The meeting hall remained tense long after Kidan and Shō's brief clash had ended.
The air still carried the sharp aftertaste of force barely restrained. Pale flames in the wall sconces swayed uneasily, as if even they understood that too many monsters had been packed into one room.
Haumea stood at the front, one hand on her hip, the irritation in her face only half-hidden now.
"Enough playing around," she said.
That alone was enough to settle the room.
Even Kidan, who looked entirely too comfortable for someone who had arrived late, gone at Shō, and mouthed off to Dragon, shifted his attention toward her.
Haumea's smile returned.
Thin and unpleasant.
"The Evangelist now wants the plan to proceed."
Silence followed.
Serious silence.
Because those words mattered.
Haumea continued, "We move on the next Pillar."
Her eyes sharpened.
"Shinra Kusakabe."
That name landed differently in the room.
Shō's gaze changed at once.
Kidan's brows rose slightly.
Dragon remained still, but even he looked more interested now than bored.
Haumea folded her arms.
"The Third Generation hero brat has become too involved in too many things. The Evangelist wants him secured."
Kidan immediately raised a hand from inside his sleeve.
"I'll do it."
Shō turned his head sharply.
"No."
Kidan looked at him with deliberate calm.
"No?"
"No," Shō repeated. "I'll handle it."
Kidan tilted his head.
"Why?"
For a moment, Shō simply stared at him.
Then, in that cool, clipped tone of his, he answered, "Because Shinra Kusakabe is my brother."
Kidan hummed softly.
"Oh."
A beat passed.
Then he said, "Still, I could do it."
Shō's eye twitched.
"I said I'll handle it."
Kidan's expression stayed mild.
"Maybe. But I'm stronger than you."
That made Haumea's shoulders shake once with barely restrained amusement.
Shō stepped toward Kidan.
"You want to test that again?"
Kidan smiled faintly.
"Only if you ask nicely."
Haumea actually snorted.
Shō's voice dropped lower.
"This is not a game."
Kidan's reply came smooth and immediate.
"You're right. That's why I volunteered."
Sho's irritation sharpened further. "You're doing this on purpose."
Kidan's smile widened a fraction.
"Doing what?"
Haumea let them go for a few more seconds, clearly entertained now.
Shō's fingers twitched near his sword.
Kidan noticed.
And seemed almost pleased that he had.
The room watched them with varying degrees of patience and concern. Charon remained silent. Dragon still looked unimpressed. Ritsu stood where she always did near Kidan, quiet but attentive, gaze flicking from him to Shō and back again.
Kidan pressed on, now very clearly doing it just to get a rise out of him.
"Besides, if he's really your brother, shouldn't you be too emotional for the mission?"
Shō's stare turned flat and dangerous.
"I would not fail."
Kidan answered at once.
"Neither would I."
Haumea finally raised a hand.
"Enough."
Both boys went quiet, though Kidan did it with far less reluctance than Shō.
Haumea smiled sweetly.
"Shō will take the mission."
Shō gave a small nod.
Kidan sighed like this was a mild disappointment at best.
"Fine."
Haumea's smile sharpened.
"You'll survive."
The meeting began to break apart after that. Orders had been given. Priorities were clear. The room loosened just enough for people to start moving.
Kidan turned to leave with his usual careless ease, hands back inside his sleeves.
That was when someone stepped into his path.
Faerie.
He looked composed as ever.
The kind of calm that felt more unpleasant than shouting ever could.
Kidan stopped.
Ritsu, walking half a step behind him, slowed too.
Faerie regarded Kidan in silence for a moment before speaking.
"You made the wrong choice."
Kidan blinked once.
"About what?"
Faerie's eyes shifted briefly toward Ritsu.
"Rejecting my offer."
Ritsu stiffened.
Faerie continued, voice even, almost clinical.
"I offered to become your guardian."
Kidan stared at him.
Then looked at Ritsu.
Then back to Faerie.
"And I said no."
Faerie inclined his head slightly.
"You chose to remain with her instead."
Ritsu lowered her gaze just a fraction.
Faerie's voice did not change.
"That offer remains open."
Now the tension around them sharpened.
Because this was no longer merely Faerie being strange.
This was him openly stepping on Ritsu's place.
"Ritsu is too weak to be your guardian," Faerie said.
The words were simple.
Cold.
And because of that, they cut harder.
Ritsu's fingers tightened against her sleeves.
For the first time in a while, uncertainty crossed her face.
Tiny.
But real.
Her eyes lowered.
'Too weak...'
She hated that the thought found purchase in her so quickly.
She was loyal.
Devoted.
Always at Kidan's side.
But worthy?
Truly worthy?
Before the doubt could grow any further—
Kidan laughed.
A short, sharp laugh.
Faerie looked at him.
Kidan leaned slightly forward and said, "Go to hell."
Ritsu's eyes widened.
Faerie's expression finally cracked, if only by a hair.
Kidan's smile was lazy now.
Mocking.
"If I wanted another guardian, I'd have asked for one. At it still wouldn't have been you."
Then he turned to Ritsu.
"Let's go."
The words were casual.
But to Ritsu, they felt like rescue.
Warmth returned to her face almost instantly.
A small, almost hidden happiness.
"Yes, Kidan-sama."
They walked past Faerie without another glance.
Leaving him standing there alone with his anger.
---
Two to three weeks later.
The day around Vulcan's Workshop glowed with battle.
Flames rose from wrecked ground and shattered structures. Metal screamed. Smoke rolled low over the clearing. The fight below had already begun in earnest.
Shinra Kusakabe was down there.
Battling Dr. Giovanni.
Not far away, high in the branches of a tree overlooking the scene, Shō sat in absolute stillness.
One leg bent.
One hand resting near his sheathed blade.
Watching.
Waiting.
He should have been alone.
He was not.
Sprawled along a thick branch just behind him, eating an apple with complete shameless comfort, was Kidan.
Shō didn't even turn at first.
He simply said, in a very controlled voice, "I told you not to follow me."
Kidan took another bite.
"And I ignored you."
Shō's brow twitched.
"Why are you here?"
Kidan looked down toward the workshop.
"Because it's boring constantly staying in the Nether."
That answer was so casual that Shō actually turned his head.
Kidan met the look with no guilt whatsoever.
Nearby, perched on another branch with elegant composure, Ritsu quietly peeled another apple in practiced spirals.
She bowed her head slightly toward Shō.
"My apologies, Shō-sama. I tried to keep Kidan-sama away, but... it did not work."
Shō stared at both of them.
Then looked away.
"Whatever."
His tone made it sound very much like it was not whatever.
He added, "He just must not get in my way."
Kidan lifted the apple slightly in mock salute.
"I said I won't interfere. I'm only watching."
Shō clicked his tongue.
Then the air around him changed.
Time fractured.
And Shō vanished from the branch.
Below, the battle surged on.
Giovanni pressed Shinra hard, metal limbs and grotesque modifications twisting through the chaos as the workshop grounds were torn apart.
Then—
Shō appeared.
No warning Shinra could meaningfully react to.
Just a sudden presence and impossible speed.
The first strike came with the blunt efficiency of someone who didn't consider the outcome in doubt. Shinra barely understood what had happened before he was sent crashing backward.
Everything around Shō felt wrong.
The slowed world.
The stolen motion.
The terrifying, unnatural dominance of Severed Universe.
Shinra tried to respond.
Tried to track him.
Tried to fight.
And kept finding himself a step behind something that no longer seemed to obey ordinary speed at all.
Even the battle rhythm changed the instant Shō entered it.
Every exchange became a nightmare of lost timing.
A sword appearing where there had been empty air.
A body no one could properly see until the damage had already been done.
Shinra's flames kicked hard as he tried to regain footing, tried to understand, tried to become the hero he always imagined himself as in a situation where the enemy seemed to freeze the world itself.
Then Joker arrived as they were escaping in a truck.
Just in that crooked, dangerous way of his intercepting at the exact moment the fight threatened to become terminal.
The outlaw slipped into the clash with his cards and smoke, his timing sharp enough to break the sequence Shō had built around Shinra.
In an instant, Shō's attention shifted.
Joker had made himself the more immediate problem. Before disappearing right after.
Above, from the tree branch, Kidan watched the interception with open interest.
Then he stood and headed towards Sho.
Shō's gaze flicked upward for just a fraction.
Kidan smiled.
"You don't mind if I go after Joker, right?"
Shō's answer came cold and immediate.
"I don't care."
That was all Kidan needed.
His smile widened.
Then he vanished in a burst of controlled flame.
Ritsu followed at speed through the trees, though not nearly as fast.
Joker landed behind a thick tree some distance away, breath steady but mind alert.
His brief clash with Shō had confirmed it again.
That boy was a monster.
Severed Universe was the sort of thing one survived by not making mistakes.
He rested only a moment.
Then something made the hair on the back of his neck rise.
He looked up.
Someone was already there.
Sitting on a tree branch in front of him.
Kidan.
One leg hanging loosely, the other bent, posture almost casual.
Too casual.
Sunlight cut across his white hair. The marks beneath his eyes stood out sharply in the dark. His White-Clad-customized outfit draped around him elegantly, sleeves swallowing his hands.
Joker's expression remained unreadable.
Internally—
Every instinct sharpened.
Danger.
Not ordinary danger.
Not merely "strong."
This boy felt wrong in the exact way certain disasters did.
Kidan smiled.
"So you're Joker."
Joker said nothing.
Kidan continued, voice light.
"You're as impressive as I heard."
He tilted his head slightly.
"So you really can perceive Adolla even though you're not a Pillar."
Joker's eyes narrowed the smallest amount.
Kidan swung his hanging leg once.
"I've been pretty bored just watching people fight."
His smile sharpened.
"So I'd like to scrap with someone strong."
Silence followed.
Then Joker understood something immediately and completely.
This was not Shō.
Shō was terrifying in a clean, focused way. Like a blade drawn in frozen time.
Kidan was different.
Kidan reminded him of another monster.
Shinmon Benimaru.
Joker's mind moved fast.
'He's worse than Shō.'
A direct fight here, head-on, was a mistake.
Maybe a fatal one.
And Joker could not die.
Not yet.
Not before he saw the truth of this world with his own eyes.
Not before he dragged every lie into the light.
So the conclusion came fast and clean:
If they fought, he should prioritize escape.
Kidan hopped down from the branch.
He landed lightly.
Still smiling.
Joker's fingers shifted near his cards.