Last Or Beast - Part 1

Chapter 1: The Last Match

The House of Shadows

Rain clawed at the windows of the old house, its rhythm syncopated and frantic—like a referee's whistle lost in a storm. The air was thick with a sickly cocktail of antiseptic and damp wood, a pungent reminder of the past that coiled around Ren's stomach, threatening to churn his insides.

He sat on the couch, its springs groaning like the weight of unspoken words between them, and tightened the athletic tape around his knee. Too loose. Again. His fingers trembled, betraying the gravity of the moment. The tape hissed as he ripped it free, the sound sharp enough to make his mother flinch from the kitchen.

Aiko stood at the counter, her back turned toward him, enveloped in the steam curling from the teapot, a haze that blurred the boundaries between reality and grief. She hadn't turned around since he'd limped in.

"The clinic called," she said finally, her voice frayed at the edges, a fragile thread in the tension of the room. "They said... they said you shouldn't go."

Ren didn't respond, fixated on the dissipating pain in his knee—the tape biting into his skin, a desperate reminder of his impending fate.

Across the room, Hiroshi sat motionless in his wheelchair, a relic from a life once vibrant, clutching a yellowed issue of Football Weekly. The magazine trembled in his grip—a fragment of a past that was now a ghost. Ren's eyes flicked to a faded photo nestled between the pages: Hiroshi mid-kick, employing his strength as he propelled himself into glory, face alight with an energy long extinguished.

"Pride won't unbreak that knee," Hiroshi muttered, his voice gravel and ash, foreboding.

Ren's jaw tightened, defiance surging within him. He flexed his leg, testing the joint, pain igniting like fire through limb and spirit. "And fear won't fix it either."

Aiko turned then, teacup rattling in its saucer, her eyes red-rimmed, raw from sleepless nights. "You'll end up like—"

"Don't." Ren stood too quickly, vision swimming as he fought gravity's pull—the room tilting under the weight of antiseptic, rain, and regret.

He grabbed his duffel bag, muscles tensed for the fight ahead, and slammed the door behind him, the sound echoing like a gunshot in a graveyard.

The Walk to Ruin

The relentless storm swallowed the world whole.

Ren trudged through the drowned streets, cleats swinging over his shoulder like a forgotten burden, each step sending jarring lightning up his leg. Four blocks to the stadium. Three. Two.

Behind him, the uneven scrape of Hiroshi's cane cut through the rain, the sound a dull reminder of his lessons. Aiko followed, umbrella clutched but unopened, her silence louder than the thunder that roared in the skies.