Chapter 2: What He Has To Do
Morning in Grimvale never felt like morning.
It felt like survival with better lighting.
Daito stood on the rooftop of his house, watching steam rise from cracked sewer grates as if the city itself were exhaling something rotten.
His shoulder had been stitched.
His knuckles wrapped.
Below, life crawled forward.
PING!
He checked his phone.
One new message.
National Biohazard Authority
Priority Clearance
He stared at it for a long time before opening it.
[Daito Greyhell.
We are aware of your activities.
We are aware you eliminated one of our Savages.
We are not here for retaliation.
We are here with an offer.]
Attached was a photograph.
His father.
Not the one hanging over the fireplace.
This one was classified — tactical gear different.
A patch Daito didn't recognize stitched near the shoulder.
Behind him stood three figures… one of them wearing the same metallic-thread coat as the Savage from last night.
Savages.
His father had worked with them.
PING!
The message continued.
[Your father was under consideration for Alchemic Conversion before his death.
He refused.
We would like to discuss why.
Meet us.]
Daito's jaw tightened so hard his teeth ached.
They always knew more than they said.
Always dangled truth like bait over dark water.
He deleted the message.
Again.
But this time his hand didn't feel steady.
* * *
The hospital alarms started at 2:17 PM.
They weren't loud.
Just a sharp stuttering beep from a cardiac monitor on the third floor of District Nine General.
A nurse froze.
Room 314.
The old man's son.
The ropes strained first.
Belts snapped one by one like overstretched violin strings.
Veins pulsed violently, black spreading faster than ink in water.
CRACK!
SNAP! SNAP!
The young man's back arched unnaturally — spine cracking in a sound too clean, too deliberate.
"Uuaarrggh!"
His scream began human.
It did not end that way.
By the time the security guard turned the corner—
The door was already open.
Daito stepped inside.
No dramatic entrance.
No explosion of glass.
Just timing.
He'd felt it.
Some instinct sharpened by years in Grimvale.
The kind of instinct his father trained into him.
The kind his uncle beat into him with wooden blades until his hands bled.
He saw the old man in the corner, trembling, tears flowing freely.
"Please—" the old man whispered.
The transformation surged violently.
SWOOSH!
Skin split along the arms.
Fingers elongated into hooked bone.
Teeth shattered and reformed jagged and dense.
The bed frame bent under sudden mass expansion.
The son was gone.
The Freaker remained.
It roared.
"ROOAARG!"
Daito drew his blade in one smooth breath.
Steel whispered.
The Freaker lunged.
Daito stepped forward instead of back.
Always forward.
SWOOSH!
It's claw ripped through the air where his head had been.
He moved like memory — like choreography written into muscle before birth.
He pivoted beneath its reach and drove his knee into the side of its warped knee joint.
CRACK!
The leg buckled sideways at an impossible angle.
The Freaker screamed — a furnace tearing itself apart.
"OOAARGH!"
It swung blindly.
Daito ducked under the arc and sliced once across the abdomen.
SLASH!
Blackened organs bulged outward like overripe fruit before spilling to the floor.
The nurse down the hall never heard a thing.
Because Daito moved faster than sound.
The Freaker tried to bite.
BITE! BITE!
He stepped inside its guard.
Pressed one hand to it's sternum.
And whispered, barely audible—
"A man does what he has to do."
SLASH!
The blade flashed upward.
Clean.
Through jaw.
Through skull.
Out the crown.
The body stiffened.
Daito twisted and withdrew.
The head slid free seconds later, rolling across the sterile hospital tile like a discarded mask.
He began counting.
"…Five."
The old man sobbed quietly.
"…Ten."
The black veins glowed faintly.
"…Fifteen."
The flesh fractured, spiderweb cracks spreading across its form.
"…Twenty-two."
The body disintegrated into dark ash that dissolved mid-air.
No blood left behind.
No corpse.
Just a faint scorch mark on the floor.
Daito sheathed his blade before the nurse reached the doorway.
"What— what happened?!" she gasped.
He walked past her.
"Disorder complication. It's handled."
By the time hospital security arrived, the room looked almost normal.
Except for the old man kneeling on the floor.
Shaking.
Relieved.
Destroyed.
Daito paused at the outside door.
The old man looked up at him — not with anger this time.
With gratitude so painful it seemed to bruise the air.
"I'm sorry," the old man whispered. "For what I said."
Daito didn't smile.
Didn't comfort.
Didn't preach.
He simply nodded once.
And left.
* * *
Outside the hospital, two black vehicles waited.
Government.
Doors opened in unison.
A woman stepped out — white coat, composed eyes, voice sharp as scalpels.
"You chose mercy," she said.
"I chose timing," Daito replied.
She studied him.
"You act like you don't want to be involved. But you are already knee-deep."
She held up a tablet.
His father's classified file displayed clearly.
"Your father refused Alchemic Conversion because he believed power earned through sacrifice corrupted judgment."
Her gaze sharpened.
"We disagree."
The screen changed.
A medical chart.
His mother's name.
Highlighted.
Daito's blood ran cold.
"Exposure levels," the woman continued calmly.
"Years of working in relief centers. Repeated contact. Early markers of cellular instability."
Disorder.
Not active.
Not yet.
"But trending."
The air between them felt razor-thin.
"We can prevent it," she said.
"Permanent immunity. Advanced serum derived from refined alchemic extraction."
Her eyes locked onto his.
"Join us. Learn the truth about your father. Protect your mother."
There it was.
Personal.
Calculated.
Cruel.
Daito didn't speak for several seconds.
Then—
"You want me to become a Savage."
"No. We want you to become efficient."
He stepped closer.
Close enough that the agents behind her tensed.
"My father died human."
The woman's expression didn't shift.
"Your father died limited."
Daito's gaze turned to ice.
"I don't need your poison."
He walked past her.
One agent stepped forward instinctively.
She raised a hand to stop him.
They watched Daito disappear down the street — coat swaying lightly in the wind, shoulders steady despite the weight pressing invisibly against them.
"Monitor him," she ordered quietly.
"He'll come around."
But as Daito walked home, something unsettled flickered behind his eyes.
Not fear.
Not doubt.
Something worse.
A ticking clock.
That night, he stood in the doorway of his mother's room.
Listening to her steady breathing.
Counting silently.
Twenty seconds.
Just in case
The house was quiet.
Too quiet.
Not the peaceful kind — the kind that feels staged.
Like the walls are listening.
Like the air itself is holding its breath.
Daito stood in the kitchen doorway, arms folded, eyes fixed on his mother.
She was washing dishes that didn't need washing.
That was the first tell.
When she was anxious, she created tasks.
"Stop," he said.
The water kept running.
"Mom."
She turned it off slowly, drying her hands with deliberate care.
Calm.
Measured.
Controlled.
That was the second tell.
"You met them," she said.
Not a question.
"Yes."
A pause.
"What did they offer?"
"Answers."
That made her shoulders tighten just slightly.
Third tell.
Daito stepped forward.
"Don't."
Her eyes flicked up.
"Don't what?"
"Don't do that thing where you decide what I can handle."
Silence stretched thin between them.
"You've been exposed to Disorder for years," he said. "Repeated contact. Cellular instability markers. Early stages."
Her face didn't move.
Too still.
Fourth tell.
"They showed you my chart."
Not a question either.
"Yes."
She turned away.
That was the fifth tell.
Daito's voice dropped lower.
"Tell me the truth."
She reached for a towel again.
He grabbed her wrist gently but firmly.
"Tell me."
Her breathing shifted.
Subtle.
But he'd known her his whole life.
He knew the rhythm of her honesty.
The weight of her lies.
"You think I can't see it?" he asked quietly. "You think I don't know how you look when you're hiding something?"
She slowly pulled her hand free.
And finally met his eyes.
"I didn't want you involved."
"Too late."
Her jaw tightened.
"The National Biohazard Authority isn't what it claims to be."
There it was.
The first fracture.
Daito didn't blink.
"They have the origins," she continued softly. "Of Disorder. Of the Freakers. Of everything."
His pulse thudded once in his ears.
"They didn't discover it," she said. "They engineered it."
The words didn't explode.
They sank.
Heavy. Dense. Unavoidable.
"They were researching biological amplification," she continued.
"Emotional catalysts. Weaponized mutation. The goal was controlled evolution. Super-soldiers without alchemy."
"Failed," Daito muttered.
"Yes."
The failure had a name.
Disorder.
"Containment breach," she said. "Internal sabotage. Political cover-ups. They buried it under relief programs and quarantine laws."
"And Savages?" he asked.
"Damage control. Weaponized grief."
Daito's fists clenched slowly.
"You could reveal this."
Her eyes sharpened immediately.
"No."
He froze.
"There are contingencies," she whispered. "Your father discovered something before he died. Something that made him pull away."
"What?"
Her breathing faltered for the first time.
"The worst-case scenario."
"What is it?"
She didn't answer.
But her face did.
Her pupils widened just slightly.
Her shoulders dropped.
Her voice trembled on the edge of something unspoken.
Daito felt it before he understood it.
"Kill us," he said quietly.
She didn't confirm.
She didn't deny.
She didn't have to.
His stomach twisted — not with fear.
With rage.
A volcanic surge that felt like swallowing lightning.
"They can try," he said, voice low and vibrating with restraint. "It would be a massacre."
He stepped back, pacing once like a caged animal.
"I would tear that entire system apart. One building at a time. One Savage at a time. I'd dismantle the NBA with my own hands."
His breathing sharpened.
"I don't need alchemy. I don't need their poison. I'd destroy them."
His mother's voice cut through him like cold water.
"That same recklessness is what got your father where he is."
The words hit harder than any punch.
He stopped.
Turned slowly.
"What did you say?"
Her expression was steady now. Sad.
"He chased answers," she said. "He confronted people he shouldn't have. He believed he could outfight a system."
Daito's voice dropped into something dangerous.
"Was father killed!?"
The air in the room thickened.
"No," she said. "He died of a heart attack."
Daito's eyes didn't move.
"Or so we think."
Silence detonated.
"You think they—?" she began.
"I think," Daito interrupted, "that men in power don't like variables."
He walked to the wall where his father's photo hung.
Looked at it differently now.
Not as a fallen hero.
As a man who may have known too much.
"You said he discovered something."
"Yes."
"What?"
She hesitated again.
Fear this time.
Real fear.
"I don't know all of it," she admitted. "He kept some of it from me. To protect us."
"From what?"
She looked at him like he was still five years old.
"From disappearing."
The word echoed in the quiet house.
Disappearing.
Not killed.
Erased.
Daito inhaled slowly.
Then exhaled.
The rage didn't leave.
It condensed.
Hardened.
Refined.
"Okay," he said calmly.
That tone scared her more than his anger.
"I won't storm their headquarters."
He turned toward the door.
"For now."
"Daito—"
"I'll get the answers myself."
He grabbed his coat.
"You don't fight a system head-on."
He glanced back once.
"You dismantle it."
The door shut softly behind him.
No slamming.
No dramatic exit.
Just purpose.
* * *
Fwoo...
Outside, Grimvale's wind howled between buildings like a warning.
Inside, his mother stood alone in the kitchen, staring at her reflection in the dark window.
And somewhere deep within a classified vault of the NBA, a file marked Greyhell Protocol updated in real time.
Daito wasn't surprised when she found him again.
She stood beneath a flickering streetlight like she owned the darkness around it.
White coat immaculate.
Hands folded behind her back.
"Judging from your eyes," she said calmly, "you know enough now to realize that wandering blindly achieves nothing."
Daito didn't respond.
Fwoo...
The wind carried dust between them.
"How many Freakers have you hunted?" she continued.
"How many has your family put down? Thousands across generations. And yet here we are."
She stepped closer.
"This did not begin with you. Or your father. Or even his father."
Her gaze sharpened.
"It began long before the Greyhell name mattered."
Daito's jaw flexed.
"And yet," she added softly, "you think cutting down symptoms will cure the disease."
Silence.
"You have questions," she said. "We have answers."
She gestured toward a black vehicle idling at the curb.
"The real headquarters isn't here. It's outside the quarantine perimeter."
A beat.
"Come see what you're fighting."
* * *
The ride out of Grimvale was unnervingly smooth.
BZZTLE!
The quarantine gates opened without inspection.
Military-grade scanners hummed as they passed through layers of checkpoints that most civilians never even knew existed.
Inside the vehicle, the woman spoke continuously.
About global instability.
About biological escalation.
About how power vacuums birth monsters faster than viruses ever could.
"Disorder," she explained, "is not just a mistake. It is an inevitability. Human emotion was always volatile. We merely accelerated what evolution intended."
Daito stared out the window.
Thirty minutes passed.
She kept talking.
"…Without centralized control, mutation becomes chaos. We manage chaos."
Thirty-two minutes.
"…Sacrifice is unfortunate, but necessary."
Thirty-five.
Daito's reflection in the glass looked colder than usual.
Thirty-seven minutes.
He moved.
In one fluid motion, he drove his boot forward into the back of the driver's skull.
BAM! CRACK!
The crack was sickening.
The car swerved violently.
Before the bodyguard on his right could react, Daito elbowed him in the throat, then slammed his head against the reinforced window hard enough to spiderweb it.
SHKKKRR!
The vehicle fishtailed.
SWOOSH!
Daito drew his blade and pressed it to the woman's throat in the same breath the tires screeched back into alignment.
The driver's unconscious body slumped over the wheel, but the automated system kicked in, stabilizing the vehicle.
The woman didn't flinch.
The blade kissed her skin.
A thin red line formed.
"If the NBA," Daito said quietly, "or the Secret Government, or whatever label you parasites hide behind… ever threaten my family again…"
His voice dropped into something ancient.
"It will be the last decision you make."
The bodyguard wheezed on the floor.
The woman's pulse remained steady.
"Good," she said softly.
Daito's eyes narrowed.
"You have vigor. Conviction. Violence with direction."
She tilted her head slightly despite the blade.
"We were hoping for that."
He pressed harder.
She didn't blink.
"Relax," she said. "We've arrived."
The vehicle descended.
Not forward.
Down.
A hidden ramp slid open beneath an abandoned freight yard.
The car spiraled into an underground passage carved through reinforced stone and steel.
The air changed.
Cleaner.
Controlled.
Lights illuminated a vast subterranean expanse.
An underground city.
Massive infrastructure stretched in all directions — residential sectors, laboratories, military compounds.
At the center stood a towering structure of black glass and steel.
Three letters burned across its facade:
NBA
Daito's grip loosened slightly.
The woman adjusted her collar where the blade had rested.
"You wanted answers," she said.
They stepped out.
STOMP! STOMP! STOMP!
Guards surrounded them instantly.
Some wore heavy exo-armor lined with glowing conduits — likely alchemic enhancements.
Others wore lighter tactical suits etched with sigils across the plating.
Savages.
Soldiers.
Scientists.
All moving in disciplined harmony.
No chaos.
No decay.
This place wasn't rotting like Grimvale.
It was thriving.
They entered the central building without resistance.
Inside, the architecture felt oppressive — tall ceilings, polished floors reflecting sterile light, walls embedded with surveillance screens.
STEP! STEP!
A man in a tailored suit approached them.
His smile was immaculate.
Too immaculate.
His eyes danced with rehearsed charm — the kind that belonged to gamblers and false prophets.
"Well," he said pleasantly, hands clasped behind his back, "it appears our VVIP has arrived."
His gaze slid over Daito like he was appraising merchandise.
"The Boss would like your presence."
He gestured toward a private elevator.
The doors opened silently.
They ascended.
Higher.
And higher.
Each floor they passed hummed with different activity — research labs, command centers, armories.
* * *
When the elevator stopped, the doors parted to reveal a circular chamber of glass and steel.
The others remained by the elevator.
Daito stepped forward alone.
At the center of the room stood a single desk.
Behind it—
Fwoo...
A man.
No armor.
No glowing veins.
No visible weaponry.
Just a tailored black suit and silver hair brushed neatly back.
He looked older than Daito expected.
Not frail.
Not imposing.
Just… composed.
His eyes were calm pools hiding impossible depth.
"Daito Greyhell," the man said, voice smooth and unhurried.
The Headquarter Master.
The Boss.
He gestured to the chair opposite him.
"Sit."
Daito didn't.
The Boss smiled faintly.
"You look like your father."
The air shifted.
Subtle.
Dangerous.
"Tell me," the Boss continued, folding his hands.
"Do you know why your father refused us?"
Daito's fingers brushed the hilt of his blade.
"Enlighten me."
The Boss leaned back slightly.
"Because he realized something."
A pause.
"Disorder was not our first success."
Silence filled the chamber like rising water.
"And it will not be our last."
The Boss's gaze sharpened just a fraction.
"You think you're fighting monsters, Daito."
A thin smile curved his lips.
"You're standing in the birthplace of divinities."
The room felt smaller.
Colder.
And for the first time since entering—
Daito felt something unfamiliar.
Not fear.
Anticipation.
The circular chamber hummed with tension, a steel trap closing in on the air.
Daito's blade rested against his side, a whisper of cold promise.
The Boss leaned back in his chair, his fingers steepled.
Eyes glinting like polished obsidian.
"Daito Greyhell," he began smoothly.
"You've seen a fraction of what we do. But you want the truth, the origins?"
"Very well."
He waved a hand.
Screens around the chamber flickered to life.
Images, schematics, and videos filled every angle of the room.
"Disorder," the Boss explained, "was never a mistake."
"It was a tool. A measure. A control mechanism to test the limits of human adaptability."
"Generations of research went into understanding how fear, grief, and survival instincts could be amplified at a cellular level."
"Each Freaker, each mutation, is a testament to this…"
His voice deepened, reverent almost, "experiment that predates your father by decades."
The first successes failed spectacularly.
"The first prototypes of controlled mutation—children, adults, soldiers—all failed."
Daito's eyes didn't waver.
Every word just sharpened his resolve.
He'd fought the consequences of their experiments.
He knew the chaos, the destruction, the loss.
"And now," the Boss continued, voice dropping into a dangerous calm.
"We've perfected it."
He rose slowly, the weight of authority pressing down on the room.
"But perfection is meaningless without challenge."
"You've grown fast." he continued.
"You've destroyed a Savage single-handedly, torn through Freakers by the dozens."
"And yet… you have never faced the pinnacle."
Daito's jaw flexed.
The Boss spread his hands.
"We will give you that chance. Direct confrontation. No interference. All or nothing."
"You want to fight me?" Daito asked, voice low, controlled.
"No," the Boss said, leaning closer.
"I offer you a contract. Since you hate wasting time, as do I, let us make this precise."
The screens now displayed two contracts, stark white against black.
The terms were simple.
If Daito wins, he receives everything.
The NBA, its secrets, all its research, every hidden archive — under his control, for life.
If he loses, he becomes bound.
Obedient.
A tool of the NBA.
His will subsumed.
His family… protected, perhaps, but only under their terms.
"You decide," the Boss said, voice like a blade sliding over glass.
"Sign, and we fight. No delays, no excuses."
Daito's eyes flicked to the documents.
He imagined his father — what he would have done.
He thought of his mother, of Grimvale, of every life destroyed by Freakers, every Savage executed, every deal made with blood and fear.
And then he thought of himself.
The Savage he had killed yesterday.
The lesson that no one in this place could best him.
His father's words echoing in memory: A man does what he has to do to get the job done.
A smirk curved across his lips.
He signed. Clean. Sharp. Final.
The Boss clapped once.
Slow.
Calculated.
"Impressive. Very well. You'll face our masterpiece."
The walls darkened.
The temperature dropped.
A section of the chamber floor split open, revealing a descending shaft bathed in white light.
From the shadows emerged a figure unlike anything Daito had ever faced.
"Omega Savage Project," the Boss announced.
"We call it A.B.I.G.A.I.L."
The figure stepped forward.
Height impossible.
Movements fluid yet unnatural.
Armor-like skin glimmered under the fluorescent light, a fusion of science and refinement.
Eyes — one violet, one gold — scanned the room, landing on Daito as if weighing him in the balance of fate.
Daito flexed his fingers around the hilt of his blade.
His heartbeat was steady.
Focused.
Excited.
"So this is A.B.I.G.A.I.L," he muttered.
"I can't wait to see who you really are… and kick your ass."
* * *
Back in the control room, the panic of the NBA was palpable.
ZWIING! ZWIIING!
Orders, alerts, and encrypted messages flashed across screens.
The Omega Savage Project was never deployed casually.
Only the Boss's true anger — or extreme amusement — warranted its summoning.
And now, the entire underground city had been called to witness.
Scientists, Savages, operatives — everyone gathered to see the apex predator meet the unpredictable anomaly.
Daito's gaze didn't waver from the figure in front of him.
One man versus their ultimate creation.
Everything on the line.
And for Daito, there was only one thought:
No one. No one can take what I've earned.
to be continued...