"Gah—damn it! Why do I still owe this much?!"
Late at night, in the Cunning Hares' cramped little shack—forever soaked in the stench of cheap machine oil and expired canned food—Nicole lets out a wail and slumps forward, exhausted, letting her ample chest thud onto the desk.
She collapses into a battered office chair that creaks like it's about to give up on life, staring at a heap of bills stacked into a precarious mountain—one bad breath away from burying her alive.
She's just burned through the last shred of this month's "elastic budget" to patch a repair invoice that was slightly less urgent than the rest. The sweat on her forehead hasn't even dried, and the faint relief of "surviving" lasts less than three seconds.
The door opens without a sound.
Anby appears in the doorway like a ghost—same blank expression as always—except what she's carrying makes Nicole's pupils shrink to pinpricks.
A thick new stack of envelopes and invoices.
"Nicole."
Anby's voice is perfectly flat, yet it lands like a hammer to the heart. She steps forward and places that heavy bundle of "new hope" onto Nicole's already-overloaded desk.
Tap.
The topmost overdue notice slides down. A glaring red stamp. A debt total that looks like an astronomical figure.
"Rent. Utilities. Compensation for public property damage from the last job. Billy's advance material fee for repairing his pile of scrap. Nekomata's… uh… 'tuna can reimbursement'…"
Nicole flips pages with trembling fingers. With every page, her face turns a shade grayer. Then she buries her face in her arms and screams into the crook of her elbow like a dying animal.
"AAAHHH—! We took multiple commissions this month! Why—why is the hole getting bigger the more we patch it?!"
And this isn't even the first time this month.
It's been almost three months since Billy's "Outer Ring gold rush" mishap—an incident that ended with Nekomata fishing him out of a foul-smelling sewer using her tail, after which she refused to speak to him for three days. Time didn't heal the Cunning Hares' poverty. It only made the debt snowball.
At first, Nicole still clung to luck.
Billy really did start taking jobs like a man possessed—dirty, exhausting, dangerous, it didn't matter, as long as the pay was decent. Anby kept cutting through combat work with her usual efficiency. Nekomata complained she was sick of sardines, but her mouse-catching skills actually brought in the occasional extra bit of cash. And Nicole herself pinched every last Dennies until it felt like she could split a single coin into eight pieces.
But New Eridu's cost of living rose quietly, like floodwater in the dark. Old clients tightened their budgets. And the Cunning Hares' "bad luck" never stopped following them.
There was always unplanned attrition mid-mission: Billy's beloved gear—his "ladies," as he called them—kept getting damaged, and the repair bills were murderous.
Anby's fighting style was sharp and ruthless; compensation notices for collateral damage came in one after another.
And once, when Nekomata chased down a Bangboo thief who'd stolen critical documents from a client, she accidentally knocked over a stall's supposedly "heirloom" vase… the compensation amount nearly made Nicole black out.
(Though in the end, Nicole talked her way into paying nothing—and somehow even made a profit. Still.)
But what really left Nicole struggling to breathe wasn't just the money.
It was the weight she couldn't say out loud.
Chiya.
Whenever the debt crushed her chest, whenever her team—especially Billy—stared longingly at shop windows they could never afford, Nicole's thoughts would drift uncontrollably to that brightly lit clinic that smelled of disinfectant and faint medicinal herbs.
If she just opened her mouth—no, she wouldn't even need to. If she only let a trace of hardship show on her face in front of him, that soft-hearted, awkwardly adorable doctor would surely shove money into her hands in silence, then say—half helpless, half worried—
"Take it for emergencies… and… remember to eat on time."
The thought was a sweet poison. It surfaced again and again at the edge of her collapse.
And every time, she forced it down with fiercer pride—and a nameless dread that dug its claws into her spine.
Because of them.
Nicole's mind flashes those silhouettes: the staff who called themselves Victoria Housekeeping—the immaculately tailored butlers, the composed, elegant attendants, the maids whose strength was terrifying even to look at.
They called him "Lord Chiya" or "Chiya-sama," with genuine reverence and unwavering loyalty.
Their presence was a cold, flawless mirror—reflecting the Cunning Hares' shabby desperation back at her.
Nicole remembered the moment they arrived: the tiny flicker of relief in Chiya's eyes, so quick he might not have even noticed it himself. She remembered the way they resolved trouble—effortless, controlled, like everything was already in their hands. And she remembered what they represented: an unfathomable force that served New Eridu's high-value clientele.
They didn't worry about next month's rent. They didn't grind their teeth over weapons maintenance and logistics. They didn't sit up at midnight howling at bills.
Why?
Nicole clenched her fists, nails biting deep into her palms.
She met Chiya first. The Cunning Hares were the ones who weathered danger with him. They were the ones who lived through it.
So why—why, when he truly needed support, were the ones shining at his side those flawless, glittering, capable women?
And why were she and her Cunning Hares reduced to an endless sinkhole—becoming his burden, again and again?
A violent wave of inferiority and panic wraps around her throat.
If she borrowed money again… would she forever be that useless Nicole who needed him to clean up her mess?
In front of those perfect maids… wouldn't she look even more like a parasite clinging to his kindness?
She didn't even dare imagine what it would feel like—his gaze shifting between her and them.
That hidden affection in her chest—something she was ashamed to name—became ridiculous and pathetic beneath that crushing difference.
She was terrified that the moment she asked for money, the distance would widen beyond repair—that she'd lose even the right to stand near him, to look at him in secret.
Nekomata's old joke—"Paying with your body? Swallowing it?"—stabs her like a needle. Back then it was something she tossed out when drunk or desperate, a crude laugh to numb herself. But now, facing real "high-value" rivals, she didn't even have the courage to joke.
What she owed Chiya wasn't only money anymore.
It was a heavy, unpayable debt of gratitude—and… expectations.
Before she cleared all their debts, what right did she have to want more?
She feared that if she spoke, her connection to him would forever be chained to debt and humiliation—maintained only by her weakness.
"No… no, I can't…"
Nicole shakes her head hard, burying her face deeper into her arms. Her shoulders tremble uncontrollably, a strangled sob scraping at her throat.
"I can't go to him… I can't—can't let him see me like this again…"
Inferiority. Resentment. Despair. Guilt toward her teammates. Love she couldn't confess. Fear of losing him.
Everything knots together into a choking mess around her heart.
Then—
A cool hand with faint calluses settles gently onto her trembling shoulder.
Nicole stiffens. Her sob cuts off mid-breath.
Anby.
She's somehow already at Nicole's side. She doesn't speak at first—she simply keeps her hand there, steady, firm, with the grounded force of a fighter, as if anchoring Nicole to the world so she won't sink into despair.
Seconds pass.
Just when Nicole thinks Anby will only stand there in silence, a calm, emotionless voice speaks above her head—unusually clear.
"Nicole."
Anby pauses, like she's assembling words she isn't used to using.
"Billy took two commissions today. Nekomata caught a Bangboo thief with a high bounty."
Another pause—like she's verifying her own data.
"We're still here."
Her hand presses slightly harder.
"Debt… we pay slowly. Chiya… not urgent. We… together."
The sentence is almost too simple—clumsy, even.
Yet it cuts through Nicole's storm like a thin, stubborn beam of light.
"Chiya… not urgent."
Anby had pierced straight through to the true knot.
She wasn't talking about the debt. She was telling Nicole: Chiya is still there. He won't change because they're struggling. They still have time. They still have each other.
Nicole lifts her head.
Through tear-blurred vision, she sees Anby's face—still expressionless as ever—but her gaze is unusually focused. Serious. There's no pity, no judgment.
Only a pure, uncomplicated promise:
I'm here.
Nicole's dam finally breaks.
She turns and wraps her arms around Anby's slim waist, burying her face into Anby's chest like a child who's finally found shelter, and she sobs—loud, ugly, unrestrained.
"Anby… I'm so useless! I can't earn enough! The hole keeps getting bigger! I'm scared to see Chiya! I'm scared he'll look down on me! I'm scared he'll think the Cunning Hares are just dead weight! I'm scared… I'm scared that if someone better shows up, he'll stop wanting us…!"
Anby's body goes a little rigid—she clearly isn't comfortable with this kind of closeness.
But she doesn't push Nicole away.
After a brief hesitation, she lifts her free hand and—awkwardly, one beat at a time—pats Nicole's back.
She doesn't say anything else.
She simply lets that steady, repetitive motion—and her silent presence—hold all of Nicole's fear, resentment, and fragility in place.
Outside the window, New Eridu's neon keeps flowing, reflecting the city's glossy mask—while beneath it, countless corners like the Cunning Hares keep struggling to survive.
The road ahead is still hard. The debt doesn't vanish. Nicole's fear doesn't dissolve.
But at least, right now, she knows she isn't fighting alone.
Her teammates are still here.
And Anby's wordless comfort—those four quiet meanings, "Chiya isn't urgent"—give her enough air to keep going.
As for the direction of Chiya's clinic…
Even as Nicole sobs herself breathless, her blurred sight seems to pass through walls, catching a glimpse of that familiar window. The light there feels like it's still on—like a lighthouse far out on a dark sea.
She still longs to go.
And she still doesn't have the courage to knock, not while she's dragging debt and humiliation behind her like chains.
That conflict, in the mud of poverty, continues to ferment.
New Eridu's neon flows through the deep night—like drowned starlight sinking into a steel riverbed, winding between cold skyscraper canyons into viscous ribbons of light.
In the back alleys, where even light has given up salvaging what lies beneath, rot and sourness settle. Old engine oil. The city's stale sigh.
All of it sinks into the shadow-muck until the air itself feels suffocating.
Two slender, upright figures face one another at a narrow alley mouth—
like two blades, different in style but equally sharp, holding a silent standoff in the dark.
They're nearly the same height, but their presence splits cleanly down the middle.
Yanagi Tsukishiro stands slightly inside the alley, as though she's temporarily claimed the shadows as her domain.
A dark trench coat—perfectly cut. Hands resting naturally at her sides.
Her left thumb sits on the shortened handle of her sheathed naginata—"Seeking Flaws."
Behind her glasses, her gaze is surgical—precise, dissecting the soldier in front of her.
Even here, she carries the steady control of a commander: the aura forged by endless difficult missions and the discipline of reining in troublesome subordinates.
The air is stretched tight as a bowstring.
"Captain Trigger," Yanagi speaks first—calm, clear, weighted with invitation. "Thank you for making time. I know it's late. But this matter is significant."
Polite words. Unrefusable pressure.
Trigger stands straight, her uniform jacket outlining clean, lethal lines.
Her signature eyepatch glows faintly in the gloom—the indicator light stable, deep red: high alert.
Her cap brim is low, shadow swallowing her upper face, leaving only the thin line of her mouth—tight, hard, impatient.
Her "gaze" doesn't settle on Yanagi's face. Instead, it measures the world the way a battlefield sensor would:
the minute flow of Ether around Yanagi's body, her breathing rhythm, the whisper of cloth, and—
the restrained, dangerous sharpness radiating from the weapon at her waist.
"Deputy Chief Yanagi," Trigger replies, voice low and metallic. "Your choice of time and place is… distinctive. I hope your 'important matter' is worth the effort."
A soldier's interrogation, with a thread of irritation at being dragged out.
Yanagi nudges her glasses; the lens catches a sliver of reflected light.
"About Doctor Chiya."
No detours. No warming-up.
"Your level of 'attention' toward his clinic exceeds the scope of standard medical rehabilitation or security assignments. Section 6 has the responsibility to assess any potential risk source."
"Especially," she adds, each word crisp, "when it involves a citizen worth monitoring… and abnormal movement from an elite member of the Defense Force."
Trigger's jaw tightens sharply. The eyepatch light flickers once—an involuntary ripple, a core target exposed.
"H.A.N.D.'s assessment scope is too broad," Trigger says, hard and direct. "My actions have their necessity. They are irrelevant to Section 6."
"Necessity?"
Yanagi lets out a sound that's barely a laugh—emotionless, sharp in the silence.
She adjusts her glasses again. This time her eyes are so keen they seem to pierce the eyepatch itself, aiming for the world behind it.
"Captain Trigger. Your perception has been tempered far beyond ordinary soldiers—especially when it comes to 'seeing' what ordinary people can't."
She lowers her voice, and it gains a strange, hypnotic penetration.
"Tell me. When you guard him so 'necessarily'—have you not also clearly sensed it?"
"The thing that coils around him… not deliberate, but lethal like a deep-sea undertow."
Yanagi's words slow, each one laid like a scalpel cut.
"That attraction."
"It seeps in without sound. Dissolves defenses. Awakens the deepest craving in the heart… and a dependence that can kill."
"Those who draw close to him…" she pauses, deliberately refusing to name any faction, "…rarely escape unscathed."
"It makes people sink. It makes them unable to let go. That alone is a dangerously extreme 'trait.'"
Then she speaks the word that tastes like taboo and myth.
"…A presence almost like a succubus."
The alley air detonates.
Trigger's body locks for a split second—then a purer, more violent killing intent bursts outward like a shockwave.
She shifts forward, weight dropping, movement snapping taut like a drawn bow.
Her boot steps into a puddle—
crack.
The sound slices the silence.
Her eyepatch light flips into a savage, glaring crimson, flashing rapidly; a sharp triangular reticle symbol ignites at the center.
Her hand hits her holster like lightning.
She doesn't draw, but the posture alone is a loaded gun aimed at Yanagi's throat.
A killing intent so cold it feels like a blade in the lungs.
"You—want—death?"
The words grind out between Trigger's teeth, each syllable wrapped in thunderous fury and raw violation.
This wasn't just an accusation aimed at Chiya.
It was an insult to the very act of protecting him.
Yanagi doesn't move.
Her thumb never leaves the shortened handle.
If anything, the joint of her thumb tightens slightly; from the sheathe comes a faint, bone-scrape hum—so subtle it's almost imagined.
Her eyes don't waver. Instead, they sharpen into something calmly cruel—like she's evaluating a dangerous device's detonation threshold.
She doesn't retreat. She doesn't attack.
She simply stands there, using her composure—and her weapon's quiet warning—to form an invisible barrier.
"Can't sense it?" Yanagi asks, voice still stable in the storm. "It isn't intentional seduction. It's closer to… a 'field' emitted unconsciously by the essence of his life itself."
"It permeates."
"It dismantles defenses."
"It awakens desire… and lethal reliance."
Her gaze "carves" toward Trigger's hand on the holster with surgical precision.
"So will you take extreme measures against me—the 'evaluator'—because of what you sense?"
"To protect his secret?"
Or—
Yanagi's voice drops like a knife slipping between ribs.
"To deny the fact… that you, too, cannot resist?"
"Shut up."
Trigger's growl is low and feral. Her grip whitens her knuckles.
The eyepatch glow burns like magma.
Yanagi's words are poisoned ice picks, stabbing straight into the corner of Trigger's mind she refuses to face.
Chiya's presence is her comfort. Her confusion. Her light.
And she would die before letting anything touch it.
Being dissected like this—by someone equally strong, with an unclear agenda—triggers instinctive rage and defense.
But Yanagi's mountain-still stance, and the pressure of that sheathed weapon, collide against Trigger's killing intent like an unyielding wall.
Trigger cannot draw.
If she escalates, the clash becomes uncontrollable—
and worse, it might give whatever lurks in the shadows an opening to redirect danger straight toward him.
That concern forces her anger down, clamps it in iron.
Two killing pressures collide in the narrow alley—like two beasts roaring without sound, each restrained from tearing the other apart.
Then, slowly—
the violent crimson in Trigger's eyepatch begins to dim, flicker, as if an unseen hand is forcing her fury into a cage.
She inhales—deep, slow—like she's dragging the alley's filth and cold into her lungs, transmuting it into resolve.
The light stabilizes into a dark, muted deep blue—the color of extreme suppression.
The reticle fades. Her hand remains on the holster, but the imminent burst of violence recedes.
"I…"
Trigger's voice turns rough, carrying the exhaustion of forcing herself back from the edge—and the clarity of something decided.
"I will not allow anyone, in any way, to threaten Lord Chiya."
She sidesteps Yanagi's core provocation, but the statement itself is her clearest position—her soul's anchor.
"Whatever that presence is."
"He is… someone worth protecting."
Yanagi's tension eases by a thread.
She watches the deep-blue glow—an unmistakable sign of violent struggle forcibly calmed—and a complex understanding flickers behind her lenses.
She doesn't press further. She doesn't try to "win" the standoff.
As the operational core of Section 6, Yanagi knows when to push and when to stop.
Her goal has been met—at least enough:
Trigger's stance is confirmed. A powerful ally of circumstance, whose objective overlaps with hers.
And the "abnormality" of that aura is real.
That's enough to report to Miyabi, and to adjust their observation strategy.
"Then we have reached an understanding," Yanagi says, returning to her usual crisp, efficient calm, as if the killing storm never happened.
"Protect him. That is our shared responsibility."
She dips her head once—clean, decisive—then turns.
Her coat hem cuts a neat arc through the darkness.
The click of her heels fades away, heading toward the small home where she and Soukaku still keep a light on.
Trigger remains in place until the sound is gone—until Yanagi's footsteps dissolve into the city's distant hum.
Only then does her hand slowly release the holster.
Her fingertips are numb.
She doesn't head toward Chiya's clinic—the warm direction that now twists her thoughts into something tangled and heavy.
Instead, she turns, her steps steady but weighted, and disappears deeper into the night—toward Obsidian Camp beyond the city.
The military's cold order, and the presence of comrades, feels more capable of settling her churning heart right now.
At this moment—
she needs guidance.
"Captain Ghostfire…"
"What should I do?"
Night, thick as ink, swallows the words whole.
Far away, New Eridu's never-sleeping neon continues to shift coldly atop the steel forest—casting indifferent light over the shadowed place where an unseen storm has just barely, finally, gone quiet.
Join here to read ahead.
In Star Rail, Ultra-Beast Armored — Have I Caught "Equilibrium"? l (Chapter 80)
Uma Musume, But I Only Have Five Years Left to Live (Chapter 150)
Zenless Zone Zero: I'm a Doctor, Not a Bangboo (Chapter 115)
Ben Tennyson Wants to Join the Justice League (Chapter 110)
TYPE-MOON: Redemption Beginning with the Holy Grail War (Chapter105)
Yu-Gi-Oh! — Transmigrated into the White Dragon Girl (Chapter100)
"Is this chat group even serious?" (Chapter69)
I, Lord Ravager, Utterly Loyal! (Chapter100)
Can Playing Games Save the World? 65
Crossover Anime Multiverse: The Demon Hunter of an Unnatural World 70
From Junkman to Wasteland 60
Weekly Refresh of Overpowered 31
I'm Grinding Proficiency Like 40
From Kiana, Lord Ravager, Onwa 60
Honkai: Is This Still the Prev 42
Elf: My Starter Pokémon Is Inc 50
Warhammer: My Primarch Is Remi 50
From Demon Slayer to Grand Ass 50
The Way the Umamusume Look at 31
Uma Musume, but My Cheat Power 26
Naruto: Weaving the Future, Be 26
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