Kai stopped smiling.
Not because he was done. But because he'd reached the point where the smile had already done its job.
"It all started when you told me why you came to this world," he said.
Jameson looked at him.
"Mass fraud. Investment scheme. You ruined four thousand families." Kai put his hands in his pockets — the calmest gesture he had.
"For someone who spent years deceiving people, you're shit at lying in person."
Jameson didn't answer.
"First you said that at the beginning you had used the system on purpose." Kai looked directly at him.
"Then you said the women of the village were alone when you arrived and that you were the one who stayed to help them." Pause.
"But when Serah and I arrived, we spoke to someone at the entrance. She told us you were already here when the men left. That you were the only one who didn't leave."
Silence.
"How could your system have driven the men away from the village if, according to you, they had already left when you arrived?"
Jameson had the expression of someone recalculating how many mistakes he made and in what order.
"That contradiction," Kai said, "I noticed it by the second cup of coffee."
---
[NocheEterna99: while Jameson thought he had him convinced, Kai had already found the error]
[StreamerHunter: "for someone who spent years deceiving people, you're shit at lying in person" — BRUTAL]
[xSorinx: Serah has a face like "I knew it. I didn't know it but I knew it."]
[Pedro_Sierra: ( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°) keep going keep going]
[Deral_Bleattler: ←←← contradiction detected at cup 2 →→→ Kai kept drinking coffee without saying anything →→→ TRAP MODE ACTIVATED]
[User_7741: (•̀ᴗ•́)و Kai is way too smart (•̀ᴗ•́)و]
---
"While we talked," Kai continued, "I felt something."
He looked at his own system panel — still active, floating discreetly in his field of vision.
[System — past alert: logged]
[3 hours ago: external enchantment influence detected]
[Effect on user: NONE]
[Cause of immunity: classification in process]
"Your system tried to expand toward me while we talked." Kai looked at him.
"Subtle. Gradual. The kind that doesn't feel like an attack... because it isn't — it's more like constant pressure. Like water against rock."
Jameson didn't deny anything.
"The problem," Kai said, "is that my system warned me. And when I looked for what it was, I found the pattern."
Pause.
"The same pattern you probably used with the men of the village. You didn't drive them away all at once. You pushed them. Little by little. Until they themselves decided there were better reasons to be somewhere else."
Silence in the plaza.
The blue flames in Jameson's hands were still active.
The shadow on his right shoulder.
The temporal distortion at 51%.
"How come it didn't work on you?" Jameson said — a genuine question within a situation that no longer had any other meaning.
Kai looked at him.
"Because the magic of beings weaker than me doesn't affect me in the slightest."
---
The silence that followed lasted exactly two seconds.
Then Jameson let out a laugh — not the genuine one from before, but the smile of someone who's just been insulted in a way he can't ignore.
"Weaker?"
"Yes."
"You? Rankless? Magicless? No classifiable power whatsoever?"
"Yes."
The blue flames in Jameson's hands flared brighter.
"Interesting perspective from someone who in thirty seconds is going to be under the full effect of my system with active time fracture."
"Before that," Kai said, "there's something else."
He pulled something out of his pocket.
Small.
Rectangular.
The kind of technology that didn't exist in Aethon but that he'd recognized since it appeared in the box the chat had sent along with Serah's lingerie weeks ago — and which he had filed away as "useful at some point."
A camera.
Small, discreet, with a green light indicating it had been recording for a while.
"A viewer of mine sent it to me when we arrived at the village," Kai said. "Because they suspected you."
Jameson looked at the camera.
Then at Kai.
"And what of it?"
---
[Pedro_Sierra: ME.]
[GarcíaFTW: PEDRO_SIERRA WAS THE ONE WHO SENT THE CAMERA]
[NocheEterna99: PEDRO SAID EARLIER THIS GUY LOOKED FAMILIAR FROM ANOTHER STREAM]
[StreamerHunter: Pedro_Sierra knew Jameson from before. He recognized him.]
[xSorinx: the most important viewer of the stream just turned out to be Pedro_Sierra]
[Pedro_Sierra: I saw him on another stream a while ago. Something didn't add up with this guy from the start. Glad I could be of use ( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°)]
[Deral_Bleattler: PEDRO THE MVP. PEDRO THE HERO. PEDRO THE LEGEND.]
[User_7741: ヽ(°〇°)ﾉ PEDRO_SIERRA MVP ヽ(°〇°)ﾉ]
[GarcíaFTW: ┌(ಠ_ಠ)┘ PEDRO ┌(ಠ_ಠ)┘]
---
Kai turned the camera around.
On the small screen, the video played back the entire conversation from the plaza with the colored benches — the flower, the introduction of the village women, every calculated phrase of Jameson's, the moment the pink aura had intensified.
And the moment Jameson had smiled in front of the destroyed door with the expression of someone whose plan was working.
Jameson watched the video.
Watched his own face.
And something in his expression — which until now had maintained control even with his red jaw and the destroyed stall behind him — changed.
The blue flames in his hands went from glowing to blazing.
"Fine," Jameson said.
His voice had something it hadn't had throughout the entire conversation.
Real rage.
"Fine."
He lunged.
---
It wasn't gradual.
Jameson's system at maximum level, with time fracture at 58%, produced attacks from different angles.
The first was soul fire aimed directly at Kai's chest — speed amplified by the temporal distortion, coming from where Jameson stood and simultaneously from a lateral angle that contradicted his physical position.
The second was shadow dominion — not a projectile but a presence seeking to adhere, to slow, to make the next movement cost twice as much.
The third was still forming.
---
And then the system spoke.
Not Kai's system.
Not Jameson's system.
Something different — a voice that wasn't the enthusiastic announcer of the dungeon but something more official, colder, with the tone of an announcement from which no one escapes.
"EVENT DETECTED: BATTLE OF STREAMS"