Bound by my will

Chapter 8: Bound by my will 3

The penthouse became his world. Its clean lines and silent grandeur, once a symbol of Yujiro’s intimidating power, now felt like the walls of a very luxurious, very lonely cell. The city pulsed below, a reminder of a life Baki could observe but no longer touch.

He trained. Yujiro had a mirrored rack of free weights, a heavy bag, and a sleek treadmill installed in a corner of the vast living space. At first, Baki attacked his routines with a furious, desperate energy, trying to assert control over the one thing he still could—his body. But his body was no longer solely his own.

The change was subtle, then undeniable. The hard plains of his abdomen softened, then began to curve outward. It wasn’t fat. It was a firm, distinct dome that disrupted the symmetry of his torso. He first noticed the difficulty during ab rollouts. His core, once a solid column of power, felt unstable, a strange disconnect between his mind’s command and his muscles’ response. His center of gravity was shifting, day by day, throwing off his balance during kicks. Shadowboxing left him winded sooner, his lungs compressed by the growing pressure from below. He’d stand panting before the floor-to-ceiling windows, staring at his distorted reflection—the defined shoulders and arms, the stark contrast of the swollen, taut curve below his ribs. A vessel.

The stir-crazy itch started in his bones. After two weeks, he felt it like a physical buzz under his skin. He’d pace the length of the penthouse, a caged tiger, his restlessness echoing in the vast silence. “I need to go out. Just for a walk. To feel the sun.”

Yujiro, sprawled on a chaise reading military journals, wouldn’t even look up. “No.”

“You can’t keep me in here forever.”

“I can.” He’d turn a page. “And I will. Until it’s time.”

The arguments were short, brutal, and always ended the same way—with Baki’s frustration crashing against the immovable wall of Yujiro’s will. But Yujiro had learned distraction was a more effective tool than pure force. He’d challenge Baki to chess matches, their games lasting hours, a different kind of battle. He’d order obscene amounts of specific, nutrient-rich food, and they’d eat together at the long dining table, arguing about the merits of rare bluefin tuna versus Kobe beef. He’d put on old fight films—not his own, but legends from decades past—and dissect their techniques with a clinical, shared passion.

On the rare, negotiated excursions, Baki was swaddled in layers. Baggy hoodies two sizes too large, loose sweatpants, even a light jacket zipped to his chin regardless of the weather. Yujiro would survey him with a critical eye, tugging fabric here and there, ensuring the tell-tale shape was utterly concealed. “You look like a homeless kid,” he’d grunt, a flicker of amusement in his eyes. They’d take late-night drives in Yujiro’s silent, expensive car, windows down, going nowhere in particular. The freedom was an illusion, a brief gulp of air before returning to the tank.

Weeks bled into a month, then two. Something in the sealed atmosphere of their isolation began to ferment, to change.

It happened in the silent spaces. Yujiro, instead of merely watching Baki train, would sometimes get up and correct his stance from behind, his large hands warm and steady on Baki’s hips, his voice a low rumble in Baki’s ear about maintaining pelvic alignment. He started bringing Baki glasses of water without being asked. He’d feel Baki’s forehead with the back of his hand if he seemed tired, a gesture so simple and domestic it left Baki stunned.

One night, Baki woke from a vivid, unsettling dream about his mother. He was sweating, his heart rabbiting against his ribs. The penthouse was dark. Before he could even sit up, Yujiro’s arm slid around him from the other side of the bed, pulling him back against a solid, furnace-hot chest. “Be still,” Yujiro murmured into his hair, his breath warm. “It was a dream. It means nothing.” He didn’t ask what it was about. He just held him, one broad hand splayed possessively over the swell of Baki’s stomach, until Baki’s breathing evened out and the fear receded. Baki lay awake in the dark, more shocked by that comfort than by any punch he’d ever received.

They talked. Not just about fighting or strategy, but about other things. Baki spoke of the long, lonely hours of his childhood training, the smell of the underground arena, the particular ache of a well-earned bruise. Yujiro, in his own grudging way, offered fragments. The feel of different soils in war zones, the empty silence at the peak of a mountain he’d conquered alone, the dull boredom he felt in the presence of world leaders. “They are like paper dolls,” he said, his fingers tracing idle patterns on Baki’s bare shoulder. “You and I… we are real. The only real things.”

Yujiro’s hand was almost always on him now. A constant point of contact. On the small of his back, on his thigh as they sat, most often resting on the firm curve of his stomach. He’d talk into the quiet, his voice losing its usual edge.

“We’ll need more space,” Yujiro said one evening, his palm rubbing slow circles. “This place is for one. A child needs grounds. A yard. A place to train properly from the beginning.”

“A child needs a lot of things,” Baki said quietly, leaning back into the touch despite himself. “A normal life. School. Friends.”

Yujiro made a dismissive sound. “It will have the only things that matter: strength and family. We will find a compound. Somewhere private. Secure.” His voice took on a rare, almost dreaming quality. “I will teach it everything. You will teach it what I cannot. How to want something more than just victory.”

Baki listened, a strange ache in his throat. It was a fantasy, horrifying and beautiful, built on a foundation of biological impossibility and moral catastrophe. Yet, spoken in the dark with Yujiro’s hand warming his skin, it felt, for a moment, dangerously like a future.

Outside, their absence sent ripples through their world.

Doppo Orochi, ever the loyal warrior, approached Yujiro at a high-end department store of all places. “Hanma-sama,” he said with a stiff bow. “Forgive the intrusion. But Baki… he hasn’t been at the gym. Is he ill?”

Yujiro didn’t break stride, selecting a ridiculously soft cashmere blanket. “He’s on a specialized retreat. Intensive, solitary training. He’s fine.”

Kaoru Hanayama, encountering Yujiro near the docks, merely fixed him with his stoic gaze. “Baki,” he stated, the single word a question.

“None of your business,” Yujiro replied, not even looking at him as he walked past.

The excuses were brusque, dismissive, and designed to shut down inquiry. For most, they worked. Fear of the Ogre was a potent deterrent.

But not for everyone.

Jack Hanma stood in the sterile glow of a convenience store, watching his father from across the street. Yujiro was leaving a 24-hour pharmacy, carrying a small, discreet bag. Jack’s eyes, sharp and analytical, missed nothing. The bag wasn’t for cigarettes or beer. It was the wrong shape. And the items Yujiro had just purchased at the grocery counter before that—bottles of premium electrolytes, specific high-protein supplements, prenatal vitamins he didn’t bother to conceal.

Prenatal vitamins.

Jack’s own chemically-augmented body was a temple to deliberate, obsessive care. He knew the shopping list of someone in a state of extreme physical conditioning. This wasn’t that. This was… care. Specific, nurturing care.

His mind, linear and relentless, began to connect dots. Baki’s complete disappearance. The vague, inconsistent excuses. His father’s increased, almost furtive presence in the mundane world of stores and pharmacies. The odd protectiveness that had always surrounded Baki had now become an absolute blackout.

A cold, quiet certainty settled in Jack’s gut. Something was wrong with his half-brother. Seriously wrong. And Yujiro was lying about it.

He waited until Yujiro’s car merged into the late-night traffic. Then, moving with a predator’s grace, Jack crossed the street. He didn’t follow the car. Instead, he walked to the luxury high-rise that pierced the skyline, the one he knew his father owned.

He didn’t call. He didn’t announce himself. He simply stood in the shadows of the building’s grand lobby, his massive frame held still, his pale eyes fixed on the private elevator bank. He would wait. He would ask. And he would not be dismissed.

Up in the penthouse, Baki shifted uncomfortably on the sofa, a hand pressed to his side. “It’s kicking,” he said, a note of bewildered awe in his voice.

Yujiro was at his side in an instant, kneeling on the floor, his ear pressed to the stretched fabric of Baki’s thin t-shirt. A slow, deep smile spread across the Ogre’s face—a real one, devoid of cruelty or mockery. It was a smile of pure, terrifying triumph.

Downstairs, in the silent lobby, Jack Hanma watched the elevator indicator light hold steady at the top floor, and waited.

Downstairs, in the silent lobby, Jack Hanma watched the elevator indicator light hold steady at the top floor, and waited. He waited for hours, a statue of sinew and simmering intent, until the sky began to bleed the deep indigo of false dawn.The elevator never moved.His father never descended. This wasn't a visit.Yujiro had gone home.

Jack’s surveillance became a new form of training. He learned Yujiro’s patterns: the late-night pharmacy runs, the specialty grocery trips for absurdly high-quality produce, the complete absence from his usual haunts of violence and intimidation.The Ogre was running domestic errands. It was the most unsettling thing Jack had ever witnessed.He saw the baggy clothes firsthand. One drizzling evening, he watched from a rain-slicked alley as Yujiro and a hooded figure emerged from a private clinic entrance Jack had marked weeks prior. The figure moved with Baki’s precise, fluid gait, but the shape was all wrong—swollen in the middle, shoulders hunched as if protecting something. Yujiro’s hand wasn't on his neck to steer him, but low on his back, a supporting pressure. They moved quickly into a waiting car, but not before Jack saw how Baki leaned into that touch, a momentary collapse of his legendary posture. It wasn't the lean of a prisoner.It was the lean of someone exhausted, sharing a weight.

The sterile confinement of the penthouse finally snapped. Baki woke up one night gasping, the walls feeling like they were pressing in."I can't breathe in here," he said, his voice tight. "I need air that isn't filtered.I need to feel dirt under my feet."

Yujiro looked at him, at the sheen of sweat on his brow, and after a long moment, gave a single, slow nod."Not the city.Somewhere closed.Private."

They drove in silence to a secluded wooded area in the prefectural outskirts, a place Yujiro owned but never used. The air was cool and rich with the smell of damp soil and pine. For the first time in months, Baki felt his lungs expand fully. He pulled his shirt off over his head, letting the night air whisper over his skin, over the profound, unmistakable curve of his stomach.

Yujiro watched him, arms crossed."Light movement only.Balance exercises.Nothing that strains."

"I know," Baki said, and began a series of slow, deliberate tai chi forms, his bare feet grounding into the soft earth.From the cover of a dense thicket of cedar, Jack watched. His brain refused to parse the image. Baki shirtless, pale in the moonlight, was objectively pregnant.The hard, round prominence was a biomechanical impossibility that he nevertheless saw with crystalline clarity. And Yujiro… Yujiro wasn't training him.He was spotting him. His hands hovered, not to strike or correct with violence, but to catch. He guided Baki’s elbow through a slow sweep with a touch so delicate it made Jack’s teeth ache.

Then Baki faltered, a slight misstep on the uneven ground. Yujiro was there instantly, not with a scornful laugh, but with a firm arm around his shoulders, holding him steady. Baki turned into him, his face tilting up. The look he gave Yujiro wasn't one of hatred or even resignation.It was soft.Open.Grateful.

Yujiro’s other hand came up to cradle Baki’s jaw. He leaned down and kissed him, deeply, a slow possession that had nothing to do with combat.Jack’s stomach revolted. Acid burned the back of his throat. The image of his mother’s broken face, of Baki’s own mother dying on a hotel room floor, flashed behind his eyes, seared onto this nightmare of tenderness. The careful threads of his observation snapped.

He crashed out of the thicket, the sound of snapping branches like gunfire in the quiet woods. "What the fuck," he roared, his voice strangled."What the FUCK is going on?"Yujiro and Baki broke apart. Baki’s face flooded with a shame so acute it was physical, his hands instinctively crossing over his belly. Yujiro merely turned, placing himself slightly in front of Baki, his expression shifting from private to impassive in a heartbeat.

Jack stabbed a trembling finger at Baki’s stomach."Why are you so fat?What is wrong with you?" The words were meant to be cruel, a probe.But as he said them, the horrifying truth clicked into place. Baki looked… he looked exactly like those miserable women in clinic pamphlets.

Baki stared at the ground, his silence a confirmation more damning than any shout."Look at me!" Jack screamed, spittle flying."After everything he did!He killed your mom right in front of you! He raped my mom to make me!And you… you let him do this? You give yourself to him like some… some fucking whore?"Yujiro sighed, a sound of profound boredom. "He probably won't believe me," he said to Baki, as if Jack was an inconvenient noise."I don't care if he does.But he asked." He leveled his gaze at Jack."Baki is pregnant.By me.We are in a committed relationship. It's that simple."The world tilted on its axis. Jack’s mind, built on logic and brutal biological pragmatism, short-circuited.The words existed, but their meaning was a void.

He started laughing, a wet, hysterical sound."A relationship?With him?" He couldn't even look at Yujiro.All his fury funneled towards his brother, the traitor. "What are you thinking?How could you be this weak?You were supposed to surpass him! Now you're just his meat sleeve, his fucking incubator!"

Baki flinched as if lashed."Is that what you wanted?"Jack pressed, venom dripping from every word. "All that fight, all that 'I'll defeat you, father!' bullshit—was it just a fucked-up courtship dance?You’re a shell. You’re nothing but his favorite toy now."

Baki kept his face still, a mask of forced indifference over crumbling bedrock. But his eyes, wide and dark in the moonlight, gave him away. A slight tremor in his crossed arms betrayed the deep, slicing damage of each word. Yujiro’s gaze flicked from Jack’s snarling mouth to Baki’s rigid posture, and his own casual disdain hardened into something concrete.

“You don’t get to speak to him,” Yujiro stated, his voice dropping to a gravelly register. “You don’t get to look at him. You’re polluting the air.”

“Or what?” Jack spat, his fury overriding all survival instinct. He took a sudden, lurching step forward, his hand swinging not at Yujiro, but in a wide, backhanded arc meant to crack against the side of Baki’s head—a brutal, brotherly slap to shock him back to sanity.“You need to wake the hell up!”

Yujiro moved. There was no blur, no wasted motion. He simply appeared in the path of the swing, his own hand snapping up to catch Jack’s wrist in a grip that made bone groan. The other hand clamped on Jack’s shoulder, fingers digging deep into the muscle like steel hooks. He yanked Jack forward, off balance, and brought his own face so close their noses almost touched.

A low, guttural growl vibrated from Yujiro’s chest, a sound that didn't belong to a man.His lips pulled back from his teeth, a bestial display of pure threat. “If you so much as lay a finger on him,” Yujiro whispered, the warmth of his breath a horrifying contrast to the words, “I will peel the skin from your bones before you hear the first crack. I will kill you in an instant.”

Jack, trapped and humiliated, seethed.“You’re a sick old man! You couldn’t make a real heir so you twisted him! You broke your own son into a pet!”

“You are the twisted one,” Yujiro said, his voice cold and clean as a scalpel.“You were an accident. A chemical afterthought in a lab, born from a woman so insignificant I forgot her face. You were an inconvenience.A barking stray I couldn't be bothered to put down. And you are a failure. You ingested more steroids than food, grafting strength you were too weak to earn.” He leaned in, his eyes boring into Jack’s.“You will never be on his level. Not in power, not in will, and certainly not in my regard.He is my choice. You were my mistake.”

Jack’s roar was raw, a wordless eruption of pain and rage that shredded the night’s quiet. He threw his weight forward, a berserk tackle aimed at Yujiro’s center.Yujiro didn’t block it. He accepted it, and dismantled it. A fist pistonned into Jack’s solar plexus, blasting the air from his lungs in a sickening whoosh.A palm heel cracked his nose, splattering blood across the pine needles. A knee buried itself in his gut.It wasn’t a fight. It was a systematic deconstruction.Each blow was precise, economical, and utterly brutal.Jack’s augmented flesh split. His teeth loosened. Within seconds, he was on his knees, swaying, one eye swollen shut, blood and saliva stringing from his mouth to the dirt. Yujiro stood over him, his hand raised, fingers curled into a lethal spike aimed at the crown of Jack’s skull. The killing blow hung in the air, a promise.

“Stop!” The word tore from Baki’s throat, raw and desperate. He stumbled forward, his hand gripping Yujiro’s raised arm.“Don’t. Please.”

Yujiro didn’t look at him, his focus absolute on the ruin beneath him.“He touched you.He insulted you. He dies.”

“He’s still your son,” Baki pleaded, his voice cracking. “He’s still my brother.He’s… he’s concerned. Any normal person would be!” The plea was absurd, hanging in the bloody air.But it was real.

Yujiro’s arm slowly relaxed.He lowered his hand, finally turning his head to look at Baki. He studied the anguish there, the conflict, the unwanted compassion. He let out a soft, dismissive snort.“Fine.” He shoved Jack’s shoulder, sending the broken man sprawling onto his back. “Crawl. Before I reconsider.”

Jack, through a haze of agony, dragged himself backward, his movements jerky and weak.He left a smeared trail in the dirt. He made it to the tree line, hauled himself up using a trunk, and vanished into the darkness, his ragged breathing fading away.

The woods were silent again, save for the distant hum of the city and Baki’s own shaky inhales.The scent of copper blood and disturbed earth hung thick between them.

Yujiro wiped his hand on his pants, unconcerned.“He’ll live. Mostly.”

Baki stared at the empty space where Jack had disappeared. “He’s going to tell everyone.”

“Of course he is,” Yujiro said, as if commenting on the weather. He stepped closer to Baki, his bloodied hand coming up to cup Baki’s cheek, thumb stroking away a speck of mud.“Let him.It changes nothing for us. It only makes their world smaller, and ours more absolute.”