The sun hung high overhead, its yellow rays spilling across the sky and drenching the afternoon in molten light. Where that light met the ocean, it shattered into a thousand glimmering fragments, rippling gently before racing back up to brush against the hulls of the giant ships—vessels that carried the hopeful, hungry candidates of the S.A.O. organization, each one gathered here for the deadly exam now underway.
Screams tore through the salt-heavy air, raw and ragged, swallowed almost as quickly as they rose. Blood misted across the deck in fine, dark sprays, pooling in the grooves of the wood before the sea breeze thinned its scent into something coppery and faint. Aggression hung over the ships like a second atmosphere—thick, electric, pressing against the skin of anyone still breathing.
And yet, amid the chaos, two names were missing from the carnage.
Hikaru and Arahita were nowhere to be found.
SPLOOSH!
The ocean erupted without warning, a deafening burst of sound as something shot from beneath the waves like a cannonball tearing free of its barrel. Water sprayed skyward in a violent arc, catching the sunlight for a single glittering instant before a figure crashed down hard onto one of the ship's decks, wood groaning under the impact.
His breathing came in ragged, heaving gasps, chest rising and falling like it might give out entirely. Water streamed off his body in sheets, pooling dark beneath him, his legs trembling as they fought to hold his weight. He swayed, barely upright, every muscle screaming exhaustion.
It was Arahita.
Crack!
His VR headset shattered into pieces, striking the deck with a dull thud. That's when he saw it—a figure emerging through the haze, completely drenched, water sluicing off broad shoulders with every step. His vision sharpened. The picture came into focus.
It was Hikaru.
"Dang, it's you, it's been a while—"
Before Arahita could say anything further.
Vooosh!
Hikaru closed the distance in an instant. His fist blurred.
Bammm!
The uppercut caught Arahita square in the gut, lifting him a full inch off the deck. He crumpled, dropping hard onto his knees, breath punched clean out of him.
"M#ther fuc## you gave me a tough time,"
Hikaru said, looking down at him.
"That's my job. To eliminate weak candidates."
Cough! Cough!
Arahita spat the words out between coughs, sprawled on the floor now, blood flecking his lip.
As chaos began to settle at sea, a different danger was quietly unfolding back in Hikaru's home city. Inside a sprawling hypermarket, civilians drifted through the aisles at their own scattered paces—but one figure stood apart from the crowd. Dressed in sharp formal attire, his dark, messy hair shifting lightly with each step, he moved with brown eyes locked firmly on the book in his hands. He was so absorbed that the noise of the world around him simply dissolved, as if it had never existed at all.
It was Kio.
Just as he stepped toward the escalator, a wave of bloodlust slammed into him, sharp and unmistakable.
Before he could even turn—
BAAM!!
Kio was hurled clean out of the hypermarket, his body punching straight through the wall in an explosion of dust and debris, thick clouds swallowing the air behind him.
Screams erupted instantly. Civilians scattered in every direction, some sprinting for the exits, others frozen stiff, fear locking their legs in place.
Amid the chaos, one figure remained perfectly calm. Her blonde hair brushed lightly against her shoulders, blue eyes cutting through the smokescreen as she scanned for something—someone. She wore a baggy pink shirt marked with a bold red "I", paired with oversized brown jeans and maroon sneakers, the loose fabric doing little to hide her slight, wiry frame. And for the surprise tucked beneath it all—brass knuckles lined with small, wicked spikes glinted at her sides. Her mood doesn't seems too good.
Her name is Ishiko.
"Hitting someone without their consent is a crime, ya know."
Kio emerged from the cloud of dust, his body still draped in debris, and in his hands—impossibly, out of nowhere—a scythe. Its metallic hexagonal staff rested against his shoulder, the blade catching the light in a cold, deliberate glint.
"Leader was right. You are a psycho," Ishiko taunted, rage simmering beneath her voice.
"My, my. Such insulting words from a beautiful lady."
Kio took another step.
Soosh!
He vanished.
He reappeared in midair, directly above her.
Crack!
The scythe swung down in a vertical arc, aimed to split her skull. She sidestepped on instinct. The blade missed by mere millimeters, biting into the floor instead, splitting it with a thin crack.
She tilted her head up, ready to counter—
But Kio wasn't there. Only the weapon remained.
"Were you looking for me?"
A voice, low and amused, curled in from her left.
Before Ishiko could think, Kio's cross connected clean with her face.
The impact sent her crashing through wall after wall, plaster and concrete giving way in violent bursts, until she finally slammed to a halt inside the hypermarket's library room, shelves toppling around her in a cascade of splintered wood and scattered pages.
The atrium beyond stood completely empty now, stripped of its crowds—transformed into nothing more than a battlefield for two animals wearing human skin.