He imagines Kanzaki suffering, tortured, body too battered to answer back, while Ryoma kept hitting not out of cruelty but out of something colder: the belief that Kanzaki had asked for it, provoked it, earned it.
And then Sekino imagines himself in that same place. Ryoma leaning over him. Ryoma refusing to let him fall unconscious fast. Ryoma stretching the punishment second by second, punch by punch, until the ropes were the only thing holding him up.
A chill curls through Sekino's mind, a thin wire of thought that he doesn't want but can't shake.
He warned me.
Not just about the fight… about what it means to step in the ring with someone who still remembers what pride tastes like.
He dragged up the real reason I started fighting in the first place.
The words settle, heavy and strange. The hatred he felt minutes ago flickers, shifts, and dims. In its place comes something close to respect, uncomfortable, unwanted, but undeniable.
