The arena didn't breathe so much as flex.
A low siren made its presence heard, and the center plates rose again. The center shimmered. Inside the cage, shapes waited.
"Administrative treat number two," the host sang, milking the cheers. "Class 4s on deck. Please secure your expectations. And your limbs."
They came out like bad math in motion. Still humanoid, but the angles were unfair now – smoky shoulders plated, spines ridged, forearms grown into blunt cleavers, calves cabled for ugly springs. When they hit, the floor answered. When they turned, air dragged like it didn't want to touch them.
The bowl roared. Then parts of it stopped roaring.
Suits began to flash. A candidate in yellow tried to square up and got knocked. Two more rushed in bravely and learned what momentum does when it meets mass. Esen's shockwaves cracked across one lane like distant thunder. A Class 4 took the hit, slid a meter, and came right back with double intent. Keahi's claymore met one at the hip. Fire-bright, patient -and you could feel the crowd love her for being the right kind of obvious. Arashi sketched neat stitching at joints whenever joints dared show; he moved like a man who hated waste and would rather not see it.
Raizen met his first one at a bad corner - low ceiling, short sightlines. The thing forced its way in and tried to turn the hallway into a yes-or-no. He refused the question. Step in, inside line, cut at the tendon where plate didn't quite meet meat, heel to knee, finish fast. No speech. No flourish. He kept moving.
The host kept his grin strapped on. "We are no longer in cardio, Neoshima - this is a tasteful panic. Remember: your suit loves you more than your ego does. If it blinks red, let it. We do refunds in hugs."
The cages in the center emptied. The board churned. Seventy became fifty. Forty-eight. Forty-one. A long minute later it bled down through the thirties. You could hear it - the sound Nyxes make when they stop making sound. The crowd's pitch thinned to a tight line.
Raizen cut another 4 off a narrow bridge made of dangerous mesh, then cleared the next lane by instinct, not math. Hikari flickered two tiers over, a clean blur that didn't announce itself. She never chased speed. She let speed volunteer.
It wasn't showy. It was honest.
When the last Class 4 dropped, the arena exhaled for real. The floor plates coasted flat. A few drones drifted as if they'd forgotten their script.
The host tried a joke and swallowed it.
"Headcount," he said, voice lower. "We're down to… twenty-something. That's efficient. And that's also… too many."
He let the show leave his voice entirely.
"Candidates. Survival phase is over."
Every lens turned. Even the wind felt like it put its elbows on the rail.
"From this point," the host said, clear, flat, and fair, "you don't fight the Nyx. You fight each other."
A ripple moved through the bowl - shock, excitement, a few quick boos drowned by everything else. The suit teams along the rim stood up in a new kind of ready. Extraction rigs lowered a meter, then hung - waiting for calls.
"Rules," the host went on. "Your Lotus suits will still lock you before vital gets bad. No death. No finishing. Points from this phase will layer over your Nyx totals. We're judging on control, initiative, takedowns, efficiency. Top ten - not just survivors, top ten in score - get in. That means if you go out in this round but your body of work is better than someone's who stayed, you still have a seat at the Lotus."
"The suits will linger a bit after a lock," the host added, back to being unhelpfully helpful. "We've got mechanical arms dropping for retrieval. Don't swing into them. Don't high five them. They don't tip."
A hush settled that wasn't silence - the weight of a choice everyone recognized.
On a broken concourse, two candidates circled and decided they didn't want to be the first lesson. Across a tilted tram car, three others did. You could feel nerves snap and get re-tied into a new kind of brave.
Raizen didn't hunt for a name.
The name found him.
Arashi stepped up from the red lane, twin pistols at low ready, expression quiet the way a held breath is quiet. The drones loved the symmetry - blade vs guns, ground vs rail. The board liked the history - they'd tangled once before and left it unresolved.
They didn't talk. They both seemed to say "Yo! Here for a rematch?" A half nod each. "Okay," the host murmured, serious now. "Let's get seriously serious."
Arashi moved first - not by hand, by space. He cut right, took a ladder rung to a half-platform, and established angles. One pistol went high, one low - staggered rhythm, just off-beat enough to be rude. The first two shots were tests. Raizen answered without surprise - blade turned, edge kissed lead, sparks bit air and died.
The noise in the bowl shifted - laughter out, wonder in.
Arashi made the pattern worse. Cross-body. Ricochet off a wall. A low round that tried to interview Raizen's leg. Raizen's guard changed shape mid-cut - heel pivot, wrist flex, flat to edge and back. The bullet that should've grazed shivered and spun away, chewing the lip of a fallen stall. The one off the sign kissed steel and learned manners.
He didn't chase. He let the shots come and learned their grammar.
Arashi adjusted. Distance. Elevation. He slid left on grit, fired a short, angry sentence down the middle. Raizen slid in its grammar and made it spell the wrong word. Tink. Tink. The sound of impossible math done right.
Up in the booth, the host forgot himself. "Are you seeing this. Are you actually - no jokes, I'm serious, are you - look at his wrists!"
Mina's voice would've had numbers. The bowl had noise.
Arashi switched to unfair. One at chest, one at thigh, at the same time - staggered so the second would meet the block for the first. Raizen blocked both. He cut through the edge of the dust, let the light mark the angle, and met the second with the flat like it had asked to be escorted home. He took ground then - two steps, not fast, just true.
Arashi gave up the platform for spacing, boots kissing rung, drop to floor, slide behind a pillar. Gunmetal clicked - not panic, precision. He showed the edge of a shoulder that wasn't really a shoulder. Raizen ignored it. Kori's voice lived in his bones - don't chase, let it come. He let Arashi's rhythm tell on him.
Raizen moved on the half-beat before the magazine seated.
He crossed distance like it had been drawn shorter for him. The first shot went off as the pistol locked - he took it on the ridge of the blade and let the angle send it into the floor. The second never left the second gun. His left hand closed Arashi's right wrist, turned it toward the ground, and honored the joint. The pommel met sternum - not hateful, just decisive. The blade set itself at the clean space under the chin where the suit reads future decisions.
The suit blinked red.
It didn't pull him at once - the mechanical arms were already swinging for two other locks, and the systems don't like surprises. Arashi froze in place, chest heaving. For a breath, sweat made a thin map down his temple. He let his jaw unclench. His eyes flicked to the blade, then to Raizen's face. There wasn't frustration there - only honesty, and eyes that meant "Good game, but you aren't quite enough" - and something like relief.
The host didn't crack wise.
"Arashi - red. Clean," he said, steady. "That's a takedown to Raizen. Points applied. Nobody cheer too loud. That was good work."
The arms hissed in, grippers gentle, lifted Arashi clear like the arena itself had learned to be kind. His suit softened from red to idle as the med team took weight. The crowd clapped the way a city claps for a job done without cruelty.
Raizen stepped back a pace, lowered his blade, and let his breath find him before he told it what to do next. He didn't raise his arms. He didn't ask the board to love him. He glanced once - enough to see numbers ripple. His name climbed. The DM column lit with a clean block of points. The overall line moved - Nyx work plus this. He didn't chase the rank. It would come or it wouldn't. The work was the same either way.
All around, the arena reset its heartbeat. Fights sparked and died and sparked again. Keahi's claymore burned a straight line across someone's best-laid plan. Somewhere a long cloak cut a shape through dust and the ground obeyed it. Farther out, you could hear Esen's knuckles talk to the air and the air answer back. A scatter of bright violet, like petals, flickered and regrouped - shards in a swarm that moved like thought. Not his problem yet.
The host found his voice again, smaller, sharper.
"This isn't a show anymore," he told the bowl. "It's a measure. The top ten aren't going to be the flashiest. They're going to be the strongest. Nothing more, nothing less."
Drones drifted toward Raizen and were careful not to get close enough to become part of his math. He rolled his shoulders once, set his weight, and picked a lane that still had questions in it.
He didn't look for Hikari.
He knew where she was.
The board ticked. The bowl held its breath between cheers. The suits glowed their quiet warnings. Somewhere above, the sky moved clouds around like it was adjusting furniture.
Raizen lifted his blade.
"Keep moving," he reminded himself, and did.