The night air was heavy with rain, the kind that made neon lights blur into streaks of color across the city's cracked pavements. Dante walked alone, hood drawn low, his training with Lionel still echoing in his body. His muscles burned, but his mind burned hotter. One move isn't enough. One spark isn't enough. If I'm going to climb higher, I need more. I need to understand… everything.
But there was another ache pressing on him something beyond drills and lightning. His father. The man whose shadow lingered over him like a ghost.
Dante's steps carried him into the older district of Neo-Terra, where modern holo-billboards gave way to rusted signs and shuttered shops. He was about to turn back when he saw it: a building half-hidden behind vines and rain-stained banners. The words above the entrance were almost unreadable:
"Dojo-Field of the Crimson Era."
Something tugged inside him.
He pushed the door open.
The Old Rival
Inside, the air smelled of dust and sweat. Wooden floors stretched out like a dojo, but at its center was a miniature pitch, scuffed from years of training. Punching dummies stood alongside rusted goal frames. Martial weapons rested against benches.
"You shouldn't be here, boy," came a voice, low and gravelly.
Dante turned sharply. From the shadows stepped an old man, tall but lean, with a scar carved from his brow down to his cheek. His eyes were sharp, and though his body was lined with age, Dante could feel the aura pressing off him like a coiled predator.
The man studied Dante, then narrowed his eyes. "That look… those eyes. You're his son."
Dante stiffened. "Whose son?"
The man chuckled, bitter. "Don't play games. Those eyes belong to only one man. The Crimson Fang." I heard his Son was somehow alive, wow, you look so young.
Dante's chest tightened. He had heard whispers, fragments of stories, but never the full tale. His mother rarely spoke of his father beyond saying he had been "special." Hearing that name aloud sent a storm through him.
"You knew him?" Dante asked.
"Knew him?" The old man stepped closer, boots echoing against the wooden floor. "Boy, I fought beside him. I fought against him. I watched him tear through the Martial Ball Leagues when the galaxy hadn't yet woken to the sport you know. Back then, it wasn't Galaxy Football. It was survival. Blood, sweat, and broken bones on a pitch."
The Father's Time
The old man—Master Kael—sat heavily on a bench and gestured for Dante to sit. "Your father wasn't just a player. He was a weapon. They called him the Crimson Fang because when he struck, it was like a predator biting through steel."
Kael's eyes clouded with memory.
"I remember one night, on Titan's Rest. We were playing in an underground league—twenty men on a dirt pitch surrounded by gangs and gamblers. Your father was a striker, but not like strikers today. He fused martial discipline with instinct. I once saw him break a defender's stance with nothing but footwork, then curl the ball into the goal with a kick that split the posts in half. The crowd went mad. That was the Crimson Fang—untamed, unstoppable."
Dante sat in silence, every word pulling him deeper. He had imagined his father as strong, but hearing him described as a pioneer, a legend before legends, lit fire in his veins.
"But strength draws eyes," Kael muttered. "And not all eyes are kind."
Kael leaned forward, voice lowering. "Your father was offered sponsorship. Back then, sponsors weren't corporations they were syndicates. Criminal families. They wanted him to throw matches, to play dirty, to make money flow their way. He refused."
Dante's fists clenched. That sounded like his mother's warnings about corruption, but sharper, darker.
"The syndicates didn't forgive rebellion. In his last tournament, your father faced me. It was supposed to be a fair match, but they… interfered. Paid off the referees. Rigged the field. Gave his opponents weapons hidden in their gear." Kael's scar twitched as his jaw tightened. "Your father fought like a demon that day, even when three men came at him with blades hidden in shin guards. He scored twice. He never bowed."
Kael nodded once. "And no one ever spoke of it again. The Martial Ball Leagues collapsed shortly after, reformed into the Galaxy Football Federations you see today. They buried the dirt with new rules, new names, new glamour. But I remember. I remember what they did to your father."
Dante's eyes burned with lightning. "Then I'll expose them. Whoever was behind it, I'll—"
Kael's voice snapped like a whip. "Careful, boy. You think you're the first to say those words? You'll end up the same way he did."
Silence hung heavy. Dante's rage simmered, but beneath it was something colder: fear.
Kael softened, just slightly. "But… you're different. You have his fire, yes. But you also have something else. Something I can't place yet. Maybe you'll go further than he did. Maybe you'll survive where he didn't."
From his pocket, Kael pulled something small—a broken pendant, scratched and weathered. The symbol on it was ancient, a fang entwined with a lightning bolt.
"This was his. He gave it to me before his last match. Said if anything happened, I should pass it on to his blood. Maybe it means nothing. Maybe it means everything. But it's yours now."
Dante took it with trembling hands. The metal was cold, but as soon as it touched his skin, he felt a faint hum. Something… alive.
Rain still fell when Dante finally stepped back into the night. His hoodie clung to his shoulders, but he barely noticed. In his hand was the pendant, in his mind the story of a man who had refused to bow.
His father wasn't just a player lost to history. He was a rebel, a fighter who had dared to defy the system when it was at its ugliest.
Dante stopped under a flickering streetlamp. He clenched the pendant tight.
"Father… I'll go further than you. I'll play not just for glory, but for truth. They may have killed you, but they won't bury me. Not like that."
Above him, unseen on a rooftop, two shadows watched.
"He found Kael," one whispered."Good," the other said. "The past is a noose. Let him wear it. The tighter it pulls, the easier it'll be to break him."
Dante moved on, unaware of the eyes following him. His father's ghost now burned inside him, not as a wound, but as a vow.
And somewhere, deep in the city's memory, the name Crimson Fang stirred again.