Her knees buckled.

  Beatrix caught herself on her hands, palms sinking into sand still warm with blood. Not her blood. His blood. Troika's blood.

  The crowd noise started, not cheering, something else. An uncomfortable buzz, like static between frequencies. They'd seen something they weren't prepared for. She'd seen something she wasn't prepared for.

  Virgil reported, clinical as ever.

  She tried to stand. Her legs refused the command. The Rage Mode enhancement had burned through her reserves, left her muscles shaking and useless. The tunnel was twenty meters away. Might as well be twenty kilometers.

  Don't look at Blake. Don't look at the cameras. Don't look at…

  She looked.

  Troika lay in the sand where she'd left him. Still. Too still. The kind of still that didn't come back.

  Her vision blurred.

  Virgil said, quieter now.

  "B?" Rain's voice crackled in her comm, distant and tinny. "B, talk to me."

  She couldn't answer. Couldn't make her throat work. Her mother's voice was louder than Rain's, clearer than Virgil's, echoing through fifteen years of memory:

  But she had. She'd promised and she'd broken it and Dante was alive because she'd broken it and her mother would never forgive her and…

  Move. Just move.

  One foot. Then the other. Her body responded on autopilot, combat training overriding the shock. The tunnel entrance grew closer. Ten meters. Five.

  Behind her, Blake's amplified voice addressed the crowd: "Let this clarify Acheron's position to those who questioned our strength."

  Not talking to her. Talking through her. She was a message, not a person.

  The moment she crossed into shadow, her legs gave out completely. She went down hard, barely catching herself against the rough tunnel wall. Her hands left red smears on the concrete.

  "Fuck you."

  She slid down the wall until she was sitting, knees drawn up, hands pressed against her face. The blood was drying, sticky and warm. It wouldn't come off. She rubbed harder. It wouldn't…

  Footsteps. Running.

  She tried to compose herself, tried to find the armor she usually wore, the shell that kept everything inside. But there was nothing. Just the blood and the shaking and her mother's disappointed ghost.

  Rain burst around the corner first, moving too fast, almost sliding on the tunnel floor. Kivi followed three steps behind, her hair cycling rapidly through colors, yellow to orange to red to blue, emotional overload written in bioluminescent panic.

  They both stopped when they saw her.

  Rain's mouth opened. Closed. Opened again. "Gods, B, are you…"

  He stopped when he saw her face. Whatever he saw there made the words die.

  Kivi's hair settled on anxious yellow, cycling to pale blue. She pulled out her diagnostic tablet with shaking hands, focusing on something she could control. "Your core temperature is critical. Forty-one degrees. You're cooking yourself from the inside."

  Beatrix couldn't look at them. Kept her eyes on the blood drying on her hands.

  "We need to get you to medical," Kivi continued, voice tight. "Your systems are in cascade failure. If we don't…"

  "I killed him." The words came out flat. Empty.

  Silence.

  Rain moved closer, carefully, like approaching something wild. "Blake ordered it. The contract forced…"

  "I. Killed. Him." Each word true. "Seven times, Virgil said. He died at four. I hit him three more times."

  Kivi's tablet slipped in her hands. She caught it, barely.

  Rain tried again, switching tactics. "Okay. Okay. Let's just... let's get you cleaned up. There's a…"

  He reached for her shoulder.

  She flinched away, harder than she meant to. Her back hit the wall.

  Rain froze, hand still extended. Something broke in his expression.

  "I'm sorry," Beatrix whispered. "I can't… I need…" But she didn't know what she needed. Couldn't find the words. Her mother would have known what to say. Her mother wasn't here.

  Kivi crouched down, keeping distance but making herself small, non-threatening. "Beatrix. Look at me."

  She couldn't.

  "Your body is going into shock. The Rage Mode crash combined with psychological trauma is causing system-wide failure. We can help with the physical symptoms, but we need you to let us."

  "I promised her." Beatrix's voice cracked. "My mom. I promised I wouldn't... she made me promise..."

  "I know." Kivi's voice was gentle. "But right now…"

  "You don't know." Beatrix looked up finally, met Kivi's eyes. "You don't know what I… what I just…"

  The words wouldn't come. There weren't words for this.

  Rain was pacing now, three steps one way, three steps back. His hands moved constantly, checking his own Humanware, adjusting his jacket, running through his hair. Nervous energy with nowhere to go. "We need to move her somewhere secure. Someone's going to come looking. Arena security, other fighters, Blake's people…"

  "I know." Kivi's hair flashed frustrated orange. "But I can't move her like this. She's…"

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  Heavy footsteps echoed from deeper in the tunnel. Measured. Rain spun toward the sound, body language going defensive. Kivi stood, positioning herself between Beatrix and whoever was coming.

  A large man emerged from the shadows. Military bearing despite civilian clothes. Salt-and-pepper stubble. Prosthetic left arm that caught the dim light. He took in the scene with a single sweep, Beatrix on the floor, blood on her hands, Rain and Kivi hovering uselessly.

  "Move," he said.

  Rain bristled. "Who the fuck are you?"

  The man ignored him, moving forward with the confidence of someone who didn't need permission. He knelt beside Beatrix, close but not touching, and started a visual assessment. His eyes tracked the blood patterns, the tremor in her hands, the way she wasn't quite focusing.

  "Who…" Rain started again.

  "I'm Bodhi." Still focused on Beatrix. "I knew her mother."

  That got through. Beatrix's head came up, shock momentarily overriding everything else. "Bodhi?"

  "Yeah, kid." His voice was gravel and old regret. "Watched what happened. Came as fast as I could."

  Kivi was watching him work, her hair settling to cautious yellow. "He knows what he's doing," she said quietly to Rain.

  "That's not…" Rain's protest died when Bodhi started giving directions.

  "You're going into shock." Bodhi's tone was matter-of-fact, not gentle but not harsh. "Breathe. In through your nose, out through your mouth. Focus on my voice."

  Beatrix tried. The breath came shallow and wrong.

  "Again. Your core's overheating because you're hyperventilating. Control the breath, cool the system." He glanced at her HUD, reading telemetry she hadn't realized was visible. "Shut down non-essential apps. Everything you're not using to stay alive, power it down."

  "I can't…"

  "You can. AI, priority systems only."

  Virgil responded out loud, and Beatrix felt the weight in her skull lighten as background processes went dormant.

  Bodhi kept working, checking her pulse the old-fashioned way, testing her responses, tracking how her body was managing the crash. Not gentle, but competent. The way someone who'd done field medicine under fire moved.

  "What gives you the right…" Rain started.

  Kivi touched his arm. "Stop."

  But Rain couldn't stop, his own fear transmuting to anger at this stranger who'd appeared and taken control. "You don't just show up and…"

  "Your mother asked me to keep you out of the cages." Bodhi said it while still working, eyes on Beatrix's pupils as he checked for neural damage. "I failed."

  The words hit hard. Beatrix felt something break loose in her chest.

  "She made me promise too," she whispered. Her voice cracked. "I promised I wouldn't become this."

  Bodhi stopped working. Looked at her directly for the first time. His prosthetic hand was steady where his other hand wasn't, a small thing, but she noticed. He'd been where she was. He understood.

  "I know." He pulled her into a hug, sudden and unexpected. Careful of her injuries but solid. Real. "But that's on me, kid. Not you."

  And that did it. The armor she'd been holding collapsed. She sobbed, ugly, broken sounds that didn't belong to the fighter who'd just stood in that arena. Bodhi held on, one hand on her back, the other, the prosthetic, steady against her shoulder.

  Kivi was crying too, she realized. Quiet tears streaming down her face, hair cycling to sorrowful blue.

  After a moment that felt like forever and no time at all, Bodhi pulled back. "Question is what you do next."

  Not cruel. Not comforting. Just true.

  "Blake used you," he continued, back to clinical assessment as he checked her systems. "Message to Cerberus. Charon was getting too independent, needed to be reminded who's in charge. You were the hammer he needed."

  The words filtered through slowly. "I killed someone for... clan politics?"

  "Yeah."

  The grief was morphing, transmuting into something else. Anger. Clean and sharp and forward-facing.

  "Typical Blake," Bodhi continued, helping her to her feet. She swayed, needed Kivi's support immediately. "But it means you're valuable now. Dangerous. That's worth something."

  Rain was still standing apart, watching this stranger direct everything. "And you're just... what? Here to help?"

  Bodhi glanced at him. "You're her app-smith?"

  "Yeah. And?"

  "Good." Bodhi finished his assessment, stood. "She'll need better apps than what got her through this. I can tell you what clan teams use. You build counters."

  Rain's jaw worked. He looked to Beatrix, searching for something. She nodded, barely.

  "Fine," Rain said finally. "But I'm watching you."

  "Wouldn't expect less." Bodhi turned to Kivi. "You're the hardware specialist?"

  "Systems integration. And analysis." Kivi's hair had settled to resigned blue. "We need to move her. This place isn't secure."

  "The medic I know works for the arena. She can get us a recovery room. Private. Secure." Bodhi was already planning, taking charge with the natural authority of someone used to operating in crisis. "We move now."

  Beatrix pulled away from Kivi's support, testing her legs. They held, barely. She looked at the three of them, Rain still bristling, Kivi practical and worried, Bodhi solid and unshakeable.

  "The next fight is in three days," she said.

  Everyone stopped.

  Rain stared at her. "Are you serious right now?"

  "Three days," she repeated. Couldn't think past it. Couldn't process anything except the forward motion. If she stopped moving, she'd have to feel everything, and she couldn't. Not yet.

  Bodhi didn't look surprised. "Yeah. Three days. Which means we start now."

  "She needs rest, not…" Rain started.

  "She needs to survive," Bodhi cut him off. "Rest comes after. Right now, she needs to not be found like this." He looked at Beatrix. "Can you walk?"

  She tested again. Nodded.

  "Good." Bodhi moved toward the tunnel exit. "Let's move."

  Kivi helped Beatrix stand fully, wrapping an arm around her waist. Beatrix held on, grateful for the contact now. For not being alone.

  Rain gathered their gear with sharp, angry movements, tablets, medical supplies, the scattered equipment of a fight gone wrong. Giving himself a task. Something to control.

  They moved as a unit, awkward and uncertain but together. Four people connected by necessity and blood and the thing that had just happened in that arena.

  As they navigated through the maintenance tunnels, they passed other fighters. Everyone stared. Some pointed. The news feeds on corridor screens showed footage on repeat, Blake's announcement, the crowd's reaction, analysts already dissecting what it meant.

  "Scavenger executed Cerberus fighter Troika after controversial thumb-down ruling..."

  "Clan tensions escalate as Gorgyra Blake sends message..."

  "Viewer discretion advised, graphic footage captured..."

  Beatrix kept her eyes forward. One foot. Then the other. Blood still drying on her hands.

  Bodhi led them to a side corridor, away from the main traffic. A service lift that required clearance. He pressed his palm to the scanner and it accepted him, contacts, favors, the kind of network you built over decades in this world.

  The lift doors closed, sealing the four of them in dim light and recycled air.

  Rain finally broke the silence. "So who are you? Really?"

  Bodhi didn't look at him. "Someone who should have stopped this before it started."

  "That's not an answer."

  "It's the only one you're getting right now." Bodhi's tone didn't invite argument. "Focus on what matters. She's alive. She's got a team. And in three days, she has to do this again."

  The lift descended into the lower levels where arena support staff worked. Where fighters weren't supposed to go.

  Beatrix leaned against the wall, feeling every one of those seven strikes in her hands. They still trembled. Probably always would.

  "I'm sorry," she said quietly. To no one and everyone.

  Kivi squeezed her hand. "You're alive. That's what matters."

  But was it? Was being alive enough if you'd become something else to stay that way?

  The lift doors opened onto a dimly lit corridor. Bodhi moved out first, checking the area with professional efficiency. "This way. Stay close."

  They followed him deeper into the infrastructure, pipes overhead, exposed wiring, the bones of Limbo showing through. This was where the arena's magic died, where everything was just metal and concrete and the smell of recycled air.

  A door marked MEDICAL - STAFF ONLY. Bodhi knocked twice, waited, knocked once more.

  It opened. The same woman who healed Beatrix after Raul’s fight, tired eyes and arena credentials clipped to her jacket. She looked at Bodhi, then at Beatrix's blood-covered state, and sighed.

  "You're going to owe me," she said.

  "Add it to the tab." Bodhi guided Beatrix inside. "We need privacy for a few hours. No questions."

  The medic looked like she wanted to argue, but something in Bodhi's expression stopped him. "Recovery room three. It's not logged." She handed Bodhi a keycard.

  "Appreciated."

  The medic left through a side door, pulling it closed behind her.

  Recovery room three was small and clean, a medical bed, monitoring equipment, a shower stall in the corner. Sterile and impersonal, but private. Safe.

  Beatrix looked at her hands again. The blood had dried completely now, dark brown and crusted.

  "Shower's there," Bodhi said. "Clean up. We'll wait."

  She nodded. Moved toward it mechanically.

  "B." Rain's voice stopped her. "You're... you're going to be okay."

  It wasn't a question, but she heard the uncertainty underneath. He needed her to be okay. They all did.

  "Yeah," she lied. "I know."

  The shower stall door closed behind her. The water started, hot enough to hurt. And finally, alone in the steam and the scalding heat, Beatrix let herself break down completely.

  The blood swirled down the drain, pink and then clear.

  But she could still feel it on her hands.

  She would always feel it on her hands.