The Director didn't rush.
He stepped down from the van as if the lot was his living room: coat neat, shoes that hated puddles. His badge glinted under the amber warning light. Authority without needing to say it.
Asta hated him immediately.
The knife-lover guard lowered her rifle half an inch, not in surrender, just in deference. The bored ones stood straighter.
"Lock it down," the Director said, calm as a man ordering coffee. His eyes swept the scene once. Survivors. Shadows. Ruins of a Rift. The smell of blood. He didn't ask who lived or who died. He already knew which answers mattered.
Asta felt the System stir at the edge of his sight.
[New Objective: Survive First Inquiry]
[Optional: Conceal Commandment Three.]
Lysandra shifted beside him, the tarp sagging off her shoulder. She looked like a wreck, dirt, cracked armor, blood drying in streaks, but her gaze was sharp under the mess. A soldier's eyes. If the Director noticed, he didn't blink.
"Name," he said. Not to her. To Asta.
"Asta." His voice came out even. The name tasted different now, like something sharpened.
"No guild." The Director didn't ask. He stated. "No license."
Asta didn't answer.
The man's gaze lingered on his shadow, longer than anyone else's had dared. It wasn't behaving. The angle was wrong. It curled at the edges, twitching like it wanted to move on its own.
The knife-lover guard caught it too. Her grin came back, knife-thin. "Told you. Rat's hiding tricks."
The Director lifted a hand and she shut her mouth. Authority, again, silent but absolute.
He stepped closer. Stopped just outside the shadow's reach. "Double Rift," he said. "Your party?"
"Dead."
"By what?"
Asta didn't look at the ruin behind him. "Crownless."
That earned silence. Even the bored guards stiffened. Crownless weren't supposed to show up in mid-tier Rifts.
The Director's eyes narrowed. "And you closed it."
Asta smiled, small and sharp. "Would you prefer it stayed open?"
The air changed. Not much. Just enough that every shadow on the lot bent toward him for a heartbeat before snapping back.
The knife-lover swore under her breath. The bored men shifted their rifles.
The Director didn't move. "Interesting," he murmured. His gaze slid to Lysandra. "And her?"
"Survivor," Asta said. Too quick. Too even.
The tarp slipped more. The cut of her armor flashed under the lot lights, foreign lines, black crystal veins. Not guild issue. Not city make. Something stranger.
The Director saw it. He didn't call it out. Instead, he smiled, thin as a blade. "Both of you. With me."
One of the bored guards frowned. "Sir, protocol says..."
"Protocol bends," the Director said, and the guard swallowed his words like glass.
He turned back to Asta. "Walk, Hollow. Let's find out what kind of rat you've become."
The System hummed again, cold.
[Hidden Path Activated: Inquiry Sequence]
[Warning: Shadowbound Vessel is attracting Sovereign attention.]
Asta's shadow stirred at his feet. The Black Knight leaned in from the dark, unseen by anyone else, helm bowed in silent warning.
Lysandra's pale eyes flicked up at him through tangled hair, unreadable but steady.
She whispered, low enough that only he caught it:
"Careful. Men like him don't ask questions—they dig graves with them."