The thunder of artillery ebbed like a retreating tide, and the braid of gunfire unraveled like frayed wire in the dusk. The standoff’s sand ran fast in the hourglass.

After a grinding day, both sides staggered, spent like candles guttering in wind. Night raised its indigo veil, a time when war feels wrong in the bones.

Rebecca left a slice of her people on watch, a ring of eyes like lanterns in fog. She drew back to logistics, mind mapping tomorrow like stars on black paper.

A runner’s words cut like a cold blade—Mr. Akamatsu was assassinated. Rebecca’s heart lurched, and she rushed through trees like a deer flushed from shadow.

The forest wore its usual coat of damp earth and leaf-lace. Only one thing broke the pattern: the body on the ground carried the weight of a keystone in an arch. His death meant the road ahead turned to jagged rock.

“From the wounds, it was a sword,” one observer said, finger hovering over the still heart like a black moth over a flame.

“Looks like a single killer,” another murmured, voice hard as gravel. “An enemy passing by, picked him off in stride.”

Rebecca crouched, hands steady as winter rain. She searched the body and found the folded paper she’d given him, the battle notes tucked close like a secret. A breath loosened in her chest, quiet as a reed in wind; the plan hadn’t leaked.

“Wait…” The chill landed first, a raven’s shadow across her thoughts, then the logic sharpened like frost on glass. If it was random, they’d have looted. On a battlefield, dead pockets yield small treasures like coins from a wishing pond.

Leaving everything untouched felt wrong, a staged silence in a noisy field.

“Bad. We slipped,” she said, voice tight as bowstring. The enemy had smelled something—otherwise they wouldn’t leave the important paper like bait on a hook.

“Patch me through to the Japan branch. I need to speak myself.”

“Yes!” The order flew like a banner in sudden wind, and everyone moved, hands brisk as sparrows.

The feeling curdled, a storm knotting behind her ribs. Rebecca’s mind sketched a face in the static—maybe the killer was the First Vessel Soul.

Out at sea, inside a submarine, Yun Shi and Moa kept their silence like stones resting at the bottom of a cold river.

“You’re saying,” Moa finally asked, voice low as dusk, “the Church plans to reveal the Underworld to the entire world?”

“We don’t know for sure,” Yun Shi answered, words weighed like wet rope. “We only know the Church will pay any price to claim the Underworld. Worst case, its existence goes public.”

“That would be… terrible, wouldn’t it?” Her eyes set like iron under moonlight.

“Absolutely terrible,” Yun Shi said, the certainty biting like frost. “We can’t let that happen.”

“I get it. I’ll help,” Moa replied, resolve locking in like a gate at night.

Born of the Underworld, both knew the shape of disaster if that veil was ripped. This was the one secret that could not be handed to the Outer World.

The Church had gone mad enough to burn the sky.

Back in Japan, they didn’t pause—two shadows split at a crossroad. Moa moved to reach Vivian and the Atlantic team, her signal like a hawk’s cry. Yun Shi hunted the Church’s branch within Japan, eyes combing streets like searchlights.

They were starved of intel, a lantern flickering in a cave. Not knowing the enemy was the worst chill; any thread had to be pulled, even if it cut.

Yun Shi had been wrestling her private knots, but the Underworld’s peril pressed heavier, a storm shouldering aside her smaller rain. This mattered more than her own bruised story.

She wore her only casual outfit, the last thing she’d bought—a clean-cut set of menswear, sharp as ink on snow. She found a motorcycle like a stray hound, swung onto the seat, and slid the key home.

Helmet down, engine growled like a wolf, and she arrowed into a straight line. The road’s wind sliced past, a flute of cold through steel and glass.

Faces along the way blurred like river pebbles, neither crowds nor emptiness. Yun Shi ignored them, let the chill of speed comb through her, and felt no comfort in it—only steel brushing skin.

She remembered her college rides, summer air and laughter like fireflies. Ten years had raced past like leaves in a stream, and nostalgia pinched—then she laughed at herself. Don’t talk like you’re ancient, girl.

She parked before a tower of glass and spine-bright steel, lines gleaming like a blade in winter sun. This famous company looked clean as polished bone, yet it hid thunder under its floorboards. One slip could wake a storm that tilts the world.

Underworld matters should be kept by Underworld hands. Outsiders couldn’t carry that weight. Miyuki Kiseki was already enough of an external stone thrown into this pond; Yun Shi wouldn’t drag more innocents into the dark.

She walked inside like a quiet storm and didn’t fear a shove at the door. Too far gone to turn back, she’d burn through doubt like fog.

“You’re looking for Professor Hori? Sorry, she’s not here,” the manager said, tone flat as a slate.

“As far as I know, your company sponsors her research,” Yun Shi answered, voice crisp as a snapped twig. “Aside from you, no one should know her whereabouts.”

“We do support Professor Hori,” he said, the corporate smile stiff as lacquer. “But we never pry into her work. Protecting her privacy is our duty. We simply back a celebrated domestic scholar.”

“Then who knows her location?” The question landed like a pebble in a pond.

“Sorry, that’s confidential,” he replied, politeness cold as rain. “You’re a high school girl. We can’t share that. We can say she’s reportedly abroad for research. That’s all.”

She walked out with empty hands, shadows pooling in her pockets. The intel felt like smoke, nothing to hold. They’d hidden something behind velvet and locks—or this was a door the public couldn’t even see.

“This might’ve stirred the grass,” she muttered, the thought coiling like a snake. Back on the bike, she let a bitter smile shadow her mouth.

Of course she’d spooked the Church. A blunt visit rings bells, and hunters move their prey.

“Right… of course,” the realization settled like ash. The Church had sensed the ripple, then lifted Professor Hori and slipped her away like a shell game. This move was a trap in fog, hard to counter.

She kicked the engine, the road’s howl rising like surf. She threaded streets and crossed faces, and her chest tied itself into tighter knots.

No matter what, she had to derail the Church’s fever. She could ignore everything else, but she couldn’t let the Outer World see the Underworld’s bones.

Here lived her most precious echoes—those smiles, that light, those days that felt like sunlight on water. Even if a crack had formed between them, she wouldn’t steal their joy to fill a wound.

Her friends could not know. Absolutely not.

A black sedan slid past her like a shark in night water. Alarm snapped first, a thorn in the skin. She jerked the handlebars, and a bullet ripped through the space she’d just vacated, a line drawn by fire.

“Ah!” The street snapped into chaos. Gunfire on an open road scatters hearts like pigeons, and the timid screamed, sharp as glass.

Through the window, Yun Shi caught the back seat—there sat a middle-aged woman, face like a calm mask under stage lights. A familiar public face, TV-softened and award-bright.

Professor Hori.

Yun Shi twisted again, and another bullet stitched the spot she’d been, a stitch in air.

The Church had gone off the cliff. Was victory worth tearing the world’s curtain in daylight?

Police sirens braided in, engines baying like hounds. Cruisers swarmed, red-blue strobes beating like heartglass.

“Listen up,” a dispatcher’s voice rolled out, iron under thunder. “Armed terrorists in the city, motive unknown. Capture them alive.”

“Sir!” The chorus snapped, crisp as snapped ice.

Professor Hori smiled, lips curved like a crescent blade, and flicked a hand grenade out the window, arc neat as a comet.

“Danger! Back off!” Yun Shi shouted, voice like a bell hammered hard, pleading the cruisers to brake their charge.

Boom!

Too late. Yun Shi slid clear, a knife through water, and one cruiser caught the blast. The road barked with fire, and a wheel shredded like peeled bark. Luck held—the officers inside were shaken, alive.

“Church… are you insane!?” Yun Shi cried, disbelief biting like winter. Weapons in the open street, under public eyes—did they not fear witnesses, ripples, collapse?

“Because the Pontiff said it,” Professor Hori sang, smile glazed like fever. “Sacrifice most, if needed. As long as the mission is done.”

Her eyes held either yearning or madness, a lighthouse replaced by a bonfire.

Boom!

A sniper round screamed in, a streak like a hawk’s shadow. In the blink that stretched thin as silk—Professor Hori startled, Yun Shi reeled, police gaped—the shot punched the sedan.

Kra-BOOM!

A shockwave smashed outward, wind like a fist. Yun Shi flew, rider and bike thrown like leaves, skidding for blocks under a roaring gust. Cruisers flipped, steel groaning like broken bones.

Flames towered, orange petals beating the air, and the car lay torn like a carcass dragged by wolves. No doubt—Professor Hori had been shot dead.

Yun Shi gritted her teeth, kicked the bike awake, and peeled off like a shadow fleeing the lantern. She wouldn’t sit in a box and answer questions. She drifted far and saw them, exactly as hoped—figures waiting, silhouettes cut from dusk.

She braked, helmet off, eyes keen as knives. Before her stood teens with storm in their postures, caution set in their shoulders.

“Who are you,” she asked, words straight as a spear, “and why did you kill that woman?”

“Which faction are you with?” the leader girl shot back, voice cool as steel. “Answer, or we get rough.”

Yun Shi measured the field, felt the weight like rain on stone, and let the fight go.

“I’m with the Magic Institution,” she said, truth clean as glass.

“So, a Witch,” the girl nodded, the recognition flashing like a spark. “Figures.”

“You still haven’t answered me,” Yun Shi pressed, calm as a held blade. “Why kill Professor Hori?”

“Isn’t it obvious?” the girl said, tone firm as a locked door. “Our intel says the Church is plotting. We strike first, or they pry open the Underworld. That loss would be ruinous.”

“You’re our enemy,” she added, gaze steady as winter stars. “But with a greater storm overhead, we won’t harm you—so long as you’re the Church’s enemy too.”

Her voice made their stance clear as a banner—these weren’t friends of the Church, and they weren’t friends of the Magic Institution either. Lines cut crisp as paper.

They spared Yun Shi because the battlefield was bigger than their grudge, and there was no blood between them yet.

“We’ll talk to the police,” the girl said, confidence ringing like iron. “We can seal this up. As for you, it’s not your concern. Do your own work. We need to smoke out the Church’s sleepers in Japan.”

She turned, feet moving like a troop’s rhythm, and her people followed, shadows folding into night.

This twist had come from nowhere, lightning in clear sky. The Church’s scheme was stalled—for now. But the world was shaking loose, edges fraying like old rope.

The Underworld had never seen this kind of chaos, this red sky.

“Oh, one more thing,” the girl said, pivoting back, eyes catching light like obsidian.

“Remember this, Witch. We are the Four Pupils Clan.”