His gaze locked with mine, searching, asking, and I gave my answer by leaning into him. With a tenderness that undid me, Jiro lifted the mask just enough, baring my lips, no more. He did the same to his mask.
Then his mouth found mine. The kiss was fire and relief all at once, everything we’d held back poured into one unstoppable moment. My hands clung to him, refusing to let go, even as my chest burned with the fear of being seen.
When I finally pulled back, that was when I felt it—a shift in the air. It was subtle at first, like the whole arena was holding its breath.
I turned to the stands, and what I saw had me speechless. Every gaze was fixed on us, thousands of faces leaning forward, perched on the edge of their seats. It was so quiet, I could hear my heart beating.
Then the eruption came. The sound became a living thing, pounding through the walls, rattling in my bones.
They weren’t cheering for blood anymore. They weren’t crying out for death. They were cheering for me, the masked girl who had dared everything, and Jiro, the unmasked man who clung to her as though she were the last light left in his world. That’s what they wanted. It’s what they demanded. And in that moment, the crowd belonged to us.
57
Suddenly I was ripped out of Jiro’s arms by Chopmen and shoved toward the exit of the arena. They kept prodding from behind, hurrying us along. Jiro was kept well away from me, and before I could even process it, we were back in the Nikubeya. The Chopmen stripped the others of their costumes. I kept mine on, as I still had the Blade challenge to face later.
I pulled off my mask and gulped in sharp, uneven breaths, my chest still heaving from the fight. I scanned the room. Jiro wasn’t shackled to the table in the center.
“Jiro? Where’s Jiro?” My voice echoed.
“I’m here, Akiko,” he called back. “Last cell on your side.”
“Why?”
“It’s Yoshi,” Kai answered grimly. “He was injured in the fight. Looked pretty bad.”
A bitter laugh cut through the corridor.
“You were so caught up in your little performance,” Haru sneered. “So wrapped up in your manufactured love story, you didn’t even care that one of us was bleeding out.”
“Shut up, Haru,” Kai snapped. “You have no right to criticize. We all fought while you stood back and watched.”
“Yeah,” Daiki added, his voice dripping with contempt. “If you’d tried even a little, maybe Yoshi wouldn’t be clinging to life. Now he might be gone because you didn’t have the balls to step up.”
“To hell with you both,” Haru shot back. “I was strategizing, waiting for the right moment to flank an opponent.”
“Flank?” Daiki shook his head in disgust. “You were so far back you might as well have been in the stands with a beer and a tub of popcorn.”
Haru sneered. “Popcorn, huh? Maybe I should’ve brought some. At least then I’d be as entertained as Sora, watching us bleed while he kept his little tricks to himself. The guy’s a machine in the arena, and not once did he warn us what he could do. If he’d opened his mouth, maybe Yoshi wouldn’t be half dead right now.”
I heard the bars creak as Haru leaned into them, his voice biting through the corridor. “And why are you so damn quiet now, Sora? You’ve got plenty of skill but not a single word to share? What’s your game?”
The silence stretched, heavy and unnerving. Sora sat perfectly still on the floor beside the bars, giving Haru nothing. Not a word. Not even a glance.
It went on until Haru muttered something under his breath and shifted away from the bars.
At that point, what-ifs didn’t matter. The Blade challenge was next, and there was no avoiding it. Jiro had spent the day in the cell with us and offered nothing about it, which meant he was just as much in the dark as I was.
It didn’t take long before the Chopmen returned to collect me. Only this time Sana was with them.
“Who would have thought this year’s Nokoribi would deliver us such a tale of passion and devotion?” He clapped slowly as he strolled around the room, savoring every eye on him. “What a show. Did you know wagers are already being placed on whether you two end up happily ever after or not?”
He hopped onto the table, sitting casually as if it were a throne, facing the row of cells on my side. His gaze locked on me.
“You two always have to be the stars, don’t you? Couldn’t help yourselves during our apprenticeship. Can’t help yourselves now.”
He leaned back on his palms, voice dripping with disdain. “You know, if I had my way, you’d both have accidents down here. No one would care. The real stars of Nokoribi are the Blades.”
“You must be blind as a bat, because that’s not what I saw in the arena,” Daiki said with a dismissive laugh.
