Akira's POV
The official notification arrived through the official guild channel at nine in the morning, routed to my mission inbox between a gate activity summary and a reminder about the quarterly equipment registry update that I had been ignoring for two weeks.
I read it. Then I read it again.
[Mission Pairing: Joint Authorization; A-Rank Gate Investigation.]
[Primary Hunter: Vixar, K. S-Rank.]
[Secondary Hunter: Renshi, A. D-Rank.]
[Authorization: Standing. Issued by Senior Council Review.]
[Mission classification: Active investigation, no fixed timeline.]
His name and mine. In an official guild documentation. And on the same line.
The gap between an S-rank and D-rank, laid out in the mission pairing field with the complete indifference of a system that recorded what it was given without commenting on the mathematics of it.
I put the notification down and pulled up my systems stat screen.
