Chains of Command

Chapter 1 - The Silence Between Strikes

The room was already ruined by the time Kiyotaka Ayanokouji stepped fully inside.

Broken chairs, splintered desks, shattered phones on the ground. A storm of violence had torn through the air here-and at the center of it stood Ryuen, a beast with blood on his lip and fury in his eyes.

Kei had long since slipped away-Ayanokouji made sure of it. She didn't need to witness what came next.

"I knew you'd come," Ryuen said, spitting blood from the corner of his mouth. "You've been hiding behind her this whole time."

Ayanokouji said nothing. He simply walked forward, slow and steady, as if analyzing data in motion.

Ryuen grinned, savage and cracked. "You're not scared of me, huh? Everyone else trembles, but not you. I'll beat it into you, genius or not."

He lunged.

The first punch missed by inches-Ayanokouji's head tilted just enough-and Ryuen's momentum was redirected into a wall. He recovered quickly, launching a flurry of brutal strikes. Each one blocked, redirected, or slipped around. Ayanokouji was dancing around him, not with grace, but with clinical precision.

And then it happened.

Midway through the fight, Ayanokouji caught Ryuen's wrist, twisted it behind his back, and forced him to his knees in a brutal lock. But it wasn't the pain that made Ryuen freeze-it was the voice that followed:

"Stay down."

Ayanokouji's tone wasn't loud. It wasn't angry. It wasn't even commanding.

It was final.

Ryuen stopped resisting-not because the hold hurt, but because something inside him responded to that voice. A moment of silence passed. A flicker of confusion crossed his expression.

"What the hell was that?" Ryuen muttered under his breath, voice trembling not from fear, but from... something else.

Ayanokouji noticed it.

He felt Ryuen's tension shift, not in resistance-but in hesitation.

Something gave.

He leaned in, voice close to Ryuen's ear. "I said, stay down."

And to Ayanokouji's intrigue, Ryuen obeyed again. Breathing ragged. Face flushed with more than exhaustion.

A curious thing.

Was it submission?

Was it something deeper?

Ayanokouji released the hold and stepped back. Ryuen collapsed forward, catching himself with a fist to the floor. He didn't rise immediately. He stared at the wood grains of the panel like they held an answer to what had just happened.

"You... bastard..." Ryuen growled.

But he still hadn't stood up.

Ayanokouji tilted his head slightly. "Interesting. You respond better to commands than threats."

"Shut up."

"No. You won't." Ayanokouji said it not as a threat-but a statement.

And Ryuen... didn't speak.

The silence was louder than any insult.

Ayanokouji studied him with unsettling calm. "You've been chasing power through brute force, intimidation, chaos. But what happens when the chaos asks you to kneel?"

Ryuen stood up then, fists clenched, body still shaking-but not entirely from adrenaline.

"This doesn't mean anything," he snapped.