**Chapter XII: The Stray Flame of the East**
Before the game, there was breath. Sweat. The sharp tang of metal in his mouth after a well-placed kick, the way blood sang in his ears just before impact.
Riku had always fought—not out of rage, but hunger. He was the kind of boy who had learned to walk with his fists, grown in the alleys of Tokyo where discipline was carved into skin and pride was burned into bone. By sixteen, he had mastered almost every known form of martial arts: Muay Thai, Aikido, Capoeira, Systema, Wing Chun, Jujitsu, and more. His body was a canvas of bruises and perfection. In the ring, he was undefeated. On the streets, he was myth.
And when his friends introduced him to fighting games, it was only natural that he conquered those too. He became a legend in that world—an untouchable, analytical genius whose thumbs moved like lightning and whose strategies bent probability itself.
But with victory came boredom. Predictability. A numbness that grew like mold in his mind. No fight was truly real. No opponent truly dangerous. The screen dulled the edge he once lived for.
Then someone whispered a name into his life like a curse and a promise.
**Ashen Hollow.**
A game unlike any other. Built with technology so immersive it whispered to your soul. Said to be a labyrinth of lore, madness, survival, and trials that broke more than just bodies. It broke *minds.*
He laughed at first.
Then he played.
And then he woke.
---
Rain fell like the steady hum of needles against rusted metal. The air reeked of sewage and scorched iron. Beneath a shattered bridge deep in the eastern district of Karisoku—a forgotten city where even shadows seemed hunted—a boy gasped awake.
Riku.
No longer the man of twenty-three, but a lean, dirt-smeared fourteen-year-old with hollow cheeks and calloused hands. His chest heaved against cracked ribs. He coughed—blood and phlegm. The sting of a welt burned on his cheek, and his stomach twisted with hunger so sharp it nearly made him faint.
Everything *felt* too real.
His body screamed from exhaustion.
His nostrils filled with the rot of moldy bread and wet stone.
The taste of copper coated his tongue.
And somewhere, beneath it all, was the distant sound of children crying, rats skittering, and someone being beaten two alleys over.
This was no simulation.
His name was still Riku. But now it was etched into the memory of a broken boy who had lived here far longer than Riku had been alive.
He stumbled to his feet, memories fragmenting like shattered glass. And then, clarity. A flickering mark on his wrist—barely glowing—sigil-shaped. A whisper in the back of his skull like burning paper.
*"You are one of the 32."*
*"You survived the Architect's Trial."*
*"You have been chosen."*
The Architect. That surreal voice he had heard moments before his vision collapsed. That final trial that left 500,000 players weeping, broken, or gone.
Only thirty-two remained.
And Riku—fighter, survivor, tactician—was now one of them.
---
He spent his first day in the slums learning the weight of his new world. Every corner of Karisoku pulsed with violence. There were no rules—only gangs, hunger, and fear. The eastern district was governed by a loose alliance of thugs who demanded "entry tax" from anyone breathing.
But Riku wasn't just a kid. He was a vessel of steel hidden in a frail form.
When three slum rats tried to mug him for his shoes, he responded with a blur of motion. His left elbow crushed the first boy's nose. A quick feint and spin allowed him to snap the second one's wrist clean. The third? A knee to the gut left him retching on cobblestones.
Pain still lingered—his new body wasn't built like his old one. But it *remembered*.
And more importantly, *he* remembered.
The fight was real.
And for the first time in years, so was the fire inside him.
---
By nightfall, he found shelter beneath a rusted water tank. He built a small fire from torn rags and dry twigs, careful not to draw attention. He watched the flame flicker, warm and trembling. The heat touched his frozen fingers, the scent of burning cloth sharp in his nose.
He thought about the other 31.
Where were they now?
He thought about the Architect.
What *was* Ashen Hollow really?
And then, through the veil of exhaustion, his breath slowing, Riku smiled.
Because in this world where pain was real and every fight meant something—he felt *alive.*
The game was no longer a game.
And he was ready to play.