Kaito stood in the middle of the bunker, staring at the massive, humming machine like he was trying to make sense of a sci-fi fever dream.
Thick cables ran along the walls, pulsing with soft blue light. Glass tubes full of glowing liquid bubbled quietly, casting weird shadows across the room. Sparks drifted in the air like lazy fireflies, and everything smelled like metal, ozone... and something else.
Something ancient.
Almost like time itself was leaking into the room.
Behind a fortress of monitors, Akira Renzu spun lazily in his chair, sipping a can of matcha like he wasn't sitting next to the most illegal piece of tech in Japan.
"Project ChronoBreak," he said casually, typing away like a man possessed. "Classified. Highly illegal. Definitely unstable. Also—kinda beautiful, right?"
Kaito raised an eyebrow. "…And you're building it in a basement."
Akira paused his typing and gave him a deadpan stare. "Excuse you. This is a hidden quantum bunker. Under the city. With excellent ventilation, thank you very much."
"Yeah? Smells like burnt ramen and science fiction in here."
"That's genius you're smelling," Akira shot back.
Kaito snorted, stepping closer to the glowing core at the machine's center. It floated mid-air, humming like it was alive. "So… when?"
Akira barely looked up. "Twelve months. Give or take a week. Quantum stuff is moody."
"Twelve months?" Kaito repeated, frowning. "That's forever."
"Well, sorry I can't just slap a DeLorean together and hit 88 miles per hour," Akira said. "This thing bends actual space-time, not nostalgia."
Kaito crossed his arms, frustrated. He didn't like waiting. He was a brawler, not a planner. Waiting felt like weakness.
But then his eyes sharpened.
"If I'm gonna meet the legends... I'll train like them."
Akira blinked. "Wait—what does that mean?"
"I'm going old school."
And he meant it.
After that day, Kaito vanished from the fight circuits. No more underground cages. No more alley brawls. The neon city faded behind him.
Instead, the soundtrack of his life shifted—rushing waterfalls, rustling wind, and pure silence.
He dragged construction beams into the woods. Chained together massive logs. Found a cliffside and built his own damn waterfall. Just like Mas Oyama.
Akira visited once. He tripped over a root, yelped, and nearly dropped his tablet into the stream.
"Is this safe?" he shouted from a slippery rock, watching Kaito punch the waterfall like it had insulted his mother.
"No," Kaito growled, knuckles red and raw. "It's necessary."
Things only got more intense from there.
He balanced on tree trunks until his legs went numb.
Threw 1,000 punches a day, Wing Chun-style, wrists bleeding.
Shadowboxed barefoot under the moon, moving like Ali's ghost.
Sat motionless for hours, meditating like Helio Gracie, breathing in rhythm with the earth itself.
He even trained in sewers—blindfolded—where hired punks ambushed him in pitch-black tunnels.
Akira showed up again one night, holding a flashlight and a soggy energy bar. Kaito was sitting against the wall, covered in grime, blood, and triumph.
"You know," Akira said, shining the light around, "I could just build you a VR simulation. No rats. No stench. No tetanus."
Kaito looked up, breathing hard, his voice low and certain.
"I don't want a simulation. I want the real thing. I want them."
Akira blinked. Then gave a small smile. "You're nuts."
"Yeah," Kaito said, wiping blood from his lip. "But I'm getting stronger."
And he was.
Every day, his muscles hardened. His strikes got sharper. His thoughts quieter. His will—unbreakable.
The street fighter was becoming something else.
Something older.
A warrior the modern world forgot.
And soon, he'd step into the past not as a visitor…
…but as one of them.
Before he knew it, a whole month had passed...