The mont the fight is waved off, the red corner erupts into motion. Cornern rush up the steps, one after another, slipping through the ropes in a hurry. The ring doctor follows right behind them, already pulling on his gloves as he approaches. They gather around Cortez imdiately.
Hands move quickly but carefully, one supporting his back, another checking his eyes, the doctor crouching low to examine his condition. Cortez barely responds at first, his body slack, head lolling slightly.
On the other side of the ring, the mood couldn’t be more different. Hiroshi is the first to climb in, followed closely by Okabe. Neither of them bothers to hide their excitent.
"You did it, Aramaki!" Hiroshi shouts, grabbing Aramaki by the shoulders. "One round KO!"
Okabe doesn’t even bother with words. He grabs Aramaki by the head, rough fingers tangling into his hair, shaking him hard.
"That was insane! You jerk!"
Aramaki stumbles slightly from the sudden attention, eyes still unfocused from everything that just happened.
Behind them, Kurogane and Nakahara take their ti. They step up onto the apron without urgency, then move through the ropes at a much calr pace, watching the scene unfold in front of them.
Kurogane lets out a small breath, a faint smirk forming. "Look at them... a mont ago they were panicking, and now they’ve completely lost their heads."
From behind him, Nakahara clicks his tongue lightly. "Seems like you found him an opponent that was a little too easy."
Kurogane glances back over his shoulder, that sa unreadable grin lingering. "I picked soone with manageable risk... but honestly, I didn’t expect him to end it in one round."
Nakahara shakes his head slowly. "Neither did I."
A mont later, the ring announcer steps through the ropes, but instead of heading straight to the center, he pauses, glancing toward the fallen fighter.
Cortez is just beginning to rise, his arm draped over a cornerman’s shoulder as they steady him, guiding his unbalanced steps back toward the corner.
The announcer waits a little longer, before finally making his way to the center of the ring and lifting the microphone.
"Ladies and gentlen... referee has called a stop to this contest!"
A ripple runs through the crowd, anticipation building again.
"Official ti... two minutes, fifty-three seconds of round number one!"
He turns, extending his arm toward the blue corner.
"Declaring your winner by TKO... from the blue corner... Tatsuki Aramaki!"
The arena responds imdiately. Applause spreads across the stands, growing louder as more people rise to their feet.
So cheer, others whistle, voices calling out his na again, not as a chant this ti, but as recognition.
"Aramaki!"
"Hell of a fight!"
"What a finish!"
On the other side, the reaction settles differently. Cortez’s supporters don’t rise with the sa energy. Their voices stay low, scattered, frustration threading through their words.
"What the hell was that...?"
"All that talk... and he goes down like that?"
"He got careless... way too cocky."
A few shake their heads, replaying the swagger, the taunts, and the way Cortez carried himself like the fight was already his.
But that’s nothing new to them. That’s just how Cortez has always been. They’ve followed him long enough to know it, and to expect it.
The talking, the grin, the way he toys with his opponents like he’s already decided how it ends. And every ti, he backs it up.
That’s why they cheer him, why they enjoy it. But this ti, it didn’t land the sa way.
"...No. That wasn’t just him," soone exhales, still staring at the ring.
"That kid... those body shots..."
"He broke him down."
A pause lingers between them, shorter this ti.
"...Yeah... maybe the opponent’s just that good."
The tone shifts, not into full acceptance, but close enough that the frustration begins to ease. One by one, a few of them start to clap, a reluctant acknowledgnt of what they’ve just witnessed.
***
At ringside, however, not everyone shares the sa sentint. Among the VIP section, Hugo Ramirez sits unmoved, his expression dark, completely at odds with the energy around him. While applause and cheers ripple through the arena, his displeasure stands out in sharp contrast.
His primary interest may be Ryoma, but he has never seen him as just a fighter. To Ramirez, Ryoma Takeda is a rival, one operating in the sa space, competing for influence and control.
And Aramaki is part of that sa orbit. So Aramaki’s victory, for Ramirez, still feels like a loss.
Beside him, Jackson Rhodes glances over, catching that expression imdiately. An amused smile spreads across his face.
"Well, this is sothing, Ramirez," he says lightly, tone teasing. "I thought you had people working on disrupting their preparation."
He tilts his head slightly toward the ring. "But look at that. Not only did the kid win... he finished it in one round."
Ramirez turns his head slowly, his already sour expression sharpening into sothing colder, more hostile. The irritation shifts, no longer aid at the result alone, but at Jackson himself.
What Jackson just said isn’t sothing you throw around casually, not in a place like this, with caras everywhere and ears ready to pick up anything.
"What are you talking about?" Ramirez replies flatly, playing dumb, though the edge in his gaze gives him away.
Jackson leans forward against the armrest, the grin still there, unbothered. "I’m talking about that Chaleon kid," he says casually. "After everything you lined up, I was half-expecting things to go a little differently."
Then his eyes flick briefly toward the ring again. "Yet that kid still wins easily."
A small twitch runs through Ramirez’s brow, the irritation deepening. But he doesn’t respond this ti. His gaze shifts forward instead, locking onto Aramaki in the ring, and then onto Nakahara.
Nakahara, too, is already looking back at him. The distance between them does nothing to soften it. The stare is cold, direct, and unmistakably unfriendly.
No words pass between them, but none are needed. In that brief exchange, the line is drawn clearly enough, their conflict no longer sothing kept behind closed doors, but laid bare in the open.
***
Not far from the VIP section, Velasco and Holland have stopped watching the ring altogether.
Velasco’s gaze drifts first, almost absentmindedly, following the direction of Ramirez’s stare. It doesn’t take long before he finds where it lands; Nakahara, standing across the distance, returning that sa cold look without hesitation.
He stays quiet, but the shift in his focus is enough for Holland to notice. Holland glances between the two n, then back again, as if making sure he isn’t reading too much into it.
But the longer he looks, the harder it becos to dismiss.
"...So you finally see it for yourself?" he mutters under his breath.
Velasco doesn’t look away. "Yeah."
Around them, the arena is still loud, still buzzing from the knockout, but the noise feels distant now, like it belongs to a different mont entirely.
Holland exhales slowly, eyes narrowing just a little. "That’s not just tension. Sothing’s been sitting there for a while."
Unlike Velasco, Holland’s been chasing pieces of it for days now; rumors, inconsistencies, things that never quite line up clean enough to act on.
"Still doesn’t give us anything concrete," he says quietly. "But now the picture is a lot clearer."
Even without proof, the feeling settles in deeper now. Whatever is building between those two sides isn’t speculation anymore, but sothing already in motion, waiting for the right mont to break into the open.
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