The field didn't feel like a place for training anymore. Ever since the missions were announced, something had shifted—not loudly, not suddenly, but enough that no one treated this like practice now. Even the air felt heavier, like it was waiting for something to go wrong.
Kazen stood in front of them, unchanged as always. His presence didn't demand attention. It simply took it. No one spoke. No one moved. They just waited, because that was what everyone did when he was about to say something that mattered.
"A Guardian unit went missing," he said.
The words didn't sound dramatic. That was what made them worse. Missing didn't mean late. It didn't mean delayed. It meant something had happened—and no one knew what.
He didn't explain it immediately. He let it sit there, letting them understand it on their own. Then, calmly, like it was just another detail, he added that they had been sent to protect civilians from a Wrestling attack. They never returned. No signals. No bodies. Nothing.
That silence after it… was different.
Taro shifted first, slower than usual. He didn't joke. Didn't complain. He just scratched the back of his head and muttered that this already sounded bad, which, for once, no one argued with. Even Ren didn't correct him. There was nothing to correct.
Kazen didn't give them anything more than necessary. Their job was simple—go there, confirm what happened, and recover anything that remained. He didn't say "survivors." He didn't say "dead." He left it open, and that made it worse than saying either.
They left soon after.
The path to the outer ridge wasn't difficult, but it didn't feel normal either. The wind moved strangely, cutting across the ground in uneven bursts, like it didn't want them there. No animals. No distant movement. Just empty space stretching too far without interruption.
Taro tried to bring back some normalcy, muttering about how every mission somehow involved walking too far for no reason. Ren responded, as expected, explaining that danger didn't exist in convenient places. The conversation didn't go far. It didn't have the same energy as before.
Even their noise felt smaller.
When the outpost came into view, no one said anything at first.
It wasn't destroyed the way a battlefield should be. Nothing was burned completely. Nothing was cleanly broken. Instead, everything looked… forced. Walls bent inward. Structures twisted at angles that didn't make sense. The ground itself had sunk in places, like something had pressed down hard enough to reshape it.
It didn't look like a fight had happened.
It looked like something had ended one.
They stepped inside carefully, not because they were told to, but because no one wanted to move too fast here. The signs were everywhere—broken weapons scattered across the ground, torn pieces of uniform caught on splintered wood, blood dried into dark patches.
But there was one thing missing.
There were no bodies.
Aiko was the first to say it out loud, her voice quieter than usual as she looked around again, like she might have missed something. But she hadn't. There was nothing to find. No one to confirm. Just absence where something should have been.
Ren crouched near a broken weapon, studying it longer than necessary. He didn't rush to conclusions. He never did. But when he finally spoke, his voice was lower, more certain.
This wasn't random. The marks weren't scattered. The positions weren't chaotic. Whoever had been here had tried to fight properly. They had formed positions. They had held ground.
And still—
they were overwhelmed.
That realization changed the way everyone stood.
Not visibly. Not dramatically. But enough.
Ryo kept walking.
He didn't say anything. Didn't question anything. He just moved toward the center, like something was pulling his attention there. It wasn't obvious. It wasn't even intentional. But he stopped when he reached it.
The ground there was different.
Flattened.
Not broken. Not cracked. Just… pressed down.
It felt wrong to stand there.
Not dangerous.
Just wrong.
Daisuke stopped beside him, his gaze resting on the same spot without needing to ask why. He didn't react much, but after a moment, he spoke quietly, almost like he was confirming something for himself.
Ryo nodded when he asked if he felt it too.
That was enough for him.
He didn't praise it. Didn't question it. Just said, in the same calm tone, that at least Ryo wasn't completely useless. It didn't sound like an insult. It didn't sound like a compliment either.
Just an observation.
The others found something else.
A long mark carved into the ground—not a crack, not damage, but something dragged. Deep enough that it couldn't have been accidental. It stretched across the surface, disappearing into the broken remains of the outpost.
No one needed to say what it looked like.
Something had been taken.
The wind passed again.
Colder now.
The movement came after that.
Not sudden. Not loud. Just enough to be noticed.
Three shapes inside the structure.
Wrestlings.
They didn't attack immediately.
That was the first problem.
They just stood there, like they were waiting. Not for the right moment. Not for an opening. Just… waiting. That hesitation, that lack of instinct, felt worse than an attack.
When they finally moved, it wasn't wild.
It was controlled.
The fight didn't last long, but it didn't feel normal either. Batch D handled their side cleanly, their movements efficient, precise. Batch C was less organized, forced to adjust mid-fight, reacting instead of controlling.
Even then—
something felt off.
Ryo didn't stand out in strength.
He didn't overpower anything.
But he didn't struggle either.
Every movement he made felt… correct. Not fast. Not slow. Just exactly what it needed to be. He avoided damage without thinking about it. Like he wasn't reacting—
he was already there.
Daisuke noticed.
He didn't say much, just enough to confirm what he was seeing. That Ryo wasn't guessing. That he wasn't moving randomly. That he was reading it.
Ryo didn't answer that.
He didn't deny it either.
When the fight ended, the silence came back.
But it wasn't empty anymore.
Ren examined one of the wrestlings closely this time. There were markings—small, deliberate, not part of its natural form. Not damage. Not random.
Placed.
That was when it became clear.
They weren't acting on instinct.
They were sent.
No one joked after that.
Not even Taro.
He looked around the outpost again, slower this time, like he was trying to understand something that didn't make sense. The broken structures. The missing bodies. The drag marks. The way the enemies had moved.
It didn't connect.
Not yet.
But it would.
Ryo looked back once before they left.
At the center.
At the flattened ground.
For a moment, something in him felt… heavy.
Not pain.
Not fear.
Something else.
Then it disappeared.
They left the outpost behind, but the feeling didn't stay there.
It followed them.
Quietly.
Like whatever had happened there—
wasn't over yet.