Chapter 307: For the Sake of Combat
Doyle was slammed against the pavement, staring up at the moon with glazed,
hollow eyes.
"Cough... hack..."
He spat out a massive volume of blood, his body pinned by a gravity he could no
longer fight. An unspeakable agony surged through every fiber of his being,
radiating from where Ren's final blow had connected with his spine.
Ren Shiroki leaned over, staring down at Doyle's blood-streaked face. His voice
was calm, yet filled with a terrifying, rhythmic energy. "Doyle-aniki... up for
another round?"
"————Heh."
Doyle's dry, cracked lips curled into a raspy, low chuckle. That was his answer.
Ren gave a short nod. He settled back into his bladed stance, coiling his
muscles. He raised his right foot high, aiming his heel directly at Doyle's head
for a finishing stomp.
[ZANGIEF'S POWER STOMP]!
THUD!
"Nngh...!"
The stomp missed, leaving a deep indentation in the asphalt.
At the very last millisecond, Doyle had twitched his wrist, triggering the
industrial spring in his right arm. The sudden mechanical thrust had provided
just enough force to shove his body sideways, allowing him to roll clear of the
impact.
Zip—
Doyle used the momentum to stagger to his feet. He swayed dangerously, his
posture warped and awkward. His eyes, nearly sightless from the trauma, locked
onto Ren. Habitually, he twitched his fingers, seeking the cold comfort of his
hidden blades.
But when the wrist-blade snapped out, it made a sickening CLACK instead of a
clean SHINK.
"..."
Doyle shook his right hand. The blade rattled loosely against the housing in his
forearm. It was sluggish, the alignment ruined. He checked his ankles, knees,
and elbows—it was the same everywhere.
The friction in his joints was audible. Even his "Spring-Fist" mechanism was
jammed, refusing to lock into a full grip.
"Heh..."
Doyle snorted blood from his nose, a helpless smile touching his lips. "That
punch was... way too heavy. You've gone and broken my toys, kid. Repairs are
going to be a nightmare—"
The [STRIKE AT THE APEX] had done more than deal physical damage. The shockwave
had shattered the high-precision internal mechanisms Doyle had spent years
installing. His "Body of Weapons" was falling apart from the inside out.
A broken stance was still a stance.
Ren Shiroki's feet began their rhythmic dance. He drove off the floor, lunging
forward with a rapid-fire left straight.
The next instant—Pshhh!
Doyle's pinky twitched against a new trigger at the base of his palm. A
specialized smoke canister hidden in the small of his back detonated. A thick,
billowing wall of white fog erupted, swallowing the alleyway in a heartbeat.
Ren dropped into a defensive guard, his senses on high alert. He was genuinely
surprised.
A smoke bomb on his back?!
Doyle had never used that move before. It was a recent "installation."
Ren realized the logic: after Dorian had seized Doyle from behind to use him as
a "Claymore Mine" at the hotel, Doyle had adapted. He had installed a
rear-facing counter-measure to ensure that no one could ever hold him from
behind again.
"..."
Ren waited until the night wind cleared the haze. The alley was empty.
The convict had escaped again.
The onlookers in the street looked at each other, unable to point out a
direction. They could only guess based on the scuff marks on the walls. Ren
offered a quick apology to the stall owners for the disruption, checked the
trail of blood on the pavement, and took off at a run.
Zip-zip-zip!
Doyle wove through the dark labyrinth of the back-alleys. His gait was a
stumbling wreck, yet he was moving with the desperate speed of a wounded
predator.
As a former intelligence operative, he had clashed with the Kure before. He
wasn't naive enough to think he could truly "escape" them on their own turf. He
just needed a second to breathe. He needed a quiet corner to manually reset his
internal gears and force his blades to lock so he could maintain his lethality.
Why am I doing this?
"—Hiss!"
The thought was interrupted by a jolt of pain that made his entire body spasm.
Ah... it's for the Combat, isn't it?
He wanted to prove his definition of "Battle"—that through any means, through
any trick, he was the one who was superior. He had to keep moving!
...Probably?
For the first time in his life, Doyle felt the foundations of his conviction
cracking.
He had wanted to give everything he had and still have victory snatched away.
Well, he had just given everything—every blade, every bomb, every feint—and he
had been forced to run. Did that count as a "Defeat"? Or was the fact that he
was still breathing a sign that the struggle was ongoing?
"..."
The sound of rhythmic footsteps echoed from behind him.
He looked back to see Ren Shiroki clearing a three-meter wall with a fluid
Parkour vault. The youth landed a hundred meters back, the golden glint in his
eyes leaving twin trails of light in the darkness like an inescapable demon.
"Phew!"
Doyle took a deep breath, rounding another corner to lose the line of sight.
How do I fight this? What kind of battle is this supposed to be?
His mind was a chaotic storm of fragmented data. In his career as a spook, he
had handled warlords, crooked politicians, mercenaries, and arms dealers. Men
who dealt in death and didn't care about the method. Against them, his
"unscrupulous" style made him an apex predator. No one could match his cruelty
or his cunning.
Compared to them, "Athletes"—Boxers, Karatekas, Wrestlers—were just children
playing a game.
That was why he had come to the Tokyo Dome. He wanted to find a "Powerhouse" who
wasn't an athlete.
But facing Ren Shiroki, who had just systematically dismantled him with the
tools of an athlete, Doyle felt a new sensation.
The "Strength" Ren possessed was different from a common murderer or a
cold-blooded tyrant. The feeling of trading souls with him... it was an entirely
different track.
"What is combat?"
"Everything that happens until the match is decided? Hmph... easier said than
done," Doyle muttered, his frustration mounting. He felt like he was wasting
time, yet he couldn't stop his feet from moving.
Ren's tracking was elite, but Doyle's counter-espionage training was better. For
a brief moment, he managed to break the trail. He found a secluded corner and
used a scrap of cloth to wipe the gore from his face. He intercepted a
passerby—a terrified tourist—and "borrowed" a lighter to spark a cigarette.
"Hiss—"
The nicotine did nothing to dull the bone-deep ache in his torso.
He decided he needed calories. It was a festival night; finding food was easy.
But with Kure patrols on every main street, Doyle stuck to the narrowest veins
of the city.
In a dim corner of a residential block, he spotted a mobile Oden cart. The owner
was a young woman, currently packing up her gear to head home.
"..."
Doyle stood in the shadows, checking his pockets. His wallet was gone—likely
lost during the Powerbomb. Unlike Speck, Doyle wasn't a mindless killer. He had
no interest in harming civilians for no reason.
"Sigh..."
His body was screaming for rest. He decided to just ask the girl if she had any
leftovers he could have for free.
But as he approached, he saw two thugs cornering the stall.
"Business looks good today, sweetie. How about one last trade?" "We aren't
robbing you. We want to 'barter'. This stuff is high-grade pharmaceutical joy."
"Our boss got pinched by the Kure, so we can't move this stock through the
normal channels. We need travel money to get out of town. You're getting a deal
here."
Doyle listened to the exchange, pieces of the puzzle clicking into place. These
were low-level pushers—the tail end of the narcotics ring the Kure had been
cleaning up earlier. They were desperate, looking to dump their "Poison" on a
defenseless girl for a few thousand yen.
"As expected... a Clan of assassins would naturally despise addictive
narcotics," Doyle murmured.
The low rasp of his voice drew the thugs' attention.
"Hah?" The leader, a man with long, greasy hair, glared at Doyle. "You look like
a wreck, pal. You lost?"
Doyle ignored them, walking straight toward the cart.
The thugs frowned. They didn't see the Kure eyes, so they assumed he was just
another tourist who had been mugged.
"A foreigner?" The second thug, a bald man, drew a butterfly knife. He began
flipping it with amateur flair. "Beat it if you don't want to die! Go find a
hospital!"
"Yeah! Get lost!" The leader pulled a stun-gun, the electrodes crackling with
blue arcs.
Doyle watched the sparks and let out a weary sigh. "No... this isn't it. This
doesn't feel like 'Combat' at all."
He panted, his breath smelling of blood. "I'm hungry. I'll let you both live if
you leave right now."
The thugs' faces turned red with indignation. They lunged forward.
The next second—Tch!
Doyle, still holding his cigarette between his teeth, suddenly flicked it with
his tongue.
Zip!
The glowing cherry hit the leader square in the eye. Ash and sparks scattered
across his face, forcing him to blink instinctively.
Doyle capitalized instantly. He seized the leader's wrist, yanking it backward
with a violent pull that forced the stun-gun against the man's own neck.
ZZZZZT!
The leader let out a muffled grunt, his eyes rolling back as the high-voltage
shock turned his muscles to jelly. He collapsed into a heap.
The bald thug lunged with his butterfly knife, but Doyle snapped a leg out.
Despite the pain in his knee, the kick was precise, hitting the thug's hand and
sending the knife flying—straight into the man's own thigh.
"WAAAAAH!"
The two thugs began to scream in a chorus of agony. Doyle found the noise
irritating. He delivered two heavy front-kicks, launching them down the alley.
They retched blood and slumped into unconsciousness a few meters away.
"..."
Doyle's brow remained furrowed.
"As I thought... you lot can't give me 'Combat'. This wasn't a struggle. It was
just... noise."
He turned to leave, but the girl at the stall called out to him. She had been
terrified, but she was grateful. She offered him a bowl of hot oden, telling him
he could eat his fill.
Doyle didn't refuse. He sat on a small wooden stool under the dim glow of a
streetlamp and began to eat, the warmth of the broth finally kickstarting his
recovery. As his mind cleared, the riddle returned.
"What is combat, really?"
He chuckled to himself, looking at the dark mouth of the alley. "Heh. Even if I
don't want to think about it... I doubt I'm getting away tonight anyway—"
(End of Chapter)
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