Viktor was no stranger to fights. Growing up in Zaun, they unfolded everywhere. In alleys choked with steam, outside bars slick with spilled liquor, under broken lamps that flickered like nervous eyes. Violence was background noise here. He had learned early how to look at it without flinching.

As a child, he used to sit on the cold pavement with other kids, knees pulled to his chest, watching shadows collide. The crowd’s shouts would rise and fall around him, messy and electric, a sound that swallowed fear whole. Over time, fascination replaced shock.

As he grew older, Viktor stopped watching who won and started watching how. Foot placement. Timing. Breathing under stress. Fights were rarely random. They were stories written in muscle and desperation.

Tonight, he hadn’t meant to linger.

He and Jayce were cutting through a side street, taking a shortcut back toward the lift, when the noise reached them. Raised voices. The dull, unmistakable sound of flesh hitting brick.

Jayce slowed first. Viktor stopped entirely.

A small crowd had formed near a narrow alley mouth. No ring. No cheers. Just people watching because there was nothing else to do.

In the center, a boy, barely more than that, really, was on his feet but losing ground fast. Moving well, even now. Too well for someone already bleeding.

Two men against him.

He took a hit to the ribs that knocked the air clean out of him. Viktor winced despite himself. The boy recovered quickly, slipped a punch, landed an elbow that made one of the men stagger. Efficient. Controlled.

Then he was grabbed from behind.

The second man slammed him into the wall. His head hit stone. Not hard enough to knock him out. Hard enough to make everything slow.

Jayce cursed under his breath. “Viktor, this is bad.”

Viktor didn’t answer.

He tried to keep his balance. His knees buckled anyway. He went down on one hand, the other pressed tight to his side. He didn’t beg. Didn’t shout. Just breathed through clenched teeth as a boot caught him in the shoulder.

Viktor’s jaw tightened.

He wasn’t watching a dance anymore. He was watching a body calculate damage in real time, choosing which pain to accept and which to avoid. The boy curled slightly, protecting his ribs, letting the blow glance off his back instead of his head.

Survival math.

Jayce looked at Viktor then, uneasy. “You disappear for hours to see this?”

Viktor’s eyes never left the boy. “No,” he said quietly. “I disappear because of this.”

Because even beaten, even bleeding, the boy still tried to rise.

And Zaun noticed that kind of stubbornness eventually.