As soon as his fight with Okubo Naoya ended, Kanoh Agito slipped away from the medical staff and headed outside the arena, unable to ignore the instinctive urge to train.

Under the cool night air, he moved with lethal precision while Katahara Metsudo watched him with quiet amusement—until Agito’s rhythm faltered. Out of the corner of his eye, he noticed a woman standing near the entrance, a familiar tournament fighter surrounded by a group of excited children.

She knelt to greet them, laughing softly as she signed their shirts, her warmth so out of place in the brutal world Agito lived in that it made his heartbeat shift in a way he didn’t recognize.

He stared for a moment longer than he meant to, something tightening in his chest, until Metsudo’s voice cut through the air.

The chairman gave him a knowing, mischievous look, clearly aware of the distraction, and though Agito forced himself back into stance, the old man’s smirk said everything: even the Fang wasn’t immune to curiosity.