became the inside of the overturned car.
Not gradually.
One moment, NS's shoulder pressed against my neck.
The next, the seat belt held me upside down.
The red door had collapsed against the road. My breath entered in pieces. The ambulance lights remained at the far end of the empty corner.
NeverMore Palace appeared beyond the windshield like a memory placed in the wrong location.
A woman in a white gown stood beneath the entrance lights.
Another woman waited beside the steps.
A man held a small box inside his hand.
All three were waiting for someone who would not arrive.
A hand found mine inside the wreckage.
I still could not see whose.
"Hold my hands, I'm here."
The voice was crying now.
The cage returned for one second.
NS's movements had slowed.
His hand stopped pulling at my wrist.
His eyes lost focus.
The referee dropped beside us and lifted NS's free arm. It fell once, but NS's fingers moved against the canvas before the referee could lift it again.
"Show me you're defending!"
NS tried to reach my wrist.
The referee grabbed my forearm.
"Release it!"
I heard him from the other side of the overturned car.
"He won't let me..."
The referee pulled harder.
"Let it go, man! He almost passed out. It's enough!"
My grip did not open.
"He won't let me go," I mumbled. "It's his fault. He won't let me go..."
At the same time, the pressure in my head became darkness.
I did not hear the final horn.
The final six seconds existed only on video.
NS's arm fell once.
The referee reached for it again.
XH's mouth continued moving against NS's shoulder.
"He won't let me go... It's his fault..."
"He Deserved This... He fucking Deserved This...."
The referee had ordered a release but had not yet waved both arms to signal a formal stoppage.
Kitty saw XH's eyes close beneath NS's shoulder.
TZ saw NS stop defending the choke.
Both corners moved.
Kitty threw her white towel over the fence.
TZ threw his from the opposite side.
The horn sounded while both towels were in the air.
One entered the cage before the other.
No camera angle proved which one.
The referee separated the fighters after the horn.
NS rolled onto his side without responding.
XH remained on his back with both hands still shaped around a neck no longer there.
The announcer asked for a result.
The referee did not give one.
Medical teams entered from both doors.
June reached NS first and was pulled backward before she interfered with the airway assessment. Kitty knelt beside XH until Mr. Kim moved her away.
The first physician opened NS's airway and called his name. He coughed, drew one uneven breath, and turned toward the sound without understanding it.
"Do not sit up."
"The fight," NS whispered.
"It is over."
"Did he tap?"
The physician did not answer.
On the opposite side, XH remained unresponsive longer.
Kitty pressed both hands against the fence because the medical team would not let her touch him.
"XH, open your eyes."
Mr. Kim stood behind her holding the corner bag.
The empty space where the towel had been looked larger than the bag itself.
"He is breathing," the physician said. "Give us room."
The referee reviewed the final seconds on a monitor beside the commission table. One angle showed NS's hand stop defending before the horn. Another showed XH's eyes close first beneath the shoulder pressure.
KM and his four friends remained behind the barrier.
Nobody spoke.
The same men who had counted every knockdown had no number for this.
Jihye continued recording from the media row. She captured the two towels on the canvas, the referee refusing the result card, and VT giving instructions to keep the live feed active while both medical teams worked.
"Cut the broadcast," PL said through the control headset.
"The review is part of the event," VT replied.
"They are patients now."
"They became patients before the bell."
The stretchers entered together.
VT stood above the tunnel while every screen displayed the same words.
RESULT UNDER REVIEW.
The King had fallen.
The King Slayer had fallen with him.
The old NeverMore story had promised that one must remain while the other stepped down.
For the first time, both had refused the ending.
Two ambulances left City Square through the same emergency gate.
Rain had flooded the eastern road despite a forecast that still displayed clear skies. Police moved the water protesters long enough for the ambulances to pass, then closed the barrier behind them.
Kitty rode beside XH.
June rode beside NS.
Neither knew which ambulance carried a winner.
At City Square General Hospital, the emergency department placed them in separate resuscitation bays divided by one curtain.
JP remained unconscious in intensive care three floors above.
Mr. Kim stood between all three locations and could reach none of them at once.
XH opened his eyes briefly during the neurological examination.
"Where are you?" the physician asked.
His lips moved.
"JP."
"You are in the hospital. Tell me your name."
He answered correctly, then asked whether the fourth square had been filled.
Kitty turned away before the physician could ask what he meant.
In the next bay, NS regained full orientation and tried to remove the oxygen mask.
June stopped his hand.
"Stay down."
He looked toward the curtain.
"Is he awake?"
"Yes."
Only then did NS allow his head to return to the pillow.
The fight had ended.
The brotherhood had not decided whether it had.
The review lasted six hours.
The referee confirmed that neither fighter tapped or verbally submitted.
He testified that he had ordered XH to release the guillotine while assessing NS's responsiveness, but he had not formally stopped the contest before the horn. The cage audio could not establish whether NS lost consciousness before or after that command.
He could not determine whether NS became unresponsive before the final horn. He also could not begin a ten-count for XH because the horn, the corner towels, and the medical intervention occurred together.
The two corner stoppages could not be separated reliably by frame order. One broadcast camera showed Kitty's towel entering first. Another showed TZ releasing his first. The official time signal reached the camera feeds at slightly different delays.
VT Legacy Combat Rules listed three ways to win.
They did not explain what happened when both men satisfied a stopping condition at the same moment.
At 4:12 in the morning, the event committee issued its decision.
TECHNICAL DRAW.
NO WINNER. NO LOSER.
The Med Track wager could not remove either fighter.
The university found another way.
Beneath XH's medical admission notice, a second document appeared on the student portal.
TEMPORARY CLASS SUSPENSION PENDING PERMANENT DISCIPLINARY REVIEW.
It cited the nightclub brawl, repeated violent conduct, unauthorized confrontation, and the cumulative danger created by the tournament.
NS received mandatory medical leave.
JP remained in intensive care above them.
In the control room, the cyber team asked VT whether the draw had ruined the King-versus-King-Slayer story.
VT watched the replay of both towels crossing beneath the final horn.
"A winner ends the question," he said.
He paused on the frame where neither man was standing.
"A draw keeps both answers alive."