Alex watched the fist crawl toward his face like a wrecking ball through syrup. He knew exactly how much force was packed in it—enough to turn his skull into red mist across the arena floor—but it barely registered.
His body had already started moving.
Behind the domino mask, two tomoe spun slowly in each eye. His legs twisted. A pivot, not even full—just enough to get clear.
The punch passed him by a hair. Maybe less. But it felt like a mile.
More followed. Claws now, and a tail sweeping sideways like a whip. One missed his thigh, another scraped air near his shoulder. He ducked the tail without thinking, felt the wind as it carved through where his ribs had been a second ago.
His hand flicked out mid-step—fingers first. The tips caught skin, left a thin cut. Not deep. Just a sting to mark the exchange.
The beast let out a snarl, maybe a roar. It didn't matter.
Claws came again. Another tail strike. One after another, almost rhythmic. He slid past them, sometimes just barely. And when there was space, he answered with a cut—short, sharp, done with his fingertips. He didn't swing. Just touched. It bled all the same.
The thing was fast, but Alex could see bullets. Every shift of weight, every flick of muscle—he saw it all before it happened. It was like watching someone rehearse their attacks instead of throwing them.
Didn't make them easy to dodge, though.
Seeing a truck coming didn't always mean you could get out of the way.
His brain was light-years ahead of his body. He saw the world slow down, open up and unfold like a diagram. But his arms still had to move. His legs still had to turn.
And they felt like they were underwater. Like wading through molasses, every dodge a close call not because he was feeling dramatic, but because his body couldn't keep up with the timing he knew was right.
But he could still move. And right now, that was enough, even if the Reptile came at him like a wrecking ball on a sugar high.
Raw violence turned into momentum. His opponent bounced around, spun through the air, kicked off the floor hard enough to send clouds of sand exploding upward with every landing. He didn't stop to rest. Every move meant to flatten Alex, to crush him by any means necessary.
Alex didn't try to block. He just kept dodging, like a leaf in a hurricane, barely touching ground before he had to move again. His feet scraped the sand, skidding off balance one moment, pivoting the next.
He was strong for his age. Stronger than most grown men, stronger than some olimpic athletes he'd seen on tv in his original world. He'd trained until his muscles burned and his bones felt hollow, until his body stopped feeling like it belonged to a teenager at all.
But he was still made of flesh.
And yet—he didn't get hit.
Every time the claws came close, they missed. Every time the Reptile spun, lunged, dove—Alex slipped away, just out of reach. A sidestep. A duck. A pivot timed to the millisecond.
He didn't just avoid the hits. He threaded between them.
And with each miss, he left something behind. A line of red across green. Fingertips flicking out mid-dodge, catching armpits, ribs, neck folds. Not deep. Not killing, but bleeding nonetheless.
The Reptile growled as another cut found soft flesh just beneath his shoulder. Alex had ducked under a claw that passed close enough to blur his vision—then jammed two fingers into the armpit and kicked back out before the beast could close his elbow.
It was almost like chess.
Except the opponent got two moves for every one of his.
But if that was true, Alex was the kind of player who'd make Magnus Carlsen cry and flip the board.
Every twitch of muscle, every shift of weight, every change in tension, he could see it. He'd spent the past 14 years with his eyes constantly active. He watched leaves fall. People walk. Cups drop. Doors swing open. Sports. Fights. Explosions.
Everything was motion. And he saw all of it.
He studied how it worked. The math behind it. The physics. He learned how velocity curved through air, how bodies twisted, how momentum transferred through joints.
If it moved, he could read it.
And if he could read it, he could predict it.
Not in some mystical, time-traveling way. But close enough. He couldn't see the future. But he could trace its path through motion.
This was the Sharingan's kinetic vision, pushed to its limit. The second tomoe, which he'd earned three years ago had only sharpened it further.
This was why, even with all the raw strength and speed stacked against him, the Reptile couldn't touch him.
How could he?
When Alex saw every move ten steps ahead?
There was only one way this ended:
A reptilian corpse soaking the sand red, carved apart piece by piece over the next fifteen minutes.
But then again—Alex wasn't fighting just one opponent, was he?
The Reptile lunged, just like he did a hundred times before.
Too far. Too awkward. Too wide. It shouldn't have come close.
Alex twisted to evade it like every time before—
—except this time, something broke the rhythm.
A pulse of wind kicked sand into his eyes—not much, but enough.
At the same moment, the arena's light flickered, shadows shifting by a hair.
His footing dipped half a centimeter—the ground where he stepped had been cratered earlier, just enough to tilt his balance.
And behind it all, the Reptile twitched just slightly out of its usual arc, muscles seizing mid-motion like it had tripped internally.
All of that added up to one thing:
Claws raked across his chest.
The pain came fast—white-hot and ugly. A deep gash ran diagonal from shoulder to ribs.
He jumped back. If he hadn't, the claws would've taken his throat.
He had no time to touch it. The Reptile was on him again, and Alex had to move. He made no more counterattacks. He delivered no more flicks of his fingers carving slivers of flesh. He was dodging now. He was fully on the defensive.
And he smiled.
Just a little. Just at the corner of his mouth.
Because something had changed.
This wasn't the same predictable beast from two minutes ago.
Now—every once in a while—something dangerous slipped through. An angle that shouldn't have worked appeared. A move that didn't follow logic emerged. These threats weren't frequent, but they were real. Genuine threats existed where there should have been none.
It was like the newbie chess player had suddenly found flashes of brilliance.
Or maybe he was just lucky.
Still, Alex's eyes never stopped seeing.
Even while weaving past another slash that cleaved air next to his cheek, he saw it clearly.
Across the arena, just behind the Reptile's rampage, the Gambler stood silently. His sleeves were rolled up. His shirt clung to his ribs. Beads of sweat crawled down the side of his temple, merging into the deep lines near his mouth.
And he was smiling.
Not with joy or amusement, but something colder.
"Give up, boyo. Just let yourself get knocked out, and I promise you won't get killed. We only want the money."
The man's voice echoed through the arena, lazy and coaxing like a card player trying to bluff with pocket twos.
Alex didn't reply.
Psychological warfare was fair play.
Lies were fair play too.
And so were guns—like the one tucked under the Gambler's coat, barely hidden, the metal glint just visible through the flutter of fabric.
"There's really no chance for you unless you trigger whatever the hell it is you're looking for," the man continued. "Want to know why?"
Are you trying to encourage me? Alex wondered.
Or maybe goad me into attacking you so that you can shoot me?
It didn't matter.
Alex didn't care about intent. He only cared about outcome.
"My Quirk's called Chance, you see..." the man said, gesturing like a magician. "It's a real nifty one. I can increase the odds of something happening—as long as it's possible, and I can see it. Push probability a little. Just a nudge here or there. If it's way off the mark, I only get headaches. But you? You're close enough, kid."
The smile widened.
"And now that I've got a rough sense of when you're going to dodge—yeah, I think you're just close enough."
The Reptile blurred forward like a sledgehammer.
Alex saw the punch coming. He still couldn't stop it.
One moment Alex was upright—
—and the next, he was airborne.
Then he was buried. Ten meters back. Sand erupted around his cratered form like water.
His lungs seized. Coughs tore out of his throat, dry and violent. Blood dripped from his chin.
He blinked away the dizziness, blinked past the pain.
He dug his fingers into the compacted sand beneath him.
Then he grinned.
"Indeed," he rasped, voice raw but steady. "Forgive my doubts."
He pushed himself up. One hand, one knee, shaking but functional.
"You two really would have been able to threaten my life."
"At least you're not unreasonable… Wait—what the hell do you mean 'would have been'?"
The Gambler's grin faltered. A flicker of confusion crossed his face. Then fear set in.
"It's a shame, really," Alex said, tilting his head. "But our fun stops here."
"You piece of shit! You set us up! You—"
BZZZK—
The shout cut off mid-syllable as a jolt of electricity dropped him like a sack of wet laundry.
Behind him stood a disheveled man with shoulder-length hair and golden goggles, expression unreadable. His taser retracted from the Gambler's spine.
A second roar cut through the air.
The Reptile was already mid-charge—green muscles bulging, claws outstretched, blood flying from every open wound. He wasn't going down without a fight.
But the fight was already over.
A blur of gray fabric appeared, a pivot, a twist—
The scarf wrapped around the lizard's limbs before he could blink. One yank, and the beast hit the sand, hard. He was kicking. He was screaming. Then he was still. Two bodies squirmed in pain, wrapped tight in carbon fiber and metal alloy.
They lay side by side. Just like teammates should be.
Alex, meanwhile, was sitting outside the pit.
He'd already jogged over to the nearest emergency locker and pulled out a can of clotting spray. The hiss of aerosol echoed as he sprayed the bloodied gash along his chest and the smaller cuts across his arms.
He hummed to himself. Something off-key.
Something that probably annoyed everyone who heard it.
Then—footsteps approached behind him.
He turned.
"Oh! Mr. Hero," Alex said, tone suddenly bright and shaky. "Thank you for saving my life! I was so scared! They almost killed—"
"Save it for the shrink, kid."
Aizawa didn't even look at him. He just tossed the bindings in his direction.
Alex didn't fight it. He let the scarf wrap around him, pinning his arms tight to his sides like a straightjacket.