Shun stayed on one knee, breathing hard through the porcelain mask. A thin line of real blood—his own this time—slipped from his nose and dripped onto the grass. He wiped it away with the back of his gloved hand and finally looked at her properly for the first time.
She was tiny. Too tiny. Arms thinner than broom handles, cheeks hollow, collarbones sharp enough to cast shadows.
The kind of hunger that magiteck money never touches. Her school uniform was torn at the sleeve and stained with someone else's blood.
"You… you killed them," she whispered. It wasn't an accusation. It was just raw disbelief.
"Yeah." His voice came out flatter than he meant. "They were going to use you as bait. Still might, if I leave you here."
Silence stretched between them, broken only by the wind moving through the grass. She hugged her arms tight across her chest like she was trying to hold herself together.
Shun could almost hear the math happening behind her eyes: Stay with the scary masked man who just murdered three people, or take my chances with the people who put a leash on me?
He didn't push. He just waited.
Finally she spoke again, voice small. "They'll come after me. They always do."
"I know."
She took half a step back, eyes flicking toward the distant road. For a second he thought she might actually run.
He wouldn't have stopped her. Instead she just stood there, trembling, weighing a future she couldn't see against the one she already knew.
Shun sighed through the mask. "Look. I'm not offering you a home forever. Just… until the heat dies down. A few weeks, maybe a month. Somewhere they can't track you. After that you're free to go wherever you want."
Her gaze snapped back to him. "Why?"
"Because I started this mess when I took down the force field. Least I can do is finish it."
She didn't answer right away. Instead she scratched absently at her left forearm, right over the sleeve. The motion was automatic, nervous. Shun's eyes narrowed behind the mask.
After almost a full minute of silence she finally rolled the sleeve up. A small silver plate gleamed just under the skin—third-gen Gimeshi tracker, standard corporate slave brand.
"They put it in when I was eight," she said quietly. "So they always know where I am. If I run… they find me in hours."
Shun stayed perfectly still, letting her decide whether to keep talking. He didn't reach for her. Didn't promise anything yet.
She stared at the mask for a long time, searching the two slit eyes like she could read his soul through porcelain.
"Why would you help me?" she asked at last. "You don't even know my name."
"Because nobody helped me when I was your age," he said simply. "And because I can remove that chip in thirty seconds. But you have to let me."
Another long pause. Then, so softly he almost missed it:
"…Selen. My name is Selen Richter."
He nodded once. "Neo. Or Shun, when the mask is off. Your choice."
She swallowed hard, then held out her arm like it was a loaded gun she was handing over.
Shun reached out slowly—telegraphing every movement—and pressed two fingers to the plate. White particles gathered at his fingertips, forming a tiny scalpel of light. The extraction took twelve seconds.
The chip came out clean, a little silver square no bigger than a fingernail. He crushed it between his fingers until it sparked and died.
Selen watched the pieces fall into the grass like they were the last chains she'd ever wear.
She still didn't smile. But the shaking in her shoulders eased, just a fraction.
They sat in the grass after that—him cross-legged, her a careful meter away. The sun had fully set now. The lake glittered under starlight.
Shun rubbed the bridge of his nose even though the mask was still in the way. What the hell am I doing? he thought. I don't even like kids. I like older women who don't ask questions.
In the distance, the low growl of an engine approached. A black van crested the hill, lights off, moving on autopilot. The program he'd wired into his motor cortex had finally found him.
Shun stood slowly, joints protesting. "That's our ride. We can keep talking inside."
Selen got to her feet too, still keeping that careful distance, but she didn't flinch when he moved anymore.
For the first time since the fight ended, she looked almost… safe.
The black van crested the low hill without headlights, engine humming low like a predator that already knew its prey.
It rolled to a stop beside them, tires crunching softly on dry grass. From the trunk, two sleek drones unfolded like mechanical birds, red status lights blinking once in greeting.
Shun didn't even try to stand on his own. The backlash from [Exceed] had turned his legs into wet noodles. He just lifted one arm in a lazy signal.
The drones descended, crab-like arms extending with surprising gentleness. One wrapped around his upper body, the other under his knees. They lifted him as if he weighed nothing and carried him toward the rear doors.
Selen watched the whole process with wide, careful eyes. She didn't flinch at the machines—only at the way Shun's head lolled for a second before he caught himself.
When the rear doors hissed open and a medical stretcher slid out on silent rails, she finally moved.
"Front seat," Shun muttered through the mask as the drones lowered him onto the stretcher. "It's safer up there."
She gave a small nod and climbed in through the sliding side door. The drones tucked the stretcher back inside like a drawer, then retracted into the trunk.
The doors sealed with a soft pneumatic sigh. The van pulled away smoothly, accelerating into the quiet night. Streetlights began to streak past the tinted windows in long golden ribbons.
For a minute the only sound was the low thrum of the engine and the faint click of the stretcher's auto-locks securing Shun in place.
Selen sat twisted halfway around in the front passenger seat, watching him over the headrest. Her hands were folded tight in her lap, but the trembling from earlier had mostly stopped.
"Mister… Neo," she started quietly. "How do hunters do that? Summon things out of nowhere? The sword, that little scalpel for the chip… it's like magic."