I smiled at the pleasant sensation of cold water splashing against my face, brushing my wet hair backward as I cleaned the blood that had splattered me in the first fight. My short black hair now partially dyed red and my scar-riddled face were reflected in the cracked mirror.
"Are you looking at the mirror again?"
I could see my coach reflected in the mirror as he entered the bathroom and looked at me. This old man was well past his sixties but was still healthy as an ox, and as big as one too, he was taller and broader than me, although not by much.
"No, im cleaning myself"
Seriously, it seems like this guy thinks im some kind of narcissist. I grabbed a towel and dried my face before turning around and facing my coach, grabbing my knuckles which I had left beside the sink, and putting them in my pocket.
"What's the matter, coach? You would normally be drinking with your friends between fights, not checking on me"
"I overheard a member of the staff saying something quite suspicious"
That caught my attention. The staff doesn't do much while the matches go on; most of their work is done before the event takes place. Today's event was particularly hard for the staff since there were six matches and twelve fighters. It was basically a tournament with an extra prize for whoever takes me out of it and an even greater reward if I emerge as the winner.
The staff members don't normally appear in the death cage after they finish their work, except for the ones who work at the bar and the security guard, but the coach doesn't usually refer to those as staff. For the actual staff members to still be here, there must still be a job they have to do, but I don't think any of the remaining matches would need their assistance.
"You're lost in your overthinking again, Ren..."
"Oh, sorry coach...anyway, what did you hear?"
"It seems like they're having problems transporting something here, Jeff came to gather some of the guys from security to help the staff"
Transporting something to the death cage? That's not what I would have expected. Although I wasn't really expecting anything, I didn't have time to think too much...anyway.
"Who the fuck is Jeff?"
"..."
———————————————
"Motherfucker!"
I ducked to avoid getting hit in the face with a metal pipe and immediately took the chance to deliver a nasty liver shot with a right hook. The teeth of the steel knuckles pierced through the skin, making him bleed. As my opponent winced in pain, I swiped his legs and grabbed him by the throat, smashing him onto the ground, the concrete floor did nothing to cushion the blow.
A loud thud echoed through the cage, and he stopped moving. I made sure not to kill him, but an injury like that will most certainly leave him paralyzed for a while. Modern medicine and treatment can solve that without much trouble, so im not concerned.
"Im not a motherfucker, but I might pay a visit to your mother tonight"
I released my grip on his throat and took off my steel knuckles. The less wealthy members of the audience who bet on me screamed in joy, while the upper class among them just stared at my bloody opponent with a smile on their faces. Both kinds were wicked, one reeling on the fortune they had just gained on the suffering of another, and the other finding pleasure on that suffering.
Not that I could talk much, since I'm not too different from the first kind.
"And the winner is our unmatched champion, the steel fist, Inoue Ren!"
The announcer screams to the mic from outside the cage, exciting the lower class audience even more...wait, from outside the cage?
Normally he would have entered the cage to give the announcement, they never do it outside of it. Also, normally when one of the fighters is unconscious or dead, they would have security take them elsewhere to do first aid before taking them to the doctor, but no one has entered the cage to check on my fallen opponent.
No, actually someone does enter. The quarter-finalists and semi-finalists were guided into the cage by the announcer without a clue on their faces as to why. With them inside, now there were six people in the cage.
"Now that the main event is over, we shall commence the secret event of the day, im sure our big patrons were excited for this!"
Secret event? This sounds like bad news, but before I could decide on what to do I heard a sound from above, like that of heavy machinery. When I looked up I saw what appeared to be some kind of crane system atop catwalks that were normally used to check on the lights and TV screens that were on the ceiling, how those catwalks could withstand that weight was beyond me.
The crane was moving slowly, dangling a somewhat big metal box above the cage. Having an increasingly bad feeling about it, I started to walk backward towards the exit, one of the quarter-finalists was doing the same thing.
"Let's begin the massacre!"
As soon as I heard those words, the crane dropped the box and I turned around and made a run for the exit. The sound of the ceiling of the cage breaking reached my ears, as well as the explosion-like sound of the impact of the metal box against the concrete floor.
The other guy got there before me, but as I was already expecting, it seemed to be locked, and he couldn't open it.
"MOVE!"
I yelled and reached behind my back, grabbing my gun and pointing at the lock. I could clearly hear something smashing the metal box from within, and I did not want to know what it was. The bullet left the muzzle of the Glock, the loud noise assaulting my ears. But to my horror, the shot did not break the lock, is not that I missed, the bullet bounced off.
A strange crimson glow was surrounding the lock...no, not the lock, the entire cage. It was really hard to see, but it was there.
"Magic...?"
That definitely looked like the kind of phenomenon Witches were capable of, Magic, but before I could speculate about the meaning of this, a scream snatched me out of my own thoughts by force.
I turned around only to see something I was already half-expecting. From the broken metal cage, a dog emerged, and my senses screamed at me to shoot myself in the head.
Why would I be so scared of a dog? Well normally I wouldn't, but that is no fucking normal dog. A body as tall as a deer and skin too similar to that of a human instead of fur, its elongated neck reminds me of a snake, but the head at the end of it couldn't be more different.
A human-like head with a perfectly flat face. Its eyes bulged out of its skull as if they were about to pop out, the nose was non-existent, as if it had fallen. Its jaw dangled from side to side as if it was broken, making its mouth look like a gaping hole.
This one didn't have any hair like they usually have, so it must be pretty old, but that's definitely a Devil, a Skin hound to be precise.
"S-STAY AWAY!"
My previous opponent had woken up, probably because of the loud noise. He was the closest to the Skin Hound, but couldn't move. The last blow I gave him really did paralyze him, at least from the middle back and below. He tried to crawl away with his arms, but it was a futile attempt.
The Skin Hound looked around as if it was confused about where it was, before meeting eyes with the paralyzed guy...and laughed.
If someone says that the sound a Hyena makes sounds like a laugh, that's cause they have never heard a Skin Hound. The guttural sound echoed in the empty chamber that was its gaping mouth before escaping and bouncing off the walls, the floor, the ceiling, and reaching me at the same time from all directions.
It didn't make sense, it shouldn't be possible. But that was the nature of Devils.
The wretched creature leaped towards the fallen man, the concrete beneath it breaking and spreading around like sand that had been kicked.
And that was all I could see.
There was no scream, no plea for help or mercy. When my eyes found the Skin Hound again, the paralyzed man had been snared by its mouth, only his legs were visible. The Devil was looking down, causing blood to fall to the ground for a moment before looking upwards and starting to swallow the man, his legs slowly disappearing into the beast's throat.
The lower-class audience was horrified, but I could still see those smiles on the upper class. They were enjoying the show.
"GET ON HIGH GROUND, QUICK!"
I yelled before jumping towards the wall of the cage and started climbing up. It was the best idea I could come up with, but it was better than being fancy chew toys on the ground, at least this should make it harder for that thing to kill us.
And if not, then I at least hoped that it would cause the hound to make a hole in the cage when it leaped against someone, hopefully not me.
I probably looked like a monkey, climbing up as fast as I could. The remaining four guys copied me, not wasting the time the dead guy had bought for us. We were all going towards the same point, the hole that the metal box had made when it was dropped.
However, it seemed like I had overestimated the time it would take that thing to swallow a human. A thunderous sound assaulted my ears and blood splattered all around.
When I looked around, I saw what happened. The man who took the longest to start climbing was turned into minced meat, the Skin Hound leaped and crashed against it, but the cage didn't break, so the man was pushed through the holes, not different from a piece of meat put in a grinder.
"You gotta be kidding me..."
That thing is easily faster than a speeding car, and worse than that, even after crashing against a wall apparently imbued with magic, it wasn't injured in the slightest. They say that even weak devils laugh in the face of humanity's advancements...but seeing it with my own eyes makes me realize how true that saying is.
The Devil couldn't eat the man it just killed, so it looked for the next one instead. It had fallen to the ground after smashing the poor man through the holes, but that man was following another, and the Devil was below that guy now. The ground shattered when that monster leaped once again, and the next thing I saw was the right arm and part of the head of that man protruding from the Devil's mouth, apparently still alive, though the muffled screams and crunching sounds made it obvious that it wouldn't last.
Fear washed over me and I rushed my ascent. I jumped from the wall to the roof, barely managing to slip my finger through the holes. I took a deep breath to try and calm myself before I started moving towards the hole.
Another thunderous sound echoed through the place, and another man died. I didn't dare to look around to find out what happened, I didn't have time to lose. By the time I reached the hole, I heard the sound of that damn thing crunching on something, another death, and I was alone.
I tried to make my escape through the hole, but the moment I got close, a crimson glow covered it. A horrible foreboding feeling struck me suddenly from below, when I looked down, I saw that thing looking at me from the ground, blood dripping from its mouth like saliva.
I immediately swung my body to the side and let myself fall, and that thing leaped towards me at the same time. It crashed head-on against the place I was just a moment ago. I rolled as I fell, dispersing the impact through my body instead of letting my legs receive it in its entirety.
The Devil fell not long after me, shattering the concrete floor under its weight. My hand reached for my gun, but the hound leaped towards me before I could take a proper hold of it.
I somewhat managed to protect myself with my left arm, but that bastard bit it off like it was candy and sent me crashing against a wall.
"..."
How I was still alive was something I couldn't explain, even less how I was still conscious. The Devil swallowed my arm and started walking towards me while laughing. I clenched my teeth to hold myself from screaming, I felt like my entire body was broken and ruptured, and the horrible pain from losing my arm was even worse than that.
I wanted to scream, curse, and cry, but I only stared at the Devil and the upper class with unrivaled hatred. Once again I reached for my gun, but I did not point it at the Skin Hound.
"I can see you...YOU GOBLIN BASTARD!"
He watched me from the stands with a smile on his face, he was the bastard that somehow managed to catch a Devil and condemn me to death, so I would repay the fucking favor.
I unloaded the magazine in the general direction of the bastard, most of the bullets bounced off the wall, but one managed to slip through a hole, and I saw with glee how the bullet tore through his stomach. Then I tried to blow my own head with whatever bullet remained still in the gun, but before I could pull the trigger, I felt a horrible pressure around my head, and I heard my bones breaking under it.
And then, everything went dark.