Location: Outside Smile Mart, District 9
Time: 3:25 AM
The rain in Kagura-Zaka didn't wash things clean. It just made the grime slicker.
Dante stood under the flickering neon sign of the Smile Mart, his black umbrella open. To a normal person, he looked like a gloomy teenager waiting for a bus. To the three massive Class-C Ghouls twitching in the parking lot, he looked like an appetizer.
"You..." the lead Ghoul gargled. It was huge, wearing a torn construction vest that was fused to its grey, rocky skin. "You are... small."
Dante sighed, his breath misting in the cold air. The silver piercings on his face were humming now, a low frequency vibration that rattled his teeth.
"I'm not small," Dante said. "I'm just overworked. Now, you broke the glass. That's a $400 replacement fee. Cash or credit?"
The Ghoul roared—a sound like tearing metal—and charged. It moved shockingly fast for something that looked like a boulder with legs.
"Benji! Music!" Dante yelled.
"On it!" Benji's voice crackled over the comms earbud.
Suddenly, the Smile Mart's outdoor speakers—usually reserved for soft jazz—blasted a distorted, 8-bit remix of a magical girl anime theme song.
"SPARKLE-SPARKLE HEART BEAT!~"
"Wrong playlist!" Dante groaned.
"My finger slipped! I'm under pressure!" Benji screamed.
The Ghoul was on top of him. It swung a fist the size of a microwave. Dante didn't dodge. He planted his feet, tilted the umbrella, and braced.
BOOM.
The impact shook the pavement. The Ghoul's fist collided with the black fabric of the umbrella. But instead of breaking, the umbrella rippled like a stone hitting a pond. The kinetic energy vanished—sucked into the void of Dante's Type-Null blood.
Dante's eyes flashed white. The industrial bar in his left ear glowed like a heating coil.
"Return to sender," Dante muttered.
He snapped the umbrella shut and thrust the tip forward like a spear. A shockwave of pure, condensed force—the Ghoul's own strength magnified—blasted out.
The Ghoul folded in half. It launched backward across the wet asphalt, skipping like a stone until it slammed into a support pillar of the highway overpass. It slid down, groaning.
"That's One," Dante said, checking his nails. "Two left."
"Hey! Don't hog all the XP!"
Above him, the power lines buzzed. GiGi was crouching on a high-tension wire, balancing perfectly in her combat boots. The rain plastered her blonde pigtails to her face, but she was grinning like a shark.
"I want the big one!" she shouted.
She leaped. Mid-air, she bit her thumb. Blood sprayed out, and she whipped her hands wide. The blood hardened instantly into Type-Ferro wires—invisible, razor-sharp monofilaments.
She landed behind the second Ghoul. She didn't even look at it. She just pulled her hands together as if she were tightening a shoelace.
SHING.
The second Ghoul paused. Then, slowly, it slid apart into four neat cubes.
GiGi did a pirouette in the puddles, splashing mud on her bare legs. "Slice and dice! That's worth at least a free slushie, right Dante?"
"No," Dante said. "And stop posing. Behind you."
The third Ghoul—the sneaky one—had flanked them. It lunged at GiGi's exposed back, jaws wide.
"Eep!" GiGi squeaked, but she didn't move. She didn't have to.
A low, mechanical hum filled the air.
vvvvvvvvt.
A tiny drone, no bigger than a hummingbird, zipped out of the darkness. It sprayed a cloud of pink mist directly into the Ghoul's face.
The Ghoul stopped. Its eyes dilated. It started swinging wildly at the air, fighting an invisible enemy.
"Lag spike applied!" Benji shouted from inside the store. "I dropped his frame rate to 5 FPS! He's glitching!"
"Nice assist, nerd," GiGi laughed. She walked up to the hallucinating Ghoul and casually kicked it in the kneecap. It crumbled.
Dante closed his umbrella and shook the rain off it. "Okay. That's all of them. Let's drag the bodies to the dumpster before the morning commute starts."
"Wait," GiGi said, her ears twitching. "Do you hear that?"
Dante listened. Under the sound of the rain and the magical girl music, there was a slow, rhythmic clapping.
Clap. Clap. Clap.
A figure stepped out from the shadows of the overpass. He was wearing a pristine white suit that seemed to repel the mud. He had slicked-back blonde hair and a face that was too handsome to be human. He looked at the dismembered Ghouls with a look of mild distaste, like someone who had stepped in gum.
"Messy," the man said. "Crude. Unrefined."
Dante felt a chill go down his spine that had nothing to do with the cold. His piercings cooled down instantly. His instincts were screaming: Run.
"Who are you?" Dante asked, gripping his umbrella.
The man smiled. It didn't reach his eyes. His eyes were a dull, flat crimson.
"I am Kenjiro Matsuzaki," the man said. He looked past Dante, locking eyes with GiGi. "Hello, Gin. Mother is very disappointed in your choice of friends."
GiGi froze. The manic grin vanished from her face. She looked small.
"Kenjiro," she whispered.
Matsuzaki raised a hand. The blood from the dead Ghouls on the pavement began to move. It didn't flow; it obeyed. It rose up, forming perfectly geometric spears that hovered in the air, aiming at Dante's chest.
"You have five seconds to return my sister," Matsuzaki said calmly. "Or I will paint this parking lot with your insides."
"I..." Dante stepped in front of GiGi. "I can't let you do that."
"Why?" Matsuzaki asked, amused. "Loyalty?"
"No," Dante said, his voice trembling slightly. "Because if you kill me, I can't clock out. And I really need the overtime."
Matsuzaki's eyes narrowed. "Then die."
The blood spears fired.
SNAP.
Time stopped.
Literally.
The raindrops hung suspended in the air like diamonds. The blood spears froze inches from Dante's nose. The sound of the highway overhead cut out into absolute silence.
A hand rested on Dante's shoulder.
"Man," a lazy voice drawled. "I leave you kids alone for five minutes and you pick a fight with a Yakuza Prince? You guys have no chill."
Dante blinked. Sora Higashiyama was standing next to him. He had one hand in the pocket of his cargo pants and the other holding a plastic bag of steaming dumplings. He was wearing his sleep mask.
Sora leaned forward and poked one of the frozen blood spears. It shattered into dust.
"Yo, Matsuzaki," Sora said, grinning under the mask. "You're blocking the entrance. I need to buy milk."
Time resumed with a violent CRACK.
Matsuzaki stumbled back, his perfect composure breaking for a split second. He stared at the man in the sleep mask.
"The Boundless Sorcerer," Matsuzaki hissed.
Sora popped a dumpling into his mouth and chewed thoughtfully. "That's me. Now, are we gonna fight? Because my dumplings are getting cold, and I get cranky when my food gets cold."
Matsuzaki glared at them. He straightened his suit, the blood falling back to the ground as liquid.
"This isn't over, Gin," he said coldly. "Enjoy your freedom while it lasts."
He turned and walked into the shadows, vanishing as if he were never there.
The adrenaline crashed out of Dante. He slumped against the wall of the Smile Mart.
"You were late," Dante muttered.
"There was a line," Sora shrugged. He tossed the bag of dumplings to Dante. "Here. Employee bonus. Good job not dying."
Dante looked at the dumplings. Then he looked at the shattered glass of the storefront.
"Sora," Dante said. "You're paying for the window."
Sora laughed, walking into the store. "Put it on my tab, kid. Put it on my tab."