SCENE 1 — THE CHASE
Karaka tore through the corridors like a falling star.
Black Shinsu slammed against the walls, leaving cracks spider-webbing through metal and stone. Alarms screamed in the distance. Rankers scattered out of his way or were simply swept aside.
Viola.
The name — the lie — burned in his skull.
The boy's scent still lingered in the Shinsu currents. That irregular pressure, that impossible growth rate. Every step Karaka took, he felt the echo of Baam slipping further out of reach.
He pushed more power into his armor.
Portals peeled open and shut ahead of him — shortcuts, distortions, ripping space into jagged lanes. His Black Hole Spheres compressed and expanded, pulling his body through the gaps.
"Run." his voice rasped under the mask. "Run as far as you like, child. I will drag you back."
He turned a corner and felt it:
A weight in the corridor.
Not Baam.
Something heavier.
Older.
Wrong.
Karaka slowed instinctively.
The hallway ahead was half-collapsed from earlier fighting — twisted beams, scorched walls, a trail of melted flooring.
At the far end, leaning against a broken support pillar with his hands in his pockets, stood a man.
Loose posture.
Steam-burnt coat.
Gold in his eyes, faint as an ember.
Crow.
Karaka's Shinsu spiked in reflexive rage.
"Crow," he growled, stepping forward. "You think hiding Viola makes you righteous?"
Crow tilted his head slightly.
"No," he said. "It just makes you look desperate."
The words hit harder than any attack.
Karaka's armor pulsed, black Shinsu flaring around him like a collapsing star.
"You dare mock a Slayer of FUG—?"
Crow raised one finger.
"Stop."
The air went still.
"You're not a Slayer," Crow said calmly. "You're a fraud."
The hallway seemed to swallow sound for a moment.
Karaka froze mid-step.
"…What?"
Crow pushed off the pillar and began walking toward him, heat rolling with each footfall — not oppressive, just there. Irregular, like everything else about him.
"Slayers," Crow said, "are monsters that broke the Tower just by existing."
His eyes glowed faint gold.
"Irregulars."
He stopped a few paces away.
"You're not."
Karaka's gauntlets clenched, metal shrieking.
"My power—"
"—is borrowed," Crow cut in smoothly.
"Your strength? Manufactured.
Your fear? Hidden behind Zahard's tech."
He leaned in slightly, nose almost touching the mask.
"And you reek of him."
Karaka went absolutely still.
"…What?"
Crow tapped a knuckle lightly against Karaka's chestplate.
"The King."
Black Shinsu erupted around Karaka in a violent, reflexive spike — the pure, animal rejection of a truth he never named aloud.
Crow didn't flinch.
"You smell like his bloodline," Crow said softly.
"You smell like his blessing.
"You smell like that rotten royal 'birthplace.'"
His voice sharpened.
"The pit where they dump his little mistakes."
Karaka's breath turned shallow behind the mask.
Red Light District.
Prostitutes.
Abandoned children.
Faces he'd buried under metal and power tried to rise.
"SHUT UP—!" he roared, aura thrashing.
Crow smiled — not kindly.
"Struck a nerve."
Karaka staggered a half-step back, not from an attack, but from memory scraping against the inside of his armor.
Crow's tone shifted — colder now, almost bored.
"You can cover yourself in armor," he murmured.
"You can drown yourself in Shinsu.
"You can obey every Elder in FUG."
His eyes narrowed.
"But you will always smell like him."
Karaka's aura cracked — not his Shinsu, his composure. A human tremor slipped into the monster.
"YOU KNOW NOTHING ABOUT ME!" he shouted.
Crow actually laughed.
"Karaka," he said, "I don't just know about the Tower."
He tilted his head.
"Do you even know what a pirate is?"
Karaka blinked behind the mask.
"…a… what?"
Crow shrugged.
"Exactly."
The word meant nothing to the Tower.
No position. No rank. No story.
It was a sound from somewhere else.
"Irregulars don't come from here," Crow said.
"We don't share your history."
He tapped his temple. "We don't have your limits."
He tapped Karaka's chestplate. "We don't have your shame."
"And we don't play by your rules."
Karaka's armor rippled with dread he couldn't name.
Crow stepped closer and his voice went blunt again.
"You use armor to fake the base level irregulars operate at."
He tilted his chin toward the corridor behind Karaka. "You're not even on Baam's level."
Karaka's mind blanked.
"…You dare compare me to that child—?!"
"Why do you think you're obsessed with him?" Crow asked, entirely calm.
Karaka froze.
"You felt it the moment he walked past you."
"You saw it in his Shinsu."
"You recognized it in the way the Tower bends around him."
Crow's voice dropped, sharp as a blade.
"Baam is a natural irregular.
You're a man in armor pretending."
The words dug under plates and enchantments and titles and hit the soft human underneath.
Crow reached out and tapped Karaka's chest once more, this time with unmistakable contempt.
"Take this off," he said quietly.
"Take off the armor."
"Take off the enchantments."
"Take off FUG's blessings."
Heat gathered under the metal.
"Stand in front of me as just Karaka."
Karaka didn't move.
Couldn't.
He heard the words and couldn't even command his hands to obey.
Crow leaned in, voice falling like a hammer.
"You won't."
Silence pressed in.
"You know you won't."
Shinsu flickered, unstable.
"Because underneath all that metal," Crow finished, "you're terrified."
Karaka's aura sputtered like a flame hit by cold wind.
Crow straightened, stepping past him casually, like the conversation was already over.
"You're a son of the King trying to escape his stench," he said without looking back.
Heat flared — not an attack, just presence.
"And I'm a pirate trying not to burn the Tower down by accident."
Karaka shook — anger, humiliation, something uglier.
Crow walked away down the cracked corridor.
"When you want to stop pretending," he called over his shoulder, "come see me without the armor."
Karaka didn't answer.
His Shinsu, once raging, now hung around him in uneven waves.
"Even Baam is above you," Crow added quietly. "And he's still a kid."
The words echoed down the hall as he vanished around the bend.
Karaka stood there, armor humming, mind ringing.
Baam… above… me?
His fingers dug into the wall until stone powdered under his grip.
"No," he rasped.
Black Shinsu exploded outward, ripping fresh cracks into the already broken corridor.
"NO! I AM A SLAYER—!!
I WILL SURPASS HIM!
I WILL—!"
Crow's voice floated back from somewhere far, faint and indifferent:
"Keep telling yourself that."
The silence that followed was worse than any attack.
For the first time since donning the armor, Karaka wasn't sure who he was underneath it.
SCENE 2 — TEACHER AND IDIOT
The corridor slowly stopped shaking.
Karaka's breath grated through the mask.
Fraud.
Pretender.
Zahard's stench.
Kid above him.
Every word Crow had left behind dug into him like hooks.
He slammed a fist into the wall again. Stone shattered, chunks skidding across the floor.
"DAMN HIM—!!!
I AM NOT—
I—
I AM—!!"
"—loud," a lazy voice said, "and stupid."
Karaka spun around.
Jinsung Ha stood at the far end of the hallway, arms folded, posture so relaxed it was insulting.
He looked at Karaka the way a parent looks at a report card they already know is bad.
The old Slayer sighed.
"Karaka," he said, "stop punching the wall. It didn't insult your mother."
Karaka's aura flared.
"…Master Ha."
"Oh good," Jinsung replied dryly, "you remember my name."
He gestured vaguely at the cracked wall, then at the wrecked corridor around them.
"And you even remembered how to throw tantrums. Amazing. Truly. I'm moved."
Karaka's gauntlets trembled.
"Do NOT mock me."
"I'm not mocking you," Jinsung said. "I'm just wondering how an S-rank Slayer candidate can get psychologically bodied by one conversation."
Karaka flinched.
Jinsung walked forward, his tone shifting from sarcastic to something quieter — not gentle, but heavier.
"Karaka. Listen carefully."
Karaka braced, whether he wanted to or not.
Jinsung reached out and poked his chestplate.
"Crow was right."
The words hit harder than Crow's had.
"NO—!!" Karaka snarled. "You lie— I am—"
"You're an idiot," Jinsung cut in. "A talented idiot. A strong idiot. But still an idiot."
Karaka's Shinsu stuttered around him.
"You let him get under your skin because you know the truth."
Jinsung walked a slow circle around him, hands in his pockets.
"You're jealous of Baam."
Karaka's movements stopped.
"You see him climb without armor," Jinsung went on, voice even.
"You see him learn without permission."
"You see the Tower bend around him."
"You see what real irregular pressure is."
Karaka's fingers tightened at his sides.
"And it bothers you," Jinsung said lightly, "because you think you earned your strength."
Karaka's voice scraped out of him:
"I did."
"No," Jinsung said bluntly. "Your armor did."
Karaka staggered, just a fraction.
"And you hate that Baam — barehanded, confused, emotional, soft-hearted Baam — is skyrocketing past you."
"I am NOT beneath that child—!!" Karaka yelled.
Jinsung tilted his head.
"Then why are you screaming?"
The question hung there like a blade.
Karaka's jaw locked.
Jinsung sighed — a long, exhausted exhale that sounded like years of dealing with broken people.
"Karaka," he said, "let me explain something to you in small, easy words."
He held up one finger.
"One: Baam is an irregular. You are not."
Second finger.
"Two: Crow is an irregular. You are not."
Third.
"Three: Irregulars don't care about ranks, positions, or Slayer titles."
He flicked a knuckle against Karaka's mask.
"Four: Stop trying to outshine people who weren't born under Tower rules."
Karaka's Shinsu curled tighter, like he could choke the words out of the air.
Jinsung's tone softened — barely.
"Your job isn't to surpass Baam."
Karaka snapped his head up.
"Then what is it?!"
Jinsung held up a hand.
"To stop being an insecure little shit," he said.
Karaka recoiled as if struck.
"And," Jinsung continued, "to figure out who you are without the armor."
Silence pressed in again.
The hallway felt smaller.
Jinsung finally clapped a hand onto Karaka's shoulder — not gentle, but solid. Steady.
"Look," he said. "Crow's brutal. But he's not wrong."
Karaka's hands shook.
"Take off the armor someday," Jinsung murmured. "And you might finally meet yourself."
Karaka didn't respond.
He couldn't move past the roaring in his own head.
Jinsung turned away, starting down the corridor Crow had left.
"Oh, and Karaka—"
Karaka looked up.
Jinsung glanced back, giving him the most disappointed-teacher look in the Tower.
"Stop trying to hunt Baam like he stole your destiny," he said. "He already chose who he trusts."
Karaka's voice cracked.
"…Crow."
"No," Jinsung said, softer now. "He chose himself. Crow just gave him permission."
The words didn't land cleanly. They lodged somewhere deep where Karaka wasn't ready to look.
Jinsung lifted a hand in a lazy half-wave.
"When you finally decide whether you're Zahard's mistake or your own person," he added, "come talk to me. Then we'll worry about being a Slayer."
And with that, Jinsung Ha walked away, leaving Karaka alone in the shattered corridor — furious, humiliated…
…and, for the first time in his life, truly uncertain which hurt more:
Crow's contempt,
or his teacher's honesty.