My Infinite Investment System

The only black shoes he owned became a problem before he reached Bronze Cup security.

The west sole had split during the trial, so Nia had closed it with shield resin that dried silver around the toe.

Rainwater darkened the leather while the hall smelled of wet coats, cinnamon pretzels, and fresh arena paint.

Jun stopped beside the first security arch with his tablet lifted toward Ryan’s feet.

"Do not react," he said as two fingers enlarged something on the screen, "your shoes have a fan account."

Ryan looked toward the nearest exit, where forty meters of glass offered no privacy.

"That sentence has no useful ending."

Mika leaned between them, saw the account name, then covered a surprised laugh with her wrist.

The profile picture showed Ryan catching the furnace core while one silver-repaired shoe bent under its weight.

@KellerSoles had collected thirty-eight thousand followers during the four hours since breakfast, gaining another hundred while he stared.

Its biography contained four words.

Financially grounded, physically questionable, and apparently one rainstorm away from losing the west sole.

’Delete the internet,’ Ryan thought, ’keep maps, delivery apps, then burn the rest.’

{corememory: he has infinite courage and one pair of shoes}

"Infinite is inaccurate," he said while one thumb tested the loose silver edge.

Mika turned her phone toward him, her public smile spreading from the mouth outward.

"Oh, we are absolutely encouraging this," she said as the lens tightened around his wet shoe.

"We are entering a national competition," he replied while hiding the damaged toe behind his other heel.

"Exactly, people should know our founder can defeat a boss without defeating one shoelace," she said as the public smile reached her eyes.

Nia finished removing her shield from the scanner and looked down at the repaired sole.

"The resin will hold," she said while checking its edge with one armored toe.

"Thank you," he replied as relief lowered his shoulders.

"It remains ugly," she added after finishing the inspection.

Jun made a small choking sound behind his tablet while Mika placed a hand over her heart.

"The team has spoken."

Ryan checked the price of new shoes before he could stop himself.

Arena-rated footwear began at two hundred forty dollars, almost a third of the personal balance he had preserved since Northstar started.

The growth fund had no ceiling, yet a purchase for him would still be rejected.

He closed the listing, then convinced himself the wet sock inside his right shoe qualified as a manageable lifestyle choice.

Mika caught the screen disappearing.

Her expression lost its performance for half a second before she raised her camera.

"Official Northstar statement," she announced while framing only the silver toe, "the shoes are veteran equipment, criticism is anti-worker."

"Please do not create merchandise."

"Too late," Jun replied as his display populated with three pink shirt mockups.

The account reposted Mika’s statement within nine seconds, before her own channel finished processing its upload.

Ryan watched the timestamp, then checked where the registration hall cameras were positioned.

None could have captured her phone screen from that angle, which meant the owner followed Northstar’s live channel directly.

That was ordinary.

The caption beneath the repost abandoned the shoe joke for a detail no casual viewer should have noticed.

Watch her left thumb during the joke, since regulator fatigue is lower than yesterday without being gone.

Mika’s smile remained fixed while her thumb disappeared beneath the phone case.

"They are observant," Ryan said as his attention moved from the caption toward the nearest relay camera.

"They are weird," she replied as the camera lowered, "which differs from our weirdness, since ours has branding."

Jun opened the account history while they joined the competitor queue.

The first twenty posts were jokes about Ryan’s shoes, with frame-by-frame clips from the Bronze trial.

The next post reached back two years into a raid archive most current fans had never searched.

Mika appeared inside an abandoned hotel gate wearing her old VoltEdge colors, one hand pressed against the wall before a lightning turn.

The clip froze three frames before her strike changed direction.

@KellerSoles had circled her rear heel in red, preserving the three frames before her weight changed.

She is lying to the right-side camera, so the attack will exit left.

Ryan felt heat crawl into both ears while the dead forum comment returned with humiliating clarity.

He remembered writing that exact observation under a raid forum post at two in the morning, then deleting it after nobody reacted.

The wording differed.

The thought did not.

"This account launched today?" he asked while keeping his voice ordinary.

Jun nodded once, then corrected the movement by rotating the tablet instead.

"Created at six fourteen, first post at six sixteen, older material uploaded in batches."

"Can you trace the source?"

"Public archive, screenshots, fan edits, maybe private downloads," the scout said as his feet shifted around a route only he could feel.

Mika caught the hesitation and said, "There is a maybe you did not enjoy."

"Some clips predate the current public archive."

She stopped walking.

The registration queue flowed around her while sponsored teams passed beneath bright banners, perfume mixing with weapon oil.

A security volunteer asked them to keep moving before the registration queue closed around their stopped bodies.

Mika stepped forward without answering, her phone held flat against her stomach while the account uploaded another old fight.

This one came from a failed desert raid that VoltEdge had scrubbed after the team lost three transport rigs.

She stood alone inside a sandstorm, current stuttering along her left wrist before she changed her stance.

The caption named the correction.

She moves pressure to the rear foot before the left pathway fails, and anybody calling this luck has never watched her twice.

Nia read it over her shoulder while her grip tightened around the shield harness.

"That is praise," she said.

"It is an inventory," Mika replied.

Ryan understood why the distinction unsettled her once the caption named the hidden correction rather than the visible victory.

Fans praised the visible explosion, while analysts collected the breath before it and the limp afterward.

He had done both for years, saving the breath before each attack alongside the limp she hid afterward.

’Tell her now,’ he thought, ’preferably after changing my name or dying.’

A Cup coordinator approached through the moving line before Ryan could turn that thought into an honest sentence.

Santiago Mbatha wore a green suit stretched across a former heavyweight’s chest, with a shaved head and a white scar dividing one eyebrow.

He carried four bronze wristbands on fingers thick enough to hide them.

"Northstar Guild," he said as his eyes paused on the silver shoe, "your registration package has become collectible."

Mika recovered her public face so quickly the coordinator missed what came before it.

"We bring culture wherever insurance allows," she said.

Santiago handed over the bands, then pointed toward the equipment pavilion.

"Opening draw begins at eighteen hundred, medical assessments close in one hour."

"Where is the media agreement?" Jun asked.

The coordinator tapped a code on each band and replied, "Individual consent options, your footage stays private until you choose broadcast."

Jun’s shoulders lowered by one careful centimeter once the privacy choice appeared in writing instead of another spoken promise.

"Good."

"Your guild requested that language in the entry response."

Ryan looked at Mika, who looked at Nia, while Jun studied all three.

None of Northstar’s four members had added that request during the rushed entry acceptance.

Santiago checked his terminal.

"Request came from the inviting host account."

"Who invited us?" Ryan asked.

The coordinator’s scarred eyebrow moved.

"Cup administration lists a protected national sponsor, disclosure unavailable before the draw."

He moved toward the next guild while Jun copied the consent terms.

Mika watched him go, then turned her phone face down.

"The shoe account knew the terms we would ask for," Mika said as the phone disappeared against her palm.

"That does not prove they sent the invitation," Ryan said while matching both timestamps on Jun’s display.

"No, it proves two strangers are being creepy in matching ways," she replied as her eyes returned to the hidden sponsor field.

The equipment pavilion covered half the arena floor with weapon booths, team banners, and food stalls priced for people with sponsors.

Ryan walked past noodles costing twenty-one dollars, then bought the six-dollar pretzel he had already decided was lunch.

He tore it into four pieces before pretending the division had been intentional.

Nia took one piece without comment, then broke hers in half before returning to the moving registration crowd.

Mika stared at hers, then at his face while the untouched piece cooled between two fingers.

"Did you just turn one pretzel into guild catering?" she asked as her nose wrinkled at the dry edge.

"Bronze comes with fiscal responsibility," he replied while folding the receipt into a needlessly exact square.

"Bronze comes with paid missions," she said as her lower lip pushed forward in deliberate accusation.

"The mission board has not fed us yet," he replied while looking once toward the noodle stall.

Jun accepted the fourth piece while keeping his tablet between them.

The account posted a picture of the shared pretzel before anybody else raised a camera.

The angle came from above and left, high enough to capture the four divided pieces without showing a nearby phone.

All four looked toward the pavilion balcony, where sponsor light hid individual faces behind a line of raised screens.

Dozens of spectators leaned over its rail, phones raised, faces hidden by arena lighting.

Ryan opened Spark Sense out of habit, but the ability found electrical faults rather than anonymous people.

One camera near the balcony stairs carried an unusual relay, routing footage through the Cup’s internal network.

He marked the unusual relay for Jun through one glance, refusing to alert whoever might be watching their reaction.

The scout followed his gaze, then sent a silent route pulse toward the stairwell.

Mika scrolled deeper into the account while they moved beneath the balcony, her earlier performance disappearing with every swipe.

The shoe jokes disappeared after twenty posts, replaced by old raids ordered around each hidden injury.

What remained was a sequence of old raids ordered by injury rather than date.

Each clip tracked the shortening pause before her left pathway failed.

The owner knew when she would hide the weakness from a sponsor, when she would change feet, and which smile meant the pain had reached her ribs.

Mika stopped beneath the balcony relay while a desert clip played against her palm.

Her public expression vanished.

"This is my entire fighting rhythm," she said as both hands went still, "somebody saved all of it."

Above them, the hidden relay camera rotated until its lens pointed directly at her.