The city was already broken when Mark got there.
Not quiet. Not abandoned. Broken.
Windows blown out three blocks in every direction. Cars turned sideways like toys. A crater in the street that had not decided if it wanted to be a hole or a grave.
Mark hovered above it, breathing slow.
He did not rush.
Not this time.
He had watched the footage. All of it. Frame by frame. People getting hit and not hit at the same time. Bullets curving. Punches folding. That man standing there like the world had already made its decision and everyone else was just catching up.
Scipio.
Mark rolled his shoulders. Felt the bruises from training. From pushing himself until his vision went white. He had learned one thing.
Do not give him a straight line.
“Alright,” Mark muttered. “Let’s see it.”
He dropped.
Not a dive. Not a punch.
A tackle, angled wrong on purpose. Off center. Dirty.
Scipio did not move.
Mark hit him anyway.
The ground exploded.
Concrete jumped up in a ring around them as Mark drove him through the street and into whatever was under it. Sewer. Rebar. Old pipes screaming as they snapped.
Mark did not let go.
He had learned that too.
Short strikes. Elbows. Headbutts. No wind up. No clean arcs.
Ugly.
Effective.
His fist slammed into Scipio’s ribs. Again. Again.
He felt something give.
Good.
“Stay down,” Mark growled, and drove his forehead into Scipio’s face.
For a second, just one, it felt like a normal fight.
Then Scipio looked at him.
Calm. Focused. Not angry. Not even strained.
Just present.
Mark pulled back a few inches to reset his grip.
That was all it took.
Scipio moved.
Not fast.
Right.
Mark swung. A real punch this time, built from the hips, something that had put holes in things that should not have holes.
Scipio did not block it.
He touched it.
Barely.
Mark felt it more than saw it. A shift. A tilt.
His punch did not miss.
It landed.
Wrong.
The force slid across Scipio’s body and kept going, dragging Mark’s shoulder with it. Something popped deep in the joint. Not broken. Not yet. But close enough to matter.
Mark hissed and backed off into the air, hovering just above the crater.
Okay.
Okay.
He adjusted his stance.
No straight lines.
He feinted left, came in right, twisted mid strike, chaining hits instead of committing to one.
Scipio moved through it like he had already seen it.
Not dodging. Not really.
Editing.
Mark’s fist came in and slid off course. His knee strike turned into a glancing blow. Every attack landed just a little off. A little wrong.
Micro mistakes.
They stacked.
Mark changed rhythm.
Fast. Slow. Pause. Burst.
Break the pattern.
Scipio’s eyes tracked him the whole time.
No rush.
Mark felt it then.
Not pressure.
Interference.
He swung and he was late.
He corrected and now he was early.
His timing slipped.
“What are you—”
He did not finish.
He lunged instead.
Feral.
No form. No clean structure. Just violence. Wide hooks, grapples, trying to grab anything he could get and tear it apart.
It worked.
For a second.
His fist connected clean with Scipio’s jaw.
The crack echoed.
Scipio’s head snapped to the side. Blood flicked into the air.
Mark grinned, breath ragged. “There you—”
Scipio turned back.
And now he knew.
Mark saw it happen. That shift. Like a lock clicking into place.
Understanding.
Mark pushed forward anyway. He had to. If he stopped, he would think. If he thought, he would hesitate. If he hesitated, he died.
He charged.
Full speed. No angle. No trick.
Everything.
Scipio did not move out of the way.
He stepped in.
They collided mid air.
And the world paused.
Not really.
Just for Mark.
His body kept moving. But something else did not.
His forward motion collapsed.
Not stopped.
Folded.
It felt like hitting a wall that existed inside his own chest. Force went nowhere. Or everywhere. He could not tell. His muscles fired and the response came back wrong. His balance vanished. His strength turned against him.
Pain bloomed, deep and internal.
Mark’s vision flickered.
He hung there. Just for a fraction.
Stunned.
Open.
Scipio was already there.
Barefoot on broken air, suit tight and black with thin red lines tracing movement that did not belong to anything human.
Blue aura, faint, like heat off asphalt.
In his hand was the iklwa.
Short. Clean. Made for this distance.
Mark tried to move.
Too slow.
Scipio stepped in close. Close enough to feel breath.
“No straight lines,” Scipio said, quiet.
Then he drove the blade forward.
Fast.
Precise.
Everything Mark had held.
For a second.
Then it did not.
The city did not make a sound when Mark hit the ground.
Just dust settling.
Scipio stood over him, still for a moment, watching. Making sure.
Then he exhaled once, low, controlled, and the blue shimmer around him faded.
The fight was over.
It had been over the moment Mark needed it to be a fight.
Scipio turned and walked, barefoot across broken concrete, like none of it could touch him.
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