Saito took one step and vanished.
She reappeared on the opposite side of the field in the same instant, her new blade already drawn, the red steel catching what little light the night offered. Black flames carved into its surface seemed to move on their own.
Kagekami stared at her across the field. A quiet doubt moved through him — not fear exactly, but an honest assessment of the distance between where he was and where she was.
He clenched his fists anyway.
Saito tilted her head. "You don't have a weapon?"
"My fists are enough."
She lowered the blade slightly. "Then this isn't a fair fight. I won't use it."
"Use it," he said. "If I'm going to fight someone who uses a sword someday I need to know what it feels like."
She studied him for a moment. "I won't go easy on you."
"Same here." He dropped into his stance, feeling the ground under his feet, the tension running up through his legs. "Come on."
Saito moved.
She was faster than he remembered — faster than anything he'd trained against. Her blade swept in a blur and he backpedaled, reading the angles, waiting. She leaped and brought the sword down close enough that he felt the air displacement.
Is she actually trying to kill me?
He kept moving — ducking, weaving, letting her exhaust the pattern. Then he saw it. A half-second window in her recovery. He stepped in and caught the blade between both palms.
Saito's eyes went wide.
He threw a punch. She got the sword up in time, absorbed the impact and jumped back, landing clean. She looked at him across the field breathing slightly harder than before.
He's holding his own, she thought. I never thought I'd see this day.
Kagekami disappeared.
He reappeared directly in front of her — and didn't attack. Instead his arm came around her and pulled her toward him sharply. Something hissed through the air where her head had been a fraction of a second before. He reached up with his free hand and caught the arrow without looking at it.
Saito became aware, somewhat belatedly, that her face was pressed against his chest. She could hear his heartbeat. Something unfamiliar moved through her and she filed it away immediately.
She pulled back. Turned.
Two figures stepped out of the undergrowth.
They moved wrong — too fluid, too quiet, the way things move when they've learned to imitate human motion but haven't quite got the weight of it right. The male was broad and heavy, gold eyes burning in the dark. He cracked his knuckles and the sound was like grinding stone.
"Quite the aura you carry," he said, his voice vibrating at a frequency that sat uncomfortably in the chest. "It reeks of the one who killed my brother."
Saito's hand found her hilt. "Who are you?"
The female laughed — a short, splintering sound. Her eyes found Saito and stayed there. "We are Rippers. My name is Mist." She gestured to the male. "He is Pride." A wicked bow appeared in her hands, its string already humming. "You killed one of our own. We've come to return the favour. And that sword—" her eyes moved to the blade at Saito's hip with open hunger, "—will make a wonderful trophy."
Saito's mind caught on something. Sora said Kagekami killed a Ripper that looked human—
Pride moved.
The ground buckled under the force of his charge. Kagekami had less than a second to react before the impact sent him through the air and into the tree line with a sound that made Saito's stomach drop.
"Don't look away from me."
Mist was already moving — an arrow nocked and loosed before Saito fully turned. She cleaved it in half on instinct. Then the bow was gone and two curved daggers were in Mist's hands and the distance between them had already closed.
Steel met steel. Mist fought like water — constant, formless, always finding the gaps. Every time Saito thought she had found a rhythm Mist shifted it. The daggers wove patterns that forced Saito back, step by step, the ground soft and uneven beneath her feet.
"I expected more," Mist said, her daggers flashing. "From the one who managed to kill someone like him."
Saito's jaw tightened. She stopped retreating.
She let the energy build in the blade — slow at first, then rushing, the steel beginning to glow from within.
"BURNING BLADE."
Her next strike wasn't a parry. It was an answer. The fiery blade met Mist's daggers and the shockwave cracked the earth beneath them, sparks cascading into the dark. Mist's eyes went wide — surprise replacing arrogance — and for the first time she gave ground.
Saito pressed forward. Each swing stronger than the last, the blade feeding on her fury and her focus, turning it into something that burned.
Mist was running out of room.
Then the clearing went silent.
Not from the fight ending — but from a sound that stopped everything else. Wet. Final. A scream that began and didn't finish.
Something heavy landed between them.
Pride. What remained of him. His gold eyes were frozen open, fixed on something that wasn't there anymore. His chest was unrecognisable.
Saito looked toward the tree line.
A figure stepped out of the dark.
It was Kagekami. But the darkness clung to him differently than before — not surrounding him but coming from him, moving with him the way a shadow moves with its source. His eyes burned white. He walked with a stillness that was somehow more frightening than speed.
Mist forgot Saito entirely.
Kagekami crossed the clearing without appearing to cross it. His hand closed around Mist's throat and lifted her from the ground as if the effort wasn't worth measuring. She clawed at his grip. Blood welled where her nails broke through — and he didn't notice.
"Your kind took something from me," he said. His voice had a layered quality to it — like several voices speaking from different distances at once. "Something that cannot be returned." His grip tightened. The bones in her jaw began to shift. "For that, your kind will know nothing but death."
"Kagekami."
Saito's voice cut through the dark like a light through a crack.
The white in his eyes flickered. The darkness pulled back by degrees — slowly, reluctantly, like something being called away from something it wanted. He looked at his own hand as if seeing it from a distance. Then he opened it.
Mist hit the ground. She stayed there for a moment, making sounds that weren't words. Then she was on her feet and gone — into the forest, moving faster than anything that broken should be able to move.
The clearing was quiet.
Kagekami stood in the dark, chest rising and falling, the last of the shadows retreating from him like water draining away.
"Saito," he said. His voice was his own again. "We should go."
They walked back through the city without speaking for a while. Saito glanced once over her shoulder at the dark tree line behind them, then looked forward.
This is not the Kagekami I left behind. The thought sat with her, turning itself over. What happened to him while I was gone? He's still carrying his mother. I can see it in everything he does.
"Something on your mind?" Kagekami asked. "You're quieter than usual."
"You've changed," she said simply. "Since I left."
"A lot happened while you were gone." He was quiet for a moment. "Sometimes I feel like I'm losing something. I just don't know what it is yet."
Saito looked at him. "If there's any way I can help — I will." She paused. "And Kagekami." He glanced at her. "Thank you. For the arrow. That would have killed me."
"I won't let anyone hurt you," he said. The words came out without weight or drama — just a fact he was stating. "I'll always be here."
Something moved through Saito's chest that she didn't have a name for immediately. Her face went warm.
What is this? Am I shy over Kagekami?
He looked at her. "Why are you turning red?"
"I'm not."
"You clearly are—"
"It's nothing." She looked ahead. They had reached his door without her noticing. She stopped. "We've arrived. Good night, Kagekami."
She had almost decided to hug him.
He was already walking, one hand raised in a casual wave. "Good night, Saito. Sleep well."
She watched him go. Stood there for a moment longer than she needed to.
Then she turned and walked home, her face still warm, thinking about a feeling she hadn't been expecting.
The question followed him home.
Is Darkness slowly taking my humanity?
He said it quietly, to no one.
No i won't allow him
When he reached home, he found Sora asleep on the sofa when he got home, one arm hanging off the edge, her phone face down on the cushion beside her. He stood there for a moment looking at her. Then he picked her up carefully and carried her to her room, pulled the blanket over her and closed the door quietly behind him.
He went to his own room. Lay down. Closed his eyes.
At the Dragon's Fang Association headquarters the city spread out below the penthouse office in a grid of light. Ms. Kasami stood at the window with her arms folded, looking at it without really seeing it.
We're running out of time, she thought. Our enemies grow stronger every day. Will we actually be ready when it matters?
Her phone rang. Luke.
"We found another dead Ripper," he said. No preamble. "Same as the first. Broken ribs. Internal organs crushed beyond recognition."
Ms. Kasami was already moving. "I'm on my way."
Luke stood over the body waiting for her, his tablet dark at his side. He'd been staring at it long enough that looking at it no longer told him anything new.
Whatever is killing these Rippers is strong enough to kill an S-Rank. He turned the thought over carefully. But the damage pattern — one strike, total internal destruction — that's not an S-Rank. That's something else.
Ms. Kasami arrived and crouched beside the body without speaking. She looked at it for a long time.
"Second one," she said finally.
"Second one," Luke confirmed. "And same as before — nothing left behind. No trail. No prints. Whatever it is, it's smart enough not to leave anything we can use."
Ms. Kasami stood. "We keep this between us. Telling the public would cause panic we can't afford right now." She turned toward the street and stopped. "Luke. Is that a security camera?"
He followed her gaze to the pole across the road. A small mounted unit, angled toward the street.
He almost smiled. "That means we might actually get a face."
She waited until the B-Ranks had finished their work and the site was clear before getting in her car. She pulled out her phone.
"Mary. Can you pull footage from the security camera on downtown road sixty-nine?"
"Of course," Mary said. "It'll take some time to access cleanly. I'll call you when it's ready."
"Thank you. Have a good night."
She set the phone down and looked out at the passing city.
We're close, she thought. I hope whatever we find on that footage is something we can work with. I hope it's an ally.
She watched the lights go by.
Either way — time will tell.
Kagekami was dreaming of his mother.
She was there — just ahead of him, her back turned, the way she used to stand at the kitchen counter. He called her name and started running and the distance between them didn't change no matter how fast he moved and then the ground shifted beneath him and the kitchen was gone and he was standing in the dark.
The abyss. Still. Vast. His feet on water that held his weight like glass.
Darkness was on his throne.
"You come running to me today," Darkness said, his voice filling the space without effort. "Did something happen?"
Kagekami looked up at him. "What do you know about Arcturus?"
Darkness rose from the throne slowly and began to walk toward him. When he spoke his voice had changed — quieter, which somehow made it heavier.
"I have existed since before existence had a name. And you come to me making demands." He stopped a few feet away and looked down at him. "Know your place, boy. I could kill you right now. And when I was done with you — your sister would be next."
"No she wouldn't."
Darkness went still.
"If you were going to kill me," Kagekami said, "you would have done it already. You've been watching me since the day I was born and you haven't touched me once." His eyes didn't move from the void-like gaze above him. "So why are you waiting?"
A long silence.
"You're catching on faster than I expected," Darkness said finally. Something in his voice had shifted — not respect exactly, but the thing that comes just before it. He turned and moved back toward the throne. "I have existed longer than everything. But even I have an ending coming." He paused. "I have watched you since your birth. And I will not allow my power to remain in the hands of someone who cannot carry it. The moment it fully awakens — something will come. Something that makes everything you've faced until now look like nothing. And it will destroy everyone you love."
Kagekami was quiet for a moment.
"Then why didn't you tell me this from the beginning?"
Darkness looked at him.
"If your power is going to bring destruction to the people I care about then I'll become strong enough to control it." The words came out steady and certain, the way they do when someone has already made their decision and is simply stating it aloud. "Nothing will stop me from protecting the people I love. Nothing."
Darkness studied him from the throne. The silence stretched.
He doesn't even know what's coming, he thought. And yet he speaks like that.
"I will show you how to control my power," Darkness said at last. "Gradually, as you grow. But know this — the moment I sense weakness in you, a single strand of it, I will take back what is mine and move on." He leaned forward slightly. "Prepare yourself, Kagekami. Your life is about to change in ways you cannot yet imagine."