Chapter 63: Damnatio Memoriae

Kagami

Twenty-six dummies.

Seven seconds.

Kagami lowered his arm. The sleeve had ridden up past the elbow, and the skin beneath wasn’t skin anymore. Black lines threaded from wrist to shoulder, pulsed once, then settled back under the surface.

Slower than before.

He counted the wreckage. Twenty-six training dummies, Bureau-standard reinforced polymer, rated for Grade B impact. The closest ones had melted. The ones further back had burst. Pieces of polymer were still dripping from the ceiling.

Something settled in his spine and coiled back down where it lived.

He pulled his sleeve down.

The double doors opened behind him.

“Segawa wants to see you.” A female voice. His second leash. He didn’t turn around. “And he insisted that you hide your arm. He dislikes the way it moves.”

Kagami buttoned the cuff. Pulled the jacket taut until nothing showed.

“I know.”

He stepped past the brunette woman who was sipping coffee. Her scarlet eyes never left his back as he made it down the hall and into the elevator. What did that matter, though? He was used to it by now.

Besides, the Bureau had many eyes.

The elevator opened on the main floor. Morning light. Agents moving between departments, tablets and coffee.

Three figures near the front entrance. Mio was closest. The obsidian arm at her side caught the overhead lights—too smooth, too dark. A small shape perched on her left shoulder.

His forearm twitched.

The lines under his sleeve crawled toward his wrist. The arm knew.

He pressed his wrist against his hip until the lines retreated.

Mio’s eyes found him across the lobby.

She didn’t look away.

Most people didn’t make eye contact. Not with him. Agents looked up to him, admired him, sometimes feared him. They gave respect through averted gazes.

The girl with the obsidian arm looked him in the eye. Held it. Even after he’d threatened to remove her tongue.

He didn’t know if it was bravery or stupidity, but he acknowledged that.

Kagami walked past them. Didn’t slow down.

The elevator climbed. Third floor. Fifth. Eighth. Tenth. Twelfth. He’d been to this office four times in the past year. Twice for debriefs. Once after Nami. Once after the block-leveler.

His jaw tightened as the floors ticked past. The pressure built with every floor. Vertical spaces made it worse.

Kagami kept his breathing even.

The doors opened on the fourteenth floor.

Segawa sat behind his desk. Cigarette between his fingers, burning but unsmoked. Ishida was in the chair opposite.

On the desk between them, sealed in a clear preservation case, was a severed arm. The case was medical grade. Airtight. Pale skin. Female. Right side.

Mio’s old arm.

Smaller than he expected. Paler too. The fingers were curled inward, like they’d been holding something when they were cut. The preservation fluid kept it pristine. Bureau protocol meant they could store it indefinitely if they wanted to.

He didn’t ask what they planned to do with it.

“Sir.”

“How long have you known?”

“Known what, sir?”

Segawa held the cigarette over the tray. Didn’t tap it. The ash grew.

“The arm. Her Chimera. The knight.”

The lines in his forearm were pressing outward.

“Until recently.”

Segawa thumped the ash into the tray.

“So it must be the eighth one. The last knight. Just so happens the girl found it.” He rubbed an eye. “Great.”

“How do you know?”

“Residue from her DNA matches the lineage living in your spine,” Ishida said. “The markers are distinct. No other knight line produces that signature.”

“I thought knights could only fuse via transfusion.”

“You have Gaian to thank for that.” Segawa leaned back. “She turned the girl into a walking corpse. Dead tissue accepts what living tissue rejects.”

“We were skeptical at first. There are many knight variants in incursions. Few ever display such raw damage output and resilience.”

Segawa’s eyes stayed on Kagami. “You mean her blade?”

“The eighth knight’s blade, yes. And its shield, before it was destroyed. For a weapon of that caliber to be wielded by a girl at her level — it’s unfathomable.”

“And now it’s her literal arm.”

“That, I’m stumped by.” He chuckled to himself.

It was silent for three more seconds.

Ishida coughed. “If that Final Vigil had gone off at full output, you would have lost a Grade A superstar and leveled the district—and we’d run out of excuses.”

“Good thing Kagami was there.”

The cigarette burned down between Segawa’s fingers.

“Does your knight know the name of hers?”

Kagami paused.

He disliked this part the most. Opening the door. Letting it in.

He opened the door.

His molars ached. The taste of iron filled his mouth.

Little brother. I… do not remember his name.

Kagami blinked. “It doesn’t know.”

“Doesn’t know, or refuses to say?”

This magic supersedes me. His existence has been erased. A scoff. Tell the old man to kill himself.

“It does not know.”

Segawa watched him. Then exhaled through his nose.

“The Men Upstairs won’t like this. Every day. New shit.”

Ishida closed the folder and tucked it under his arm. “It’s almost spring time. Lots of things are blooming. I wouldn’t be surprised if dragons started appearing in the skies.”

He laughed. No one else did.

“Oh wait. That did happen.”

Segawa looked up. “Remind me again.”

“Aomori.”

“Right.”

“Kagami.”

“Yes sir.”

“Stop visiting the woman, too.”

Kagami’s back straightened. A fraction.

“I don’t know what you mean.”

Segawa set the unlit cigarette on the desk. Lined it up parallel to the preservation case.

“I never took you for one to lie, Kagami. I do not need you compromised. Is that clear?”

“Hai.”

“It doesn’t help that the other Tamei girl made it to her. We don’t need any more surprises. Is that clear?”

“Hai.”

“Dismissed.”

Kagami walked the hallway toward the elevator. His footsteps didn’t make a sound.

You coward. Carrying all this power but submitting to weak, inferior geezers. It shames me.

“You done? Go away. You’re no longer needed.”

The knight didn’t leave. It never did when it had a point.

The elevator doors opened.

His knuckles were white around the railing.

Say hi to your little girlfriend.

His hand hovered over the panel. First floor. Main lobby.

“I have obligations,” he said to no one.

Fuck your obligations.

He paused—thought about it—for three seconds.

“Time’s up.”

The pressure in his skull left, the only voice his own again.

He pressed the lowest button.

To the champion of Pontos.

Ding.

When he stepped out, the damp mist was already waiting for him.

Source: Webnovel.com, updated by NovelKeep