Rain still pattered against the broken plaza, dripping through cracks in shattered stone. The battle had ended, but the scars it carved into Kaizen's body and spirit were far from healed.
He staggered where he stood, every muscle screaming with pain, bones throbbing where Garou's fists had landed. His jaw ached, his forearm was fractured, and his ribs felt cracked each time he drew breath. The blood pooling on the plaza stones mixed with rainwater, swirling crimson into the gray.
But worse than the pain was the echo.
"You're closer to me than you want to admit."
Garou's words lingered like poison, sinking into the marrow of Kaizen's thoughts. He replayed every strike, every counter, every desperate move. It hadn't been a clean victory there had been no victory at all. If Garou had chosen to continue, Kaizen wasn't sure he'd still be standing.
Was he right?
Kaizen shook his head violently, pushing the thought away. "No. Discipline separates us. I chose this path… I chose control." His voice cracked against the rain-soaked silence, sounding less like conviction and more like an excuse.
A groan pulled him from his haze. One of the battered heroes, lying half-buried in rubble, raised a trembling hand. His eyes, swollen and bruised, found Kaizen's form through the mist.
"You…" The hero coughed blood. "You're… not a hero."
The words cut sharper than Garou's fists.
Another survivor rasped from the ground, his voice shaking. "You fought like him… like the monster. Both of you… tearing the city apart. What difference is there?"
Kaizen's throat tightened. He opened his mouth to reply but found nothing. No defense, no justification. Only silence.
When more rescue teams finally arrived, their eyes too carried suspicion. They rushed to tend to the wounded but glanced at Kaizen like he was a threat waiting to snap. Not gratitude. Not recognition. Just unease.
He turned before they could speak and walked into the mist, vanishing from the plaza like a shadow.
The next days blurred into one another. Kaizen isolated himself on the edge of the city, nursing wounds that refused to heal properly. Every attempt at training ended in pain, his body rebelling against him. Yet he couldn't rest. Every time his eyes closed, Garou's face emerged in memory, smirking, mocking.
If you hesitate, you lose. If you cling to discipline, you break.
Kaizen slammed his fist into the dirt, wincing at the pain lancing through his arm. His training was faltering, his mind fractured.
"Am I walking toward strength," he muttered, "or toward the same abyss Garou has fallen into?"
That was when the footsteps came. Heavy, deliberate, crunching against the gravel behind him.
Kaizen tensed, forcing himself upright despite the ache. His instincts screamed, but the presence wasn't Garou's. It was different less sharp, more grounded.
From the trees emerged a man built like a wall of muscle, wearing little more than a heavy tank top stretched against his frame. His head was shaved, his jaw broad, and his voice rumbled like a drum.
"You're the one who crossed fists with Garou."
Kaizen's guard didn't lower. "And who are you?"
The man stopped a few paces away, arms crossed. "They call me Heavy Tank Loincloth. Class-A, Rank 38. Not much compared to the monsters out there… but I know my way around a fistfight."
Kaizen recognized the name faintly. A hero more known for endurance than finesse, but respected among those who fought up close.
"I don't need another lecture," Kaizen muttered, turning away.
But the man only chuckled. "Didn't come to lecture. Came to ask what did you see in him?"
Kaizen froze. "Garou?"
"Yeah." Loincloth's eyes narrowed. "Every fighter who crosses him comes out changed. Some broken. Some stronger. Depends on the kind of man you are."
Kaizen's hands clenched unconsciously. "…I saw myself. Or what I could become, if I let go."
For a moment, silence hung heavy. Then Loincloth spoke, softer than expected.
"Good. Then you're not lost."
Kaizen turned, confusion cutting through his exhaustion.
The hero continued, his tone steady. "Only the blind can't see the beast in their reflection. But the ones who notice? They're the ones who still have a chance to stay human. The trick is knowing when to let the beast loose and when to chain it."
Kaizen stared at him, words slow to form. "…You're saying control doesn't mean rejection?"
Loincloth nodded. "Exactly. Discipline isn't the absence of instinct. It's the leash you put on it. But sometimes… the leash has to loosen. Or else you'll always be one step behind someone like Garou."
The thought hit Kaizen like a strike to the chest. He remembered the moments when he had loosened when instinct had driven his knee into Garou's gut, when desperation had forced him to break his rhythm. Those moments had landed. They had worked.
But they had terrified him, too.
"If I lean too far into it…" Kaizen whispered. "…I'll lose myself."
"Not if you remember why you fight." Loincloth's voice was iron. "Garou fights for his hatred. You fight for your path. That's the difference. Never forget it."
The rain began again, thin droplets hissing against the soil. Kaizen looked down at his battered fists, then back at the hulking man before him.
"You're… not the teacher I expected," Kaizen admitted.
Loincloth smirked faintly. "Don't expect me to show you fancy stances or flowing forms. My training's simple: grit, endurance, learning how to take punishment until your body refuses to break. You've got technique, Kaizen. What you don't have is the foundation to carry it when everything goes wrong."
Kaizen considered it. His body throbbed, aching proof of his fragility. Garou had exploited every weakness in his frame, every fracture in his stamina. Maybe technique alone wasn't enough.
Slowly, Kaizen bowed his head. "Then teach me."
Loincloth's smirk widened into something fiercer. "Good. Let's see how much pain you can take."
That night, beneath the storm, Kaizen began a new regimen. Stripped of refinement, it was brutal, primal pushing his body to its limits and then beyond. Loincloth didn't care for elegance; he cared only that Kaizen could stand back up after each blow, each fall, each failure.
As Kaizen dragged himself through the mud, ribs screaming, he felt the echoes of Garou's laughter still gnawing at him. But for the first time, those echoes didn't feel suffocating.
They felt like fuel.
The beast within stirred but this time, Kaizen held the leash.