Up close, the situation looked even worse than it had from the cafeteria window. The girl was small, maybe fifteen, with intelligent eyes that darted between her attackers like she was calculating escape routes and finding none. Her school bag lay scattered on the ground, contents spilled across the concrete, and there were tear tracks on her cheeks that made something cold and angry coil in Haruto's chest.
The three men surrounding her were definitely not students. The leader was maybe mid-twenties, built like someone who spent more time in street fights than gyms, with a scar running from his left ear to the corner of his mouth that suggested he'd lost at least one of those fights spectacularly. His two companions looked like standard hired muscle - all bulk and attitude, the kind of guys who enjoyed their work a little too much.
"Please," the girl was saying, her voice steady despite the obvious fear. "I told you, I don't know anything about what you're talking about. You've got the wrong person."
"Wrong person?" Scarface laughed, the sound like broken glass. "Little girl, you were seen at the Awakened incident in Harajuku last week. We have witnesses. You think we're stupid?"
Awakened incident? Haruto felt something twist in his stomach. Jun's conspiracy theories were starting to sound a lot less crazy all of a sudden.
"I don't know what you mean," the girl insisted. "I was at home studying. You can check with my family-"
"Your family?" One of the muscle-heads chuckled. "We already did. Shame about the fire, really. Such a nice house."
The girl's face went white, and Haruto felt his vision tinge red around the edges. These weren't just bullies. These were something much worse.
"Hey!" The word erupted from his throat before his brain could stop it. All four pairs of eyes turned toward him, and Haruto suddenly realized he might have made a tactical error. "Leave her alone!"
Scarface looked him up and down with the expression of someone evaluating a particularly unimpressive insect. "Another hero wannabe? This doesn't concern you, kid. Walk away while you still can."
Haruto stepped forward, his hands clenching into fists. He wasn't particularly big or strong, just learned Judo for several years...
Haruto's voice cut through the alley like winter wind, sharp and unforgiving. He stood silhouetted against the flickering neon of the distant streetlights, hands loose at his sides. His breathing was steady. His pulse? Calm.
The girl's head snapped toward him, her split lip trembling. "No! Just—just go! You don't understand what they—"
"Shut your mouth, bitch." Scarface's backhand sent her reeling into the brick wall, her skull cracking against it with a sickening thud.
Haruto's fingers twitched. Just once.
Then he moved.
The first thug—a mountain of muscle packed into a leather jacket—lunged at him with a roar. Haruto sidestepped, his right hand snapping up to catch the man's wrist. A twist, a pull, and the judo throw ippon seoi nage sent the brute flipping through the air. The pavement shook when he landed, ribs shattering under the force of his own weight.
Haruto didn't wait to watch him gasp.
The second attacker came at him with a knife, the blade glinting under the pale moonlight. A sloppy downward stab—predictable. Haruto pivoted, his left arm deflecting the strike outward while his right elbow smashed into the man's temple. Bone crunched. The knife clattered to the ground. A kick to the knee—another crunch—and the man collapsed, screaming.
Two down.
Scarface didn't rush in. He circled Haruto like a wolf, his eyes narrowed, assessing. "You're not some random kid," he muttered. "Who the hell are you?"
Haruto didn't answer. He didn't need to.
Scarface attacked.
A feint left, then a right hook aimed straight for Haruto's jaw. Haruto blocked, but the force still rattled his teeth. Scarface was strong—stronger than the others. A knee came up, aiming for his gut. Haruto twisted, taking the blow on his hip instead, and countered with a brutal *osoto gari*, sweeping Scarface's leg out from under him.
The man hit the ground—but rolled, springing back up with a grin. "Not bad."
Haruto exhaled through his nose. Adjusted his stance.
Then it all went wrong.
A glint of metal—a second knife, hidden in Scarface's sleeve. The blade slashed across Haruto's forearm, drawing a hot line of crimson. He barely flinched, but the distraction was enough. A fist plowed into his ribs. Another into his kidney. Haruto staggered, his vision swimming.
"You're good," Scarface sneered, wiping blood from his mouth. "But you're still just a kid."
A boot slammed into Haruto's chest, sending him crashing onto his back. The world spun. His lungs burned. He tried to push himself up—
A foot stomped down on his wrist. Bones ground together.
"Stay down."
Haruto's breath came in ragged gasps. His body screamed at him to stop. To stay down.
But as consciousness began to fade around the edges, something stirred deep in his chest. Something dark and cold and hungry, like a predator that had been sleeping for a very long time. It whispered to him in a voice that sounded like winter wind through dead leaves
"You want to kill him."
"Let me."
His vision went black—
—then red.
When Haruto moved again, it wasn't him moving.
Scarface barely had time to scream.
When Haruto's vision cleared, everything had changed.
Three swords of pure light hung in the air around him, each one crackling with cold fire that seemed to drink in light rather than cast it. They weren't solid - he could see through them like they were made of crystallized moonlight - but somehow he knew they were more real than anything else in the world. They hummed with power, responding to his thoughts like extensions of his own body, and when he flexed his fingers, they spun lazily in the air like deadly satellites.
The thugs had stopped mid-advance, staring at the floating weapons with expressions that had gone from confident to confused to genuinely terrified in the span of about three seconds.
"What the hell..." Scarface breathed, taking an involuntary step backward.
Haruto pushed himself to his feet, and it was like moving underwater - everything felt slow, heavy, significant. The pain from his beating was still there, but it seemed distant now, unimportant compared to the cold fire flowing through his veins. When he looked at his attackers, he could see their fear like heat signatures, bright and pulsing and absolutely delicious.
One of the muscle-heads, either braver or stupider than his companions, lunged forward with a knife that gleamed in the afternoon sun. Haruto didn't even think - he just... willed.
The leftmost sword shot forward like a bullet, intercepting the blade in a shower of blue sparks. The thug screamed as the knife shattered, metal fragments embedding themselves in the brick wall behind him, and the azure blade continued its arc to hover inches from his throat.
Haruto coldly looked down, and now all three swords were moving, spinning around him in lazy, hypnotic patterns.
Scarface was the first to break. "Awakened!" he shouted, his voice cracking with panic. "He's one of them! Run!"
They scattered like roaches when the lights came on, leaving behind only the smell of fear and the echo of running footsteps. Haruto watched them go with a sense of profound satisfaction, the swords continuing their dance around him until the last thug disappeared around the corner.
Then as suddenly as they'd appeared, the weapons dissolved into motes of golden light that faded like dying stars.
The world crashed back into normal speed, and Haruto staggered, his legs suddenly unsteady. The power was gone, leaving behind only exhaustion and the lingering taste of something wild and dangerous.
『 SYSTEM: "Chosen of Darkness" Has Activated 』
The words appeared in the air in front of him, glowing with soft blue light that only he could see. Below them, more text scrolled past like the world's most surreal video game interface:
• Primary Skill: [Moonlight Blade Manifestation] - Summon up to three spectral swords.
• Primary Skill: [Abyssal Devour] – Absorbs energy from the moon, converting it into personal strengths.
• Hidden Skill (Rare): [Yandere EXP Farm] - Whenever a yandere develops feelings for him, all main skills gain double experience.
• System Service: "Scanning for Yandere within 10-mile radius..."
• ...Scan complete. Detected: 1 target: Kurokami Satsuki
"What... what is this?!" Haruto whispered, staring at the translucent interface that hung in the air like a hallucination made manifest.
The girl - who had been pressed against the wall in terrified silence during the entire confrontation - slowly pushed herself away from the brick. Her eyes were wide, but not with fear. With something that looked almost like... recognition?
"You're one of them," she said quietly. "An Awakened."
"I don't understand what just happened," Haruto said, his voice hoarse. "Those swords..." He gestured at the system interface, which flickered and faded as his concentration wavered.
The girl moved closer, her movements careful but no longer fearful. "My name is Miki," she said. "And you just saved my life. Thanks..."
She reached into her scattered belongings and pulled out a small piece of paper, pressing it into his hand. "Thank you. But be careful who you trust. The people who were after me? They're part of something bigger. Something that hunts people like us."
"People like us?"
But when he looked up, she was already gone, disappeared into the afternoon shadows like smoke. Only the note remained, along with the lingering scent of cherry blossoms and the memory of blue fire.
Haruto looked down at the paper. In neat handwriting, it simply said:
"P.S. - Your sister isn't what she seems."
The world suddenly felt a lot more complicated.