Raizen instantly moved.
He did not wait for the crowd to finish screaming. He did not check who ran beside him. He slipped under the half-lifted bar, found the line his feet had voted for, and took it. First zone - open lanes, stacked cover, the kind of space where speed mattered more than excuses.
The tram rail threw shadow bars across the floor. Class 1 Nyxes scuttled in that shade like pests trying to look brave. Thin arms. Too many joints. Heads that turned too far. He met the first three in a single breath. Blade out, one clean cut each. No flourish. No pause. The suit at his spine stayed cool and polite.
The host laughed into the sky. "And we have a runner! Someone's late for breakfast. Security, stop this man. He is committing cardio."
The bowl answered with a wave of noise that lifted and broke against the petals. Raizen ignored it. A Class 2 stepped out from behind a toppled kiosk - human shape, wrong gait, fingers like hooked wire. It thrust. He pivoted. Cut the wrist. Cut the throat. Let the body teach the floor how to hold weight.
Targets came in clusters. He broke them the way he had learned to break bad habits in the Rust Room - small, precise, on time. Luminite pulsed along his blade, not showy, just present. The field smelled like dust and old rain and the faint chemical sweetness of the containment grids humming over the tram car.
To his left, a candidate tried to vault a low wall and did not commit. Their suit flashed warning yellow. A Class 1 launched for the exposed neck. Raizen changed his line half a step, cut the Nyx out of the air, shoved the candidate into safe ground with the back of his wrist, and was moving again before the suit decided whether to thank him.
The host's tone tripped over a laugh and landed somewhere higher. "Uh - assist points on lane three. That is the correct kind of rude. Remember folks, support counts. No, you cannot hug him. Boundaries."
A drone drifted too close to Raizen's cheek. He saw himself on the big board in the corner of his eye - smaller than the crowd, bigger than he felt. He kept his eyes on the next corner.
The arena tilted, literally. Platforms shifted underfoot with a patient sigh. He rode the change and cut as he went. A Class 2 tried to use the tilt to drop onto his shoulders. He threw his weight, took the drop on his forearm, and folded the thing into the floor with a short, mean shove of his boot. Up again. Forward.
Names flickered on the scoreboard - a grid at the petal edge. At first the numbers felt like weather. He did not look long enough to read them. He saw his own line climb from blank to a small place near the bottom, then two rows higher, then ten.
Ahead, a thin bridge spanned a gap cut by engineers who enjoyed drama. Two candidates fought on the far side - one with an axe too heavy for his stance, one with nothing but nerve. The axe wobbled. A Class 2 laughed without noise and reached for the nervous one's throat. Raizen didn't make the bridge. He took the rail, dropped to the beam below, ran it like a narrow street, and came up under the fight. One cut took the Nyx behind the knee. Another finished it. The nervous one's suit flashed amber, thought about red, and backed down.
He heard his name for the first time in the bowl - not shouted by someone he knew. It was a surprised kind of sound. "Who is that - Raizen?"
The host pounced. "We have a Raizen. We do not have a last name. If you are his last name, please report to the front desk. Kidding. There is no front desk. Please do not report anywhere. I don't want extra drama! Keep your eyes on your own Nyx."
The laugh that followed was lighter than the one at the start. Less teasing. More watching.
A flash of orange worked the far lane. Rings on both fists, hair the color of fire before it learns to behave. Esen. He punched, and the air answered. Shockwaves popped like muffled thunder. Class 1s folded in neat, ugly piles. A Class 2 stepped into the wrong line and went backward fast enough to question gravity. Esen didn't say anything. He kept going. The crowd loved him instantly for being obvious and loud.
Farther still, a mace whistled and then boomed. Feris. She fought like a dare. The Luminite inside the head of the weapon flared with every swing, and her smile outshone it. She clipped a Class 2 in the ribs, bounced it into a wall, and then bounced after it, laughing like she had found the one game worth playing. When two Class 1s rushed her sides, she ducked and let them crash into each other like bad jokes.
The arena adjusted again. A lift at the end of the lane groaned and moved a floor's worth of air. Raizen took the corner, skimmed a narrow ledge, and stepped into a small storm of hands. Class 2s, this time - three together. They learned faster. He learned faster than that. Cut. Step. Guard. Slash. He let the suit's cooling weave do its work while his lungs did theirs. He felt calm. The kind that had a job attached to it.
A candidate ahead stumbled. They put a hand out to catch a wall that was not there anymore. The suit chirped a high warning, the kind that announces, politely, that the next mistake will be the last. The Nyx in front of them lifted its arm.
Raizen broke the distance. The blade came up under the Nyx's chin and out the nape in a line that respected structural integrity. He felt the suit in front of him change its mind about red. He kept moving.
"Assist credited," the host said. He wasn't laughing now. "And a clean finish. This boy reads the manual while running."
At the edge of his vision, a bright arc cut the air in a clean diagonal. Keahi. For a blink, the claymore looked like a strip of fire someone had learned to hold. She moved with the heavy patience of a weapon that would not forgive a mistake. Two Class 2s came for her shoulders. She took both, one step forward, edge talking. They fell in halves that still tried to argue. She did not give them time to finish.
On a higher bridge, a pair of flashes ran in parallel - the bright, clipped chatter of guns doing delicate work. Arashi. The twin pistols spoke in short syllables. He did not waste a round. A Class 2 tried to use cover; he made the cover confess. A Class 1 leaped the gap; he took the leap out of the air and set it down neatly. He moved like someone who hated mistakes personally and had decided to stop making them.
Raizen did not slow to admire anyone. He let the sight of them be what it was and took his own work back up. A small alley opened ahead. Bad lighting. Good angles. A Class 2 crouched in it like patience practicing. It came fast. He let it. He gave ground that was not his and let the Nyx believe it owned the lane. When it overreached, he cut the overreach out of it. The body slid into a low, useful corner. He did not trip on it coming back.
The scoreboard numbers kept climbing. His line went from nothing to something people had to look for twice. Ten. Seven. Five. He didn't chase the board. He chased the next target that could hurt someone.
Blue zone to his left churned. Low ceilings. Bad three point turns. A small figure with a spear got himself pinned between a collapsing doorframe and a Class 2 that had learned to use elbows. Raizen should not have had time. The map in his head did something unhelpful. He ignored it. He took the cut through a broken window, ruined his sleeves on old glass more than the suit's designers would appreciate, and landed in a graceful. One cut took the elbow out. One more taught the throat how to be empty. He put his shoulder into the doorframe until it remembered how to be a door, and the spear kid stumbled free, suit blinking yellow, then green.
The host forgot a joke. "Assist double. Minimal time loss. Sir, if you plan on making me sentimental, please submit a written request."
The crowd's sound shifted. The laughter thinned. The pitch got lower. The tone that meant a stranger was becoming a name.
A Class 2 point two prowled the corner of Yellow where it met Red. Same wrong frame. More weight. It shrugged off bad hits and came back annoyed. It saw Raizen and liked his confidence. It came in with a long, unfair reach.
He took the forearm at the meat, not the bone. He took the knee from the inside. He took the head last because he respected sequence. The thing folded. He wiped the blade because the blade liked it when he did. He moved.
The board flashed. A tone popped - not flashy, not cruel. Just honest. Raizen's line jumped to third.
The bowl noticed. The host went bright. "Third place for... folks, this is not a typo. Raizen.
R A I Z E N. If that is you and you are in this crowd - congratulations on your cardio by association."
He ran under the tram car. The blue field hummed above him, static that made hair think about lifting. A Class 1 broke for his back. He didn't turn. He just reversed the grip, lifted the hilt, and let the rear edge do the work. It fell behind him the way a decision falls after you have already made the next one.
He stepped out into Red's teeth. Bridges. Drops. Lines that cross without asking permission. A Class 2 tried to knock him off a narrow walkway with its whole body. He gave it room to be mistaken, hooked its ankle, and let it choose the fast way down. The suit's boots grabbed the mesh. He kept his center.
Up on the far span, Esen punched air again and a small storm formed. Feris whooped and jumped into it like a child jumps into tall grass. The crowd loved them. The numbers loved them. Raizen loved the way the next corner arrived on time.
He pressed into a run that felt like the Rust Room had finally decided to be useful in public. His feet landed where he told them to. His lungs paid what they owed and did not ask about interest. The blade sang in the quiet way Luminite does when it is perfectly busy.
Class 1s became something like background. He cut them the way a cleaner cuts threads. Class 2s got the respect they asked for and not more. His suit stayed cool. The node at his spine did not complain. His hands did not betray him.
The board popped again. Second.
The host sounded like he was trying not to jinx it. "Second place for the unknown. Okay. Okay. I see you, let's all take deep breaths. Except the candidates. Candidates, please continue taking shallow, desperate breaths."
The arena opened in front of him - a half court of broken stalls and fallen signs. Three Class 2s worked it like a pack. He did not give them the courtesy of being surprised. He went through them like a short argument that had read all the footnotes. One to the collar, turn, guard, step, one to the hip, finish, pivot, one to the sternum, upcut. The last one tried to stand. He let it try and ended the try.
He felt the moment before he saw it. The board flared - a line climbing without friction. He did not look. The bowl shouted for him.
"First," the host said, delighted and a little afraid, "First place to Raizen - for a second - for a second - oh that is petty, and we love pettiness here."
The number ticked down again. Esen's shockwave had caught a stack. Feris had flattened something that enjoyed being flattened. Keahi's blade had written a longer sentence, as if fire itself was embedded in her blade. Arashi had landed three shots that made the board rethink its math. Raizen did not mind. He had felt the high edge where air is thinner and it had not made him dizzy.
He stepped back under cover and checked the lane ahead. Another corner. Another small storm of hands. Somewhere in the red zone, a lift changed its mind again. Somewhere in the blue, a door taught someone about hinges. Somewhere in the yellow, a crowd learned a new name and decided to remember it.
He rolled his shoulders once and let his weight drop into the floor.
Keep moving.