Toll

For a long, agonizing moment, Nico remained in his brutal, standing position, a bloodied mess of battered flesh and shattered bone. He was a living testament to his own endurance, but with his eyes rolled back, he was a man who had left himself behind.

Sloth looked at him not with anger, but with a flicker of something akin to pity.

"Look at you," he grunted. "You're an even bigger mess than I am."

Just as the final silence began to settle, one of Sloth's mates, a lanky man with a strange expression, spoke up from the crowd.

"That's enough, Sloth," he said, his voice surprisingly firm. "You've won. Take the victory."

Sloth glanced at his mate, then back at the motionless, upright form of his opponent. The rage in his eyes faded completely, replaced by respect. He gave a single, firm nod. "He's right," Sloth said, his voice now a low, matter-of-fact tone.

"You've impressed me, slave. I'm not going to finish you off." With those final words, he turned and walked away, leaving Nico to stand alone in the center of the pit.

Just as the murmuring crowd began to disperse, a voice, a mere whisper that cut through the silence like a scalpel, shot through the air.

"Yo..." Sloth's head snapped back, his victorious grin replaced by a scowl.

His eyes widened, and a thin sheen of sweat broke out on his brow as he saw the source: Nico. The boy was still standing, his body a bloodied, broken wreck, but his voice was there.

"Why... are you leaving?" Nico rasped.

Sloth's mate, seeing the look on the giant's face, also broke out into a nervous sweat. All Sloth could see was utter, terrifying insanity in Nico's face — a broken body being puppeteered by a will of pure, unadulterated madness.

His instincts screamed at him to turn his back, to take his victory and go, but he couldn't. Then, a slow, horrifying smile spread across his face, followed by a low, rumbling laugh.

"I gave you a chance to live, kid," Sloth said, his voice now a low growl. "But you just broke it."

The words were a warning, a threat, but Nico met them with a terrifying smirk of his own.

"Oh?" he said. "I've actually given you the chance to live. You've broken it."

Nico, his broken body seeming to defy the laws of physics, launched himself at Sloth. The giant, still reeling from the boy's chilling words, left himself open, his arms dropping to his side in a mixture of surprise and condescension, as if he believed Nico was incapable of doing any more damage.

That was his fatal mistake.

Nico slammed into him, a brutal knee to the solar plexus that landed with a sickening crunch. Sloth's eyes bulged, and a violent gout of blood erupted from his lips as the air was forced from his lungs.

Without a moment's pause, Nico's leg rose, the heel of his boot connecting with a high-roundhouse kick to Sloth's jaw.

The immense man retaliated with a desperate, wild blow that sent Nico's head snapping violently to the side, but the boy, a master of momentum, adapted instantly.

He didn't fall.

Instead, he used the force of the blow to spin, his hand clamping onto Sloth's arm. He used his opponent's own strength to pull him in close, and delivered a bone-shattering headbutt to the bridge of Sloth's nose.

The final, decisive confrontation began not with a strategic advance, but a desperate, animalistic charge. Sloth, his face full of dripping blood, lumbered forward. But Nico, a bloodied wreck who had defied all logic, was charging too.

Sloth threw a wild, all-or-nothing strike, but Nico narrowly sidestepped the massive hand. He launched himself into the air, his body a coiled spring of brutal energy, delivering a powerful jump-front kick that landed squarely on Sloth's jaw. The impact sent a shuddering shockwave through the giant's head, making his vision vibrate and his mind feel like a bowl of Jell-O.

He stumbled backward, trying to shake the disorientation, but it was no use. The shiver in his skull was violent, and as he finally managed to clear his vision, he felt a warm liquid trickling down his neck. He reached up, his fingers coming away sticky with blood — not from a cut, but from his ears. A horrifying, visceral injury.

He looked back at Nico, who was still standing, his eyes rolled back, his face a blank mask of unseeing white. Had he passed out on his feet? Sloth didn't care.

The final bell had rung. He closed the remaining distance, a single, menacing stomp-step toward his unconscious, still-standing opponent.

As Sloth raised his massive fist for a final, bone-shattering blow, a new voice cut through the carnage. It was Leoill, scrambling into the pit, his face a mess of tears and frantic desperation.

"Stop!" he screamed, his voice cracking. "Please... just leave him be!"

Sloth's head snapped towards the new arrival, his face a mask of furious contempt.

"Piss off, kid!" he snarled, launching a wild, backhanded strike at the smaller boy.

Leoill ducked, a desperate, clumsy move, just as Sloth turned back to finish Nico once and for all. But his arm never completed its arc. A new figure had appeared, a towering man whose sheer size dwarfed even Sloth. This was Wrath — the previous tournament winner, the man who had defeated Sloth in a brawl.

"That's enough," Wrath said, his voice a rumbling command that held the absolute authority of a king.

Sloth, his face a mask of shock and frustration, let out a single, guttural "tsk."

He lowered his arm, his fury extinguished by the presence of a greater power. With a final, contemptuous glance at the two boys, Sloth turned and walked away.