Chapter 116: Don’t Cross Me Again.

“I’m all for keeping Chloe out of a fight when she’s in this state, but Sato’s the boss. There’s only so much we can do.” Claire let out a tired sigh and leaned back against the wall opposite Maria. “At some point, we either trust his judgment or we don’t. And whether we like it or not, he hasn’t steered us wrong before.”

The basement corridor was dim and narrow, built from raw concrete and weak fluorescent lights that buzzed with an irritating, uneven hum. The air carried the stale smell of dust, damp stone, and too many people living too close together. A plain metal door sat at the end of the hall, shut tight, its surface scratched and scuffed from age and use. Behind it, silence pressed like a held breath.

Maria stood with her arms folded tightly across her chest, her expression set in hard frustration. “Claire, stop being a coward. That child suffers every time she uses her powers.” Her voice was low, but the strain inside it was obvious. “And now he wants to send her on another hunt. What the hell is he thinking?”

Claire straightened slightly, her own patience thinning. “Hey, that ’child’ is probably stronger than all of us put together, and you know it.” She pushed off the wall and gestured vaguely toward the shut door. “We’re keeping her stable for now. And if she really does go out of control, Sato’s the only one here who can put her down before things turn ugly.”

Maria’s shoulders dropped a little at that, the anger giving way to something heavier. “I know.” Her voice softened. “That’s exactly what I hate.”

The rhythmic thud of boots on concrete rolled down the corridor before either of them turned.

Sato came around the corner with Kenji at his shoulder, one hand in his jacket pocket, expression flat and faintly bored, as though he’d walked into a minor inconvenience rather than a confrontation waiting to happen. Kenji moved a step behind him, silent and sharp-eyed, the quiet sort of man who always looked one blink away from violence.

Sato stopped a few feet from them. His gaze skimmed over both women, then shifted to the plain metal door at the end of the hallway.

“Maria. Claire.” His tone was calm. “You wanted to see me?”

He looked at the door again.

“Something wrong with Chloe?”

Maria met his gaze head-on. There was anger in her eyes, but concern had rooted itself more deeply. “Something is always wrong with her, Sato. She shouldn’t be hunting. Not today.”

Sato’s jaw tightened slightly, a muscle feathering there before stilling again. “She’s a hunter.” His eyes remained on the door. “She hunts.”

Maria took a step forward. “She’s a little girl who tears monsters apart and then sits in the dark arguing with the blood on her hands.”

That got his attention.

He looked at her fully now.

“She’s been in there for over an hour,” Maria said, her voice low and intense. “Not whispering. Not muttering. Talking. Arguing. To herself.”

For a moment, Sato said nothing.

His gaze drifted back to the metal door.

The silence behind it felt wrong. Not empty. Waiting.

Then, without warning, he looked at Claire instead.

“Did you tell her to put her stat points into Intelligence?”

Claire blinked, caught off guard by the shift. “Yes. Just like you told me to.” She frowned. “But there hasn’t been any obvious change.”

“Then she needs more levels.” Sato’s tone was matter-of-fact, almost cold in its simplicity. “The higher her level, the better her control gets.”

Maria stared at him. “That’s your answer?”

“It’s the practical one.”

“No.” She shook her head sharply. “That’s the convenient one. Even if her power grows with her level, what happens if she stays the same? What happens if leveling up only makes it worse?”

Sato turned away from the door again and faced her fully.

“You think I haven’t thought of that?”

Maria didn’t back down. “I think you’re so desperate for a weapon strong enough to kill what’s out there that you’re willing to break one to forge it.”

The corridor seemed to tighten.

Kenji moved first.

His hand dropped to the hilt at his back, and with a smooth, cold motion, he unsheathed the blade just enough to let steel whisper against steel. His eyes narrowed at Maria.

“Watch your tone, woman.”

Claire stepped between them immediately, one hand out toward Kenji. “Mr. Kenji, please.” She forced an awkward little laugh. “Maria’s just emotional today. She’s on her period, so you know. Emotions are high.”

Maria’s head turned sharply toward her.

Claire didn’t look back.

“She’s worried about the kid,” Claire said quickly. “That’s all.”

Maria’s anger ebbed at once, not because the lie pleased her, but because she knew exactly what Claire was doing. Her fists unclenched at her sides. She let out a slow breath and said nothing.

Sato sighed and glanced at Kenji.

“Relax. No need to be so tense.”

Kenji let the blade slide back into place, though his stare remained cold for another second before he stepped back.

Then Sato looked at Maria again, and when he spoke this time, his voice had softened by a fraction.

“Fine.”

The word seemed to surprise even Claire.

“I’ll keep her in the mid to back line,” Sato said. “No high-pressure position. No point position. She’ll be surrounded by hunters, I trust. Hunters who can protect her.”

He tilted his head slightly.

“She still needs to level. That part doesn’t change.”

Maria’s eyes drifted back toward the door.

“And that’s supposed to make me feel better?”

“It’s supposed to make the situation manageable.”

Claire grabbed Maria lightly by the back of the neck and bowed at the waist before Maria could answer.

“Yes,” Claire said quickly, forcing cheer into her voice. “That’ll do.”

Maria let herself be pulled down into the bow, though the tension in her shoulders never fully left.

Sato stepped past them and put a hand on the doorknob.

Then he stopped.

He turned his head just enough for Maria to catch the edge of his profile.

“One last thing,” he said quietly. “Don’t cross me again.”

The killing intent hit her like a blade through the chest.

No sound. No movement. Just pressure.

A suffocating, crushing force dropped over Maria’s body all at once, so dense and absolute that it felt as though the air itself had turned into iron. Her breath snagged in her throat. Her knees nearly gave out before she could understand what was happening. The corridor blurred at the edges. Sweat beaded instantly along her skin. For one awful second, all she could feel was the vast, humiliating certainty that she was insignificant. Small. Fragile. Breakable.

Claire only felt the spill of it through the arm that still held Maria, and even that was enough to make her grip tighten hard.

Sato released the pressure as quickly as he had applied it.

Air rushed back into Maria’s lungs in a ragged gasp.

Without another word, he opened the door and stepped inside.

The door shut behind him with a hollow click.

Maria dropped to her knees the instant it did.

Her palm hit the concrete first. Then the other.

She sucked in air like she’d nearly drowned.

Claire crouched beside her immediately. “Hey. Hey.” Her hand found Maria’s shoulder. “Breathe. Slow down.”

Maria’s chest heaved. She couldn’t answer. Not yet.

Kenji watched her for a moment in silence, expression unreadable.

Then he turned his head toward the shut door.

Inside, the room was dim.

Not dark enough to hide what had happened.

Just dim enough to make it feel worse.

The single overhead bulb buzzed weakly, its pale light trembling across bare concrete walls and the wrecked floor below. The room had been stripped long ago of anything unnecessary, no furniture, no shelves, no decoration, only a thin blanket shoved against one wall and a plastic water bottle lying on its side near the corner. Everything else was damaged.

The floor in the center of the room had collapsed into a wide crater, jagged and ugly, as if something immense had punched outward from beneath it. Broken concrete sloped inward in shattered layers around the impact point. From that crater, long fractures spider-webbed through the rest of the room, splitting the floor in every direction and running all the way out toward the walls. Fine dust still drifted lazily in the air, catching the light like ash.

At the very center of it all, Hannah floated.

She hung just above the ruined floor, no more than a foot off the ground, curled tightly into herself with her knees drawn up to her chest and her arms wrapped around her legs so hard it looked painful. Her forehead was pressed against her knees. Long black hair spilled down around her in tangled strands, half veiling her face and swaying faintly as if stirred by a wind that did not exist. Wisps of purple energy rose from her small body in thin, ghostlike trails, drifting upward before breaking apart into tiny luminous particles that dissolved into the air. More of that same violet glow pulsed faintly beneath her skin in uneven rhythms, like something inside her was still trying to calm down and failing.

Sato stopped just inside the doorway.

The metal door clicked shut behind him, the sound sharp in the quiet room, but Hannah did not move. She did not even look his way.

For a few seconds, Sato said nothing. He only studied her, as she floated and whispered.

Then he stepped farther inside. “You done talking to ghosts?”

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