The forge had been running hot for a few days. Obi stood in the wash of heat, sleeves rolled, curls damp with sweat, hammering a perfectly subtle instrument of tasteful violence."
"Easy, handsome," he told the billet. "We're going to meet a lot of new faces tonight. Try not to rearrange all of them."
Sparks burned his forearms. He hissed, grinned, hammered anyway. The knuckles took shape - clean arcs over the fingers, a squared face for the strike, weight tucked where it would matter. No spikes, no drama. Ugly tools brag. Good ones simply work.
"Flattering," he told the steel. "You make me look dangerous."
Out in the streets, a runner went by, breathless: "Pot doubled! Pot doubled!" The words bounced off stone and kept going, turning corners without him.
Obi's eyebrows climbed. "Huh," he said to the air. "So we're serious now."
He glanced at the knuckles again, then at the sign he put up for quite some time now: SCRAPPER'S GAUNTLET - NO RULES. WINNER TAKES ALL.
"Specific advice," he muttered. "Not ominous at all."
He calmed down the forge, packed chalk, wraps, and the knuckles into a little canvas roll, flipped his sign to Closed, and stepped into the tunnel. As he went, he passed Takeshi's place - empty.
The registration booth for the Gauntlet was a desk welded to a cage. The clerk behind the mesh barely lifted his eyes.
"Name?" he asked.
"Obi," He said brightly, then added, "the Loud, why not?"
"Weight?"
"Charming."
The clerk sighed. "You want in or you want to flirt?"
"Buddy, I can do both." Obi leaned in, grin quick. "Let's call me… middle. Lean middle. Artistically proportioned."
The clerk scratched something. "Rules?"
"I read the poster," Obi said. "Quite short, but concise."
"Good. Try not to lose some teeth" The clerk slid him a token stamped with a crude fist. " Warm-up in the pen. Healers charge full."
"Guess I'll have to win, then." Obi flicked the token into the air, caught it, and sauntered off like nerves were a myth.
They weren't. His stomach was a tangle. He fed it jokes and kept walking.
Across the Underworks, the Rust Room sang in clean tones. Raizen and Hikari mirrored Kori's stance - hands high, elbows in, feet set on a narrow strip of tape.
"Don't wind up like you're telling a story," Kori said, tapping Raizen's shoulder. "Shortest line, smallest tell. Weight travels through the floor, not through your face."
Raizen tried again. Jab - snap, not shove. Cross - hip first. Kori nodded once.
"Better. Again. Ten. No noise."
Hikari's strikes were quiet, efficient, almost too clean. She didn't blink much when she moved. Kori's eye narrowed, just a fraction.
Mina's voice drifted through the ceiling mic. "Boy's cadence smoothing." Then, softer: "Girl's control: precise. Too precise…"
Between sets, Raizen leaned on his knees, panting. "Kori," he asked, "what happens when people finish here? When they're… done?"
Kori rolled the stiffness out of her neck. The joke didn't come first; honesty did.
"Most who make it far get offers. From people you don't meet in bright rooms. Assassins if they want coin and quiet. Guards, if they want collars and orders."
"And if they hunt Nyxes?" Raizen asked.
"Then they're Gravers." Kori's voice went flat. "The line-holders. They go where it's black, swing luminite they barely afford. Nothing fancy. Scavenged steel, grit, and teamwork. They keep the small packs from chewing villages to bone. They die too often and get thanked not nearly enough."
"But… what about the really strong ones?" He remembered the Nyx back at his village. A normal human couldn't have possibly resisted it in a face-to-face fight. No chance.
"Vanguards," Kori said, "they're the tip. Trained in Neoshima. At the best place to learn: Lotus Academy." She spoke the name like it was a badge of pride. "They've got the best gear, the best training. They go where the nightmares have names. People can sleep soundly because of them."
Hikari's lashes lowered and lifted once, something like a thought moving behind her gaze.
Beyond the glass, the two under Kori's wing worked in silence. The boy sat at a long table cluttered with locks of every size, tools clicking as he solved every single one. Others trying too, but every failure buzzed red. In another room, The girl slammed her fists into a heavy bag, her breath barely audible. Her bright red hair danced relentless, with the rhythm of her hits. It was clear that they were better than the newcomers, but what was also obvious enough was that they were catching up. Fast.
Kori clapped once, cutting the quiet. "Enough talk. Hands back up. If you're going to pick a fight with monsters, start by not leaving your chin on the table."
They moved again. She guided, bumped, frustrated them into better shapes.
"Head off center on the line," she told Raizen, nudging his temple. "If you trade in the middle, you donate your head."
He gritted his teeth, adjusted. Duck. Slip. The third came fast, and this time he rolled under, shoulder brushing the mat, popping back up in stance. His grin was quick and ragged, but it was there.
Then, to Hikari: "Don't disappear. You're not a ghost. Be here, then be gone. Leave them a question mark."
Then? Everything, again and again. In a loop - but every time sharper, faster, better.
The Gauntlet pen stank of sweat, iron and old bets. Fighters crowded the place, wrapping hands, stretching, muttering prayers to gods who didn't visit the Underworks.
Obi found a corner, sat, and wrapped his knuckles with the care he usually treats his "wonderful" inventions. He chalked, flexed, slid the brass over the wraps. The weight felt right. He breathed in like Louissa had taught him when his parents didn't come home and he had too much heat in his bones.
A tank of a man shouldered through the pen - shaved scalp beading sweat, scar slicing from a cleft chin to the notch of his throat. His belly sat like a barrel strapped in leather, but his forearms were giant, the kind you only get from lifting bad ideas for years. Ink crawled up both arms: broken chain links around the wrists, a crude heart with teeth biting down over his shoulder. Across his knuckles, letters had been hammered in by someone with more enthusiasm than spelling - looked like H-A-I-T.
He caught the gleam of brass on Obi's knuckles.
"That your toys?" he rumbled, voice like gravel in a tin.
Obi held the knuckles up to the light. "These? Meant for cracking walnuts. Big walnuts."
The big man snorted. "You'll be spitting walnuts."
"Only if you're made of them," Obi said pleasantly. He squinted at the man's hand. "And buddy, that tattoo - does it spell "hate" or am I behind with words?"
A few nearby fighters barked laughter and pretended they hadn't.
The man's brow lowered, a ledge sliding over his eyes. He stepped in until Obi could smell the smell of old beer.
"You always talk this much?" the brute asked.
"Only when I'm awake," Obi grinned. "You should hear me when I'm winning."
A guard smacked the barred gate with his baton. "Save it for whoever your random opponent is"
Obi lifted both palms, brass winking. "You hear the man, big fella. Maybe fate sits us next - wouldn't want to deprive the crowd."
The tattooed slab leaned close enough for the scar on his chin to catch the lantern light. "Pray it doesn't," he said, and moved on.
Obi let the smile ride a second longer, then whispered to the knuckles, "Please let him spell "asleep" when I'm done."
The corridor ahead glowed gold with torchlight. Beyond the gate, a crowd that came to see something break.
He thought, briefly, of Raizen's too-bright smile, of Hikari's quiet eyes, of Takeshi's map and the way the pins kept multiplying like bad stars. He thought of Louissa's door and the way her voice could warm a room without stepping inside.
Then he pinched the thoughts shut, and smiled like trouble.
A runner jogged down the corridor, breathless. "Obi the Loud versus Morrow the Colossus! Two-minute prep!"
"The Colossus?" Obi repeated, rolling his neck. "What kind of stick will I be breaking?"
He lifted his fists and let the brass clink.
"Hands where they'll still be hands," he told himself, and almost laughed.
"Gate Two! Obi the Loud!" the same runner shouted. "Ready up!"
The guard next to Obi didn't look at him when he spoke. "When you stop smiling, tuck your chin."
"I will never stop smiling," Obi said. "It's my curse."
"Then duck" The guard said.
Bars rattled. Hot light slid under and up. The smell of sand and wood crept in like a tide.
Obi rolled his shoulders, set his feet, and walked forward until the sand took his weight.
He grinned anyway.