A shadow hangs over Tokyo Dome—and Hanma Baki is falling into it.
After a deliberate loss drops him from Fighter to Apprentice in the underground arena known only as Shadow Line, seventeen-year-old Baki wanders the empty parking garage beneath the dome, haunted by the memory of his mother's death at his father's hands. The pendant against his chest is cold. The truth of that night is colder.
Then a woman in black steps out of the darkness.
She knows about his mother. She knows how she died—an
BAKI IF: Devour the Mother's Love - The Night of Demotion to Apprentice
The moment I pushed open the iron door, a lukewarm night wind clung to my face. Even though it was past midnight at the end of March, the underground heat had seeped into my body and wouldn't let go. A trickle of sweat ran down the back of my neck toward my spine.
Hanma Baki stood in front of the loading entrance of an underground parking garage near Tokyo Dome. Above him loomed the shadow of the massive dome. The building towered black against the sky, as if blocking out the moonlight.
"...Hah."
His breath didn't fog. It was spring already.
He couldn't get yesterday's match out of his head. He'd reacted to his opponent's feint—that killing intent—and deliberately lost. More precisely, he'd stopped his hand at a moment when he could have won. The referee, the crowd, and his opponent must have all noticed what he did.
[[Shadow Line Rank Change Notification]]
<<Hanma Baki: Fighter → Apprentice (Demoted)>>
That announcement was still echoing in the back of his ears. The cold, mechanical electronic tone of the underground arena. Out of two thousand registered fighters, it had taken him three years to climb from apprentice to fighter. Falling took an instant.
"Jumping at a feint like that... I've really fallen."
He muttered it to no one. His voice was swallowed by the concrete and vanished.
Thirty meters beneath Tokyo Dome, there exists an arena that the surface world never speaks of. An unofficial fighting circuit—Shadow Line. Weapons prohibited. Death in the ring is your own responsibility. Private fights outside matches are forbidden. Speaking of it is forbidden. With just those few rules, two thousand fighters bleed, earn money, and sometimes die.
There, he fought not as a seventeen-year-old high school student, but as an anonymous fighter. Underground, a black T-shirt and track pants. On the surface, a white shirt and school uniform. He'd been living these two faces for years now.
A vending machine at the edge of the parking lot cast a pale blue-white glow. No one around. No cars. Past two in the morning, the loading entrance had only him.
He started to walk, then stopped.
Behind him—a presence.
He turned. No one there.
Just rows of concrete pillars. Fluorescent lights flickered at intervals of a few meters, shadows swaying with each flicker. He thought he felt the air move slightly. Was it the wind? No—there's no wind in an underground parking garage.
His heart went *thump*.
(Just my imagination.)
He decided to think so. Today was a day he'd lost. His nerves were frayed. That was all.
He reached for his chest. Beneath the black T-shirt, his mother's keepsake pendant clung to his skin. He gripped it with his fingertips. The cold of the metal spread slowly through his palm.
And then—
—The smell of blood.
No. A memory.
The memory of the night his mother died came surging back through the fingertips gripping the pendant.
His father's fist. The sound of air tearing at the moment it swung down. Spraying red. His mother's body slammed against the wall. The dark stain spreading across the floor. His mother's final expression.
She'd been trying to say something. Her lips had moved. But he couldn't hear her voice. His father's back had blocked his field of vision.
"...Tch."
He closed his eyes. Tight. Tighter.
He clenched his fist. He barely managed to stop himself from slamming it into the wall. His knuckles went white. The pendant's chain bit into his palm.
He wanted his mother's love.
That was all.
His mother had loved him. Until that day. Until the very moment his father killed her.
That's why he challenges his father. The strongest creature on earth—Hanma Yujiro. The man who stole his mother's love.
But—
Under the arena's rules, he can't beat that man.
No weapons. No fighting outside matches. On the ring, fair and square, protected by rules. There's no way he could beat that monster in a place like that.
He'd known it, faintly. He'd just pretended not to.
"...Guess I'll head home."
He opened his eyes and started to walk.
"Finally found you, Baki."
A woman's voice.
From the darkness of the underground parking garage. From behind a pillar. No—from farther in, near the emergency exit.
His body moved on its own. He turned sideways, lowered his center of gravity. Raised both arms. Ready to spring at any moment. His heart pounded like a drum. This time it wasn't memory. This was real tension.
"Who's there?"
The owner of the voice slowly emerged from the darkness.
Black coat. Black hair. A tall woman. Her figure surfaced intermittently with the flickering fluorescent lights. Her features were fine. No—too fine. A face that was the very embodiment of the phrase "cold beauty."
Late thirties, perhaps? He couldn't tell her age. Her posture was straight, and the hem of her coat swayed with each step. The click of her heels echoed through the parking garage.
"No need to be on guard. For now, anyway."
"Who the hell are you?"
The woman didn't answer his question. Instead, she casually showed her right wrist. Her coat sleeve slipped back, revealing white skin. On that wrist was a burn scar. An old burn. The skin was drawn tight, discolored dark red.
"Don't you want to know the truth about your mother's death?"
Her voice reached his ears with startling clarity.
It was barely above a whisper, yet it seemed as if all the air in the parking garage had transformed into that voice.
"...What did you say?"
"You didn't hear me? How your mother died. Who killed her, and how. You're saying you don't want to know?"
His feet wouldn't move, as if glued to the ground.
His mother's death. It had been ruled an accidental death. But he knew. That was no accident. His father did it. He'd seen it with his own eyes.
But that was all.
That was as far as his knowledge went. Why his father killed his mother. What had happened. What his mother had been trying to say at the end. He knew nothing.
"How do you know about my mother?"
He bit down on his back teeth to keep his voice from shaking.
The woman smiled.
It was a cold smile. Only her eyes weren't smiling. Her black eyes stared at him fixedly. It wasn't the kind of gaze that appraised him. It was something else—eyes that seemed to be confirming something.
"Come here three nights from now, late at night."
"Huh?"
"If you don't come, you'll never beat that man as long as you live."
That man.
There was no need to ask who she meant.
"Wait. We're not done talking—"
He stepped forward.
With that single step, the woman was gone.
She had vanished.
No one stood where she'd been just moments before. The emergency exit door swayed faintly. There had been no sound of it opening or closing.
"...You've gotta be kidding me."
Should he chase her? He hesitated for a moment, then gave up. Even if he chased, he didn't feel like he could catch that woman. Besides, his legs wouldn't move.
The truth about his mother's death.
Those words spun round and round in his head.
He wanted to know. He didn't want to know. No—of course he wanted to know. But what would happen once he did? What would he end up choosing?
The fluorescent lights in the parking garage flickered again.
He gripped the pendant at his chest. Harder than before. The metal bit into his palm, stinging slightly.
"The truth about my mother's death, huh."
His muttered words vanished, reaching no one.
Revenge against his father. The mystery of his mother's death. Two heavy things collided deep in his chest.
Three days from now.
If you don't come, you'll never beat that man as long as you live.
The woman's words stuck in the back of his ears and wouldn't leave.
(Am I going to go?)
No answer came yet.
But the strength in the hand gripping the pendant was already stronger than before.
The spring night wind passed through his neck, chilled by sweat. The shadow of Tokyo Dome lay quietly beneath the moonlight.
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