The sand stung his eyes.
Abel's breath came ragged, each inhale sharp as glass. His body screamed in protest, muscles trembling, lungs burning. The world had shrunk to the sound of steel against steel — that cruel, rhythmic echo that never gave him room to breathe.
Dahlak moved like a shadow, clean, precise, the perfect reflection of Kyoshi discipline. Every cut was measured. Every step exact.
Abel wasn't.
He was late, sloppy, cornered — bleeding from a line across his shoulder where Dahlak's katana had grazed him.
"You're slipping, Abel," Dahlak said, voice steady, blade low and ready. "You trained like a fool, didn't you? That all you've got?"
Abel didn't answer. His grip on the twin tantō trembled.
He was holding his breath without realizing it — the way prey does when the predator closes in.
The crowd was silent, except for the faint whisper of shifting sand. Above, the mist from the morning had thinned into streaks of white light, cold and merciless.
Abel moved first, a desperate swing — fast, reckless. Dahlak parried with ease, the clang echoing like mockery. The counter came immediately — a strike too quick to read. Abel raised one blade but the impact tore it from his hand.
The tantō spun through the air and fell into the sand with a dull, heavy thud several meters away.
For a second, everything stopped.
Abel froze — his world shrinking to that single glint of steel half-buried in the dirt. His weapon. His other half.
Then pain.
Dahlak's katana struck. Not a killing blow, but deep enough to drop him to one knee. The edge sliced through his side — shallow, but the burn was fire. His breath hitched. The metallic taste of blood filled his mouth.
He looked down at the wound, at the red seeping through his uniform.
He should've backed away.
He didn't.
He couldn't.
Something inside him twisted — not anger, not fear, but something rawer, hungrier.
A instinct that said: If you stop now, you'll die like a weakling.
Abel's hand shot to the ground, clutching sand, sweat, and pain. His eyes locked on the lost tantō.
He could hear it — a low, thrumming pulse, like his heartbeat echoing through the steel.
Move.
He lunged forward, ignoring the scream in his ribs, sliding through the dirt like an animal breaking free from a snare. His fingers closed around the hilt, warm, alive, and when he rose again — something had changed.
His breathing was erratic. Wild.
The fear was still there, but it wasn't paralyzing anymore. It was fuel.
Dahlak hesitated. "What the fuck—"
Abel didn't wait.
He moved differently now — not trained, not polished. He lunged, shoulders low, dragging one knee against the ground. His body twisted, swung, crawled — nothing like a human stance, more like something born to survive, not to win.
His left tantō stabbed into the sand, anchoring him. He spun around it, dragging his entire body with terrifying momentum.
The motion was ugly.
Unrefined.
Perfect for him.
The right blade carved a silver arc across the air, catching Dahlak off guard. The boy barely managed to block, the clash sending sparks and blood spraying across the sand.
Abel didn't stop.
He twisted again, using the embedded blade like a compass point, circling, then lunging forward. Every movement was unpredictable — one moment he was crawling, the next he was leaping, the next he was rolling through the dirt, kicking sand into Dahlak's eyes before striking low again.
The crowd gasped. Someone shouted for them to stop — no one moved.
This wasn't a duel anymore.
It was survival.
It was hunger given form.
Dahlak tried to regain footing, swinging in clean arcs, but Abel was beneath the rhythm now — too low, too wild. He caught Dahlak's wrist with his free hand, shoved forward, slamming his shoulder into the other's chest.
The two hit the ground hard.
Steel flashed.
Abel's blade stopped inches from Dahlak's throat.
Breathing hard.
Eyes wide.
Sand and blood clinging to his face.
The silence that followed felt heavy enough to crush bone.
Abel didn't move. He just stared at the blade trembling in his own hand, at the reflection of Dahlak's terrified eyes within the steel.
He could've finished it. He wanted to.
But his body froze — not out of mercy, but confusion.
What was that?
That thing inside him that had taken control?
That wasn't skill. That wasn't training.
That was him.
The instinct returned — softer this time. You're not a warrior. You're a beast pretending to be one.
The crowd erupted in mixed shouts — some in awe, others in disgust.
Abel pushed off, staggering to his feet. The tantō in his hand felt different now, heavier, like it knew what he'd just done.
Across the circle, Stipo had appeared — silent, watching. His expression unreadable, but his eyes… curious. Almost proud. Almost worried.
Dahlak rose slowly, blood on his cheek, then gave a small, stiff nod. "You win… fucking mutt."
Abel didn't respond. He just looked down at his hands — shaking, raw, alive.
The referee stepped forward, declaring the match over, but Abel barely heard him. His pulse drowned out everything else.
The sand beneath him felt warm, almost pulsing — as if the arena itself had recognized him.
He turned to leave, every step heavy, every breath uncertain.
The murmurs of the crowd chased him, whispers of fear and fascination.
For the first time, Abel didn't care what they said.
He had seen something in himself — something real, something old.
And though part of him was terrified…
Another part smiled.
Maybe I'm not meant to be a warrior, he thought.
Maybe I'm meant to be nothing like one but just a survivor.
The courtyard had emptied long before he realized it.
The sand was still warm beneath his palms, streaked with thin trails of blood — his and Dahlak's mixed together, drying in the faint sun.
The air smelled of metal and sweat.
Every breath scraped against his throat.
He tried to rise, but his legs didn't listen. His body trembled, heavy and foreign, like he'd borrowed it from someone else.
When he finally staggered to his feet, the echo of the fight still rang in his bones.
The crowd's whispers were gone, but he could still feel them, lingering in the corners of his mind: hybrid, monster, Kyoshi reject.
He looked down at his hands. They were shaking.
Not from fear — from something deeper.
The kind of trembling that came when you realized that you could win but not like you were supposed to... like you were cheating.
Footsteps broke the silence.
Stipo was there, leaning against one of the wooden posts near the edge of the arena. His eyes followed Abel quietly, unreadable as ever.
He didn't speak right away. He didn't need to. The way he watched was enough — half concern, half curiosity, the same way someone might watch lightning strike too close to home.
"You felt it, didn't you?" he said at last.
Abel didn't answer. His throat hurt too much to speak.
Stipo sighed, stepping closer. "That thing inside you. It's not energy— not yet. It's just… hunger. And hunger's not something you control by starving it."
Abel turned to look at him, eyes hollow but burning underneath. "Then what do I do?"
"You feed it," Stipo said simply. "But on your terms, not its. Otherwise—"
He tapped his temple lightly. "It'll decide for you."
The words hit harder than any blade had that morning.
Abel wanted to laugh, or curse, or deny it — but he couldn't.
Because deep down, in the space between his heartbeat and breath, he knew Stipo was right.
He had fought like an animal because, for the first time, he need to survive.
The silence stretched between them. The sky had started to shift, gold bleeding into gray as the afternoon crept closer. The faint hum of distant cheers echoed from other arenas — the classification still going on, as if nothing had changed.
But something had.
Abel picked up his blades. The edges were dulled, the metal marked by sand and blood. He wiped them slowly against his sleeve, watching the reflection of his own eyes in the steel.
They looked darker now.
Sharper.
Alive.
"Stipo," he said softly, voice rough. "When you look at me… what do you see?"
Stipo met his gaze. For once, there was no arrogance there — just truth.
"I see someone who finally stopped pretending to be what he was supposed to be."
Abel's jaw tightened, but he didn't look away.
Maybe it was insult. Maybe it was a blessing. He didn't know anymore.
Stipo turned, already walking toward the inner courtyard. "Come find me when you stop shaking," he said over his shoulder. "You'll need to learn how to use that thing properly before it eats you alive."
Abel stood there for a while, alone in the dying light.
The sand beneath him whispered with every faint breeze, carrying fragments of voices and applause from far away — all of it blurred, unreal.
He closed his eyes.
The echo of his heartbeat filled the silence.
Not steady.
Not calm.
Just alive.
He breathed in, slow and trembling, and for the first time he didn't try to silence it — the chaos, the fear, the hunger. He let it exist.
Maybe that was what it meant to be alive — to stop running from the noise inside and start listening to it.
He opened his eyes again.
The world hadn't changed.
But he had.
To be continued…