Kasumi trembled slightly within the circle of Pathro's arm, the rigid control she'd always worn like armor shattered into fine, silent shivers. She was trying to breathe, to reassemble herself, but the pieces wouldn't fit. Pathro looked from her pale face to Toshiro. His usual flippancy was gone, replaced by a commander's swift calculus.
"Toshiro," he said, his voice low. "I'll let you handle the rest of the interrogation. I'll join you shortly."
Toshiro's gaze flickered from the weeping informant to his shaken comrade. He gave a single, sharp nod. "Understood. Leave it to me."
Carefully, Pathro shifted, pulling one of Kasumi's arms over his shoulders. "Let's go, Kasumi." In a flicker of displaced air, they were gone from the rooftop, not with the usual blinding speed, but with a deliberate, almost gentle swiftness that minimized the disorienting rush.
Toshiro watched the space where they had vanished, his expression an unreadable mask. Then, he turned slowly back to the man cowering on the concrete. The temperature on the helipad seemed to drop several degrees.
"Well," Toshiro said, his voice devoid of all inflection. "You achieved something I never thought possible."
It was not a compliment. It was an indictment. The words hung in the wind, cold as a surgeon's scalpel.
"Now then," Toshiro continued, taking a single, deliberate step forward. The man scrambled back until his spine hit the low perimeter wall. "We were discussing the calculus of atrocity for love, weren't we? You've gone to monstrous lengths to keep her alive. So you believe you can't risk telling us anything." Toshiro tilted his head, a predator studying trapped prey. "I have news for you. We will find that organization. It is inevitable. Your information only determines the timeline. So, in the grand scheme, your silence changes nothing for us." He leaned in slightly, his shadow falling over the man. "But it changes everything for her. I cannot guarantee your wife's survival if we storm their stronghold blind. If they see us coming, what is their first move with their most expendable leverage?"
The man's eyes widened in fresh horror.
"Your choice is simple," Toshiro stated, his tone relentlessly logical, unbearably cold. "Risk it with them, who have already proven they view human life as currency. Or risk it with us. At least our objective aligns with preserving the innocent. For now."
The man's mind raced, a trapped animal's panic clashing with the grim truth of the soldier's words. This one felt different from the fiery-eyed leader. There was no performative menace here, only a terrifying, impersonal certainty. To this soldier, his wife and the unknown girls who had died were all just variables in a failed equation—variables he held responsible.
"Oh," Toshiro added, as if remembering a minor detail. He cracked the knuckles of one hand, the sound stark in the silence. "I should be thorough. If you prove useless to our mission, I have no operational reason to let you live. Choosing silence, therefore, guarantees your wife will never see you again. It simply adds your corpse to the tally."
The man stared into Toshiro's impassive eyes. This was no bluff. This was the pragmatism of a soldier trained to excise obstacles. The terror was no longer hot; it was a deep, freezing dread that settled in his bones.
---
Pathro materialized inside Kasumi's hotel room, guiding her to sit on the edge of her bed. She sank down, her gaze fixed on the floor, seeing nothing. Wordlessly, Pathro fetched a cup of water from the dispenser in the corner and pressed it into her hands.
"Rest up a bit," he said, his voice uncharacteristically soft.
She held the cup but didn't drink, her knuckles white. Pathro watched her, his mind working. Kasumi… the unflappable one. The perfect soldier with perfect control. I've never seen a crack, not even a hairline fracture. Something that man said didn't just upset her; it detonated a minefield from her past. What happened to you?
Finally, she lifted the cup and took a small, mechanical sip. Pathro waited a moment longer. "I'm heading back out. We'll check on you later." He didn't expect a reply, and he didn't get one. Her silence was a wall.
He closed the door behind him with a quiet click and leaned against it in the hallway, releasing a long, slow sigh. "Just what ghosts are you carrying?" he murmured to the empty corridor. Then, his expression hardening back into focus, he vanished in a burst of speed that was all business.
---
Back on the rooftop, the wind whipped around Toshiro, who stood over the now-unconscious form of their informant. Pathro reappeared beside him, his eyes scanning the scene.
"What happened here?" Pathro asked.
"He provided a location," Toshiro replied, his voice cool and analytical. "Where the organization plans to strike next. But his motivation is compromised. If I'd let him go, the moment we left, he would have called his 'Boss' to warn them of our impending arrival. A desperate bid to prove his loyalty and, in his mind, increase his wife's chances."
Pathro's brow furrowed. "A trap? Or just cowardice?"
"Likely both. He is trying to impress his captors with his usefulness while attempting to mitigate the risk to us, hoping for the best possible outcome from all sides. An impossible gamble." Toshiro nudged the unconscious man with his foot. "Rendering him hors de combat was the most efficient way to preserve the intelligence and prevent a tip-off. For now."
Pathro nodded, absorbing the tactical logic. All trace of his earlier concern was gone, burned away by the urgency of the mission. His eyes, when they met Toshiro's, glinted with a fierce, determined light.
"Where," Pathro demanded, the word sharp as a blade, "and when?"
The relentless sun beat down on Abuja, Nigeria's federal capital, marking the hour of noon. In the air-conditioned expanse of a grand convention hall, the air crackled with a different kind of heat: the electric tension of a national final.
It was the culminating event of a nationwide secondary school quiz competition, a battle of wits that had whittled down hundreds of schools to two final contenders: Good Hope Secondary School and Zonobia Secondary School. The hall was a sea of youthful energy, divided into vibrant blocks of color. On one side, the crimson shirts of Good Hope stood out against black trousers and skirts. On the other, the sky-blue of Zonobia clashed proudly with dark blue. Thousands of students filled the tiered seating, their murmured excitement a constant, buzzing hum.
On the elevated stage, the four champions from each school sat behind pristine desks, facing a solitary podium. The atmosphere was one of disciplined anticipation. Teachers sat in a proud row at the front, facing their protégés. The quizmaster's podium was positioned perpendicularly on the stage, allowing the official to survey both the contestants and the vast audience.
A portly man in a finely tailored black suit ambled to the podium, adjusting the microphone. "Can I have your attention, please?" His amplified voice cut through the din.
The murmurings subsided into a respectful silence. "Thank you. Thank you. Allow me to welcome you all to this momentous occasion. Your presence here is a testament to the pursuit of knowledge, and it is not taken for granted."
He paused, letting his words settle. "As you know, today's event is the grand finale of a competition that began back in December, involving schools from across our great nation. The two institutions represented here on this stage have proven themselves to be the very best, the ultimate victors."
A thunderous wave of applause erupted, punctuated by teenage whistles and cheers. The teachers beamed, their pride palpable.
"So today," the man continued, speaking over the dying applause, "we finally crown the national champion. A word of advice to the runners-up: do not feel disheartened. This competition exists to motivate, to inspire friendly rivalry. And to the winners, I say: remain humble. This trophy will not appear on your exam certificates. You can still fail your mathematics!" A ripple of nervous laughter passed through the crowd. "This is, at its heart, an exercise in camaraderie and intellectual bonding. I hope that is clear to everyone."
His speech was a pragmatic attempt to temper the raw emotions of competition, though it was a feeble shield against the passionate hopes of thousands.
"So, ladies and gentlemen, boys and girls, allow me to now introduce our distinguished panel and formally commen—"
His words were obliterated.
Not by sound, but by violence.
A series of heavy, metallic clangs and thuds echoed from the main entrance at the rear of the hall. Before anyone could process the noise, the massive double doors shuddered and were sealed shut with a final, deafening crash. The distinct sound of thick metal bars sliding into place echoed in the sudden silence.
Then, the objects that had been thrown skittered across the polished floor towards the center of the crowd, round, innocuous-looking canisters.
"Grenades!" someone shrieked.
But they were not explosives. With a sharp, hissing roar, the canisters began vomiting out thick, emerald-green gas. It billowed upward and outward with shocking speed, a toxic fog that smelled of chemicals and decay.
Pandemonium erupted. A collective scream tore through the hall as students bolted from their seats, scrambling for the sealed exits. Teachers shouted orders that were lost in the cacophony. The quizmaster stumbled back from his podium, clutching his chest. The contestants on stage coughed, their eyes wide with terror.
The green cloud spread relentlessly. It seeped into lungs, burning and suffocating. Some students, thinking quickly, smashed the high windows with chairs, only to be met by the unyielding grid of reinforced steel security bars, a safety feature that had become a cage.
Coordination was impossible. The gas induced disorientation, violent coughing, and a creeping weakness. Screams of panic turned into choking gurgles. One by one, like puppets with their strings cut, bodies slumped in the aisles, collapsed over desks, and slid from chairs. The will to fight was no match for the neurotoxic agent. Within minutes, the deafening chaos subsided into an eerie, absolute silence, broken only by the faint, persistent hiss of the empty canisters. Three thousand students and their teachers lay unconscious, scattered like fallen leaves across the hall.
---
Outside, the operation moved with cold, military precision. Three imposing black trucks, each hauling a sealed shipping container, had rolled into position. Men clad in the now-familiar uniform of black suits and tactical gear stood guard, assault rifles held at the ready. Their leader, his face obscured by a mask, watched a stopwatch with detached focus.
As the digital display hit zero, he gave a sharp, gloved hand signal.
The team moved. The metal bars sealing the main doors were swiftly removed. Two men heaved the doors open, their rifles sweeping the ghastly scene within, a silent auditorium filled with motionless forms. The leader gave a curt nod.
"All clear. Move quickly. Load them into the containers. All of them."
The armed men slung their weapons and transitioned to a grim new task. Working in efficient teams, they began carrying the unconscious students out of the hall, treating them with a brutal, impersonal efficiency. The three containers, cavernous and dark, slowly filled with the limp bodies of Nigeria's brightest youth.
"Okay, let's move out!" the leader barked, his voice muffled by his mask.
The men climbed aboard, some sealing themselves inside the containers with their unconscious cargo, others taking positions in the truck cabs. With growling diesel engines, the three-truck convoy pulled away from the silent hall, carrying its stolen prize into the heart of the bustling city.
Deep within the gloom of the middle container, piled among the senseless forms of students in red and blue uniforms, two bodies lay with a subtle, controlled tension missing from the others. Their breathing was deliberately shallow, their eyes closed to slits. Disguised in the stolen uniforms of Good Hope Secondary School, Pathro and Toshiro played their parts perfectly, waiting for the truck to reach its destination. The trap had been sprung, and they were now in the belly of the beast.