At Last, My Turn
Finally, it was my turn.
My first entrance as a wrestler since returning to this life after tasting a long string of failures.
“Whew.”
I took a long, deep breath, closed my eyes, and focused my mind completely.
Beyond the curtain, Sheamus—my opponent—had just finished making his entrance. The crowd had seemed to send up cheers for him, a heel character, which was rare... or was that just me getting ahead of myself?
If the people really were cheering for a wrestler like Sheamus, there were only a few possible reasons. Either Sheamus was a big enough name to earn respect regardless of whether he played face or heel.
Or else...
His opponent was such a magnificent son of a bitch that they were praying someone, anyone, would beat him.
If that was the case—
Then it means our promo landed exactly the way we intended.
I wanted to find out for myself. I turned around at once.
Halley, who had been watching, gave me the okay sign, and the sound crew worked their equipment to cue up my music. I checked over my bullet-riddled jacket and got ready to head out.
And then, out of nowhere, words an old senior once told me came back to me—words from a man who had been a true giant of this business.
We are actors. We are athletes. We are manufactured products. We are real-life superheroes.
We are professional wrestlers.
That was the one truth you could never afford to forget in this line of work.
My theme music began.
A man's low, weighty humming. A sharp melody chasing after it. A little sluggish, perhaps, but a fine track all the same—one with a distinct color of its own.
Timing it to the exact moment the melody and the humming overlapped, I threw the curtain aside with confidence and stepped out.
On the entrance ramp leading to the ring, I jammed my hands into my pockets and flashed a sly smile as I took in the audience.
[Booooooooooooooo!]
A monstrous wall of boos came pouring down. I felt my heart slamming against my ribs. My nerves dissolved in an instant, and the blood of a performer came boiling to the surface.
Yes. This is it.
Now I knew for certain. My promo with Russell had landed perfectly—I could feel it in every reaction the crowd gave me.
Smoke pooled thick around my feet, and on the massive screen behind me, the word 'SIN' appeared, carved with an inverted cross. I sauntered toward the ring at a lazy, insolent pace, ignoring every jeer and curse the fans hurled my way.
It was a flawless heel debut.
As I drew near the ring, the ring announcer bellowed out my introduction.
“His opponent! From Brooklyn, New York! Standing one hundred ninety centimeters tall and weighing in at one hundred five kilograms!”
Body specs padded with a bit of exaggeration. But the real moment came next.
“SIIIIIIIIIIIN~~~~~!!”
The ring announcer roared my name like a clap of thunder. Anywhere else, hearing that would have made me shrink a little, but this was the ring—a modern-day Colosseum. Like a war drum sounded before charging onto the battlefield, the deep, masculine voice whipped the atmosphere into a frenzy.
The music, the crowd's boos, the announcer's call—they all hammered against my ears and set my heart racing.
I climbed onto the ring apron. My hands still hadn't left my pockets the entire time. I passed Sheamus with a look of utter contempt, then stepped up onto the turnbuckle and spread my arms wide and strong.
[Boooooooooooooo!!]
Amid the endless cascade of boos, I made a rapid judgment call.
Right now, these fans were dying to watch me get beaten to a pulp. That was why even the heel, Sheamus, was getting such a warm reception. But with things lined up this perfectly, wouldn't it be a waste to steer the crowd's cheers toward Sheamus—a heel himself?
Which meant our instincts had been right all along.
It has to be Russell himself who comes out.
That was the correct direction. Given the mood of the crowd right now, the right play was for me to spend the next five minutes committing cowardly act after cowardly act, souring their mood further and further until Russell's music hit.
The problem is, I doubt Sheamus himself is going to let me run wild like that.
Climbing down from the turnbuckle, I studied Sheamus, his eyes glinting as cold as ever, and thought to myself:
Well, this is a pickle.
For now, I shed my jacket. The referee explained the rules, the bell rang, and Sheamus glared at me with the air of a man determined to teach the rookie a lesson.
For all the glorious boos I'd received, my situation was a truly awkward one. I had to wrestle a match against a man who had zero intention of cooperating.
Worse, Sheamus was almost certainly thinking the exact opposite of what I was thinking about how this match should go. The way he charged in leading with that massive frame told me everything I needed to know.
We collided hard. The lingering soreness in my muscles kept me from putting real power behind it, and I wobbled.
He knew that too. And even knowing it, he had come at me with everything he had—which meant...
“Hold on, damn it.”
He meant to pin me down and humiliate me in front of everyone. This wasn't the time for schooling some insolent rookie—except that was exactly what he intended.
I spoke to him calmly.
“...Why not just hand it over to Russell?”
“Shut up. I'm going to spend five whole minutes playing with you like a toy.”
“Urgh—?!”
The moment the words left his mouth, Sheamus shoved forward with crushing force, and I staggered all the way back into the turnbuckle. I felt a flash of genuine hostility.
Something a professional wrestler should never, ever do. But I kept my composure and sold it like it was part of the show.
The crowd let out a roar of delight. And that was exactly the problem—those cheers were supposed to be saved up for Russell.
Yet Sheamus paid my words no mind whatsoever. In the end, the referee couldn't bear to watch and stepped in.
“Sheamus! That's enough! One! Two!”
For a moment it looked like Sheamus would back off—then he drove a chop straight into my chest.
Crack!
“...!”
A savage blow. A dizzying wave of pain crashed over me. Staggering, I grabbed the ropes and slipped out to the side.
Sheamus shoved past the intervening referee and advanced, then without a word of warning tried to plant his finisher—the Bicycle Kick—right into me. I dropped to the mat, rolled, and slid out under the bottom rope.
I need to buy time.
Playing it off like it was nothing, I loosened up and began circling the ring. The fans booed me without mercy.
Sheamus shoved the referee aside and came down to the floor—and I struck at him the instant he landed.
“Ugh...!”
Well. At least he's taking my receipts.
It seemed he had no intention of breaking kayfabe with a shoot—throwing the script away and beating me down for real. Well, obviously. If he did that, he'd be run out of this industry for good.
First, stall.
I locked up with Sheamus again. Following his lead, I let myself be overpowered and rolled back into the ring. Then I slipped behind the referee—and did something no one had planned.
“Wha—what are you doing?!”
“Let's take it easy, shall we...!”
It was the old trick known as clinging to the referee. On my feet now, I used the man as a shield against Sheamus as he climbed back in. Every time he tried to close the distance, I grabbed the small referee's belt and thrust him forward, blocking the approach entirely.
Sheamus was completely flustered.
“What the hell is this guy?!”
“Senpai, let's not get carried away.”
“What did you say?”
“We're in the middle of a match, aren't we? Kindly leave your personal feelings at the door.”
“Oh-ho, so now you're teaching me my trade?”
“I'm simply offering my opinion.”
“You—coming in here with your—!”
“Well, you haven't exactly been listening until now. What else was I supposed to do?”
Our voices were buried under the crowd's boos, drowned out so completely that even the cameras filming the match couldn't catch them. I'd hoped to talk him around, but unfortunately, it wasn't working.
“Look. The crowd's eating it up, aren't they?”
“Shut your mouth, you cocky little bastard!”
“Yeah, we're not getting anywhere.”
If I kept stalling behind the referee much longer, the crowd's heat would cool. I shoved the referee aside and locked up with Sheamus once more.
Collar-and-elbow tie-up. Hammerlock exchange. I lost the test of strength and stepped back, and Sheamus grabbed my arm and flung me straight across the ring.
Bodyslam.
BOOM!
The crowd's hatred for me ran so deep that a single, simple slam drew an enormous roar of approval.
That pop is supposed to be Russell's.
I thought it as Sheamus hauled me up by the hair. I tried a counterattack or two to snatch back the momentum, but Sheamus shrugged off every strike like it was nothing.
If I push it, I'm going to get an earful.
At that very moment, Sheamus—still holding me—asked with a sneering laugh:
“What are you pretending to think about?”
“...?”
“Acting all high and mighty—sitting in on script meetings like some big shot—and in the end, you're just looking out for number one like everybody else, aren't you?”
“No, that's—”
“Am I wrong?”
“Yes. You're wrong.”
I stated it flatly. “This is, first and foremost, a path where every single one of us wins. Senpai.”
“Oh? And what brilliant idea might that be? Go on, then—try me.”
“...”
“But if the crowd doesn't bite, the blame lands on you. If you can live with that, I'll do things your way.”
It was a moment that nearly pulled a curse out of me. I could see it plain as day: no matter how the crowd reacted, he'd find some reason it displeased him and come down on me for it.
But refusing was out of the question. Because anything was better than doing nothing at all.
I nodded—and raked my fingers across the unsuspecting Sheamus's eyes.
“Gwah!”
As the boos came pouring down, I yanked his arm and whipped him into the ropes, then leapt powerfully as he came rebounding toward me, aiming for his throat.
Smack!
With a sound that shook flesh to the bone, my knee drove into his neck. A perfect strike. Zero actual damage to the body—but the angle of contact and the crack of impact sold it like a truly devastating blow. And I heard the crowd gasp as one, startled by the sudden move.
The problem was what came next.
Sheamus, who had reeled from the momentary shock, stood frozen—selling it far too long. Just as I was starting to feel a flicker of irritation at how badly he was taking the bump, I glanced back and realized: danger.
The ropes were right there. A ring apron's ropes were reinforced with a steel cable core, built to be brutally sturdy. Hit them the wrong way, and you could be seriously hurt. And if Sheamus collapsed right where he stood, his neck could catch on the top rope—and he could actually break it and die.
“Wai—!”
In that heartbeat of panic, I kicked the falling Sheamus's face—hard.
“Keh—?!”
His startled body twisted and toppled the other way, and the recoil sent me crashing down hard on my backside. Sheamus hit the mat across the ring and lifted his head, looked at the ropes—and I saw in his eyes that he understood, thankfully, what had almost happened.
“...!”
A moment's carelessness. A mistake born of performing a match while trusting me completely. And it had very nearly killed him.
His already chalk-white face drained even paler, and Sheamus stared at me, lips trembling.
And there, I...
Thank God. Genuinely.
Even as that thought ran through my head, I raised my middle finger at Sheamus.
The middle finger. F-U. Up yours.
...Not from the heart, of course—just a move to keep my gimmick alive.
This kind of 'mistake' mid-match was what the business called a botch. And to be clear, this one had been entirely his error; I was the one covering for it. So I sent Sheamus—still badly rattled—a signal with that raised finger: an offer to play this off as part of the match, so the crowd's immersion would never break.
Look at me. Grabbing the man by the collar and spoon-feeding him every single beat.
The one mercy was that Sheamus understood what I meant. I sat down at my leisure, draped one arm over the top rope, and grinned.
After a moment's hesitation, Sheamus shot to his feet, his face scarlet. The crowd's boos rained down as he closed in on me, his voice shaking.
“I—I, uh...”
“Save the conversation for after the bell. You might be hurt. Let's just take it easy.”
With the match's rhythm back in my grip, I steered its direction. It was to save the show—but Sheamus had taken a kick to the head, and a concussion was a real possibility. So, deliberately out of the referee's sight, I drove a blow into his gut and sent him crashing to the mat.
Then, as if the botch had been the match's planned turning point all along, I seized the momentum, played the cocky victor, and goaded the crowd.
“You came all the way here for THIS?! You jobless pieces of trash! Go home and check what tonight's soup kitchen is serving!!”
[Boooooooooooooo!!]
“You see it?! This is me! Nobody alive can touch me! First I'm taking that championship belt, and THEN you'll show me some respect! You idiots!”
My voice, of course, was swallowed whole by the torrential boos. So I provoked them with bigger and bigger actions, hurling insult after insult.
The referee was in a panic, hovering over Sheamus, who lay sprawled face-down after my cheap shot. In this moment, the entire crowd was thinking one thing and one thing only as they watched the chaos I was stirring up:
Somebody—anybody—please beat that son of a bitch to a pulp.
And at that exact instant, a guitar riff tore through the boos and the jeers like a bolt of lightning.
Startled, I spun around from atop the turnbuckle. A deafening roar of cheers followed, and on the giant screen, the lightning crest unique to the Hart family took its place. And beneath it, borne of a legendary bloodline, Russell Hart made his appearance.
The music was uncannily like his uncle Greg Hart's—only far, far faster. The bandage was still wrapped around the forehead I had bloodied, and he came sprinting straight at me.
“Damn it!”
I dropped down from the turnbuckle and braced for the fight at once.
The run-in had unfolded to perfection. I fought with everything I had to keep the smile off my face.