Kevin saw the telltale shimmer in Mito's aura, the Zetsu fracturing under the tsunami of his rage. In seconds, they would be detected. There was no more time for caution.
"Plan B," Kevin hissed, his voice a whip-crack of urgency. "We don't fight. We wreck."
He shoved Mito behind the thick bole of an ancient tree just as the man's Zetsu failed completely. Mito's Ren erupted, a raw, scarlet-tinged blaze of grief and fury that painted a beacon on the spiritual landscape of the clearing.
Instantly, several heads turned in their direction. The blonde, doll-faced man (Shalnark) looked up from his phone, a flicker of interest in his eyes. The beast (Uvogin) paused in his brutal pummeling, a grin spreading across his face. "More playthings!"
But Kevin was already moving. He didn't attack the Troupe members. He lunged for the edge of the clearing where the tents were clustered. From his pouch, he snatched not a combat potion, but two vials of unstable, high-grade chemical reagents he used for material analysis—leftovers from his work, volatile and corrosive.
"For the chemistry final!" he snarled, hurling one vial in a high arc towards the largest tent, a central structure that likely held communal supplies or sacred items. He threw the second at the base of a tall, dry wooden totem pole near the clearing's center.
He didn't wait to see them land. He Transmuted his Ren into a property of intense, focused adhesion on his feet and one hand, and repulsion on the other. It was a crude, desperate mimicry of Wall-Walking, learned from watching Mori and honed in secret. He ran sideways up the massive tree trunk behind him, hauling a stunned Mito by the collar.
CRACK-BOOM!
The first vial shattered against the tent pole, and the specialized solvent inside reacted violently with the treated hides and certain mineral-based dyes. It didn't explode with fire, but with a noxious, billowing cloud of choking, eye-searing vapor that erupted outwards, obscuring a huge swath of the clearing.
FWOOMPH!
The second vial hit the totem's base. The reagent was a powerful oxidizer. The dry, resinous wood didn't just catch fire; it accelerated into combustion, the flame whooshing up the carved height in seconds, transforming it into a roaring, thirty-foot torch that cast chaotic, leaping shadows and spewed embers into the surrounding tents.
Chaos, instantaneous and sensory, engulfed the clearing. The Troupe's perfect, murderous rhythm was shattered. Uvogin roared in annoyance as the acrid smoke hit his face. Shalnark coughed, his phone momentarily forgotten. The gloomy man (Feitan) hissed, his precious eye-harvesting interrupted by the sudden loss of clear sightlines.
Kevin, now perched twenty feet up in the tree with Mito, seized the moment. "THE CHILDREN! LEFT SIDE!" he bellowed down, pointing through the swirling smoke towards the cluster where Machi's threads had been. He didn't know if they were still there, but the direction was right.
It was a distraction wrapped in an objective. A goal a Kurta couldn't ignore, even in his rage.
Mito, galvanized by the shout and the sudden shift from helplessness to action, didn't need further instruction. With a raw cry, he leaped from the tree, not towards the nearest Troupe member, but on a diagonal path towards the remembered location of the children, his scarlet eyes cutting through the smoke like bloody lanterns.
Kevin didn't follow. His job was different. He focused his En, pushing it through the chemical haze. He found the signature he was looking for—not a person, but an object: the cool, electronic hum of Shalnark's smartphone, now momentarily unattended as its owner dealt with the surprise attack.
The data. Steal the data.
As Uvogin turned towards Mito's movement with a predator's glee, and Nobunaga's blade cleared its sheath with a ring to intercept, Kevin dropped from the tree like a stone, using Shu to harden his body into a living projectile. He didn't aim for Shalnark. He aimed for the patch of ground where the phone had been a second ago, his hand outstretched, his entire being focused on a single, insane theft from the world's most dangerous thieves. The clearing was hell, but in the chaos, he had created a single, fleeting window. He had to fit through it.
Pairo stumbled backward, his mother's last word a dying echo in the scarlet haze that had consumed his vision. The world was red, pulsing with terror and a grief so vast it felt like his chest would cave in. The indifferent man with the bloody hands took a step toward him, his curiosity a colder, more terrifying thing than any rage.
Then, a blur of motion. Not from the murderer, but from the side. A familiar, powerful hand clamped over Pairo's mouth, yanking him off his feet and into the dense underbrush at the edge of the clearing with terrifying force and silence. The scent of pine, sweat, and a strange, medicinal sweetness filled his nose.
Mito.
His father's eyes were twin suns of scarlet fury, but his body was a statue of absolute stillness, his Zetsu so complete he seemed to absorb the very light around them. He held Pairo tight against his chest, one hand still muffling his son's instinctive cry. Beside them, a stranger—Kevin—crouched, his gaze locked on the murderer who now frowned, looking around the suddenly empty space where Pairo had been.
"Curious," the man, Feitan, murmured, his voice barely audible. He scanned the trees, but Mito's Zetsu, amplified by the Essence Sensing Potion's emotional regulation and his own desperate will, was flawless. Feitan's senses found nothing but the settling dust and the distant screams of the ongoing slaughter. After a moment, he shrugged, pocketed the pair of Scarlet Eyes, and moved on, a phantom seeking his next harvest.
Only when the chilling aura had receded did Mito slowly release his hand. Pairo gasped, tears cutting clean tracks through the grime on his cheeks, his own scarlet eyes wide with shock and recognition. "F-father?"
Mito could only nod, the muscles in his jaw working. He pulled Pairo into a crushing, silent embrace for one second, two, conveying a lifetime of apology and protection in the touch. Then he pushed him back, his hands on his son's shoulders. He pointed to Kevin, then to the deepest, darkest part of the forest behind them. His message was clear: Go with him. Now.
Kevin didn't waste words. He met Pairo's terrified, red eyes. "Your leg. Can you run?"
Pairo, operating on pure instinct and his mother's last command, shook his head, then nodded fiercely. His leg was weak, but he would make it run.
"Good. We run. Don't look back. Don't make a sound. Your father is buying us time." Kevin's voice was low, calm, a rock in the emotional maelstrom. He handed Pairo a small, cool vial. "If the rage gets too much, if your eyes burn, drink this. It will help you focus. Now, move."
He didn't wait for agreement. He grabbed Pairo's arm and began to pull him, not at a sprint, but at a fast, low, weaving crouch, using the terrain and remaining foliage as cover. Mito watched them for a heartbeat, his son's fragile form disappearing into the gloom with the stranger who was now their only hope. Then, he turned back toward the heart of the settlement.
His Zetsu dropped. The cold, precise control shattered, and in its place, he let the dam break. Not the blind, suicidal rage of before, but a directed, screaming torrent of Ren. He didn't hide. He broadcast. He became a beacon of Kurta fury, a siren call of vengeful Nen, deliberately flaring his scarlet aura like a bloody flag.
Here I am, his Nen screamed into the twilight. The one who got away. The one you missed. Come and get me.
It was the ultimate diversion. A sacrifice play. He would draw the hunters, lead them on a chase through the woods he knew better than they ever could, buying minutes, maybe only seconds, for Kevin and Pairo to vanish.
As expected, several heads turned. Uvogin's grin returned, wider than ever. "The big one's back! And he's angry!" Shalnark looked up from another corpse, calculating. Nobunaga's hand went back to his sword.
Mito took one last look in the direction his son had fled. Then he turned and ran, not away from the Troupe, but on a parallel course to the settlement's edge, a blazing, obvious target. The Phantom Troupe, ever efficient, ever drawn to the strongest source of "harvest," began to shift their focus. The tightening noose loosened, just a fraction, around the rest of the dying settlement, pulled toward the brighter, more defiant flame.
Deep in the forest, Kevin heard the surge of Mito's aura, a deliberate, heartbreaking signal. He tightened his grip on Pairo's arm. "Don't look back," he repeated, his own voice grim. "He's giving you a future. Don't waste it. Run."
And they ran, two fugitives—one a crippled boy carrying the last light of his people in his cursed eyes, the other an alchemist carrying the weight of a new, terrible debt—into the swallowing darkness of the mountains, leaving the sounds of slaughter and a father's last stand behind them.
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