The rain had needled Tokyo into a smear of neon. From the 38th-floor hospitality suite above the Dome, the city looked lacquered and cold, every streetlight a coin sinking in black water. Inside, glass walls turned the ring below into a silent diorama: technicians coiling cable like nooses, stagehands pushing road cases that thumped like distant heartbeats. The crowd’s roar rose as a pressure more than a sound, trapped behind double panes and polite air-conditioning.
Yamamoto stood at the window with his hands knotted behind his back, a statue carved out of patience. Reflections cut through him—LED scorebugs drifting across his suit, a scrolling chyron crawling over his jaw like static. On the credenza, a bank of muted monitors fed angles the audience would never see: tunnel cams, med bay, the timekeeper’s elbow jittering over a brass bell. A single screen froze on a trainer’s clipboard—ribs circled in red ink, stitches annotated in clipped English.
Tanaka swirled a wedge of scotch until it caught the dim light like amber trapped over a fossil. He watched the suite’s reflections more than the city, as if gauging every angle for glare.
Tanaka: Sato worked himself into a corner. A tag team match early in the evening against the Tsar’s Tormentors and then Dachi just before the main event. “Double duty” sells courage to the rubes, but it makes our lives easier.
The door sighed. Hina Kobayashi crossed the carpet with rain still shining on his cuffs, a slim portfolio hugged to his ribs. His eyes ticked once over the monitors, quick, efficient, already cataloging. Yamamoto didn’t turn; his reflection blinked over the glass, a thin line of light across his cheekbone.
Yamamoto: Do you know why Takuma never stepped on Japanese soil until Ultimate Wrestling arrived?
Silence collected in the room, respectful and dense. Somewhere below, a forklift beeped in a steady, patient rhythm.
Yamamoto: His father disrespected me when we were young. His mother, Meiko, was to be my bride. She shamed me in front of our clans—chose a poor Detroit laborer over a lifetime of silk. Now she’s my personal whore and her husband is dead.. All that remains of the Sato line is a son who inherited his father’s talent for humiliation. That ends.
Tanaka angled his scotch toward the wall of screens. One monitor looped last week’s tunnel scuffle; another lingered on a gurney’s squeaky wheel.
Tanaka: He called you a mobster on live TV. Everyone knows a wrestler’s testimony is mush. CTE makes a poor witness.
Yamamoto: I don’t care what the cattle believe. I care that he stops breathing.
He let the glass hold his face an extra second, as if calibrating the temperature of his own hatred. Then he moved—slow, deliberate—toward the credenza. Kobayashi flipped the portfolio open. A clean stack: times, faces, floor plans, a single red lane drawn through the Dome like a vein begging for a needle.
Kobayashi: Schedule holds. Sato’s tag final is the third hour—Tsar’s Tormentors. National title against Dachi slotted penultimate. Medical has him taped: bruised ribs, fresh stitches, residual concussion markers. Production traffic puts his first walk at 9:52. He will be warm and proud by 10:20. He will be tired by 11:40.
A lower feed pulsed a pre-tape: the Tormentors in black warm-ups, faces like tombstones. Their name card flashed red, then bled away into a static shot of the tag belts. Kobayashi watched without blinking.
Kobayashi: They draw a UW paycheck, but none of their loyalty belongs to Rupert. Their politics are Russian; their god is spectacle. They were sent to erase defectors and stayed to embarrass Americans. They’ll listen if we speak the right language.
Tanaka’s mouth twitched—something colder than a smile.
Tanaka: Which is?
Kobayashi: Immunity and headlines. Quiet favors through immigration. A referee who forgets to count quickly. A camera that never blinks when they twist. And a wire that clears in Macau before dawn.
Yamamoto finally left the window. He walked the room like he owned the gravity in it, stopping beside the monitor frozen on Sato’s circled ribs.
Yamamoto: I want “clean” in the book. The tape must show no hand of mine touching his match with Dachi. But weather can be arranged.
He tapped the glass over the red ink. The monitor shivered.
Yamamoto: Speak to the Russians. No pins, no bribes for a finish. Only… weather. Hurt him. Make him breathe through glass. Favor the body. Gift them a camera that adores cruelty.
Kobayashi dipped his chin once.
Kobayashi: Location?
Yamamoto: They like theater. Give them the Kanda substation, level B2. They’ll enjoy the secrecy.
Kobayashi’s pen made no sound on the page. Another monitor cut to black, then returned as a hallway: Sato’s locker room door, a row of nametags taped like dog tags.
Kobayashi: Phase One—attrition. We salt the ring with permission: a loser five-count, a blind tag ignored when useful. Their “Gulag Lock” stays on the ribs. If he reaches the rope, a camera needs a better angle. If the corner pad comes loose, it happens to be Sato’s.
Tanaka: And the crowd?
Kobayashi: We feed the narrative. MOX chirons will praise his “warrior’s heart” for taking damage. The word “courage” trends while he slowly drowns.
Kobayashi turned a page. The paper was heavy enough to sound like a verdict.
Kobayashi: Phase Two—psychology. Backstage traffic diverts his trainer to another call. EMT staging relocates thirty meters farther down the service hall. He walks the extra distance carrying pain. We let him see Dachi shadow-boxing on the monitor wall, framed like an obituary. Commentary reminds viewers he lost to his own heart punch last week. We make him remember.
Tanaka: And the third?
Kobayashi: Phase Three—extraction. If he loses consciousness after Dachi, he goes to a private ambulance on the east dock. If he wins, he still goes to a private ambulance on the east dock. Routing mistakes are so common with adrenaline and blood. Either way, the door closes and the driver follows a map only I possess.
The door closed again, softer this time. Dachi Sasaki stepped inside and let the quiet follow him. He wore no expression and carried it well. The glass wove faint reflections over his shoulders like spider silk.
Dachi: You asked for me.
Yamamoto: I asked to hear your answer again.
Dachi remained standing. He looked at no one, which was its own answer.
Dachi: Bell to bell is mine. I don’t need help.
Tanaka’s eyes warmed a fraction. Approval lived there, starved and lean.
Tanaka: The package is already cut. He heart-punched you; you returned it. “No excuses” is good television.
Yamamoto moved within arm’s length, close enough that Dachi could smell oak and iron and rain caught in expensive wool.
Yamamoto: Clean does not mean kind. His schedule is a knife already inside his body. You only need to twist.
Dachi’s jaw flexed once, a muscle stepping forward.
Dachi: He walks to me after the Russians are finished? Then I finish the job. Body first. Heart last. He will hear the crowd and know it is not for him.
Yamamoto: And when the bell dies?
Dachi: He’ll be a gift for you—breathing, but barely.
Yamamoto nodded, a priest blessing a sacrifice.
Yamamoto: Good. Make sure he understands who writes history in this city.
Kobayashi slid the final page back into the portfolio and spoke without looking up.
Kobayashi: I’ll deliver the Russians. They don’t like Mudcock, they don’t love America, and they adore headlines. They’ll listen.
On the glass below, the ring brightened—an empty square soaking under cathedral lights, patient as a guillotine. Somewhere deep in the building, a bell rang once to test the mic, thin and perfect as a promise.
Yamamoto rested two fingers on the pane where the ring lived in miniature. The city bled neon behind his reflection. When he spoke, it was soft enough to fog the glass.
Yamamoto: Tonight the boy performs for them. After that, he belongs to me.
A DAY LATER
The AAPW performance center after-hours sounded like a refrigerator—cold air cycling, lights humming, distant pipes settling. The ring was the only thing lit, a square of white under fluorescents that washed the rest of the room in gray. Dachi laced his boots on the second step, head down, breath measured in slow fours. He touched two fingers to the spot below his sternum and waited. The flutter came late, like a fish turning in deep water.
A trainer’s ECG printout lay folded inside his duffel. He didn’t open it. He knew the line by heart—the tiny stutter where Sato’s fist had written its name at the Ronin Rumble.
Dachi slid under the bottom rope and stood in the center. He threw nothing big. Elbows tight, shoulders quiet, he walked the ropes, shadowboxed with footwork only—angles, exits, the half-step that steals distance on an intercept. Every time his stance squared, he punished himself with a check hook and a shoulder bump—habits to break the lane Sato needed for the heart punch.
The door latch clicked. Soft boots on varnish.
Yuriko crossed the floor with a hood up and her hair braided like a warning. She moved like she had time for everything and patience for nothing, a small bottle in one hand and kinesio tape looped around her wrist.
Yuriko: Still pretending you don’t hear it?
Dachi didn’t stop. He rolled his neck; vertebrae ticked.
Dachi: I hear it. I don’t answer it.
She slipped between the ropes and stood just inside his orbit, close enough to read breath, far enough not to crowd him.
Yuriko: He lined you up once. You gave it back later. Good television. Your chest didn’t get the memo. Sit.
He didn’t—but he let her fingers press along the sternum, then the oblique where Sato favored body work off the jab. She taped him with clean, practiced pulls, black lines on pale skin, an X built to argue with pain.
Yuriko: You don’t need help in the ring. Fine. Then take mine now. We change the angles. Sato can’t cross your chest if you never square your hips. Lead foot outside his. Beat him to the post. If he cuts you off, jam the shoulder, don’t retreat.
Dachi: He’ll switch.
Yuriko: Then you punish the switch—hip check, knee pick, make him think about his ribs before he remembers yours. You carve breath. Let the drama boys upstairs sell “guts.” You sell oxygen.
She hopped to the apron, then the top rope in a quick pulse of muscle memory—an idle cat on a fence.
Yuriko: And if the building gets… interesting?
Dachi: I don’t want their noise.
Yuriko: It won’t touch your bell. It only steals minutes from his lungs before yours. Consider it climate, not interference.
He said nothing. The hum of the lights got louder.
The far door opened. The Syndicate came in as gradients of attitude: Isao first, jaw set; Yasuo grinning like trouble; Shinji loose and dangerous; Daiki with a tablet under his arm, eyes already measuring.
Isao: We can put Sato through a table in catering and call it gravity.
Dachi: No.
Isao: He did not show you mercy. Why should we write him a poem?
Dachi: Because I end this where everyone can see it.
Daiki held up the tablet. A heat-map of Sato’s last six matches colored the screen—entries, exits, where he breathed, where he rushed.
Daiki: He’s double booked. Tag final first. His gas tank dumps in two places—post-hot-tag surge, then again at six to seven minutes after the first high-impact spill outside. If we control the first three minutes, he chases. When he chases, he drops his right hand when he floats left. That’s your window for the counter heart shot—body first, then maybe. Don’t hunt it. Let it happen.
Yasuo: Or we just jump him in the tunnel and—
Dachi: No.
Shinji slapped the turnbuckle, impatient thunder.
Shinji: Then let me put a round on your chest right now. If you don’t fold here, you won’t fold there.
Silence made a small circle. Dachi nodded once. Shinji stepped in and posted a heavy forearm across Dachi’s breastbone—controlled but not kind. The room tilted half a degree. The flutter kicked. Dachi didn’t step back. He exhaled through it, eyes flat, and smothered the next angle with a collar tie and a knee to the hamstring that put Shinji to one hand.
Shinji grinned despite himself.
Shinji: Good. Keep that breath under a leash.
Isao watched Dachi’s chest rise, saw the extra beat he tried to hide, and made a fist without swinging it.
Isao: I still don’t like leaving things to referees and fate.
Yuriko dropped from the rope, landing light.
Yuriko: Then don’t. Leave it to geometry. Sato is brave, not immortal. We will make him choose between posture and pride.
The cheap wall clock clicked. Somewhere in the building a floor polisher whined and then died.
A vibration buzzed in Dachi’s duffel—short, coded. He didn’t look at the phone. He didn’t need to. Yuriko did, a glance only. The message was four numbers that meant nothing to civilians and everything to people who scheduled “accidents.”
Yuriko: Weather report says his first match might cost him extra steps.
Dachi: I didn’t ask for rain.
Yuriko: I didn’t say you did. I said bring an umbrella.
Daiki flicked to another chart—Sato’s strike selection after absorbing sustained bodywork. Fewer kicks. More clinch. Slower exits.
Daiki: If the Russians soften his core, he’ll favor the tie-up with you. That’s where he’s shortest. Your wrist fighting eats him alive. Elbow point to the ribs on break. Don’t show the ref the second one.
Dachi unhooked the top rope with two fingers, felt the give, let it snap back. He liked how it sounded. Honest.
Dachi: Enough.
Isao: Orders?
Dachi: You four do nothing the camera can write a story about. If a hallway is longer tonight, let it be long. If an EMT cart parks farther from the ramp, that’s not our fault. Bell to bell, I don’t need hands. I need air.
He stepped to the hard cam side and looked at the empty seats like they were already full. He spoke not to the room but to the lens that would be there later.
Dachi: Takuma Sato, I respect the courage it takes to fight twice. Respect is not rescue. You put your name on two lines. The first one steals what the second one needs. I won’t have to break you. You will bring me the cracks.
He touched his taped chest once, not sentimental, just an audit.
Dachi: You found my pulse in January. In February, it didn’t flinch. At Empire’s End, it will teach your ribs how to count.
He hopped down, unlaced his gloves, and set them on the middle turnbuckle like an appointment card. The Syndicate peeled off in ones and twos. Yuriko lingered.
Yuriko: Breathe on fours. Sleep on your left side. No pride when you cough.
Dachi: Pride is for entrances.
She smiled, small and sharp.
Yuriko: Good. Then save all of yours for the exit.
When the lights clicked off, the ring held its shape in the dark a second longer than the room around it, like it refused to be the first thing to disappear. Dachi waited until his chest went quiet. Only then did he leave.
Later That Evening
Under the mezzanine’s flicker and hum, Dachi sat on a folding chair with one knee up, lacing his boot in calm, unhurried pulls. Menthol and camphor hung in the air. Yuriko perched on a road case, knees together, re-wrapping his right wrist with sharp, even tugs. Somewhere down the corridor, a ring bell test-rang once—flat and thin through cinderblock.
Dachi’s phone buzzed face-down on a towel. The caller ID was a single kanji he didn’t save but always recognized.
Dachi: Sasaki.
Yamamoto: Your slot is unchanged. He will come to you hurt. He will leave you hollow. After the bell, follow him to the curtain. From there, do not look back.
Dachi’s chest rose on a quiet two-count inhale, fell on a four-count exhale. The ribs still pinched where Sato’s heart punch had taught them to listen.
Dachi: I’ll take care of him don’t worry.
Yamamoto: Of course. I am calling about what comes after. A private ambulance wearing Metro decals will stage at Loading Dock C, bay seven. Our men ride inside. No cameras on that lane. The paperwork says “respiratory distress.”
Yuriko glanced up, eyes narrowing. She tightened the tape, then smoothed it with her thumb until the skin blanched.
Yuriko: (low) Breathe shallow on the first exchange. Make him reach.
Yamamoto: If he walks, they will help him fall. If he does not walk, they will carry him. Destination is Kurāken no Suana. The room is prepared.
Dachi: Understood.
Yamamoto: Keep him breathing. I want his eyes open when I speak to him.
A beat of fluorescent buzz filled the space where anything human might have gone.
Dachi: He won’t need directions.
Yamamoto: Hina will text you the dock code and the medic names you should use. Do not engage the press. Do not allow sentiment. Finish clean. Deliver broken.
The line clicked; the corridor swallowed the dial tone. The phone flashed once—Hina’s message: a four-digit gate code, two medic aliases, a single word: “STAGED.”
Yuriko tore the tape, bit the end, and pressed the seam flat.
Yuriko: Dock C. Bay seven. Cute. They finally trust you to take out the trash yourself.
Dachi stood, rolled his shoulders, and tested his breath again—two in, four out—feeling the dull echo where the heart punch had lived. He flexed his wrapped hand until the knuckles whitened.
Dachi: He taught me the door. I’m the one who shuts it.
Hina K stepped into the doorway, rain still jeweled on his collar. He didn’t come in; he just set a laminate on the road case and tapped it once with two fingers.
Hina K: Route is clear. “Respiratory distress” gets priority. You won’t be stopped.
He left without waiting for a reply. Yuriko slipped the laminate into Dachi’s bag and rose with him. For a moment, they listened—crowd pressure building, a producer’s count somewhere, the thud of someone hitting pads too hard.
Yuriko: Make him reach. Make him stretch. Then take the air.
Dachi nodded once. He picked up his towel, then the phone, and slid both into the bag. The screen went dark; in the black glass, his eyes looked back at him—steady, unreadable.
Dachi: Bell to bell is mine. After that, he belongs to Etsuji.