When Hannes woke up, he found himself sitting on a metal chair, shackled at the wrists and ankles, with chains wrapped around his waist and neck. He looked around as much as his restraints allowed: a gray room. In front of him stood a table and another chair — this one ordinary. Behind it, a steel door. And above the door, a camera aimed straight at him, watching every second since he had been dragged in.
"Awake?"
The familiar voice came from somewhere unseen. Hannes fixed his eyes on the camera, outwardly indifferent but seething inside.
"Why don't you come down here and check for yourself, Lee?" he shot back.
"I will. But not because you asked."
A vein pulsed on Hannes's forehead at Lee's smug reply.
Minutes later, the door opened, and in walked an old man: gray curls, dark skin, glasses, dressed sharply in a suit.
"Did you sleep well? Want some water? Tea, maybe? I can arrange that," Lee said, smiling faintly while gazing in fascination at the scene: Hannes, finally chained.
"I'll take tea. And I want Laura to serve it while jerking me off. Don't ask how I came up with that exotic way of drinking tea — but trust me, it's worth trying."
This time Lee was the one visibly irritated — Laura was his daughter. But he didn't show it easily; after all, he held the advantage here. Or so it seemed.
"Maybe I'll call her. Maybe I'll rip your dick off, brew tea with it, and serve it to you."
"Sexy idea," Hannes sneered. "You must be dying to dissect me now that you finally strapped me to this chair."
"I want to. But my priorities are elsewhere right now. Do you know what time of year it is, Hannes?"
"Carnival."
"The divine towers are about to open."
"As I said: Carnival."
"Funny and sharp. You're going into the Tower of Sephes for me." Lee tapped his finger rhythmically on the table as he stared at Hannes.
"And who says you can make me?"
"Do I really need to explain? Fine. Those shackles and chains are forged from a material taken from the Cherry Blossom Tower, in the Cherry Blossom Islands. The Uesugi Clan cut me a good deal on it. We call it migi. Skipping the science and the pedantry, migi cancels out anything supernatural. It's been tested on every type of fighter — from Earth rank to Heaven. It suppressed them all. So let's just say you'll be wearing a migi collar until I decide otherwise… if I ever do."
"Impressive. But I don't see any Earth or Heaven with me here."
Hannes yawned, as if Lee's words were no more than bedtime stories for children.
"You can't deny reality, Hannes."
"Yes, I can. I've been doing it since the day I became self-aware. But enough theater. Tell me: why the hell do you need me in any divine tower?"
"Because the gods seem to favor you, wherever they are. You can enter places no one else can, right? With that strange power of yours? I don't need much — just for you to slip into Sephes's Library and find a book about controlling ancestral beasts…"
Before Lee could finish, Hannes already understood. His calm slipped away, bit by bit.
"You bastard! You didn't kill that furball?!" Hannes shouted.
"Not everyone has an ancestral beast, Hannes. We are now a true great power — like those damned empires in the East, and that lucky one in the South."
"I thought your president demanded its head."
"He did. And I gave him one — just not the real one. I don't like anxious men screaming in my ear. They only see problems. I see opportunity. Thanks to migi, we can keep it under control."
"Give me one good reason not to ruin your plans right now," Hannes said, breathing deep as calm returned to him.
"Because you're locked up. And because you want to drink coffee in Stoneland again."
"If you trust this scrap metal so much, why not use it to break the Library's seal and just keep me locked here, since you're so fond of me?"
"I will. You're Plan B."
Hannes's anger flared. Few things enraged him more than being ranked below others.
"Tempting offer, Lee. But I refuse. Even if I enter a divine tower, you won't control me once I'm in there."
"With migi, you won't get far."
"And who'll stop me? Joseph? The biker? Or maybe that— wait. Where is she?!" Hannes suddenly demanded, remembering.
"She who?" Lee asked, puzzled by the shift in his expression, so unlike his usual arrogant pride.
"The woman who knocked me out!"
Lee had no idea who he meant. He glanced at the camera and gestured. Moments later, the redheaded biker from Stoneland — now dressed as a soldier — entered the room. Behind him came the woman.
"What's your name?" Hannes asked, locking eyes with her.
"Mercedes… Mercedes Winters…" She was anxious. That night she had been calm, confident. Now, in front of Hannes — even chained — she felt intimidated. Maybe it was his gaze, dissecting her.
"Are you a Heaven?"
"No. She's Earth rank," Harald, the biker, cut in.
"I wasn't talking to you. Shut up."
"Arrogant bastard! Even now you don't know your place, huh?" Harald mocked, sneering like a man watching a caged tiger.
"My place is at the top. Yours is beneath me, kissing my feet and begging for mercy — exactly like you're doing now." Hannes's voice was calm, though still soaked with pride.
Lee was about to intervene, but Harald pushed further, forgetting his place.
"We're not begging! We captured you, locked you up, and you'll obey us whether you like it or not! You're not untouchable!"
"You think so, huh? Then let me teach you something." For the first time, Hannes turned his gaze on Harald.
"Hannes, don't—" For a fleeting instant, Lee felt a chill.
Then, in a blur, Hannes shattered the shackles and chains. Before Harald could react, Hannes was on him, lifting him by the throat. The grip was so crushing Harald's vision darkened; the last thing he saw was Hannes's vile grin before blacking out.
"Let him go, Hannes! Damn it, let him go!"
Lee was terrified. He'd never expected Hannes to defy even migi.
Hannes wouldn't release him — until his eyes met Mercedes's. Something in her frightened gaze made him loosen his grip. Harald's body collapsed to the floor, alive — barely.
Only once Lee steadied his breathing did he speak, cautious as if addressing a demon.
"How did you do that?"
"I told you. I've been denying reality since the start. Why the surprise? The world couldn't withstand a war against me. Burn this into your hollow head: I am me."
"And who are you?" Mercedes asked, her first words without being addressed.
"Hannes. And Hannes means me."
He turned, opened the steel door, and paused in the frame.
"I'll go. Mercedes comes with me. Just the two of us."
"No way! You'll take at least—"
"Good luck."
He left, shutting the door gently, strolling down the long white hallway as if he already knew the way out. He didn't need to walk — he could teleport. But he lingered, long enough for Lee to rush after him.
"Damn it, Hannes! You win, you bastard! Do as you please — just promise to bring me something!"
"So you can negotiate, Lee! See you at the foot of the divine tower on opening day. Don't contact me until then, or I'll wipe this facility off the map."
This time Hannes vanished like smoke, reappearing in Stoneland, thousands of kilometers away.
Lee breathed deep, counted to ten, and looked at the broken shackles on the floor. He sighed. Just when he thought he had the ultimate weapon against Hannes…
Mercedes was the most shaken of all. She looked around in terror, not knowing how to react. Somehow, she had just been assigned a solo mission with Hannes — she, a mere trainee.
"Sir… I—" she began, but Lee cut her off.
"Be ready. I don't know what just happened, but he only agreed because of you. Rejoice. Depending on how useful you prove against him, your position here could be the highest."
He ordered subordinates to carry Harald to the infirmary, then left, deciding he needed a drink. Mercedes followed, full of doubts. The greatest of them:
"Who exactly is Hannes?"
"You know what that metal was, the one chaining him down?" Lee rolled his eyes, answering lazily.
"No…"
"When the Uesugi Clan sold it to me, they brought Kenshin himself to test it. We call it migi. It suppressed the old Sword Demon." He saw her shock and added: "That's Hannes. That thing. He does whatever he wants, regardless of nature's laws. Believe me, I'm as shaken as you — but pleasantly surprised that you, Mercedes Winters, are the reason I might finally control that damned rabbit underground."
"What rabb—"
"Goodbye. Get ready."
Lee refused to keep talking; he was still shaken. Too much to process. What he couldn't accept was this: if even migi couldn't suppress Hannes, then what was he? Not even Lee believed his own explanation to Mercedes. No man alive could resist migi. And yet…
Joseph had tested it himself. Confirmed its perfect suppression. Lee couldn't be wrong.
Mercedes even went back into the room, picked up a fragment of broken chain, and tested it. She couldn't turn invisible like she had the night she ambushed him. She pocketed the pieces, deep in thought.
"What exactly happened here…?" she wondered. "I need a drink."
And so she left the facility, spending hours at a pub in the nearest town, fifty kilometers away.
Mercedes was beautiful, no doubt. Only children or envious women would call her otherwise. Fair skin, dark-brown hair, brown eyes, soft lips. She radiated youth, health, and balance — or at least her looks gave that impression.
She was short, but had still passed selection into Dermot Lee's forces. That said plenty.
At a corner table, isolated, she nursed a tall, sweating glass of beer. Some men eyed her from across the pub, even considered approaching. But after seeing her icy dismissal of others' advances, they thought better of it.
"She's probably here to drown her problems," they figured. "We'd just be a nuisance."
Arms crossed, sighing, Mercedes stared into the golden beer, thinking about Hannes's demand: that it be just the two of them in the tower.
"He's going to kill me… He's still bitter that I knocked him out. He was ready to kill Harald for less!"
The night dragged on. A thousand thoughts ran through Mercedes's head every minute.