It felt like falling into blue that never ended.
Axamu's chest tightened as if a sky had pressed itself down over his ribs. Sound was distant — a muffled drumbeat, as if someone had wrapped the world in thick cloth. Everything around him moved slow, slow like syrup. Light bled in from somewhere above, pale and cold.
Where… where is this…? he thought, voice thin inside his head.
There was no panic, only a deep, drowsy calm. His limbs felt heavy, foreign. He sank without effort, deeper into that vast, quiet pressure. Tiny bubbles of memory rose past him and popped into nothing — the crowd's roar, the metal ring, the sharp taste of blood — all dissolving like salt.
The water held him like an indifferent hand. He watched his own breath trail out, each exhale stretching into the blue.
A shape moved in front of him. At first it was nothing — a patch of darker water that swallowed the light. Then it shaped itself: a person, but without edges, without a face, like a shadow remembering how to be a body.
Axamu blinked slow. The figure drifted closer, and the drowsy calm curdled into an uneasy awareness. The closer it came, the more wrong it felt — not solid, not alive, but stitched from bad pixels and silence.
The figure leaned in. Where a face should be was static. It resolved into something that smiled — not a human smile but a jagged, glitching grin that grew and split as if the image couldn't hold itself together. The eyes that formed were wrong: huge, too bright, rims that kept flickering between white and black.
The creature whispered — a sound that twitched like broken code —
"My—"
The word hung there, torn in half by static, and the blue around Axamu tightened. He tried to answer; his mouth was water. A cold fear, sudden and hard, punched through the drowsiness.
He woke like being thrown up through a throat of ice.
Cold light slammed into his eyelids. The world detonated into noise: a beep—beep—beep from a machine, the hiss of oxygen, someone shushing, the rustle of white fabric. His heart pounded as if it were trying to climb out of his chest.
"—AHHHH!" he screamed, voice raw and shredded, the sound tearing itself through the quiet ward.
For one panic-laced heartbeat he didn't know where he was — then his fingers found the thin blanket, his cheek tasted of iron, and the sterile smell of antiseptic filled his nose. He was lying on a hospital bed. Tubes, monitors, and the pale ceiling stared down at him like calm witnesses.
"This is...?"
---
Axamu's breathing finally slowed. The panic that had ripped him awake began to settle into a low tremble under his skin. The cold fear of that glitch–face still clung to him, but reality was slowly stitching itself back together.
Beep… beep… beep…
The soft rhythm of the monitor grounded him. The sterile smell, the dim hospital lighting, the IV needle taped to his arm — it all felt oddly gentle compared to the chaos he had left behind.
He blinked, letting his eyes adjust.
The room was quiet now. Too quiet.
He shifted a little, reaching to pull the blanket higher over his chest — and his fingers brushed something warm.
A hand.
Small. Soft.
Axamu froze.
He turned his head slowly, almost afraid to break the moment.
Beside his bed, curled up in a chair with her head resting near the edge of the mattress… a girl was sleeping.
The girl he had chosen as his prize, the mysterious reward he hadn't fully understood, the one who had been handed to him as if she were something rare and dangerous the underworld itself wanted to hide.
Her breathing was calm, peaceful. Her fingers rested lightly over his hand, as if she had fallen asleep trying to make sure he hadn't slipped away.
Axamu let out a tired, shaky sigh.
"...This girl…" he murmured under his breath, half-somehow relieved.
For a moment he just watched her.
Her hair was messy from staying up too long. Her eyelashes were trembling slightly.
And even though he didn't know her story, seeing her slumped uncomfortably like that stirred something small and warm under all his bruises.
"You're gonna catch a cold sleeping like that." he muttered, trying not to let the softness in his tone be too obvious.
Slowly — painfully — he lifted the edge of his own blanket and pulled it toward her. His hand shook from weakness, but he managed to drape it around her shoulders, covering her from the hospital's cold air.
The moment the blanket touched her, she shifted slightly, letting out a soft little breath as if she felt the warmth and settled deeper into it.
Axamu leaned back on the pillow, exhausted.
Blood loss was making his vision blur again.
Pain pulsed through his ribs, shoulders, and head.
The memory of that glitching figure in the water clawed at the back of his mind.
But.
Right now — with this girl slumped beside him, wrapped in the blanket he'd shared with her — the world felt a tiny bit less cruel.
He closed his eyes, murmuring faintly:
"…Even though we never meet before, for some reason i feel warm inside me..."
And for the first time since the battle…
he felt himself drifting into a fragile, quieter kind of unconsciousness.
---
A few quiet hours drifted by, the room kept warm only by the steady hum of hospital machines and the soft breathing of the girl beside Axamu.
Until—
Knock. Knock.
The door slid open.
Baito stepped in… with that usual forced grin of his. But even from the bed, Axamu could tell something was off. Baito looked like he hadn't slept, hadn't blinked, and definitely hadn't recovered from whatever was going on inside his head.
"Ohhh— Axamu~!" he tried to sing-song cheerfully, but his voice cracked halfway like a teenager hitting puberty.
"You—you're awake~ good! Great!! Ehe he he~…"
Axamu just stared at him, expression dull and flat as a dead screen.
Baito cleared his throat and approached the bed — slowly, like Axamu might suddenly explode into a galaxy again.
"A-Anyway… uh… I came to, uh… inform you about your… victory."
His smile twitched.
"Congratulations~! You're, um… officially the champion of the underground tournament! You beat Nanatsu Taizo! The crowd went nuts! Ehe he… he.. he…"
His laugh was strained as hell.
Axamu's inner thoughts simply drifted in a tired monotone:
He's acting like he's about to pee himself. Pathetic.
Baito held up a trembling clipboard.
"So, uh… your rewards. Right! Rewards!"
He flipped through the papers with jittery fingers.
"You got the luxury apartment house you demanded! And— and the girl too! They, uh, want you to be… very happy after your unexpected victory ~"
He swallowed hard.
"And they also said… 'Thank you for your splendid performance.' Their words. Not mine."
Axamu blinked once.
Then Baito froze.
His eyes widened — like a flashback suddenly stabbed into his skull.
He remembered the moment Taizo's bey burst—
the moment the black hole ripped reality open—
Taizo screaming—
the roar—
that impossible pressure that made even hardened criminals curl into themselves.
"HELP—!!!"
And then Taizo vanished.
He shivered violently.
Another memory hit him—
the underworld management right after the event, huddled in a dark office, their expressions ashen, their voices trembling.
The head manager leaned forward, whispering with a fear he'd never shown before:
"That brat, is not normal. It's not something from this world can do. We better have good relations with him.
Or else we might be next—"
"And tell who watched and witness that brat battle, don't leak it to outside. NEVER."
"Even that brat is dangerous existence...we need him. Since he the only unexpected variables to fight with them! For Underworld to win against the X Tower!"
Baito had stared at him, horrified.
That expression…
That tone…
It was like they were discussing a natural disaster. A walking apocalypse.
Not a teenage boy with a beyblade.
Baito snapped back to the present, nearly dropping the clipboard.
"Hahaha— s-so yeah! They really, really like you! Hehe! They're, uh, you know… fans!"
His knee actually shook.
Axamu watched him silently, his eyes dark and unreadable.
Inside, he was unfazed.
They're scared of me now. Expected.
Baito forced himself to continue speaking before the silence swallowed him alive.
"Oh! Also— also! They said you can keep fighting anytime! But, uh— you don't need to, you know? Really! You deserve rest! As loooong as you want! Yes! Absolutely!"
His smile twitched again.
Then he glanced to the side—
at the girl sleeping peacefully, wrapped in Axamu's blanket.
Baito blinked.
"Oh. Uh. She's… uh… here too."
His voice dropped.
His expression tightened a tiny bit.
Almost uneasy and annoyed.
Axamu didn't even bother answering.
Just stared at him with those cold, abyss-colored eyes.
Baito gulped.
"A-Anyway! That's all! Hehe… I'll… I'll go now."
He backed away toward the door, bowing repeatedly as if trying to appease a monster.
"R-rest well, Axamu… Please rest well… okay…? Ehe..he...he... he~…"
The door closed.
Silence again.
Axamu exhaled softly, leaning his head back.
Everyone's shaken.
Even the management.
And for the first time since waking, his heartbeat calmed just a little, even though it was strange for him.
"What should i do from now on...?"
As Axamu look at the window.