A man in the crowd whispered, his voice shaking — "He's a monster. No, he's a fre—"
His head exploded.
The screaming that followed was immediate and animal. People pressed against each other, against the walls, against the doors they were too afraid to open. Arcturus looked around the room slowly, almost lazily, and then looked down at Annie.
"I am divinity."
Annie rose from her seat. Her hands were trembling but her voice came out steady. "You said Sora's name." Her eyes searched his face. "You yelled my daughter's name. Why?"
His answer was a massacre.
Annie stood in the middle of it with her eyes shut, tears streaming silently down her face, not moving, not breathing more than she had to. The sounds went on around her and she endured every one of them.
Then silence.
Arcturus stepped in front of her. He lifted her chin with a bloodied hand and looked at her with something that wasn't quite cruelty — something colder than that.
"In ten years' time," he said quietly, "I will kill her. Annie."
The fear left her body all at once. What replaced it was something she hadn't felt in years — pure, white fury. She looked him in the eyes and slapped him across the face.
The room was very still.
Arcturus touched his cheek. Then he laughed — a long, genuine sound — and shook his head.
"You served your purpose well."
He raised one finger and pointed it at her heart.
No gunshot. No breaking glass. Just silence — and then the soft, broken sound of a mother dying.
Annie fell. The hole through her chest was clean and precise, the way only something inhuman could make it. She lay on the floor of the restaurant surrounded by everything Arcturus had destroyed and drew one last breath.
"Grow up strong," she whispered. "Protect her — Kagekami—"
Then she was gone.
Arcturus stepped over her and walked out.
The forest was dark and quiet. Scream was leaning against a tree when she saw him coming and a smile spread across her face.
"Took you long enough."
Arcturus said nothing. He walked straight to her, placed his hands on her waist and steered her toward the ship. She let him.
Inside, every servant dropped to one knee as their lord returned. He walked past them all without acknowledgment and took his throne.
Scream followed and stood before him. "Have you acquired the Absolute's power?"
"No."
"Why not?"
Arcturus looked out at the endless dark beyond the viewport. "The power within her hasn't reached its full potential. It will — but not yet." He paused. "If she is pushed to the edge of death it will awaken on its own. So I've given her ten years to grow." His eyes stayed on the stars. "When those ten years end her world will end with her."
Scream said nothing. The ship pulled away from Earth's atmosphere and disappeared into space.
Hours later Kagekami was crouched behind the sofa counting down, Sora's muffled giggling giving away her hiding spot before he even started looking.
A knock at the door.
He opened it. His thoughts stopped.
One of the first S-Rank Protectors is standing at my door.
Dan greeted him quietly. "Is there an adult I can speak to?"
"It's just me and my little sister," Kagekami said. "Mum went out a few hours ago. Is something wrong?"
Dan looked at him for a moment — the kind of look that means someone is choosing their words very carefully.
"I'm sorry," he said, his voice low. "Your mother was found dead a short while ago."
The world didn't end. It just went very quiet. Kagekami's memories of her moved through him all at once — her hands bandaging his wounds, her voice telling him he was going to be a big brother, her face in the doorway every time he came home late.
A single tear ran down his face.
"I found you!"
Sora appeared from behind the sofa, arms raised in triumph. She looked at Kagekami's face. Then she looked at Dan. Her smile faded slowly.
Kagekami crouched down. "Go inside, Sora. I'll be right back."
She looked at him for a moment longer then turned and skipped quietly to the living room, glancing back once over her shoulder.
Kagekami straightened up and looked away from Dan. "Was she alone?"
"No. Footprints at the scene show she was seated with someone. They left the restaurant."
Kagekami nodded slowly, jaw tight. "Okay."
"Do you have any relatives who can help? Anyone you can stay with?"
"My mother grew up alone — she was raised through sponsorships. And Arcturus—" he stopped himself. "He never spoke of his family."
Dan asked for his bank details. Kagekami gave them without asking why. He watched Dan walk to his car and stood in the doorway until the taillights disappeared around the corner. Then he went inside to find Sora.
In the car Grace watched the house shrink in the side mirror.
"Why him?" she asked.
Dan kept his eyes on the road. "What do you mean?"
"We don't do this for everyone. You took time out to go there yourself." She turned to look at him. "Why?"
"His mother was one of the nurses who cared for my wife," Dan said. "Before she passed."
Grace looked back out the window.
"The one who became her best friend," she said quietly.
Dan nodded. Neither of them said anything else for the rest of the drive.
Kagekami knelt down and pulled Sora into a hug before she could read his face.
"I'm sorry, Sora." He held her tighter. "Mum — Mum won't be coming back. Something bad happened."
She went very still. Then her fingers curled into his shirt and she began to cry — not the small crying of a child who has scraped her knee but something deeper and more frightened than that. Kagekami held her head against his chest and didn't let go.
"I promise," he said quietly, over her crying. "Nothing will ever hurt you. Nothing."
A few days later they buried Annie.
The sky was grey and still. Sora stood between Kagekami and Saito, one hand in each of theirs, watching the coffin descend slowly into the earth. Her eyes were red and dry now — she had run out of tears somewhere in the days between.
When it was done people began to drift away. Saito glanced at Kagekami. He hadn't moved. His eyes were fixed on the grave, expression unreadable, like he was having a conversation with it that no one else could hear.
"Kagekami," Saito said softly.
"I'll walk you home," he said. "Just — give me a minute."
Saito looked at him for a moment then took Sora's hand. "Come on."
Sora wrapped both arms around Saito's arm and let herself be led away, glancing back at her brother once before the path curved out of sight.
Kagekami stood alone at the grave.
"She was the funniest and kindest person I ever met."
He turned. Debra was standing a few feet away, her eyes still wet, holding herself together with visible effort. She looked around the emptying cemetery.
"Where's your father?"
Kagekami looked back at the grave. Something moved behind his eyes — a decision made quietly and quickly.
"I don't have a father," he said. "He ran away. He failed to save her." A pause. "The Rippers did this."
He turned and walked away.
"I'll kill them all," he said — not to Debra, not to anyone in particular. Just a fact he was stating out loud for the first time.
Debra watched him go, something cold moving through her chest.
Annie, she thought. Your passing has awakened something dark in him.
Two years passed.
Kagekami took care of Sora — school runs, groceries, dinner, homework — sustained by the money Dan had sent and what Annie had left behind in her will. The apartment stayed the same. The absence in it didn't.
One afternoon Saito knocked. Sora opened the door and her whole face changed.
"Saito!"
Saito smiled. "Is Kagekami in?"
Sora nodded enthusiastically and called his name down the hallway. While they waited Saito looked at her. "I love your hair."
Sora's cheeks went pink.
Kagekami appeared from down the hall, walked straight past Sora, grabbed her face gently with one hand and steered her back a step. "I'll be back soon."
Sora watched him go, grinning to herself.
You're lucky Saito's around, she thought.
They walked side by side through the neighbourhood, the afternoon easy and unhurried. Kagekami glanced at the sword at Saito's hip.
"You know carrying that around is illegal, right?"
Saito looked at him. "Then why do they sell them to everyone?"
Kagekami opened his mouth. Closed it. "Fair enough."
They walked a little further before Saito spoke again, her tone shifting into something more serious.
"Will you be able to protect Sora?"
"For her I would do anything," Kagekami said. No hesitation.
Saito was quiet for a moment. "This world is hell for the weak. A paradise for the strong who prey on them. The weak have no say — only those with power do."
The words settled into Kagekami and stayed there.
"I'll be leaving soon," Saito said. "A one year training trip to my adoptive father's place."
Kagekami turned to look at her. Before he could respond the ground beneath them cracked.
A crack split the ground between them.
Then another. Then the earth heaved upward and something pulled itself out of it — a Ripper, its body covered in shimmering grey scales, moving on all fours with the slow confidence of something that had never needed to hurry.
Saito's hand went to her sword.
Kagekami stared at it. Something shifted behind his eyes — not fear. Something older and quieter than fear.
You're one of the monsters that killed Mum.
He clenched his fists and ran.
"I won't let you get away!"
His punch landed square on the Ripper's head. It turned and looked at him the way something large looks at something small — not threatened. Just noting his presence.
"Kagekami — look out!"
The Ripper shoved him. One arm, almost casual, and Kagekami left the ground and hit a tree hard enough to crack the bark. He slid down it groaning in pain, the world briefly tilting.
Saito was already moving. She charged and the Ripper lunged to meet her, claws sweeping wide. The force of it pushed her back but she used the momentum — feet finding the ground, pivoting, eyes reading the creature's weight and timing. It lunged again. She leaped.
At the top of her arc she gripped her sword with both hands and commanded —
"BURNING BLADE — SCORCHING DEATH!"
She came down like a falling star. The blade carved through the Ripper from shoulder to hip and as she landed the sword shattered in her hands. She stood in the silence that followed and looked at the hilt — all that remained — then set it down on the ground carefully.
The Ripper's body ignited. Red flames moved across its scales without smoke or sound until there was nothing left.
Saito turned and looked down at Kagekami.
"I don't trust you with Sora's protection." Her voice was flat and certain, the way someone sounds when they've already considered every angle. "You're weak, Kagekami. What happened today proves it." She turned and started walking. "If I come back and find her hurt in any way—" she didn't finish the sentence. She didn't need to. "I will kill you."
She left without looking back.
Kagekami sat on the ground for a while. He looked at what remained of the Ripper — ash and dying embers — and then pulled himself to his feet and started home.
Sora opened the door before he could reach for the handle. She looked at him — the state of his clothes, the way he was holding himself — and didn't ask twice.
"What happened?"
"Don't worry about it."
She sat him down without another word and began working on his back, her small hands careful and precise in a way that reminded him so much of Annie that he had to look at the wall.
You're right, Saito, he thought. I am weak. I can't protect her like this.
He looked down at his hand and slowly closed it into a fist.
I will become stronger. For you, Sora. I promise.
Eleven months passed.
Kagekami trained every day without exception — morning until night, pushing until his body threatened to give out, then pushing a little further. He didn't rest. He didn't stop. He learned what his limits were by breaking them repeatedly until they moved.
One evening he stood under the shower, eyes closed, breathing out slowly.
Eleven months, he thought. Saito hasn't replied to a single text. She must be busy. She'll reply soon.
He got dressed, stopped at Sora's door. "Going out be back soon."
Sora watched the door close behind him and stayed very still for a moment.
He's hiding something from me, she thought.
She turned on the television. A news broadcast was mid-sentence:
— following the announcement of the three newest S-Rank Protectors seven months ago, Ms. Kasami, Luke, Takomi and Creed are currently developing a coordinated strategy to assault the Rippers at the Death Zone—
Sora stared at the screen.
Night had settled over the city by the time Kagekami was walking home, freshly cut hair, hands in his pockets.
I'm late, he thought. Took too long at the barber.
The street ahead was quiet. The lights made long shadows between the buildings. Somewhere behind him — or maybe not behind him, maybe just at the edge of his senses — something was watching.
The darkness seemed to press closer. Somewhere in it — close, too close — something was breathing.
A shape exploded out of the shadows. Claws caught the moonlight for a fraction of a second before Kagekami threw himself sideways. Not fast enough. Two lines opened across his left cheek and he hit the ground rolling, coming back up with his hands raised.
The fog shifted. Two yellow eyes burned through it — steady, patient, amused. The Ripper stepped forward into the pale light and let itself be seen. It was smaller than the one Saito had killed. It stood differently too — less like an animal and more like a human.
Kagekami kept his breathing even. "Who — what are you?"
The Ripper tilted its head. When it spoke its voice was low and rough, like gravel shifting.
"I never waste time talking to prey." A pause. "But today I'll make an exception." Its yellow eyes didn't blink. "My name is Hunter. I am a Ripper. And you—" it took one slow step forward, "—are my prey."