POV: Ryuu Takeda
Location: Bone Market, Red Null Ring – Promotion Pit
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"Some glyphs burn through silence. Others... whisper through scars."
— Fragment Archive, Vault 3E — Unregistered Author
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The Bone Market didn't welcome you.
It measured you.
It felt colder than usual.Not empty—just watching.
Ryuu stood shirtless under the hazelight of the pit prep corridor. His coat hung from a rusted hook behind him, still soaked from Sector 11-B. Blood had dried across his ribs. The slash from the Vowbreaker's knife now barely pulsed.
The glyph on his palm, however, still hadn't faded.
It felt… alert.
Not glowing. But present. Like it was listening.
His fingers flexed. A hum answered.
'This isn't just a memory anymore', he thought. 'It's part of me.'
A sharp click from the corridor snapped his attention forward.
An old gauntlet-armed attendant leaned against the steel console, never meeting his eyes. Just pressed a single switch.
[MATCH TYPE: PROMOTION BOUT]
[WAGER AUTHORITY: THIRD RUNG | CLASS: RISING THRESHOLD]
[RULESET: OPEN STRIKE / AURA SUPPRESSED / VOW-COMPATIBLE]
A line blinked beneath it.
CANDIDATE: CRIMSON — UNRANKED TRACE
Ryuu's brow furrowed.
Vow-compatible.
He had no vow. At least… none he'd spoken aloud.
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WHAT A VOW ISN'T
No one explained what a Vow really was.
In books, they were mystical oaths. In Bone Market legend, they were contracts written in marrow.
But down here?
Down here, they weren't declarations.
They were instincts.
They activated when everything else broke.
A Vow wasn't a technique. It wasn't a choice. It's a memory you can't let go of—shaped by guilt, loss, or intent so sharp it bleeds when touched.
It emerges when aura is suppressed, but pain remains.
It wasn't a power. It was a direction.
It was what stayed when you lost everything else.
You don't summon it. It summons you.
Some called it instinct. Others called it fracture-born. The Bone Market called it currency.
Because in the Bone Market, the stronger your vowline pulses, the faster you climb the pit hierarchy.
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Bone Market Promotion Structure (Tiers)
Tier 5 – Entry Pit
Tier 4 – Watchlisted (Fighter ID assigned)
Tier 3 – Carrier (Eligible for off-cycle contracts)
Tier 2 – Named (Sponsor-tracked)
Tier 1 – Marked (Sigilbound)
Each promotion match is a blood-wager, not a sport.
Three clean wins? You're a Carrier.
Seven? You're Named.
But Ryuu wasn't chasing status.
He was chasing someone else's shadow.
Cheers erupted like old thunder.
"Crimson again?"
"Didn't he just clear three fights?"
"He's not here to win."
"He would be here until he finds his answers."
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Steam hissed around the lift. The crowd's buzz rose like a breathing thing.
Ryuu's boots met the platform.
The clay beneath his feet still held dried blood from the last two matches. His. Someone else's. Maybe both.
He flexed his neck, scanned the ring. One opponent.
Gravedog.
Tier 3. Arms like wrecking cranes. Spine reinforced with impact shocks. His Aura—though suppressed—left scorch-haze on the air. Clinch-style. Bone-breaker. No subtlety—just pain made flesh.
Ryuu didn't blink.
The glyph in his palm warmed. Almost whispering,
Haruki stood once. Small. Alone. Afraid. But smiling anyway.
You owe him a stand of your own.
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There was no bell.
No announcer.
No countdown.
Just Crimson. The name he'd taken, not earned. Not yet.
And across the pit, chain-wrapped and half machine, stood the man who'd already killed five fighters this cycle.
Gravedog moved first.
No feint—just a straight, low charge. A wide hook thrown like a wrecking arm.
Ryuu didn't flinch.
He shifted—left foot forward, elbow tight, short jab to the ribs.
A solid, dry crack.
But Gravedog didn't stop.
He twisted with the impact, caught Ryuu at the waist, and drove him into the clay floor hard enough to jar the bones of the crowd watching above.
Dust flew.
Blood followed.
The arena roared like metal splitting.
Ryuu rolled—but not fast enough.
A knee came down—blunt, merciless—hammering into his shoulder.
Pain surged white-hot behind his eyes.
But beneath the agony…
The glyph ignited.
It's not pain that defines a Vow. It's what you refuse to forget while you're in it.
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FLASH MEMORY
A battlefield ruins.
Ash falling like snow.
Kaelen stood barefoot in the wreckage of a fallen city, Aura coiled around him like smoke shaped by grief.
"Burn slow, or burn true. But don't stay still."
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Something snapped—not his bones, but beneath them.
The glyph on his palm pulsed red —then surged —not bright, but heavy.
Heat. Like coals remembering fire.
Crimson heat laced his skin. The air distorted.
Controlled. Anchored. Fueled by memory.
No system logged it.
The Bone Market's pit-sensors couldn't process it.
The crowd didn't understand it.
But above, in a shadowed mirage node, Seren Kairo whispered:
"Burnline variant… he's ascending mid-fight."
Ryuu twisted, dug his heel into the ground, and kicked backward—heel driving hard into Gravedog's shin.
The bigger man stumbled.
Just enough.
Ryuu pivoted up.
Aura dripped from his fists now. Red. Slow. Heavy.
He stepped forward like the pit owed him breath.
His elbow crashed into Gravedog's collarbone.
Another crack.
Chains rattled loose.
Gravedog reeled.
Ryuu stepped in again—calm, exact.
His vowline flared—not in anger, but in intent.
Each motion felt nailed into the world.
There was no wasted energy.
Only conviction given form.
---
He could feel it now.
The shift.
Aura no longer just responded.
It guided like:
Move here. Strike now. Refuse this pain. Embrace that one.
It wasn't mysticism.
It was memory, made directional.
Truth, shaped into impact.
A refusal to forget—turned weapon.
It didn't make him faster.
Just undeniable.
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Gravedog raised a shaky arm—more reaction than resistance.
Ryuu didn't break stride.
He moved past the guard, stepped into the space where fear lived, and drove his forearm under the jaw.
Crack.
The bigger man dropped—spine first into pit dust.
Ryuu stood over him.
Chest rising. Glyph still glowing.
Both fists clenched.
The air vibrated—not with applause, but tension.
A crowd watching something they didn't have words for.
Then Ryuu raised one fist. Held it.
Not like a victor.
Like a man delivering sentence.
He whispered:
"I don't fight to be remembered. I fight because I still do."
And brought the fist down.
Straight into Gravedog's chest.
Not just lethal.
But final.
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The glyph etched across Ryuu's hand flickered once, stabilizing—but only for a breath.
The vowline inside him still crackled.
Still wild.
Still unfinished.
But now?
Now the Bone Market knew:
He wasn't here for titles.
He was here to burn through them.
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SYSTEM UPDATE
[VOW TYPE: FRACTURE-BORN — TRACE UNSTABLE]
[AURA CLASS: INDETERMINATE]
[GLYPH PATTERN: Burn-Line Variant // Incomplete]
[FLAG: NONE]
No Federation ping.
No MIRAGE alert.
Because it couldn't read him.
The system returned corrupted glyph code.
It didn't know what he was.
---
And far above the arena, a quiet figure leaned over the rail.
Avelius Tarn. Watching.
Above the ring, in a private relay node—
"He's not ascending," whispered Seren Kairo, monitoring from a static-locked mirage node.
"He's remembering."
Ryuu sat alone in the pit locker.
He reached for the thing left in his locker:
Haruki's watch.
Still cracked.
Still not ticking.
But warm.
Like the time it counted never needed numbers.
Beneath Ryuu's skin, the vowline sparked again—this time visible, faint red arcs bleeding off his fingertips.
A whisper in the air.
You didn't stop. So neither will we.
The Bone Market had given him a name.
Sector 11 had given him a reason.
And Ryuu Takeda was done being a ghost.
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"Some glyphs don't wait for permission. They remember what you forgot—and make you earn it all over again."
— Black Tape Chronicle, Bone Market Underground
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