Chapter 28: Familiar Faces

Mio

The healer was waiting in the lounge. Robes, trinity cross, the whole ordeal.

She was young. Maybe Mio’s age. Hands already glowing before Mio sat down.

[Greater Mend]

Warmth flooded through her. The blisters on her palm sealed. The ache in her ribs faded. Her HP ticked up in steady increments.

Her body accepted it. Hated the taste. It was used to Vitalize now.

The girl never looked her in the eye. Not once. Just worked, finished, and left.

Mio watched her go.

So that’s what a real healer looks like.

Sublevel Two. The east garage.

Concrete dust hung in the air. The hum of generators. Vehicles in rows, supply crates stacked against walls. A staging area for people who didn’t come back through the front door.

Mio walked in wearing Mori’s suit. It fit wrong in the shoulders, too broad, but the Bureau insignia on the chest fit fine. That was what mattered.

A man stood by one of the armored vans. Tall. Lean. Silver hair.

She stopped.

Silver hair.

He turned.

The face was older, familiar. Sharper jaw, narrower eyes. But the hair was the same. That specific shade of silver that caught light like a mirror. The shade she’d seen in a hundred selfies, a thousand group photos, one blood-soaked cathedral.

“Tamei Mio,” he said. “I’m Hayashi Kaito. B-grade. Your partner for this assignment.”

Hayashi.

Aoi’s family name.

“You’re—”

“Her brother. Yes.”

Mio opened her inventory. Saw the damaged silver hair clip, still at the top, worth nothing to anyone except the man standing in front of her.

“Segawa briefed me,” Kaito continued. His eyes stayed on the wall behind her. “Two C-grades. Four-hour window. You’re in debt to something called the Engine and you can’t cast until you’ve killed enough to pay it off.”

“That’s the gist.”

“Then let’s go.”

He turned toward the van. Conversation over.

“Wait.”

He stopped. Didn’t turn.

“You know what she did.” Mio heard her own voice, steadier than expected. “In the cathedral. You know she—”

“I know.”

Silence.

“And you’re still here.”

“I owe Segawa.” He opened the driver’s side door. “Get in.”

Mio didn’t move.

“She tried to kill me.”

“I know.”

“She held my hand while they voted on who would die. She squeezed it. And then she stabbed me in the back.” The words were coming faster now. “She mouthed ’nice’ when I healed someone and never said it out loud. And then she tried to murder me when it got hard—”

“I know.”

Kaito’s knuckles had gone white on the door frame.

“I know what she did.” His voice had dropped. “I’ve read the report. Three times. I’ve memorized every detail because I thought—I thought if I understood it well enough, it would start making sense.”

His eyes stayed on the floor.

“It doesn’t.”

The garage was silent except for the generators.

“She called me two days before.” Kaito’s grip on the door didn’t loosen. “Asked if I wanted to get dinner. I was busy. Said next week.” A breath. “There wasn’t a next week.”

Mio waited. Silver clip hovering over her face.

“I don’t want your forgiveness,” she said. “I’m not asking for it.”

“Good. I don’t have any to give.”

“But I have something.”

She materialized it in her palm.

The silver hair clip caught the garage light. Bent but useable. A smear of something brown that might have been rust or might have been blood.

Junk. Vendor value: None.

She held it out.

Kaito turned. Saw it. His jaw tightened.

“There’s no body,” Mio said. “The Entity took them. All three of them. But this was hers. She wore it every day.”

Kaito didn’t move.

“I’ve been carrying it since I walked out of that cathedral. I told myself it was evidence. Or a reminder. Or—I don’t know.” She swallowed. “It’s not any of those things. It’s just the last piece of her that exists.”

Her hand stayed extended.

“Take it. Bury it. Burn it. I don’t care. But you should have it. Not me.”

Neither of them spoke.

Then Kaito reached out. His fingers closed around the clip, careful, like it might shatter. He looked at it for a long moment. The bent hinge. The smear.

He put it in his pocket.

“Get in the van.”

Mio got in.

They drove in silence. The city scrolled past the windows. Normal people doing normal things, unaware that two damaged people were heading toward a hole in reality that wanted to kill them.

Mio checked her status.

[Reservoir: -98,000/125,000]

[HP: 1,420/1,420]

The healer had done her job. HP full, body functional. But the debt sat there. Red. Waiting.

“The first incursion is Shibuya Metro,” Kaito said. His eyes stayed on the road. “Station’s been sealed since yesterday. Mana constructs, plus a guardian. Standard C-grade.”

“How do you know?”

“Tech’s getting good at reading incursion biometrics.”

He glanced at the obsidian on Mio’s arm.

“But sometimes they’re way off. Nested incursions. The whole lot.”

“Right.”

His eyes found hers. First time since the garage. “Reports say you cleared a C-grade solo at Level 1. Swarm plus elite.”

“I had Reservoir then.”

“And now you have a Chimera.” His eyes returned to the road. “The knight. File says it took twenty thousand Reservoir to claim, whatever that means.”

“It did.”

Then he paused.

“Can you see how much I’m worth?”

She didn’t mean to say it immediately. “Over thirty thousand, maybe.”

Silence. The road stretched ahead.

“You have probably the strongest C-grade incursion elite living in your arm.”

Mio said nothing.

The van pulled up to a barrier. Bureau cordon, yellow tape, agents in tactical gear keeping civilians back. Kaito flashed his badge. They waved him through.

The metro entrance gaped ahead. The shimmer was visible from here, a heat-haze distortion where the stairs should have led down. The incursion boundary.

Mio opened her door. Stepped out. The air near the entrance tasted wrong. Iron and rot, thick enough to chew.

Kaito walked around the van. A sheathed weapon hung at his hip. Curved, single-edged, worn from use. He didn’t touch it. Just moved toward the entrance and waited for the inconvenience.

“Aren’t you gonna use your sword?”

“Worst case scenarios.” He didn’t look back. “It won’t happen here.”

She held out her fist.

“Can.”

The blade extended from the gauntlet. Black glass and green-white veins, sprouting from her knuckles.

The weight was familiar now. The knight’s memory in her grip.

Kaito glanced at it. Face blank.

“Nice blade. Loot?”

“You could say that.”

“Kagami-san has something like that.” He turned toward the metro entrance. “Rules. Stay close. Don’t die. Kill everything that moves.”

“That’s it?”

“That’s enough.”

He stepped toward the shimmer. It rippled as he approached.

“Four hours,” he said. “Let’s not waste them.”

He stepped through. Vanished.

Mio followed.

The shimmer swallowed her.

Darkness. The stink of old stone and stale air. Somewhere below, something heavy struck the ground. Then again, and again.

Can was pulsing in her palm now.

She descended down the stairs.

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