Vivian's breath hitches. Her tactical mind is screaming, a frantic red alert echoing in her skull. She didn't even see him move—no flash of Aura, no tell-tale ripple in the air. He had simply ceased to be in one spot and appeared in another, as if the world itself had recalculated his position while Mika was mid-swing.
"Reina, stay back," Vivian commands, her voice tight, almost a whisper. She extends an arm, physically barring the younger girl from stepping forward. Her eyes are fixed on the rusted pipe in Kei's hand. In the hands of anyone else, it would be junk; in his, it feels like a looming sentence.
Reina's sunshine persona has completely vanished, replaced by a pale, wide-eyed mask of dread. "Viv... his Aura... I can't feel it," she stammers, her gauntlets humming with a low, nervous energy. "He's like a ghost. How can he move like that if he's just a... a normal person?"
Mika doesn't care about the lack of Aura. She doesn't care about the logistics. The sight of him holding a piece of garbage as if it were an equal match for her blade sends her over the edge. Her vision swims with a violet haze as her pride as a Count Rank Hunter shatters.
"A martyr?" Mika spits the word out like venom, her boots scraping against the concrete as she resets her stance. Her Aura flares violently, the rain around her vaporizing into steam from the sheer heat of her power. "I'm going to turn that pipe into scrap metal, and then I'm going to make you take back every word you said about us."
"Mika, wait!" Vivian calls out, but it's too late.
Mika lunges again, but this time she doesn't go for a flashy draw. She pours everything into speed—a jagged, zig-zagging dash designed to disorient. She closes the distance in a heartbeat, her katana whistling through the air in a vertical strike meant to shatter the pipe and the man's composure along with it.
"Don't look down on us!" Mika screams, the violet light of her blade illuminating the dark alleyway like a dying star.
The vertical slash descends like a guillotine, the violet aura surrounding the steel screaming through the rain, promising to cleave anything in its path.
But Kei doesn't retreat. To the horror of Vivian and Reina, he steps forward, deep into the arc of the swing—the one place where a long-reach weapon like a katana is most vulnerable.
Clack.
The sound isn't the explosion of metal Mika expected. Instead of meeting the edge, Kei's rusted pipe slides against the flat of her blade with a grating screech. Using the pipe as a lever, he redirects the downward force away from his body and into the wet earth.
The katana buries itself three inches deep into the concrete. The jarring impact sends a violent vibration up Mika's arms, numbing her fingers and shattering her grip. Before she can even process the failure, the tip of the cold, rusted pipe is pressed firmly against the underside of her chin, forcing her head up and exposing her throat.
"Telegraphing your intent with your Aura," Kei says, his voice a low, steady hum beneath the roar of the rain. "A common mistake for those who rely on power over precision. You might be a Count in rank, but your footwork is that of a novice. You didn't swing at me; you swung at where I was three seconds ago."
He stares down at her, his silver eyes reflecting the fading violet glow of her trapped weapon. He doesn't look triumphant; he looks bored, like a teacher correcting the same mistake for the hundredth time.
"D-minus for execution," he murmurs.
He doesn't look away from Mika, but his voice carries through the alleyway to Vivian and Reina. "I asked a question. Are you going to be martyrs, or are you going to be professional? Because right now, your teammate is one twitch away from a crushed windpipe, and she hasn't even noticed that her stance has left her completely off-balance."
Mika's breath hitches, the cold, jagged edge of the pipe biting into her skin. She tries to summon her Aura again, to force a burst of energy that would blast him back, but her focus is shattered. The vibration from the concrete impact is still traveling through her bones, and her muscles refuse to obey. She looks up into those silver eyes and, for the first time in her career as a Hunter, she feels a prickle of genuine, primal fear—not of a monster, but of a man.
"Your Aura isn't a weapon here, Mika Nam. It's a neon sign," Kei continues, his voice barely audible over the rain, yet it carries the weight of a mountain. "You rely on it to compensate for your lack of fundamentals. Without it, you are nothing but a girl swinging a stick."
He shifts his gaze slightly to Vivian, who has frozen in place, her hand inches from her de-manifested bow.
"Leader," Kei says, addressing Vivian directly.
"You watched her make three fatal tactical errors in the last ten seconds and didn't intervene. Does MUSE function as a team, or is it just a collection of individuals waiting for their turn to die?"
Vivian's face pales, her hands dropping to her sides. She recognizes the truth in his words, as bitter as it is. She steps forward, not to attack, but in a gesture of de-escalation.
"We... we were caught off guard," she says, her voice regaining its steady, professional lilt despite the circumstances. "By the Cryptid, and by you. Please... put the pipe down. We acknowledge your authority as an Overseer."
"Vivian! No!" Mika rasps, her eyes flashing with defiance, but the pipe presses a fraction harder against her throat, silencing her.
Kei remains unmoved by Vivian's submission. He waits for a beat, letting the silence and the cold rain sink in. Then, with a flick of his wrist, he pulls the pipe back and tosses it aside. It clatters against a dumpster with a hollow, lonely ring.
"Did you feel fear for your life, Hunter Mika?"
The rain felt colder now, or perhaps it was just the sudden absence of the violet heat from Mika's Aura. She remained frozen for a long moment, her chin still tilted upward from where the pipe had been just seconds ago. Her chest heaved, not from the exertion of the fight, but from the sheer, suffocating weight of the realization that she had been utterly helpless.
Her hands, usually so steady when gripping her blade, were visibly trembling. She looked down at her fingers, then at her katana—the legendary weapon of a Count-rank Hunter—still humiliatingly wedged into the cracked concrete like a discarded toy.
"I..." Mika started, her voice cracking. The fire in her eyes hadn't quite died, but it was flickering, smothered by a damp, heavy dread. She wanted to scream, to lash out again, to prove him wrong, but her body refused to move. The phantom sensation of the cold metal against her throat remained, a physical reminder of how close she had come to the end.
Vivian quickly stepped forward, moving between Mika and Kei, though she kept her hands visible and away from her gear. She placed a steadying hand on Mika's shoulder, feeling the younger girl's tremors.
"She did," Vivian answered for her, her voice low and somber. She looked Kei directly in the eye, her own expression a mask of grim acceptance. "We all did. That's the point you're making, isn't it? That our ranks and our Aura don't matter if we're too dead to use them."
Reina hurried to Mika's other side, her face pale. She didn't say anything, but she reached down and gripped the hilt of Mika's katana, using her gauntlets' strength to wrench the blade out of the pavement with a harsh shink. She handed it back to Mika, her usual cheerful eyes filled with a quiet, uncharacteristic fear.
Mika took the sword back, her knuckles white as she sheathed it with a shaky hand. She finally looked up at Kei, her pride wounded far deeper than any Cryptid could have managed.
"You three still don't get it, do you?" Kei replies, letting out a disappointed sigh.
"The fear and helplessness you felt from me was only a fraction of what the Hunters who perished had gone through before having their souls mercilessly rooted out by those monsters."
The word 'rooted' hangs in the air, more chilling than the rain. It strikes a chord in Reina, who visibly flinches, her hands clutching her gauntlets as if she could protect her very soul with them. The "Nation's Dream Girls" look anything but dreamy now; they look like children standing in the dark, realizing for the first time that the monsters under the bed have real teeth.
Mika's breath hitches. She stares at Kei, her lips parted but no words coming out. The anger that had fueled her moments ago has been replaced by a hollow, gnawing void. She thinks of the fellow Hunters she's seen on the association's records—the ones whose deaths were reported as "unfortunate accidents" to the public. She had always felt superior to them, thinking they were just weak or unlucky. Now, she realizes she was just the same: a heartbeat away from being a statistic.
Vivian bows her head, the rain cascading off the brim of her tactical hood. "We've been treating the midnight hunt like another performance," she says, her voice thick with a realization that tastes like ash. "Clean kills, flashy moves... we were playing for a crowd that wasn't there, instead of fighting the reality of the threat."
She looks up at Kei, her gaze no longer challenging, but seeking the professional guidance he was sent to provide. "You said 'mostly confrontation with Cryptids above their class.' That Arachnoid... it was just a Jumping Spider. If we had met something higher tonight, with the way we were fighting..."
"If it was a Huntsman, you would be dead before the 3 AM bell," Kei finishes for her, his voice devoid of pity.
He reaches into his inner suit pocket and pulls out a small, sleek black device—a dedicated data-logger for the Overseer program. He taps the screen, the blue light reflecting in his silver eyes.
"Tonight was a live-fire assessment. I didn't intervene until you were at risk of causing collateral damage to the environment and yourselves," Kei states.
Mika is still slumped on the cold ground. Her legs lost all strength to even properly stand. The rain shows no signs of letting up, the rhythmic drumming against the asphalt the only thing filling the heavy silence. Mika looks small, a stark contrast to the fierce warrior who had lunged at the darkness only minutes prior. Her tactical gear is stained with oil and mud, her knees pressed into the cold puddles. The "Nation's Dream Girl" is currently just a trembling girl, the weight of her own mortality finally settling into her bones.
Kei looks down at her.
"The ground is cold, isn't it?" Kei asks, his voice surprisingly soft, though the clinical edge remains.
Mika's eyes, still wide and reflecting the distant city lights, snapped up in sheer bewilderment. One moment she was slumped in the chilling puddle, the next, a firm, lean arm was beneath her back and another under her knees, lifting her with an effortless grace that belied Kei's deceptively slender frame. She was held against his chest, surprisingly warm against her soaked gear. The smell of clean rain and a faint, almost sterile scent replaced the usual ozone and Cryptid ichor she was accustomed to.
"What—" Mika started, a fresh wave of mortification washing over her. Her cheeks flushed a deep red that had nothing to do with anger and everything to do with embarrassment. She, a Count-rank Hunter, the fierce Mika Nam, was being cradled like a child. Her initial instinct was to push away, to fight, but then a sharp, undeniable pain flared in her left ankle. It wasn't excruciating, but a deep, throbbing ache that suddenly made sense of her earlier inability to stand.
"He hit my ankle... with the pipe?" The thought hit her, cold and clear. He hadn't just disarmed her; he had incapacitated her in one fluid, barely perceptible movement. The realization sent a fresh shiver down her spine, colder than any rain.
Vivian gasped, her composure momentarily cracking. Her gaze darted from Mika, cradled in Kei's arms, to Kei's calm, unwavering face. The swift, silent maneuver, the calculated precision of his attack on Mika's ankle – it was beyond anything she had witnessed. He hadn't just disarmed Mika, he had systematically dismantled her fighting capacity, all while making it look like a casual confrontation.
Reina's jaw dropped. "M-Mika?! Your ankle?! Did he...?" Her voice trailed off, her wide eyes looking from Kei to her leader, then back to the immobile Mika. The reality of Kei's words, about their recklessness, about the dangers they truly faced, solidified into a stark, terrifying image: Mika, the strongest among them, utterly vulnerable.
Kei held Mika steady, his silver eyes still observing, unflinching. He didn't acknowledge Vivian or Reina, his focus solely on the defeated Hunter in his arms. His face remained emotionless, betraying neither concern nor triumph, just the steady, unwavering resolve of an overseer assessing a damaged asset.
He shifts her slightly, adjusting his grip, his eyes never leaving hers. "This is another lesson, Hunter Mika. Recklessness has consequences, even in sparring. You might be able to regenerate quickly, but pain still slows you down."
Kei turned his head to his side, facing the leader Vivian. "Where is your transport vehicle, Hunter Vivian?"