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It was all he had ever wanted. In front of him, the belt. Beside him, his coach. All he had ever wanted. He had brutalized another man in the ring, tenderized his flesh, a sensation he had treasured since birth. But above his head hung a question he never thought he would have to ask, let alone answer;
What now?
One by one, delicious challenges had lined themselves up to face him, and one by one he had pulverized and devoured them, with the sole exception of Ippo Makanouchi. He goaded, appraised, and defiled the ring, denying his opponents the dignity of a fair fight, and honestly, there were a few he might've kept from entering the ring again, save for the fact there was a crowd of witnesses. It wasn't like he hadn't already sent bands of delinquents to the hospital time and time again. It was what he loved doing. He hadn't grown tired of it. He couldn't have. It was all he was, his life's work. There was nothing more to his being than the brutalization of others.
But, if that was true, why is it that he didn't care what happened next?
Dismissing his coach's empty praises and protests (as he was not one to gain gratification or heed warnings from some so clearly weaker than him) Ryuhei Sawamura, freshly a world champion, straddled the seat of his motorcycle on his way to Nagoya. As the adrenaline wore off, a pounding began to emerge in his head; nothing he couldn't fix by going a little faster. Chasing the light in front of him until it swallowed him whole.
This, this is what he wanted. The danger of barely being alive yet being more alive than he ever had before. Gaining life at the risk of losing it. He needed more.
As he weaved through the vehicles in front of him, racing towards his end and enrichment, a smile stretched across his face, a great light consumed him, bathing him from the highest point of his spiked hair to the soles of his shoes. His blinded vision was coupled with the sound of a truck horn, and a blissful release into the hands of whatever may claim him.
Unbeknownst to him, what would claim him was not death; rather, a far more peculiar and depraved force. The kind of force who saw promise in the nature of Ryuhei.
Just as quickly as his world had been bathed in light, it was swallowed up by a darkness so black Sawamura mistook it for his end. It was only when the dark, smoky mass of vapor around him dissipated that he found he had not died, or at the very least hadn't gone to any manner of heaven.
It was freezing cold, covering his already battered body from the title fight in goosebumps. It was this sensation, however, that alerted Sawamura to the fact that he was not injured at all. As his hands roamed his face and chest, he felt better than he ever had. The fibers of his muscles felt... lubricated? With a sense of looseness and power that crackled through his nerves and rippled under his biker jacket, signaling to his brain that every inch of him was primed for peak performance. He opened and closed his gloved palm, satisfied with his condition considering the alternative was a car crash induced coma.
"Maybe this is heaven, huh? Wasn't ever really expecting to get in. Happy accidents, or whatever," he said, his eyes roaming to take in his surroundings. It was a forest, densely populated by thicker pine trees than he'd ever seen in his life. A scent of burning wafted through the air, and alongside it was a pillar of smoke in the sky. Seeing no reason not to, Sawamura began to trek through the woods, prepared for what may come to face him, friendly or not.
As he approached closer to the origin of the aroma, he began to hear hushed speaking. Four voices, two men and two women, arose from the woods, and as they came into view, he could hear their conversation alongside the crackle of the fire. One of them, a pasty, pale man with glasses made some retort about being poisoned. Next to him was a darker woman with hair draped in a side part, and across from him a much older man in jeans with tattoos. "At least we got to eat those- what are they called- morsels? This black banquet thing isn't so bad," retorted a woman with goggles on her forehead, seated beside the white-haired man with the marks on his skin.
Not at all hesitant, Sawamura called out to them, "You all, you aren't angels, are you? The office worker guy sure as hell doesn't look like one. Mind telling me where the hell I am?" They shied away as Ryuhei approached, clearly weary of the unfamiliar figure. The woman with glasses was the first to respond.
"No, we're not angels. This isn't heaven either. You've never been here before?" She said, while the other woman seemed to study the way he moved. "First time. Was I supposed to have been here before? You sure seem good at telling me where I'm not, so tell me where I am. Am I dead or something?"
This time it was the old man who spoke up, his accent thick- Italian, maybe? "Far worse than dead, my friend. Trapped for all eternity in the entity's realm. It's abnormal that a fifth person is here, since a trial typically only consists of four survivors, but the campfire has never been ambushed by a killer before. My name is Vittorio Toscano, I'm from Italy. This is Dwight," he said, pointing at the other man, "this is Zarina. they're both from the states, except she's from New York and he's from... what was it, Iowa? It didn't exist in my time. Finally, this is-" The woman with the goggles cut him off. "I can introduce myself. I am Yui Kimura, from Hida. You are?"
A hungry smirk stretched across Sawamura's face as he responded. "Hida, huh? Fuckin' hick. Good racers, though. I can tell from your getup you bike. Sawamura Ryuhei, the Owari Dragon. I fight out of Nagoya. So, what am I doing here?"
Vittorio stood up, beckoning him towards the campfire as he answered. "I've been here the longest, so I'll explain. Besides, I also seem to remember this whole process the most... comprehensively. You've been kidnapped by an ancient spider deity we call the entity and taken into a realm in which you can never truly die to participate in an endless series of trials alongside the rest of us. We are randomly transported, typically in groups of four, to a location by way of being collectively swallowed up by black fog- much like how you came here. In the first place. We're made to work on generators and open exit gates in order to leave. Sounds simple enough until you add the magically enhanced psycho maniac cast of killers who each want to brutally murder us and sacrifice us to the aforementioned entity by skewering our still living bodies on hooks. There's only one of them per trial, thankfully. We were concerned you might be one of them, which is why we were all initially reluctant to say hello."
Despite his statement, both Dwight and Zarina still looked somewhat unconvinced, with Dwight still having not spoken and Zarina scanning him up and down as if she was sizing him up; an action that Sawamura did not take to kindly. "The fuck are you looking at, huh?" Zarina responded unflinchingly, "you," not stopping her observations of his movement. Sawamura snarled. "I promise you; you couldn't do shit to me if you tried, so stop theorizing about me. You're not my type anyways." Taking a broad look in at his surroundings, he continued. "So, it's just you all? Pretty pathetic bunch to put up against a killer." For the first time, Dwight spoke up. "There are others. They just aren't here right now. Four, or I guess five now at a time, remember? You'll meet the other soon eno-"
Before he could finish his sentence, a thick black haze pooled around the five of them. As it began to dissipate, the cold stung harder against Sawamura's skin. As his view clarified, he realized why. The entire area was covered in thick snow, and he was, for some reason, shirtless and in his boxing shorts. In front of him, a sign hung on a desolate building that read "Mount Ormond Resort." To either side of him were the individuals who had previously been gathered around the campfire. "Well then," said Sawamura, "we gonna start working or what?"
His statement was answered by a sudden crash from inside the building, leading all but Dwight to scatter, grasping Sawamura's hand as he whispered to him, terror written all over his face and shaking hand. "Hurry, they're coming. Either hide in one of these lockers or follow one of the others to a generator."
Sawamura didn't budge an inch. "I wanna see what's got you guys so freaked. I'm sure it's not that big of a deal anyways. Don't worry about saving me if I'm wrong, I wouldn't deserve it." Dwight loosened his grip, not needing much more convincing. Sawamura heard the open and shut of the locker door behind him as he turned and expectantly watched the nearest exit of the main building.
Almost instantly, he spied a mask from inside the building that then noticed him and began charging in his direction. As it approached, he began to make out the details of the assailant. A crudely painted smile was spread across the white mask they were wearing. Its wearer, seemingly a man by his build, was a little shorter than Sawamura's 5'7" stature, maybe 5'5". Racing forward with his arms outstretched and a knife in hand, the killer pounced at Ryuhei, swinging his knife yet hitting nothing. Sawamura, his target, seemed to have just barely weaved out of his reach. As the killer prepared to strike again, Sawamura assumed his fighting stance, bouncing gently with his guard outstretched. The killer approached again, this time jumping at him, only to be flipped 180 by a hard right hand directly to the face, cracking his mask in half and revealing a teenage boy with a very, very bloody nose. It was all Sawamura could do to not clutch his stomach laughing.
"This is what the others were so scared of? Fuckin' pussies." Sawamura dashed in at the boy, still dazed and confused, slapping the knife out of his hand and slamming a hard upper to his liver. As he crumpled to the ground, Sawmura pinned him and proceeded to brutalize the boy's angular face. Licking clean his hands once he was satisfied with his work, he turned to see three others with the same mask as the boy from before standing a few meters behind him; one much larger, another with a yellow ponytail, and one smaller still than any of the other three.
"What? You want some too?" Ryuhei said, sizing up his next potential opponents. "Three on one's hardly fair, yaknow. Not that I care about fair." He suddenly began to sprint at the smallest one, to which they responded with a charge of their own. Swaying aside the slash from the largest one, he pulled close the swinging arm of the blonde to press their bodies together whilst restraining their arm. unable to stop themself mid swing, the smallest one planted their knife in the blonde's back before shrinking back in what seemed to be surprise as Ryuhei took the knife from the blondes back and plunged it in their neck, the mask falling as her body did. He turned to face the large one, who let out a roar before making a series of sloppy broad swings that Sawamura easily dodged. As he went in for a tackle, Sawamura put all his force into a right knee that slammed against the killer's head with a nasty pop of broken bone. As his mask fell, it became clear that he had caved his face into his skull. He turned around to face the smallest one, who was seemingly paralyzed, save for an erratic, mortified tremble and the drip of urine down her leg that stained the snow beneath her.
"What, you were expecting me to go easy on you guys or something? You had knives, what the hell was I supposed to do? But FUCK me, this felt great. My blood's pumping like never before, and that wasn't even a good fight. Probably the knives, it seemed like you guys really wanted to kill me, not just get me to back up like those punks from the alleyways I caught stealing my bike once." The final killer's mask had fallen off of her face, exposing a crying teenage girl. "Oh, don't look at me like that; you were the one who stabbed the blonde. Who are you guys supposed to be anyways? 'Magically enhanced' my ass, you guys are just kids. Doesn't make me feel any worse about this, though. Let's see if you guys come back like the others said we do." He put his guard back up again to finish her off before hearing a knife woosh through the air from behind him. Narrowly dodging out of the way, he turned to see the first one, who he forgot he didn't kill, had gotten back on his feet. His sloppy, half-conscious swing sent his face directly into the path of Sawamura's right uppercut, sending him back down to the ground. Extracting the knife from his hands, Sawamura plunged the blade into the boy's chest with a wet squelch.
He turned to face the girl again. "So, who the hell are you and why am I here?" The girl fumbled over her response. "w-we are th-th-the l-leg-gion an-nd-"
"Wuh-wuh-wuh-wuh why don't you just spit it out? Save us all some time. This isn't entertaining at all. You're coming with me, and we're gonna go see the other four. They'll decide what to do with you. Drop the knife before I change my mind." He grabbed her by the wrist, squeezing her forearem so that her hand was forced to relax and the knife fell out. After that, he grabbed her hair and dragged her by it in the direction of the nearest sound of a generator.
Tossing her onto the snow in front of Vittorio and Zarina, he snarled in disgust at the cowardice of them all, the survivors and these so called "killers" alike. Were they really so weak that they'd let themselves get killed by a bunch of teenagers over and over again?
"Here you are. I handled the other three, they're dead. You all get to decide what happens to her. So, what's the verdict, hmm?"