Fight Forever
October 31st. A Sunday.
The pay-per-view held exclusively under the Burning Kong banner — Taboo Sunday — was underway.
KWA-KWA-KWA-KWA-KWA-BOOM!!
Fireworks erupted in dazzling bursts from the specially constructed set, and the cameras panned across the crowd from high above.
Total attendance tonight: 58,319.
Not a bad turnout for what was supposedly a transitional era — the lull after the age of the Icons had ended. Then again, the company had spent weeks building genuinely compelling rivalries to stoke the anticipation, and the fans had come out in droves because of it.
And today, I was going to take the WWF Intercontinental Championship from Lance Orton.
The WWF's second-tier title. Holding it cleanly meant the company and the fans alike recognized me as, at minimum, a solid upper-mid-carder. Which meant the only thing left above me would be the main champions —
the WWF World Champion of Burning Kong, and the WWF Universe Champion of Rkdawn.
'Rkdawn has its own second-tier title too, the U.S. Championship, but.'
The Intercontinental Championship was always rated a notch higher, if only slightly — its lineage ran deeper. By the same logic, the World Championship was valued a hair above the Universe Championship as well.
The moment I finished that thought, my heart had already begun to pound. This was the finest push a first-year rookie could hope to receive.
'Focus on the match first.'
Flesh would be torn and blood would fly tonight — and beyond that, there was a real chance I might black out, just as I had in my match with Russell. I trusted Orton to prevent that, and he trusted me in return. But accidents in this business could happen at any time.
Especially today.
'Stay razor sharp.'
I slapped both cheeks hard and found my balance somewhere between tension and ease. Wired enough to stay alert — loose enough not to seize up.
Match by match, I watched the Burning Kong roster work from the opening bout onward, steadying my mind piece by piece. Everyone had prepared themselves to the bone. Even the low-carders slotted into the early hours of the pay-per-view, with their comparatively short match times, delivered excellent performances — each of them fighting to prove themselves inside their allotted minutes.
My match with Orton was twenty-five minutes long. Longer than the main event itself. That was how much faith the company had in my match, and I let a flush of pride rise in my chest before smiling faintly.
Those kids would work hard in their own way, but they'd never catch up to me. Because I was the best — and I was here to have that fact acknowledged.
Of the ten prepared matches, eight had come and gone. Only two remained: Orton versus me, and the World Championship match. I had finished my preparation early and made my way toward the Gorilla Position at the dead center of the long backstage corridor.
From the far end — quite a distance away — I caught sight of Orton. Tall frame, tattoos running down both shoulders. Black trunks with an ornate pattern, knee pads, elbow pads, tape wound around his wrists, and finally the boots.
And at the opposite end, me — in jeans and wrestling boots, a jacket over a tank top, sunglasses on.
As if tracking our two converging paths, the match promo began to roll. Explaining why two men fight while whetting the crowd's appetite for it — that was what a promo was for.
The video opened four weeks in the past, on a Monday. The night the booker and I were stripped of our championships by two members of Revolution — by the most cowardly means imaginable.
On screen, Revolution bathed in the crowd's cheers.
The footage cut, and there I was, seething with rage.
What followed was a montage: the party ambush. The parking lot ambush. The assault in the ring. Orton dragged security everywhere he went, desperate to shake me off — and it was impossible. Pushed to the edge of a breakdown, Orton finally lashed out at his own stablemates.
And so, distilling every line we had traded over the course of the entire feud, the promo video was complete.
The crowd's chants and cheers bled through the walls. The atmosphere — an entire building wanting me — carried all the way back here.
Orton, who had come face to face with me in front of the Gorilla Position, seemed to feel it too.
"I'm kind of shaking……."
"Relax. It's going to be great."
"I never thought I'd be the one standing across from a guy this beloved."
"You're fighting a star now — so be ready to take the heat that comes with it."
"Mmm……."
Somehow, Orton looked even more nervous than before.
'I'd better carry him through this one.'
The moment I thought it—
"Waaah!!"
At someone's shriek, the two of us whirled around at the same time.
"……Tiffany?"
"Hah—hah…! No, I, um, I couldn't think of a single better way to call out to you!"
For some reason, Tiffany McMahon — who had every business being in Georgia — was standing there. Her suit was soaked through with sweat, as if she had sprinted the entire way.
I glanced at the monitor and confirmed the commercial break was still running.
"Orton, head in first."
"R-right."
Orton disappeared inside. I grabbed one of the water bottles stocked within the Gorilla Position and handed it over.
"You just came from wrestling a match, did you?"
"Is this really… the time for jokes?"
Tiffany chugged the water, gulping it down in great swallows. And something about her face completely scrambled my focus. But a laugh slipped out of me anyway.
"No, seriously — what are you doing here?"
"…I bulldozed through my backlog of work, chartered a private jet, and flew straight here."
"Why?"
"I don't know."
"The commercial break's almost over."
"…I can't be your partner tonight."
"I'm sorry?"
"So pace yourself. If you wreck that body of yours, you're the only one who loses. And chances are no one will ever give you credit for it."
"……"
"Don't call yourself merchandise. You're a wrestler. What I'm saying is — take better care of yourself."
The words caught in my throat for a moment. Maybe it was the sprint from halfway across the country, but her cheeks were faintly flushed. …No. Of course that wasn't it.
Pure, unguarded concern — that was what she was sending me. And for an instant my heart sank, and the thought that I had a match to wrestle was wiped clean out of my head.
'Huh.'
This was the best possible condition. Relaxed, not fixating on the match at all — Tiffany's words had simply put me there. The fact that she'd flown all the way from Georgia because she was worried about me — that, I was genuinely grateful for.
Feeling my heart thud steadily in my chest, I checked the monitoring screen. Thankfully, still on commercials. There was time enough to say what I needed to say.
"You did it on the European tour, too. You clearly have something you want to say, and you strain yourself holding it back — it shows."
"…You noticed that?"
"Of course I did. I notice everything."
Tiffany McMahon stayed close to the wrestlers and became their friend. And those friends slowly broke apart, one commodity at a time. The broken merchandise was replaced with fresh merchandise, and the WWF rolled on without missing a beat. That was the reality of this industry.
I had needed to cater to Bart's sensibilities — the man who had orchestrated that machine — so it was only natural the words had wounded her. That was exactly why I'd kept my distance, sensing it was somehow delicate to grow closer to Tiffany in this lifetime. But if this was how things were going to go, I had no choice but to tell her the truth.
"Of everything I told you in that limousine, two things were lies."
"…Which ones?"
"One was the word 'young lady.' Frankly? You come across as a bit of a crazy woman."
"Fair enough. A woman who'd charter a jet and fly out here just to say one word to you wouldn't be in her right mind."
"And she pees herself when she drinks, too."
"…………"
Tiffany tried to kill me.
I caught her flailing hand with ease, chuckling, and moved on to the next words.
"And the rest of it. All of it."
"All of it?"
"Yeah. I do this job to climb. Not out of any sense of responsibility to other people's trust."
"That… goes for me too?"
"Of course it does. Honestly, this is something I want to say to Bart as much as to you."
"…And that would be?"
"I'm about to go out there and cause a spectacular disaster, so you handle the cleanup however you see fit."
I said it looking Tiffany dead in the eyes. She stared at me, briefly dumbfounded — then burst out laughing.
"So it really was something even I couldn't stop."
"That's right. So just trust me."
"Sin!! You need to head out for your entrance!!"
Just then, a staff member standing behind us called out in a hurried voice. It was time to step into the ring.
The overworking of professional wrestlers was a subject of no small debate even within the industry. Plenty of men had died swallowing painkillers just to endure the pain. Eddie Viterero had been one of them — alone in a hotel room, his heart had simply stopped, worn down by the side effects.
I found myself recalling Tiffany appearing on the memorial broadcast, weeping. Beyond him, countless other wrestlers had left the business — or left the world — one by one. I was careful too, but there were times I pushed past the limit all the same. That was what she'd been worried about. That I might vanish from this industry.
But to prove yourself, sometimes you have to do dangerous things. Seizing everything within reach the moment opportunity arrives — that was my motto.
Midway through the match, I flipped the black cloth pouch in my hand upside down.
Thumbtacks cascaded down in a glittering rustle. The sight sent the crowd into delirium, dragging the atmosphere of the match to an even higher pitch — faces going pale, screams of no, and endless chants of YES!
The fallen tacks caught the arena lights and shimmered. I swallowed hard and looked back at Orton, sprawled beside me. We were already drenched in blood.
We had traded hold for hold, executed the planned bumps at every marked spot, and by now the arena had been whipped into a cauldron of pure mania. In my case, part of it had been an accident — a table collapsed beneath me, and a shard of splintered wood flew off in an unforeseen direction, grazing across my eye. I hadn't stopped the bleeding. The finish with Orton was still ahead of us.
"Orton!!"
Burning with fever, I roared his name and hauled him up off the mat. And then the two of us went right on wrestling across a carpet of thumbtacks — a puddle of steel spread across the floor. A knife's-edge exchange of offense followed. The crowd screamed as they watched me sway on my feet.
And then the moment we had called for arrived.
Before the match, I had told Orton: 'I'm going to eat the tacks too.'
Orton, staggering with his back to the spread of tacks, swung his arm in a wide arc. The signal. Timing myself to it, I rebounded off the ropes and, in the same motion, launched myself high into the air.
'High Knee.'
A move that vaults skyward and crashes a knee down — with the performer landing on his back right beside his victim. Which meant Orton and I would collapse side by side and share the exact same pain.
SSHHK—!
With a razor-sharp crack, my knee slammed into Orton's cheek. Then came the pain — as if hundreds of ants were biting into every inch of my body. The crowd let out a collective gasp.
"Nngh…!!"
Writhing, I rolled sideways. I could feel, purely through sensation, the number of tacks studding my back like a pincushion. And it didn't end there. My forearm and palm — the limbs I'd used to break my fall — were studded with countless more. Blood trickled from everywhere. The adrenaline burned the pain away.
"Haah—haah…!"
Gasping for air, I dragged my body toward Orton once more. He had rolled out of the tack zone just as I had and was retreating with one arm hooked over the bottom rope.
"Orton, come on… hurry up!"
"Damn it, this is insane!!"
Orton swatted away the foot I'd raised for the stomp and countered. His own back was bristling with tacks, and he fought through the agony to withstand my offense. And then the proof arrived that our match was truly landing with the people.
FIGHT FOREVER! FIGHT FOREVER!
Do this forever, they said. I laughed at the sheer absurdity of it and hiptossed the Orton charging in off the ropes. He'd never received a chant like this before either — and that was precisely why the light coming back into his pain-glazed eyes burned all the brighter.
The final spot of the match.
"You got it in you?"
"Course I do."
Chairs, ladders, tables — and the thumbtacks on top of it all. Every weapon had been shattered and splintered, yet Orton and I still hadn't stayed down. But it was ending now. I set the table upright, laid Orton across it, and climbed the turnbuckle to ready the finish.
A diving elbow drop. Fifty-eight thousand people were on their feet just to watch me.
I checked Orton's position and threw myself into the air without hesitation. It was no moonsault, nothing beautiful — but as a brawler's aerial move, it carried its own unmistakable charm. That was the diving elbow drop.
My airborne body came down square on Orton across the table.
KA-RA-CRASH!
The table exploded with a deeply satisfying crunch, and I hooked Orton's body for the cover. The referee slid into position at my shoulder, and the crowd counted along with him — the sound swallowed the entire arena, leaving my ears ringing.
ONE!!
TWO!!
THREE!!
DING! DING! DING!
"Thank you, Sin."
Orton's voice, faint beneath the roar of the crowd. I smirked from where I lay collapsed across his chest and murmured back.
"The pleasure was mine."
From this moment on, I was the WWF Intercontinental Champion.