Chapter Seven: Inheritance

"Power never leaves. It lingers. It waits.And when it can't wait any longer—it chooses someone else."

I bled on purpose.

Not in the ring. Not during training. Alone, in the locker room. With a box cutter.

One quick slash down my thigh, just deep enough to count.

Pain sharp. Breath shallow. Blood slow.

And then I stared at it. Waited. Waited for the snap.

For the clock to rewind ten seconds. For the world to scream backward and reset my mistake.

Nothing.

No rewind.

No whisper.

No Witness.

Just the pain. The blood. The silence.

"So it only works when I lose," I muttered.

Or maybe…

"Only when I'm dying."

I needed answers.

And I needed them fast—because Blaze was changing.

He'd started moving differently. Not in the way a young fighter levels up. Not natural progression. Too sharp. Too predictive.

Sparring with him was like punching into water that already knew your next ripple.

He ducked before I moved. Slipped before I jabbed. Countered before I loaded.

And worse—he didn't even look surprised by it.

Almost like… he remembered what I was about to do.

I pulled him aside after drills.

"You okay?"

"Yeah."

"Any headaches? Dizziness? Weird dreams?"

"Only good ones," he grinned. "In some of them, I beat you."

I faked a chuckle. Inside, my gut twisted.

"You ever feel like time skips?"

He paused. Then looked up, almost thoughtful.

"Sometimes, yeah. But that's just adrenaline, right?"

He believed that.

I didn't.

Later that night, I took out my fight notebook.

I'd written down every rewind, every detail—what triggered it, what it felt like, what I heard or saw before time snapped.

Ten full resets. One broken.

And now?

A kid who shouldn't know a damn thing… was mirroring me.

I flipped back to page one.

There, beneath the first entry, something was scribbled in handwriting that wasn't mine.

"You're not the first. He won't be the last."

I dropped the book.

I knew what I had to do.

Test the boundary. Push the edge. Die if I had to.

Because if Blaze had already been touched by this thing—if the Witness had marked him—then I had to take it back. Or break it.

Before it became his.

I went to an abandoned lot where we used to run drills in winter. Snow-covered asphalt. Sharp wind. Broken glass in the corners.

I set up a heavy bag from a rusted scaffolding beam. Just me, gloves, and cold air.

Then I ran myself into the ground.

One hundred kicks.One hundred body shots.Push-ups until my arms went numb.Burpees until I puked into the snow.

Then I tied my gloves back on.

Climbed a stack of pallets.

Stared at the ground below—twenty feet of bad decisions.

"If I jump and die… will it rewind?"

It had to.

Right?

I took a breath.

And jumped.

Impact.

Crack of bone.

Whiteness.

And then—SNAP.

I was back at the top of the pallets.

Breathing hard.

Knees shaking.

Blood gone.

Pain gone.

But something else remained.

Behind me.

Watching.

I turned.

And there it was.

Closer than ever.

The Witness.

Cloaked in shadow, but no longer hidden. It stepped forward, and for the first time—I saw its eyes.

They weren't glowing. They weren't monstrous.

They were human.

My eyes.

The thing didn't move further.

Didn't threaten me.

Just… stared.

Then raised its hand again and did the same gesture as before—pointing.

Only this time, not at the door.

At the air.

At something behind me.

I turned back toward the lot—

And saw Blaze.

He was standing fifty feet away, hoodie pulled over his head, backpack slung low, phone in one hand, watching me.

"Coach?" he called. "What are you doing?"

I couldn't speak.

I looked between Blaze and The Witness.

And The Witness was nodding.

Slow. Deliberate. Final.

That night, I didn't sleep.

I called Dutch.

"It's picking him."

His silence was all the confirmation I needed.

"How do I stop it?" I begged.

"You don't. You either train him… or warn him. But you can't block it. You can't pull it back. Once it starts showing him the threads, it's done."

"So that's it? I pass it on and watch it eat him alive?"

"Unless you find a way to end the loop completely…"

"How?"

"No one's ever made it past ten."

I didn't hear from Dutch for a while after that.

And Blaze didn't come to the gym for three days.

When he returned, he was different.

Not just sharper.

Detached.

He didn't greet the others. Didn't warm up. Didn't tape his wrists properly. Just walked into the ring and waited.

For me.

"You wanna go a round, Coach?" he asked.

His tone was calm.

Too calm.

Like he already knew the outcome.

I stepped in.

He was faster.

Way faster.

Every time I struck, he was already gone.

Every move I made, he'd already solved.

In the third minute, he landed a knee that cracked my ribs. I doubled over, and he paused—concern flickering on his face.

"You good?"

"Yeah," I croaked.

"I didn't mean to—"

"You didn't. I saw it coming. I just didn't stop it."

We locked eyes.

And something passed between us.

A ripple.

Like the loop… blinked.

And I felt it shift again.

When I went to the mirror after the spar, I pulled off my shirt.

There, on my shoulder blade, was the mark.

The one I'd seen under my scar in Chapter Five.

But now?

There were two.

One small. One fresh.

Blaze's.

I stared at my reflection until it stopped matching me.

Until it showed Blaze behind me, bleeding from the nose, lips cracked, eyes vacant.

Then it flashed.

And he was me.

The loop isn't just passing on.

It's copying.

Or worse…

Splitting.

Later that night, Blaze messaged me for the first time unprompted.

"Coach… do you think a fight can end before it starts?"

I texted back:

"Sometimes."

He replied:

"I think I lost one today. But it didn't happen."