Ding dong, dong!
The school bell rings, echoing across the emptying courtyard like a tired heartbeat.
Classes are over.
Students pour out the gate in waves-laughing, chattering, oblivious. Some glance at me as they pass. Whispers follow in their wake. I ignore them.
Then she arrives.
Akane Nishino.
Dark eyes that always seem to shine a little more than they should. Her brows lift the second she sees me. A mix of relief and something softer lights her face.
"Mino-mmh, I mean Kagenou! You've been gone almost a week. I was seriously worried. You're skipping more and more. What's going on?"
She starts into a monologue. Something about education. The future. Careers. Predictable concern.
I cut her off.
"Nishino... I'm dropping out."
Her voice catches. "Huh? Wh-what do you mean you're dropping out?! You can't do that! What about getting a job later?! What about your parents?! Did you even tell them?!"
Her voice trembles. So do her hands.
I stay quiet for a second. Then answer.
"Don't worry. I don't need any of that. I finally have everything I need to chase my dream. And now it's time to separate what matters from what doesn't. School is just... noise. A waste of time."
Her breath hitches. Her mouth opens. Shuts. Then opens again, this time smaller, more fragile.
"Is there really nothing that'll make you change your mind...?"
Silence stretches. I meet her gaze.
"Nothing."
She looks down. Her voice is barely a whisper now.
"...Will I still see you?"
"That depends," I say, shrugging. "Anyway. It was nice seeing you."
I turn on my heel.
Time to move forward.
But before I can take more than two steps, I hear it. A voice, small-nearly drowned by the wind.
"...Wait. Just a second."
If I were a normal human I probably wouldn't have heard it but I'm a Summoner.
I stop. Turn.
Her head lifts.
Tears streak her cheeks. Her shoulders tremble as she forces her words out.
"Thank you. For everything. Especially... for saving me that night. And... goodbye. I hope we meet again someday."
I nod. "Me too."
And then I vanish, leaving nothing but the breeze and her fading sobs behind.
----------
The Club Cretaceous.
Dim lights. Low chatter. the smell of smoke which oddly enough wasn't disturbing and black vinyl couches.
I walk in, eyes adjusting.
There they are-already seated around a low black table, its surface is immaculate like it was never used. Sosome, who I haven't seen in a while, and Mei, of course, all energy and sunshine.
"Yo," I say.
"Good evening, Minoru," Sosome replies, calm and precise as always.
"Yahallo, Minoru!" Mei beams, voice bright and loud enough to turn heads.
Heh.
Like night and day, those two.
I sit down. Mei ends up between us, bouncing slightly as she shifts into place.
A waitress approaches, carrying a silver tray with three glasses.
She sets one down in front of each of us.
"...Thanks?" I blink at the drink. Orange-red, fizzy. Not what I expected.
Mei grins. "Don't worry~ I ordered ahead! Paid for 'em too. Yours is a Virgin Spritz, hope you like it~!"
Her slangy voice is a strange contrast to the classy drink.
Still. I raise the glass, sip.
Tch. It's good.
The kind of taste that lingers-subtle bitterness, citrus, cool. I might actually get this again.
But we didn't come here to drink.
It's time to talk business.
We dive in. The conversation shifts into a low, serious rhythm.
Sosome suggests something simple-a warm-up mission. Test our synergy. Measure our timing, coordination.
I don't like it.
Feels like wasting time.
But... he's not wrong. Better to learn our weaknesses when the stakes are low, rather than bleeding out on some cursed battlefield.
The mission's straightforward.
Extermination.
Tsuchigumo-spider demons. The same kind Kurogane summoned during that mess. Nasty things. But manageable.
Once we settle the plan, we drain the last of our drinks.
I glance at my empty glass one last time.
Yeah.
Next time, same order.
We leave the club together, stepping out into the night. The street's quiet, the air cool.
And with every step we take, I feel it more clearly.
I'm walking further and further from my old life.
And closer to something real.
----------
The sun of Zorya casts a golden light over the dunes, painting the cracked earth in tones of copper and ash. We're deep in one of the desert zones of the Vortex World now, sand crunching beneath our shoes as we head toward our destination.
Adachi Ward-Tokyo's twisted reflection.
Fifteen Tsuchigumo to eliminate. That's the mission.
The air tastes dry. The kind of dry that makes your throat feel like paper. My hand rests on the hilt of my new katana. It's not the same as the one I lost, but close enough to make old instincts stir.
We're jogging across the sand when Sosome finally breaks the silence.
"Still can't believe how strong you've gotten since last time, Minoru."
I shrug. "Well... I train. A lot."
"Pff, no kidding! You should've seen him when we were fighting demons," Mei chimes in, miming explosions with her hands. "Boom! Bam! He was nuts!" she laughs, her slangy tone somehow making it all sound casual and epic at the same time.
We're almost there when the twisted silhouettes of Toneri Park rise in the distance. Once a peaceful sanctuary, the park has now become a grotesque , the trees, their bark cracked and hollow, stretch their limbs like skeletal hands, clawing at Zorya. Their leaves, now faded and brittle, flutter like whispers caught in the wind, their colors shifting unnaturally between shades of purple and black.
The grass underfoot no longer feels soft or alive; it pulses with a strange, unnatural rhythm, almost as though it's breathing, constantly shifting in patterns that leave an unsettling aftertaste in the air.
That's when we see them.
Ten Tsuchigumo.
Lurking just ahead-hulking spider demons, each almost twice my height, limbs like blackened iron, chitin clicking faintly as they twitch in idle rest.
"They're vulnerable to ice," I murmur. "Resist electricity. All their parameters are E... except agility. E minus."
"Good," says Sosome, unsheathing his blade. "Do a wide-area spell if you can, but don't kill all of them. We still need to scout the five missing ones afterward."
Got it.
I form the spell in my palm-a glowing sphere of pale blue light, swirling with internal frost. But it's not a normal Ice Orb. I tweaked it. Set it to detonate in a frozen burst on impact.
I hurl it.
It sails through the air in an arc, then cracks against the ground at the center of the pack.
White mist erupts.
Five Tsuchigumo instantly freeze solid-statues of ice that shatter into glittering shards a heartbeat later. The remaining five stagger back, limbs fractured and encased in frost.
A rumble above.
Lightning falls like a vengeful god's scream-arcing down toward us.
Sosome and Mei dodge instinctively.
I don't.
I raise my hand.
A vortex of darkness blooms above me, devouring the bolt mid-air. The shadows ripple, then vanish.
Then it begins.
No demons this time. Just us.
A deliberate decision-to test our teamwork with nothing but our own strength.
Mei hangs back, casting support buffs and healing when needed. Sosome and I take the front line.
The Tsuchigumo are fast. Erratic.
But we're faster.
Steel sings. Spells flash. Earth cracks under our feet.
By the end, the park is a battlefield. Craters everywhere. Scorched grass. No more spiders. No casualties.
No skills gained, though.
"We did fine," Sosome says, sheathing his blade. "But we've got to work on synergy. You're too solo, Minoru. You keep breaking formation."
He's right.
I've always fought alone-even before becoming a Summoner. Relying on others has never come naturally. Still, if this team is going to function, I'll have to adapt.
We're still talking strategy when we hear it-
Skittering. A low hum, like bone scraping glass.
The last five.
No need to search.
They're coming to us.
Blue-hued Tsuchigumo tear across the battlefield, barreling forward in a swarm of limbs and hunger.
I raise both hands.
Ice surges upward-a solid wall forming just in time to meet their charge. The impact sends cracks racing through it, but it holds. Barely.
Then I release it.
The wall shatters into shards as we rush in.
Short fight.
Cleaner than the last.
We adapted fast. Tightened our formation. Plugged gaps. Used each other's movement instead of fighting around it.
Still rough-but better.
"I'd say for a first team mission, we did pretty well," Sosome says, wiping spider blood from his blade.
"Hmph! Of course we did," Mei says, striking a pose. "We're the best! Why wouldn't we succeed?" Her eyes slide toward me. "And hey, Minoru-what's up with the new drip?"
Right.
The outfit.
After my first successful mission, Rion gave me a gift. Or rather... a necessity. My old clothes didn't exactly survive battles well.
This one's different.
It's a sleek black suit-white shirt beneath, black tie, matching trousers and shoes. Looks like something a mid-level salaryman would wear.
But it's practical. Smart-fiber weave. Regenerates using Magatsuhi. Defense scales with my Endurance stat.
Not flashy. But I'd rather be dressed than naked after a fight.
"It's from Rion, the Vice-Captain of the Tenth" I reply.
"Oooh~ Fancy," Mei grins.
Mission done, we head back to the terminal. The horizon is still bathed in Zorya's glow, but the light feels warmer now.
Now that it was over, we headed to Club Cretaceous for a debrief after using the Amala Drum to return to the City of Fortune
----------
The meeting was... efficient.
We went over tactical blind spots, mostly how to better integrate our demons next time. Sosome suggested a formation system. Mei, as usual, recommended "just being awesome together." Not the worst strategy.
The drinks she ordered didn't hurt either. Something cold, sweet, almost glowing in the dark like nectar from a dream.
Afterward, we returned to Earth.
Back to the familiar lights of Tokyo. The hum of traffic. Neon bleeding through mist. The illusion of normalcy wrapped around a city that has long since lost it.
We split up soon after.
Back to our "normal lives."
Whatever that means anymore.
As I walked, I reached into my coat and pulled out a mask.
Plain black. Faceless. Smooth like glass. Cold to the touch.
I slipped it over my head.
Then I fed it a thread of Magatsuhi.
Everything vanished.
No sound.
No sight.
No smell.
No taste.
Not even my own heartbeat.
Just silence.
But not a dead one.
The kind of silence where Magatsuhi hums like a sixth sense. Like heat pressing gently against the skin from nowhere. I feel presences now the way a spider senses vibrations on a web. My body no longer exists-I'm just a ripple moving in the dark.
This was expensive. Half my fortune gone in a blink.
But worth it.
Because while it cuts me off from the world, it also erases me from it. My presence dissolves. My existence... blurs. In a city where demons stalk alleyways, that kind of invisibility is power.
And power is the only currency that matters.
Some of these relics, these objects soaked in otherworldly rules-they come with penalties. Trade-offs. Curses, even. But the stronger the drawback, the sharper the edge.
I like sharp edges.
I've also been learning more. Connecting dots that the world hides in plain sight.
Take Macca, for example.
It's not just digital. Not paper.
It's soul-bound.
It lives inside you. Which means... when someone dies, their Macca flows to their killer. Like blood pooling into a blade. Like the world paying a bounty for a life taken.
That's why demons sometimes drop it. Some have it, some don't.
The Tsuchigumo we fought had none. Just husks with no wealth to offer. But others... some demons walk around with fortunes inside them, waiting to be harvested.
Another truth.
There are 800,000 Summoners in the world. Just 0.01% of the entire human population and it's still a lot.
Of those, only 15% have parameters above E+.
I have a Luck stat of C-.
And yet-I'm weak.
Pathetically weak.
And I hate it.
Because I don't want to be a soldier. Or a hero. Or someone who waits for orders.
I want to be the shadow behind the throne.
The hand no one sees pulling every string.
The Eminence in Shadow.
There are beings out there who can blink countless universes in and out of existence.
If one of them snapped tomorrow-I wouldn't even know I was dead.
That's disgraceful.
Unworthy of my dream.
So no more distractions.
High school? Irrelevant.
Yen? Useless.
Parents? Already fading from the edges of my memory.
I must shed everything that's not part of the path.
The path of the Summoner.
The path to be a Power in the Shadow
And I will walk it. Even if it means crawling through blood.
A sudden pulse cuts my monologue.
Magatsuhi. Nearby.
I feel it like a tremor in a silent lake.
Demons.
Their parameters are around mid-E range. Nothing too high-but that's deceptive. Even one of them, if it loses control, could level several buildings.
I step out onto the edge of a rooftop, one of the tallest buildings of the city that I choose carefully before I put the mask. Tokyo might stretches out below me like circuitry, neon and chaos pulsing in perfect rhythm.
I smile beneath the mask.
And in the smoothest, most theatrical voice I can conjure, I whisper:
"Tonight... the shadows hunt."