The call came early.
Mass Humare sightings.
They said it was likely a collapsed Nightmare.
They were wrong.
Team Akechi is sent out.
Kouji stood beside Yuusuke as the four-man team arrived at the outer edge. Hanzo loaded a slow, deliberate round into a thick black revolver. Akechi walked just a few steps ahead, coat flicking in the wind, face unreadable.
They hadn't spoken much on the way in.
But when the first Humare stumbled into view — skin pale, lips cracked, eyes fogged — Akechi paused.
Just for a second.
His eyes flicked forward, narrowed.
Then he moved like someone slamming a book shut.
Boom — in one smooth instant, he kicked off the cracked road, shot past the group, and slammed into something behind a row of shattered vehicles.
A blur of movement.
Then flame — real flame — erupted behind the wall of twisted metal.
Yuusuke tensed. "Was that…?"
Kouji's expression sharpened. "That wasn't a Humare."
They rounded the block — and found chaos.
The street was crawling with Humare, more than ten visible at once. All twitching, teeth grinding, some dragging their limbs like broken marionettes.
Kouji stepped forward without thinking.
The pipe beside him bent into a long-handled glaive.
He moved like a blade on rails — sweeping the first Humare from the legs, pivoting, creating a spike mid-turn, hurling it into the next.
Controlled.
Fast.
Every strike shaped from metal around him, every weapon formed before impact.
Not too fast. Not too slow. Just right.
Yuusuke grinned. "Missed fighting with you."
"Then stop falling behind," Kouji smirked.
Off to the side, Hanzo stood still.
He hadn't moved since they arrived.
"Kinda outnumbered here," Yuusuke called over his shoulder.
Hanzo pulled out his revolver and fired one clean shot — the round passed through two Humare, both collapsing mid-lunge.
He didn't look impressed. "Handle your assignments."
And then they heard it.
The scream.
Sharp, ragged, human — but wrong.
They turned toward the flames.
The fire that spread through the far end of the street wasn't just wild — it was intentional. Controlled bursts. Arcing whips. Spirals. Heat shimmered in perfect patterns around the point of ignition.
And at the center — the Demi-Human.
Young, maybe twenty. Clothes half-burned, hands trembling. His eyes were still human — barely. Bloodshot, twitching, not yet gold.
His voice cracked through the blaze:
"I'M NOT DONE YET—YOU SAID—YOU SAID I COULD—"
Akechi stood across from him.
Calm. Unburnt.
The flame couldn't touch him — not because it missed, but because it changed.
One blast swerved mid-air.
Another curled back on itself.
The ground warped — stones shifted into jagged upward spires before the fire could land. The wall behind Akechi smoothed into a perfect arc, reflecting heat outward.
It looked like manipulation. Like the matter was obeying him.
Kouji, watching from across the block, narrowed his eyes.
It wasn't manipulation. It was something else.
Akechi's left hand flicked once — and a metal post twisted into the air, wrapping the Demi-Human's arm mid-cast.
He couldn't move.
Akechi stepped forward, voice low:
"You shouldn't be walking around here"
Meanwhile, Kouji kept slicing through the last Humare.
Akechi's eyes weren't on the enemy anymore.
They were on him.
Just for a second. A cold, sharp flicker.
Not anger. Not concern.
Interest.
Once the dust cleared, and the Humare fell quiet, the group reconvened at the far end of the district.
Among the wreckage, they found a collapsed man — not the Demi-Human, but someone else. A civilian? A Hunter? Hard to say.
He was breathing shallow, eyes wide with fear, mouth trembling.
Kouji stepped closer — cautiously.
The man whispered:
"The blood… will chain itself again…"
Kouji froze.
"The Anomalies…"
Before anyone could react, Akechi was already there — silent and fast.
He placed a firm hand on the man's shoulder.
"Delirium," he said flatly. "Trauma-induced nonsense. Put him under stasis. No questions."
Hanzo obeyed without blinking.
But Kouji didn't move.
He just watched the man's eyes — not blank. Not lost.
He was afraid of something real.