A long, weary exhale escaped Rin Kuga's lips as the last remnants of the Orphnoch dissolved into the night. He reached up, habitually brushing away phantom beads of sweat from his forehead. The street around him was a graveyard of festive debris, but the immediate threat to his timeline had been neutralized.
"I trust no one saw that," he murmured, his voice barely a breath against the wind.
In the blind panic of the evacuation, the commoners had been far too consumed by their own terror to notice the specifics of his transformation. Even if a stray eye had lingered, the instantaneous donning of the armor—a predatory efficiency inherited from the Decade Violent Emotion—would have appeared as nothing more than a glitch in reality. To the mundane mind, the silver-and-pink warrior had simply materialized from the ether.
That should suffice for now, he mused, his hand moving to the Zi-O Ridewatch docked in his belt. Time to find the one who was actually foolish enough to worry.
With a sharp, mechanical click, he disengaged the Watch from the Ziku-Driver. In a shimmering cascade of white particles, the heavy chronal plating evaporated, leaving only a teenage boy standing in the wreckage. Rin didn't linger; he vanished from the ruined plaza, heading toward the subterranean safety of the subway.
Inside the subway station, the air was stagnant, heavy with the collective breath of hundreds of frightened people. The tiled walls, usually echoing with the mundane sounds of transit, now served as the boundaries of a makeshift bunker. The terror of the Orphnoch still lingered in the way people huddled together, their eyes wide and unblinking as they struggled to process the nightmare that had invaded their reality.
Among them stood Mai Sakurajima, a striking silhouette of anxious grace. Though she had trusted Rin enough to follow his orders, the silence from the surface had been an agonizing weight.
When Rin finally appeared at the station entrance, he looked entirely out of place. He walked with a lazy, unhurried stride, his hands in his pockets as if he had just finished a casual stroll rather than a duel with a mythological horror. Against the backdrop of trembling survivors, his calm was almost surreal.
"You're back!"
The sight of him was the catalyst Mai needed to break her poise. She surged forward, her professional mask shattering as she closed the distance between them. For a fleeting second, she looked as though she might throw her arms around him, but the reality of their brief, turbulent acquaintance checked her momentum. She skidded to a halt just inches away, her hands clasping together with white-knuckled intensity.
"Thank God... you're actually okay," she breathed, her voice thick with a relief she couldn't hide. Her eyes shimmered, reflecting the harsh fluorescent lights of the station, betraying the sheer depth of her concern.
Rin looked at her, and for a moment, the cold, distant Sovereign was gone. He saw the genuine, raw emotion in her eyes—the kind of sincerity that didn't care about his power. He reached out, but instead of a comforting embrace, he delivered a sharp, resonant flick to her forehead.
Ting!
Mai let out a sharp yelp, her hands flying to her brow.
"Why do you keep acting like I'm made of glass?" Rin asked, his voice stern, though the hard lines of his face were already beginning to soften. "I told you: worrying about me is a waste of your time."
He held the "tough guy" act for a second longer, but as he looked at her—really saw the lingering tremors in her hands and the exhausted relief in her eyes—the stiffness in his chest gave way. The cold, regal distance he usually maintained evaporated. He let the hard lines of his face relax, offering her a look that was quiet, soft, and undeniably gentle.
Mai, however, was a girl of fire and pride. The moment of softness was immediately met with a counterattack. She surged forward, her heel finding the bridge of Rin's foot with punishing precision.
"Is that how you treat a girl who's been worried sick?" she hissed, leaning in with a radiant, "merciful" smile that didn't reach her narrowing eyes.
Despite the sharp pressure on his foot, Rin didn't flinch. In fact, he felt a strange sense of rightness in the pain. This was Mai Sakurajima he knew a girl with enough spirit to kick a King.
Elsewhere, in a quiet room far removed from the evening's violence, a young man with sharp, dead-fish eyes and pale hair sat at a desk. He sifted through a confidential report, his gaze lingering on a specific set of data.
"Rin Kuga..."
Miyuki Shirogane, President of the Shuchiin Student Council, leaned back, his "dead-fish" eyes narrowing in thought. "The guy is a genius hiding in plain sight. It's time we brought someone of his caliber into the Student Council."
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