ROOM 402 – THE HOSPITAL
Pale morning light bled through the glass of Room 402, illuminating dust motes dancing in the sterile air. Rena let out a low groan; her eyelids felt like they were forged from lead. It took a few agonizing seconds for her consciousness to stitch itself back together—waking up from eight hours of total darkness was a hellish way to start the day.
"Rena? You're awake? Thank God, Rena!"
Rena turned her head slowly. Her neck was stiff, a lingering souvenir from the impact last night. Beside her bed sat Nadia, her face puffy from crying, her hair a bird's nest of stress. Small bandages dotted the girl's arms and temples—the physical debris of the restaurant chaos.
Nadia scrambled to hit the call button for the nurse. After a flurry of checks that felt like an eternity, the doctor finally declared Rena stable—just a mild concussion and a constellation of bruises. Once the medical staff cleared out, a suffocating silence flooded back into the room.
Nadia watched Rena with a look that was hard to pin down. She leaned in, her voice dropping to an intense, forced whisper. "You need to explain. What the hell actually happened last night?"
Rena took a long breath, trying to sort through the jagged shards of her memory. "That man... he planned the whole thing. He protected me."
A flash of red liquid—blood seeping slowly from behind a sofa—haunted the back of her mind. Rena knew that man had ended the monster who had tried to touch her. But the confession died in her throat. She knew if she said it out loud, Nadia would never let her see him again.
She couldn't let her best friend know that the man she was supposed to trust didn't even flinch after taking a life. To him, killing was just another Tuesday.
"Protected you by taking you hostage? Rena, you almost died in that car!" Nadia stood up, pacing the small room like a caged animal. "Who is he? How did you end up in the same car as the Minister?"
Rena went quiet. She traced the bandage on her forehead, digging through her mind for a name, a label—anything. A jolt of realization hit her: in the middle of all that carnage, they hadn't even traded names.
"We made a deal," Rena finally said, her voice sounding hollow, distant. "He needed me to get the Minister out safely, and in exchange..." She paused, staring blankly at the stiff white sheets. "...he promised me 'anything' I asked for. Nadia, this is my golden ticket. My way to win the CLOVER Survival Idol."
Nadia stopped dead. She looked at Rena as if her friend had just lost her mind. "And you believe him?"
"He didn't look like he was lying," Rena whispered.
"Rena, wake up! You're gambling your life on a promise from a man whose name you don't even know!" Nadia's voice spiked with frustration. "He could have just used you and vanished! Look around—where is he? Did he show up to take responsibility while you were out for hours?"
Rena had no answer. Her own mind was screaming the same questions. But every time the doubt flared, she remembered how he had caught a bullet with his bare palm while he forced her to wear his own ballistic vest. The heat and the metallic tang of his blood had been too visceral to be a lie.
The tension snapped when the door slid open. Giovanni, Rena's manager, rushed in, his usually rigid face sagging with relief.
"Miss Rena! Thank heavens you're awake." Giovanni gripped a tablet in his hands. "There's news from the police station."
Nadia and Rena turned in unison.
"The police just called. Your scheduled testimony for this afternoon? Canceled," Giovanni said. "They claim the evidence from the scene and 'technical intervention' on the footage is more than enough. Both your names have been scrubbed from the public files. As far as the report goes, neither of you were ever there."
Nadia frowned. "Scrubbed? How? Rena was in a high-speed chase. She's literally in a hospital bed because of it."
"I don't understand it either, Miss Nadia. I don't want to speculate wildly, but I suspect it's because Miss Rena is a CLOVER candidate." Giovanni sighed, then looked at Rena with a sudden, grave seriousness. "And, Miss Rena... there's someone outside. He says he wants to see you."
Silence fell like a guillotine.
Rena and Nadia shared a look. In that instant, their shared history acted as telepathy. Only one man could be standing behind that door.
"It has to be him," Nadia whispered, her anger replaced by a cold, sharp anxiety.
Rena swallowed hard. Her heart began to drum against her ribs with an unnatural rhythm. What do I even say? How do I demand a path to the top of CLOVER from a ghost? She tried to pull her shattered plans back together.
Suppressing the panic, Rena gave the order. "Manager Giovanni. Let him in."
POLICE HEADQUARTERS – THE JENDERAL'S OFFICE
The Rich City Police Headquarters offered a cold, arrogant view of the city through floor-to-ceiling bulletproof glass. Inside a sprawling office that smelled of expensive cologne, General La Vie En Rose sat behind a mahogany desk. The stars on her uniform glinted under the crystal chandelier.
On the leather sofa opposite her, Santino sat stiffly. The arms dealer usually radiated arrogance, but today, he looked like a man waiting for a death sentence.
"Your name has been crossing my desk quite a bit lately, Santino," Rose's voice broke the silence—chilled and laced with irony. "Friction with Baron Frey, the mystery coup at Eye Tower, and last night... a restaurant hijacking targeting a former Minister."
Santino grunted, shifting uncomfortably. "I know, Rose. But you know I don't go looking for trouble."
Rose sipped her tea slowly, her sharp eyes dissecting him. "I hear you have a new 'right hand' who is remarkably efficient. Your illegal margins have spiked since he took the reins. Is he the one joining us?"
"He's more than a right hand," Santino muttered bitterly. "He's the boy I sold to the slave barracks over a decade ago. And now... he's back to take everything he thinks he's owed."
Santino exhaled, his eyes wandering to the floor. "Anyway, there's something else bothering me." He paused, digging through the hazy fog of a long, drunken night. "I have this faint memory... something about an auction and Baron Frey's assets. You know anything?"
Rose frowned, setting her cup down with a soft clink. "An asset auction? You're not usually the type for antiques or seized property. What's the angle?"
"I just feel pathetic," Santino rasped, his voice thick with a sudden, uncharacteristic regret. "Looking at my life now... I realized how much good I traded away just to do stupid, useless things."
He looked at Rose with eyes that almost bordered on a plea. "Just once, I want to do something that actually matters."
Rose stared at her old acquaintance with a flat expression, but before she could respond to the embarrassing confession, there was a knock on the heavy oak door.
The door opened, and the atmosphere in the room shifted instantly—becoming heavy, pressurized, suffocating.
Ren walked in. He wasn't wearing a mask, but his expression was even harder to read. Behind him, Erebos stood like a monolith—a physical presence so intimidating it felt like he could bring the room down with a single step.
Ren wore a dark shirt with the sleeves rolled up, revealing the white bandages wrapped tightly around his right palm and wrist. Despite the injury, his stride was light and effortless, as if he weren't walking into the heart of a police fortress as a wanted man.
"I'm here, General," Ren said politely. He dipped his head slightly, but his amber eyes moved with predatory precision; he was counting CCTV cameras, mapping hidden motion sensors, and measuring the distance to Rose's guards.
He was the city's most wanted ghost, standing right in front of the law. One slip, and he was dead.
Rose glanced at the bandages on Ren's hand, then met his gaze. "Sit. We have a lot to discuss."
Ren didn't sit. He looked at Rose with a deadpan stare, then flicked a glance at Santino. The look was so sharp that Santino immediately averted his eyes, as if Ren's gaze carried a curse.
"Thank you for the offer, General," Ren said, his voice low but vibrating with authority. "However, I think our discussion regarding last night's 'trash' would be much more efficient if held in private."
Rose studied him for a moment, then looked at the slumped Santino. She reached into her desk drawer and pulled out a black card embossed with gold—the Rich City emblem. It was an entry ticket to a high-end auction that money alone couldn't buy.
She snapped the card between her fingers. "Santino, I think you have an errand to run regarding your earlier complaint."
Santino stood up, snatching the card without a second thought. "Fine. Don't underestimate me," he said, heading for the exit.
Rose gave a small huff but let him go. she signaled for her aides to leave. Erebos stepped back, sealing the heavy oak doors from the outside.
She pressed a button beneath her desk. A faint hiss filled the room—a signal scrambler, ensuring not a single bit of audio could escape these walls.
Now, in the soundproofed vacuum, it was only Ren and the General.
"Now then, where shall we begin?" Rose asked, her gaze elegant and lethal. "Should I start by calling you..."
She paused. Ren didn't react. His practiced, fake smile remained perfectly in place.
"...Shiroi Hitsuji?"
The moment the code name hit the air, the smile vanished. Ren's face went cold instantly. The mask was gone. In its place was his true face: emotionless, calculating, and absolutely deadly.