My Infinite Investment System

Delete number six vanished beneath his thumb while the Bronze Cup locker room smelled of hot rubber, muscle spray, and somebody’s burned toast.

Luca’s message remained pinned above the keyboard, where one threat had survived every deleted reply.

**I have the complete archive, so withdraw before the semifinal or everybody sees what you were.**

Years of comments sat inside the attached folder, including every earnest paragraph he had written beneath Mika’s old raid clips.

Jun had already restored the deleted post about her thighs, which seemed excessive when death remained a free option.

’I could drop my phone into the sink,’ he thought as he checked the empty drain, ’then move somewhere without wireless service.’

Mika sat backward on a folding chair while her chin rested on both forearms across its back.

Her real smile had been growing for four minutes, slow enough to qualify as hostile.

"Read the latest version," she said, tapping one sneaker against the chair leg.

"I respected her tactical discipline before eventually meeting her through unrelated financial distress."

Her mouth flattened while a laugh pushed against it, making the chair back shake beneath both forearms.

"You made attraction sound like an audit finding."

Ryan adjusted the phone between both hands and said, "That was the safest available language."

"You wrote three hundred words about my left pivot during the Busan raid," she said as her eyebrows lifted, "safety left the building years ago."

Nia finished tightening the repaired corner on her tower shield before placing the wrench beside her boot.

"Post the embarrassing version," she said without looking up, "the edited one sounds guilty."

Jun leaned over Ryan’s shoulder from a distance that made privacy theoretical.

"Original Mika stan has strong survivability," he said as two thumbs moved across his own screen, "tragic analyst has weaker branding."

Ryan covered the countdown with one thumb and said, "Stop branding my suffering."

"Cannot, the fan account already posted a countdown."

The shoe account became **ScuffedStepArchive** before posting a still of him outside Northstar, cheap shoes beneath a suit that had lost its shape.

Its caption read: **He watched every raid, then accidentally founded a guild with her.**

The post had gathered forty-two thousand likes before Ryan could decide whether reporting his own shoes counted as self-defense.

Ryan opened his banking app through muscle memory, saw the same personal balance beneath two pending food charges, then closed it before the digits could insult him.

The system fund could buy a verified growth need without a ceiling, but it could not purchase one respectable pair of shoes for him.

Mika watched the app vanish and said, "Your fans are designing replacements."

"Those people have never met my rent."

Mika inspected the cracked sole in the picture and said, "Your rent has poor engagement."

A knock crossed the metal door before Cup media officer Leire Mendizabal entered with a tablet held against her orange credential jacket.

Her copper curls were crushed flat on one side by a headset, while a coffee stain spread across the white cuff nearest her stylus.

"Apex reserved a press slot for eighteen forty," she said while checking the wall clock, "their submission title is Archive of Obsession."

Mika’s public smile switched on before Leire finished the phrase.

"That is painfully dramatic."

"It tested well with two sponsor panels."

Leire looked at Ryan, then turned the tablet until he could see the withdrawal form.

"If you leave now, Cup policy lets us call it a medical decision."

"Is that what Apex requested?"

The officer capped her stylus and held his gaze through three quiet seconds.

"Apex requested privacy for their source," she replied, "which usually means they plan to become the source five minutes later."

Ryan returned to the blank caption while his thumb hovered above the space where honesty could become evidence.

The practical move was to accept humiliation before Luca could make it feel discovered.

He had used the same trick on overdue messages, opening them himself so the notification could no longer control when his stomach dropped.

"Jun, is every file authentic?" he asked as the scout straightened behind him.

"Every comment, save, draft, alongside the deleted thigh incident," he replied while pushing his glasses higher, "I can publish hashes beside the archive."

"No tactical annotations from current gates."

The scout’s restless fingers stopped.

"Already separated," he said, turning his screen to show two folders, "fan history only, nothing about Northstar formations."

Ryan selected the complete archive.

Mika rose from the chair as her smile disappeared, then crossed close enough for her knee to touch his.

"You can let him try," she said while picking at the chipped edge of her phone case, "you do not owe strangers your worst comments."

"He is counting on me wanting the choice later."

"You still have one."

Ryan looked at the first saved clip, where a younger Mika had landed crooked after a lightning strike before disguising the pain for twelve cameras.

His comment beneath it contained seven paragraphs about foot placement, with one sentence hoping her left side received proper treatment.

He had been a stranger with a bad username, yet he had noticed the injury years before their first conversation.

"I want the choice now," he said.

He replaced the caption with three lines that refused to hide behind professional language.

**Yes, the archive is mine.**

**I was a fan before Northstar needed me, and apparently I had too much free time.**

**My analysis of Mika Santos was excellent, while my deleted comment about her thighs was also accurate.**

Mika read it once.

Her lower lip pushed forward in a deliberate pout while both eyes shone with a reaction she refused to give the room.

"You cannot post that final sentence beside my government name."

"Your government thighs were involved."

She covered her mouth with the back of her wrist, but the laugh escaped around it.

Jun slapped both hands over his face, rocking once on the bright route boots as if the caption had struck him.

"That is the caption," he said through his palms, "we have reached culture."

Nia set the wrench down with unusual care, then looked at Ryan as if documenting his final sensible moment.

"Post it before he becomes sensible."

Ryan pressed publish.

The first second brought nothing.

The second delivered eleven hundred notifications, froze his screen, then made the locker-room speaker chime as the Cup feed picked up the post.

Leire stared at her media tablet while the stain on her cuff stopped moving.

"Apex just cancelled its press slot."

Mika took Ryan’s phone and turned the flood of reactions toward him.

{pinkcurrent: He kept receipts for years}

The comment arrived beneath a replay of her Busan pivot.

{rentduehero: Original stan has entered the arena}

A photograph followed from the vendor concourse, showing somebody printing his third caption line across hot-pink shirts.

{niafanclub: Put it on a shirt before legal wakes up}

He stared at the stolen sentence while a licensing form appeared beneath it.

"They cannot sell my humiliation," he said.

Mika angled her face toward Leire and asked, "Can we sell it first?"

The officer rubbed the bridge of her nose before opening the Cup’s emergency merchandise portal.

"Upload one clean design by seventeen thirty," she said, "Northstar receives seventy percent after venue fees."

Ryan glanced toward the cracked locker-room mirror, where his ears had turned red enough to compete with the exit sign.

"I miss fighting monsters."

"Monsters do not have screen printing," Jun replied as he dragged the caption into a pink square.

The next two hours became a production line assembled from one borrowed laptop, Mika’s follower count, plus Nia’s refusal to approve weak fabric.

Northstar released a shirt showing Ryan’s scuffed shoes beneath the words **Tactical Appreciation Department**.

The back carried a tiny lightning bolt beside **Original Mika Stan**.

By sunset, the Cup concourse had sold nine hundred units while three vendors requested permission to print hoodies.

Ryan watched a twelve-year-old spectator pose in the shirt beside a cardboard shield, then quietly reduced the smallest size to half price.

The merch portal warned that Northstar would absorb the difference from its ordinary guild share.

He approved it anyway.

Money remained separate here, which meant the choice had weight rather than arriving as another impossible purchase.

Mika noticed the price change while signing one sleeve for the child.

She said nothing until the family left, then pressed her phone face down on the vendor table.

"You admired me before you knew me," she said as the crowd noise softened around them, "I thought that would feel creepy."

"Promising opening."

"It feels like somebody kept proof that I was good during the years I forgot."

Her hands vanished against the edge of the table while she waited beneath the shirts for him to treat the admission gently.

The public face had gone, leaving her perfectly still beneath a wall of shirts built from his worst sentence.

Ryan moved one stack until its crooked corners aligned, then stopped using it as somewhere to look.

"You were good," he said, meeting her eyes, "you were injured, underprotected, and still better than everyone Apex put beside you."

One side of her smile escaped before she could shape it for the nearby phones.

"That was disgustingly sincere."

Ryan let one side of his smile escape and said, "I can mention your thighs again."

She caught his sleeve with two fingers and said, "I will throw you into the semifinal myself."

Jun appeared between two clothing racks with his tablet raised.

"Speaking of public violence," he said while the route boots pulsed beneath him, "Apex filed a direct challenge."

The Cup bracket filled his screen, replacing the merchandise figures with one silver crest locked beside Northstar pink.

Northstar’s semifinal slot had changed from a random draw to a sanctioned head-to-head request from Luca Moretti.

Four names appeared beneath Apex’s crest: Luca, Bianca Sato, Darius Cole, and Emil Varga.

Mika’s smile returned from the eyes outward this time, carrying none of the practiced warmth she gave sponsor lenses.

"He wants the scandal back."

"He wants control of the frame," he said as he studied the match conditions.

The arena offered three scoring rounds, rotating objectives, with legal contact against every registered member.

Apex had highlighted Ryan’s name as an active route analyst instead of protected support staff.

Luca’s challenge statement sat beneath the terms, centered inside a silver border prepared for screenshots.

**If Northstar wants affection instead of credibility, the semifinal will measure both.**

Nia read over his shoulder while one eyebrow moved, then rested her broad palm across the repaired shield corner.

"He chose a match where they can hit you."

Guard stirred behind Ryan’s left wrist, ready for one heartbeat he had never tested against a hunter.

He accepted the direct challenge while the concourse crowd watched Northstar’s pink crest lock against Apex silver.

Mika reached across the table and tapped **Original Stan** over his chest.

"Tomorrow," she said as the bracket flared gold, "my fan fights back."