Takuma sat on the sole bench in the fighter's tunnel. Beside him stood a Ring employee, and one look told how tense he was— anyone would be tense while standing close to Takuma as he was now. Even though his face was hidden behind a mask, and the dark tunnel obscured his eyes, the vibe coming from the body language was heavy and oppressive.

It couldn't be clearer that Takuma wasn't in a good mood.

"… The fight will begin shortly," said the employee.

Takuma nodded without looking up.

His debut in the 2v1 category was supposed to be a 'momentous' day, and he wished to be in peak condition for the fight, but for the past three days, his mood had been in flames ever since his last fight.

If given a choice, Takuma wouldn't participate in the Ring. And while aware of his feelings towards the Ring, he was cognizant of the fact that, as it stood, his life revolved around the Ring. His fights were arguably the most important part of his training, the majority of his income source, the reason behind why he sold drugs, and why he had to be so careful with everything about his personal life. Life could've been so much easier if the Ring wasn't part of it— but he still did it because of his future.

And perhaps it was because of that that Takuma took the Ring quite seriously. Every victory brought money, but every fight also carried the risk of injury and death to him and the opponent— even though every fighter knew not to make mortal strikes, anything was possible in the heat of the battle.

Strangely so, Takuma had developed a sense of pride in what he did. For him, it took a lot of work to perform in every battle. He had to train for it, ensure he was in tip-top condition for the fight, and then actually fight while keeping in mind to minimize injuries to reduce future risk and expenditure. Which made every win precious— making it hard-earned.

So, when he realized that Tsubura had rigged the fight against Fall Hornet to get him an easy win, that pride of his had been hurt. When he should've been happy for the quick and easy no-injury win, he felt the win was cheap. Takuma told himself he was needlessly caring about it too much, but no matter how much he repeated it to himself, he couldn't convince himself not to feel absolute shit.

He didn't think he had been angrier in his life.

He felt insulted.

"It's time," said the employee.

Takuma stood up from his bench and walked to the exit. The announcer was finishing introducing the duo fighting him. He closed his eyes and focused on the crowd's noise and cheers— it was larger than usual, perhaps even larger than when he had fought Ironbull, his biggest fight in the Ring.

The hype surrounding 2v1 was huge. The arena chosen for it was also one of the larger ones to accommodate the capacity. He hadn't been to the Ring since last week, but he had heard from one of his clients that they would watch and bet on the fight.

Takuma heard his 'stage name' called and walked out of the tunnel sedately. Immediately, the noise levels rose and hit him like a wall. He didn't look at anyone no matter how much they rattled the mesh walls around him, calmly walked into the arena, and only then did he look around and the crowd was indeed larger, people standing around banging shoulders against each other, screaming their throats out in anticipation of a bloody battle.

Takuma had done public speaking a couple of times, and the eyes of the crowd had bothered him, but strangely enough, the crowd in the Ring didn't do anything for him. He had fought in front of a paltry group of few and a packed crowd— they were both the same. When there was a person in front of you trying to break your bones or stick pointy metals in your body, there was no time to worry about crowds.

He then finally looked at his opponents for the day. Seeing two people in the arena other than him was somewhat strange. He hadn't seen a 2v1 fight due to their rarity; the few times they were held, he wasn't free to go and watch them. Adding one more person made the large arena feel smaller, which was true when you considered how much distance an average person could cover and command.

But he did know his opponents. The Ring informed the fighters about their opponents beforehand. When Takuma was new, the competition he was fighting was bottom of the barrel, so not much information was available about them. However, as he collected wins and the fights got more formidable, the opposition also rose in quality and thus had more details about them due to their popularity.

The Ring staff also got friendlier when he signed his second contract, giving him tips and tricks when he dropped by the offices after every fight. Takuma was genuinely able to understand why Ring fighters joined teams.

He squatted down as he stared at his opponents.

Two men. One of them had a simple red circle on the plain mask where the nose was supposed to be, and the source of his name— Clown Nose. And his partner for the fight— Stonehands, a name that allegedly came from abnormally large hands, disproportionate to the man's height and better-suited someone seven feet tall— big enough to palm a basketball comfortably.

Both of them were on their second contract, each having more fights than him— but they had records worse than him. From what the announcer had announced, it seemed both had a sub-50%-win record.

It made sense for them to have a worse record than him. It wouldn't make sense from a betting perspective if both members of the duo were of the same level as the solo opponent. A balance needed to be struck so that the audience could see both sides winning— two people working together to defeat a stronger opponent or a comparatively stronger fighter edging out a victory against two people working together in tandem— only then would the betting odds work.

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Takuma kept his eyes on his opponents, who whispered to each other; because of their masks, Takuma couldn't read their lips, and the crowd noise made it impossible to eavesdrop. But he was able to read some of their body language.

'They haven't made a plan,' thought Takuma.

He stood up and walked towards them as soon as the announcer began to walk towards the exit. Seeing Takuma suddenly move, Clown Nose and Stonehands broke their conversation and moved away from each other, taking positions in a hurried manner.

As it was Takuma's first 2v1 fight, Tsubura had made it in the taijutsu sub-category, meaning weapons weren't allowed. Takuma clenched his fist as his stride widened, and he was sprinting by the time the announcer stepped out.

Stonehands ran forward and stood in front of Clown Nose, who began to move sideways.

Takuma saw Stonehands raise his massive hands into fists, ready in a fighting stance to engage him in a battle. But Takuma didn't slow down, and the moment he was in Stonehands' range, Takuma leaped over Stonehands' head, passing him without a confrontation.

"Wha—"

Takuma didn't look back at Stonehands and zoned in towards Clown Nose, who was taken by surprise. Takuma did a short hop and planted a spinning kick that was blocked but followed by two more kicks before his feet touched, one of which caught Clown Nose in the hip.

"Ugh," Clown Nose grunted lightly, but the kick didn't seem to do much damage as he whipped out a punch towards Takuma's face that he dodged by shifting his head to the side and followed by an uppercut body shot, digging his fist below Clown Nose's chest.

Clown Nose's body folded, opening up opportunities to deal more damage to Clown Nose, but Takuma was aware that he was fighting two people.

He grabbed Clown Nose's shoulders with both hands and fell on the floor, pulling Clown Nose with him before kicking Clown Nose over him. Stonehands, who was rushing towards Clown Nose and Takuma, was again met by an unexpected surprise when he saw Clown Nose thrown towards him. Stonehands had no choice but to catch his teammate instead of attacking Takuma.

"Are you alright?" he asked.

Clown Nose replied. "Y-Yeah, I'm good. Let's—" But before he could even finish his sentence, Stonehands pushed him to the side.

It was because Stonehands saw Takuma over Clown Nose's shoulder.

Takuma took a quick step towards the duo and wanted to hit Clown Nose on his back, but when he saw Stonehands push Clown Nose away, his eyes flashed, and he simply changed the target. His tensed arm shot out with chakra flowing through the muscles, augmenting a devastating strength in the strike.

Bang!

Stonehands' arms raised to block met Takuma's fist. He couldn't stay on his feet and shot back like a cannonball from the force that screamed out of Takuma's chakra augmentation.

The crowd raised a crazed ruckus, filling the underground with an energy that could only be seen in a gladiator arena.

Despite the successful attack, Takuma clicked his tongue. His skill with chakra augmentation had come a long way since he had first broken his arm using it— and the recent fights in the taijutsu categories especially had helped him grow the skill. While he was far from perfect, and the augmentation still backfired occasionally, his control had surged. And with that skill increase, Takuma added another layer of experimentation to the chakra augmentation.

He had begun trying to focus the burst of chakra that surged out on impact in an effort to concentrate the damage into a smaller area.

But it hadn't gone that way right now, and instead of the chakra concentrating into a shorter area, it had expanded, thus diluting the damage over a larger area— which had sent Stonehand flying instead of perhaps inflicting a tiny hair-line fracture into Stonehand's arms.

Takuma didn't ponder the moment and turned to Clown Nose and charged him. They hadn't communicated beforehand, and from what Takuma understood, the best way to manage a 2v1 fight was to separate them and then deal with them one at a time.

Clown Nose had enough time to gather himself and was ready when Takuma came at him, and within an instant, they exchanged strikes with speeds that blurred their arms to the untrained eye.

Clown Nose screwed a punch into Takuma's side, but not without Takuma striking a palm strike behind Clown Nose's ear. Takuma stumbled a few steps due to the pain in his side, but he bit the inside of his cheek when he saw Clown Nose grabbing the side of his head in pain.

He skipped a step forward and launched a taekwondo-styled high side kick that clipped Clown Nose's chin before digging into the throat.

Takuma felt a wave of exhilaration shoot through him that erased all the anger he was feeling from before the fight. He never knew the feeling of landing a satisfying strike before coming to this world, but after over two years of learning combat, he cherished every time he got to experience a perfectly executed strike. There were few things that could match that experience.

Even before Clown Nose collapsed to the ground, Takuma knew that he was done. And as he expected, Clown Nose crumbled flat down on the arena floor.

Takuma turned away from Clown Nose and faced Stonehands. He didn't rush forward, and neither did Stonehands, whose arms were now trembling. Both of them knew that the dynamics of the fight had changed— with Clown Nose out of the game, the fight was no longer 2v1.

It was now a regular fight— but a regular fight between two fighters who weren't on the same level.

Takuma didn't take the foot off the pedal and charged for Stonehands, who shook his hands and got ready for the clash. Takuma took to the air with his leg stretched forward, but before it could hit, Stonehand's giant claws grabbed onto Takuma's leg, and he swung Takuma around with surprising strength. The giant hand wrapped around Takuma's ankle like a cuff.

Takuma had his entire balance and momentum stripped from him, but while he was being pulled mid-air, his eyes were trained on Stonehands, giving him a place to focus. He bent his knees, and before he was slammed to the ground, he snapped a kick into Stonehands' upper chest.

Stonehands' grip loosened around Takuma's ankle, but the momentum was already enough to slam Takuma into the arena floor, knocking all the air out of his lungs. He freed his foot from Stonehands' grip but was left in a worse position than him.

It took a moment for both fighters to recover before they were back into the fight. Stonehands went for a stomp that Takuma avoided with a roll to the side and immediately struck out with a sweeping kick to take out Stonehands' legs, getting him to the ground.

Takuma immediately rolled to the side and jumped on Stonehands' back, and the next moment, one of his arms snaked around Stonehands' neck while the other arm locked the head in between two arms before Takuma began applying pressure.

Stonehands must've felt the danger from what was happening as he started to thrash around while trying to get Takuma off his back, but Takuma wasn't going to let the opportunity go as he kneed Stonehands in the back while increasing the pressure around Stonehands' neck.

"Rargh!"

Stonehands tried to stand up, and with his superior strength, he was able to stand up with Takuma on his back with legs wrapped around his waist. But the moment Stonehands was able to stabilize himself, his eyes partially rolled up, and he stumbled back for a couple of steps before falling again with Takuma, not letting the pressure around the neck go.

Stonehands hands clawed for Takuma's arm for a few moments before the entire body went limp.

Takuma let go of Stonehands and stood up with labored breathing while looking down at Stonehands and then at the unconscious Clown Nose in the distance.

And then he raised his arm, which the crowd took as the signal to go cause an underground earthquake.