Kanji stood silently before the enormous tactical display.
His injuries had mostly recovered.
The golden scars left by Light Mode had already faded beneath fresh skin, yet the memories of the battle remained painfully vivid. Every exchange with Akashi replayed inside his mind with relentless precision, each movement exposing another gap between where Kanji stood today and where he would need to stand tomorrow.
Across from him, Fujinaka Inegumi leaned casually against the illuminated table, one hand resting inside his pocket while the other manipulated the holographic interface with fluid movements resembling currents flowing around invisible rocks.
A single point on the map expanded.
Fujinaka – ''Those are his current coordinates. Three separate reconnaissance drones have maintained visual confirmation during the last eight hours, and despite changing positions inside the district several times, every prediction model concludes the same thing. Kashigi has deliberately remained there, almost as though he expects someone to arrive sooner rather than later.''
Kanji stared at the location without blinking.
Kanji – ''You're certain this information is current? Every person I've chased until now has always remained one step ahead, almost as though somebody wanted me to keep moving without ever reaching the destination.''
Fujinaka smiled faintly.
Fujinaka – ''You should remain suspicious. Suspicion has probably kept you alive more than your strength ever has. Even so, this information is genuine. Whether reaching Kashigi will actually give you the answers you're searching for... that is another matter entirely.''
Kanji slowly folded his arms.
Kanji – ''You for sure know more than you're telling me.''
For the briefest instant, Fujinaka's eyes narrowed.
Fujinaka – ''Sometimes revealing a truth too early changes the future in a bad way.''
Kanji continued looking directly into his eyes.
Neither man spoke for several seconds.
Both understood they were withholding pieces from each other.
Both understood the alliance between them remained temporary.
Finally, Kanji broke the silence.
Kanji – ''I'll go there immediately.''
Fujinaka nodded once.
Fujinaka – ''I imagined you would.''
Thousands of kilometers away, inside Federation X, the atmosphere possessed an entirely different rhythm.
Unlike the tense planning rooms of Federation Y, the primary combat arena echoed constantly with impacts powerful enough to register on seismic instruments buried beneath the complex. Every wall had been reinforced countless times, every observation window layered with specialized materials capable of surviving forces comparable to battlefield artillery.
Akashi smiled.
Omoshiro remained expressionless.
The sparring session had already lasted nearly forty minutes.
Unlike their first encounter inside the city, neither man intended to kill the other.
That single difference transformed the fight into something unexpectedly educational.
Akashi fought almost lazily.
Every movement remained economical.
Relaxed.
Fluid.
He corrected Omoshiro's posture by exploiting it.
Whenever Omoshiro committed too much weight into a strike, Akashi redirected the force using simple hip rotation before answering with compact body blows that never carried enough force to cause serious injury, yet always reminded Omoshiro how much space still separated them.
Omoshiro adapted astonishingly quickly.
The invisible pressure fields generated through Theta began synchronizing naturally with his breathing rather than erupting randomly through emotional impulse.
Above them, inside the observation deck, Tenka watched hundreds of statistical windows updating continuously.
The numbers surrounding Omoshiro climbed almost every minute.
The ones surrounding Akashi...
Barely changed.
Half of the measurements simply displayed error messages.
Tenka sighed quietly while continuing to write inside her evaluation notebook.
Combat Evaluation — Omoshiro (Θ)
Extraordinary adaptive growth despite minimal lifetime combat experience. Displays frightening intuition regarding spatial pressure and environmental manipulation. Emotional state remains abnormally stable, allowing efficient Yin regulation. Primary weakness continues to be lack of refined martial foundations, though improvement occurs at a rate exceeding every previous recorded case inside Federation X.
She turned the page.
Combat Evaluation — Akashi (Ω)
Technical proficiency continues exceeding measurable standards. Every sparring session becomes an opportunity to educate his opponent while simultaneously testing new applications of existing techniques. Shows remarkable restraint despite possessing destructive capability far beyond operational necessity. Frequently alters his own movements solely to create learning opportunities for the opponent.
Her pen hesitated.
She looked toward the arena below.
Akashi had just finished correcting Omoshiro's stance again after catching another punch.
For someone obsessed with fighting...
He was surprisingly patient.
She smiled to herself.
Then continued writing.
After each session, immediately abandons the training facilities without informing anyone of his destination. Usually located several hours later sitting atop rooftops, communication towers, cliffs, unfinished skyscrapers, mountain peaks, or any structure providing an unobstructed view of the horizon. Spends prolonged periods observing the sky without apparent objective.
She stopped briefly before writing another line.
Behavior appears inconsistent with previously established personality profile. Possible psychological—
Her pen moved almost instinctively.
It's cu-
The graphite stopped.
Tenka frowned.
She stared at the unfinished word.
Cute.
Why...
Why would she write that?
She erased the letters with far more force than necessary until the paper itself almost tore.
"...What am I doing?"
She quietly closed the notebook.
At that exact moment, a loud electronic tone echoed throughout the arena.
BZZZZZZZT
The sparring timer.
Session complete.
Below, both fighters immediately relaxed.
Omoshiro lowered his guard without a word while Akashi stretched both shoulders, rolling his neck casually before walking toward the observation room.
Several moments later, the automatic doors slid open.
Akashi stepped inside, placing both hands behind his head with his usual carefree expression.
Akashi – ''So... is today's battle report finished already, I swear those notebooks become thicker every week.''
Tenka instinctively closed it another few centimeters.
Tenka – ''Almost finished. Unlike certain people, I actually have to document what happens around here instead of wandering off to climb buildings for absolutely no practical reason.''
Akashi laughed.
Akashi – ''Buildings have great views.''
Tenka – ''Normal people usually use observation decks.''
Akashi – ''They're too crowded.''
She looked at him for a second longer than intended.
Then at the notebook.
Then back at him.
Tenka looked at him for a second longer than intended.
Then at the notebook.
Then back at him.
Akashi noticed the hesitation almost immediately, though not because her expression had changed in any dramatic way. If anything, what caught his attention was precisely the opposite. Tenka had always possessed an extraordinary ability to discipline her own emotions beneath layers of professionalism, reducing every conversation into observations, hypotheses and measurable conclusions in much the same way another researcher might dismantle an experiment. Yet over the past several weeks he had begun noticing microscopic inconsistencies that never existed when they first met: the fractionally delayed responses whenever he entered a room unexpectedly, the growing habit of closing her notebook just a little sooner than necessary. None of those details meant anything individually, but together they resembled pieces of a puzzle he lacked both the patience and perhaps the interest to consciously solve.
Akashi tilted his head with quiet curiosity before allowing the familiar carefree smile to return to his face, relieving whatever invisible tension had momentarily settled between them without ever acknowledging it directly.
Akashi – ''That expression usually means something.''
She silently reminded herself that she had spent years interviewing dangerous Yin users capable of deception, psychological manipulation and extraordinary observational abilities without allowing her own emotions to interfere with objective analysis. The absurdity of feeling unsettled by someone who had just caught her accidentally writing a single unfinished word inside a private report should have been almost insulting to her own discipline. Instead, she forced the irritation toward the safest available target: him.
Tenka – ''Or perhaps it means I'm wondering how someone capable of generating enough destructive force to erase half a city also believes climbing abandoned skyscrapers instead of using perfectly functional observation decks qualifies as rational behavior.''
A quiet laugh escaped Akashi before he turned away from the desk entirely, slowly approaching the enormous observation window overlooking the primary combat arena several floors beneath them. The reconstruction teams had already resumed their work with astonishing efficiency, replacing reinforced platforms shattered during the latest training session while heavy industrial machinery transported enormous steel sections into position beneath the supervision of engineers carrying digital structural models across transparent displays.
Weeks earlier, every battle involving Akashi had transformed the headquarters into organized panic, forcing emergency evacuations and hurried repairs that stretched through entire nights.
Now the atmosphere below resembled an experienced harbor rebuilding itself after another predictable storm. Workers exchanged measurements, welders filled fractured supports with brilliant arcs of blue light, maintenance drones drifted between damaged pillars, and every so often one of the technicians glanced upward toward the observation deck before casually waving at the young man responsible for the destruction itself.
Akashi answered with the same relaxed wave one might offer an old acquaintance encountered during an afternoon walk before allowing his attention to return to the reconstruction below, his voice carrying an unfamiliar hint of reflection that contrasted sharply against his usual playful confidence.
Akashi – ''You know... when I first arrived here, everybody looked at me like I wasn't really a person. More like alien ready to destroy civilization.''
Tenka followed his gaze through the reinforced glass, watching several members of the engineering division continue working almost casually beneath the immense framework of the arena despite standing inside a structure whose survival had become mathematically questionable more than once because of the man now speaking beside her.
Tenka – ''That's because they eventually realized you never enjoyed frightening people. You enjoy frightening ((STRONG)) people. Those are completely different things, even if you seem incapable of explaining the distinction yourself.''
Akashi – ''Maybe. Or maybe they just got used to replacing the floor every other day.''
A second voice answered before Tenka could.
Omoshiro – ''That would be the cheaper explanation.''
Neither of them had noticed him approaching. Omoshiro entered carrying two bottles of water inside a transparent convenience-store bag that swung gently beside his leg, his footsteps almost perfectly synchronized with the surrounding sounds until Theta naturally dissolved them into the countless other rhythms constantly flowing through the headquarters.
Without ceremony he tossed one bottle toward Akashi, who caught it effortlessly without needing to turn around, the exchange occurring with such practiced familiarity that it almost resembled habit rather than conscious coordination. Watching them, Tenka was once again reminded of how extraordinary the last several weeks had been. Their first meeting had nearly erased tokyo from the map. Now they exchanged bottled water after training as though decades of friendship had quietly condensed into days.
Omoshiro unscrewed his own bottle before taking a slow drink, though his attention remained fixed not upon Akashi's face but upon subtle details invisible to nearly everyone else: the microscopic shift in his breathing after extended sparring, the slightly altered rhythm of weight distribution across his feet, the almost immeasurable delay before certain shoulder muscles relaxed completely. Theta recorded everything without permission, assembling observations faster than conscious thought could interpret them.
Omoshiro – ''You still lower your right shoulder whenever you intentionally reduce the force behind your straight punches. Twenty-three times today.''
Akashi's smile widened with unmistakable satisfaction rather than embarrassment.
Akashi – ''Good. I was wondering how long it'd take you to notice.''
His expression remained almost perfectly unchanged, yet another thought quietly surfaced before the previous one had completely faded. It had nothing to do with distant Yin signatures or atmospheric inconsistencies. Instead, it concerned the two people standing only a few meters behind him.
During the last several weeks, Theta had unintentionally catalogued hundreds of physiological patterns belonging to both Akashi and Tenka. Their ordinary conversations consistently produced anomalies neither of them seemed remotely aware of.
Tenka's heartbeat accelerated by an average of six to eight beats per minute whenever Akashi entered a laboratory unexpectedly. Akashi, despite possessing almost absurd emotional stability during combat, unconsciously maintained eye contact with her longer than with anyone else inside Federation X. Neither observation carried any practical value whatsoever.
Objectively...
They were simply unusual.
Omoshiro finally turned away from the horizon, looking first toward Akashi before quietly shifting his attention to Tenka. There was no teasing expression on his face, no mischievous smile announcing an obvious joke. If anything, he appeared to be making a perfectly ordinary scientific observation.
Omoshiro – ''Your heartbeats become synchronized more often than statistical coincidence should allow.''
Silence settled across the observation room, though it possessed a dramatically different quality than before. Tenka froze completely, her fingers instinctively tightening around the notebook resting against her chest while every coherent response she had prepared throughout years of academic debate vanished with astonishing efficiency. Akashi simply blinked once, clearly attempting to determine whether Omoshiro had just delivered an advanced physiological analysis or had somehow learned the concept of teasing without informing anyone beforehand.
Tenka, clearing her throat with considerably less composure than she intended – ''Theta was originally developed for battlefield reconnaissance. I fail to understand how this information contributes to operational readiness.''
Omoshiro considered the question with complete sincerity.
He genuinely thought about it.
Several long seconds passed before he gave the only answer he could honestly justify.
Omoshiro – ''It doesn't.''
Akashi couldn't help it.
A quiet laugh escaped before he leaned one shoulder against the observation window, shaking his head as though witnessing something far more surprising than any impossible Yin phenomenon.
Akashi – ''I think that's the first joke you've ever made.''
Omoshiro frowned almost imperceptibly.
Omoshiro – ''I wasn't joking.''
Akashi laughed harder.
For perhaps the first time since joining Federation X, Omoshiro experienced something that had become increasingly common around Akashi.
He didn't understand why the situation was amusing.
He only knew...
that somehow...
it was.
---
Kanji advanced cautiously between rusted assembly lines whose enormous skeletal frameworks stretched across entire city blocks, each corroded beam carrying decades of neglect beneath layers of oxidized steel and fractured concrete.
Rainwater collected inside enormous depressions scattered throughout the factory grounds, reflecting distorted fragments of broken smokestacks that reached into the cloudy night sky like the ribs of some mechanical giant buried beneath the earth.
Unlike his previous confrontations, however, Kanji found himself resisting the impulse to immediately ignite Light Mode. His battle against Akashi had permanently altered the way he approached overwhelming opponents. Before then, greater danger had always meant greater power. Even Fujinaka's flowing philosophy returned to him with uncomfortable clarity. Drawing a slow breath, Kanji allowed the golden Yin resting beneath his skin to remain dormant, relying instead upon sharpened senses while carefully observing every structure surrounding him.
Kashigi – ''You arrived exactly six minutes later than Fujinaka predicted.''
Kanji's expression remained unchanged, though hearing Fujinaka's name immediately tightened something inside his chest. He had expected deception. He had even expected betrayal somewhere along the path leading toward Enazumi.
A man began descending the enormous staircase wrapping around the blast furnace, each measured footstep echoing softly against the steel until the rhythm itself seemed to merge with the industrial landscape surrounding them. He neither hurried nor displayed any concern regarding the distance still separating them. Every movement carried the quiet certainty of someone arriving precisely when he intended rather than someone responding to another person's impatience.
Kashigi – ''You have spent so much of your journey asking whether Fujinaka lied to you that you never considered a far more uncomfortable possibility. What if nearly everything he told you was true? Deception becomes remarkably efficient once people begin believing truth and falsehood cannot occupy the same space.''
Kanji remained silent, allowing the words to settle before instinctively rejecting the temptation to answer through anger. Fujinaka had trained him. Fujinaka had fought him honestly. Fujinaka had also guided him toward Enazumi with suspicious precision. None of those statements contradicted one another anymore. They simply refused to fit together cleanly, like fragments belonging to a larger design whose outline remained hidden beyond his current understanding.
By the time Kashigi finally reached the ground, scarcely thirty meters separated them. Up close, he appeared younger than Kanji had expected, though years of discipline had erased nearly every unnecessary expression from his face. His dark hair rested neatly above eyes possessing neither cruelty nor warmth, only relentless attentiveness. The Sigma engraved upon the back of his right hand shimmered faintly beneath the surrounding moonlight before fading once more beneath his skin. Around them, the immense industrial district remained perfectly still.
Too still.
Kanji slowly exhaled.
He finally understood what had disturbed him from the moment he entered.
Not a single piece of metal produced the ordinary sounds carried by the wind.
The chains hanging from cranes no longer swayed.
Loose steel plates no longer rattled.
Even puddles surrounding discarded machinery reflected the night without the slightest vibration.
It was as though every fragment of metal within the district had been ordered...
to wait.