The trauma team surged the forest, splashing through mud as they carried limp students toward the emergency tents that had been erected only minutes ago. They saw to the wounded, others hauled away the dead with silent, grim faces.
Amid all of it—
Dakota sat in the mud.
Motionless.
Austin's body lay slumped in front of him. Dakota didn't blink. Didn't breathe properly. Didn't seem aware of the chaos around him. Just stared. At the friend he failed to protect. At the mistake he couldn't undo.
Three figures burst through the trees first.
Erika: "DAKOTA!!" Her boots slid in the mud as she rushed forward, then froze.
At the sight in front of her.
Sylvie covered her mouth with a trembling hand. Her sword slipped from her fingers and landed softly in the wet soil. Yuji clenched his jaw. Sota collapsed to his knees instantly, hands over his face. Everything fell silent. As if the forest itself was holding its breath.
Erika: "D-Dakota…" she whispered, taking a step toward him. "Dakota, Austin—he's…?"
Her voice cracked before she could finish. Dakota didn't move. Not even to acknowledge her.
Sota forced himself closer, crawling through the mud until he was right beside Dakota. His lips trembled as he spoke: "D-Dakota… you're okay, right? Y-You're not hurt…? A-And Austin, he… h-he's just unconscious, right…? Is what he hoped, until he saw the gaping hole in his back.
Sylvie knelt beside Erika.
Yuji closed his eyes and exhaled through his nose: "…He's gone."
The words dropped like a stone into still water. No one breathed. Erika pressed her hand to her chest as though trying to keep her heart from falling apart right there. Sota shook his head over and over, denying a reality that refused to change. Dakota's shoulders remained still. Like he didn't even notice them. Like he didn't notice anything anymore.
Yuji: "The trauma team is seeing to Marlon and Esmarie. We should take you too."
Dakota didn't even blink. Yuji and Sota exchanged a helpless look.
Then—
A scream tore through their ears.
"AUSTIN!!"
Remi. She sprinted toward them, mud spraying behind her, eyes wide and wild from terror and hope. Two of her friends chased after her, trying to hold her back, but they couldn't catch up. She stumbled to a stop when she saw the body. Her legs gave out beneath her: "No… n-no… no, no, no—" She crawled the rest of the way, grabbing his arm, shaking him frantically. "Austin—Austin, wake up! This isn't funny, okay? You always joke, you always—just—just wake up—wake up!!" She pressed her forehead against his, sobbing. None of them had ever heard Remi cry like this.
She lifted her head slowly, eyes red and overflowing. and looked at Dakota. "…What happened?"
Dakota still didn't move.
Remi: "Tell me," she whispered, voice breaking apart like glass. "Tell me what happened to him."
One of the nearby girls who witnessed it spoke: "He… didn't finish off a vampire. It… it jumped at him from behind. Austin pushed him aside and—"
"It's his fault."
"Yeah!"
"It's all his fault."
"He got Austin killed!"
Students started putting the blame on him, mostly girls who wanted him to take responsibility for letting Austin die.
Erika: "Hey!" She yelled, angry at those blaming Dakota.
Yuji glared, but before the others could step in, Remi stood up. She was glaring at Dakota through trembling, bloodshot eyes. Her grief was a storm. And Dakota was standing at its center.
Remi: "You…"
Dakota finally looked up. His eyes were empty.
Remi: "You… let him die."
Sylvie: "Remi, don't. You're grieving. You don't—"
Remi: "I'M GRIEVING BECAUSE OF HIM!!" she screamed, pointing at Dakota with a shaking hand. "Answer me Dakota, is it true?!"
Sylvie grabbed Remi's arm: "Remi, stop please—"
But Remi pulled away: "Is Austin dead because of you?!"
Yuji slammed a hand against a tree trunk, voice sharp: "That's enough."
Remi covered her face, sobbing so violently she could barely stay upright. Her friends hurried to catch her, holding her as she collapsed into their arms.
Erika: "Remi… You can't blame anybody. Dakota can't be at fault, this was a battlefield. Anything could happen."
Remi couldn't hear anything through her own agony. She cried until she had no breath left.
Yuji turned to Dakota: "Don't listen to her. She doesn't mean it. She's hurting, and she needs someone to blame. That's all."
Dakota stared at the ground. Then, in a voice so soft it barely existed: "No."
Yuji froze.
Dakota felt hollow inside: "It's my fault. He died because of me."
Yuji: "Dakota…"
Dakota: "I killed him."
Every word dug deeper into himself. Every acknowledgment shattered another piece of him.
Remi bit her lips, looking at him with disgust.
Sota burst into tears: "No—no, Dakota, you're wrong! You save people. You saved me!"
Dakota didn't even look at him. He continued to look at Austin's body.
And then—
He stood.
Slowly.
Unsteadily.
Like a puppet being lifted by invisible strings.
He didn't look at anyone.
He didn't say a word.
He simply walked away.
No one stopped him.
No one could.
Sylvie hugged Erika, crying into her shoulder. Yuji watched Dakota disappear through the trees.
Erika: "What's going to happen now."
Sylvie shook her head, numb: "I don't know…"
Sota wiped his eyes, still shaking.
Yuji looked toward the direction Dakota had vanished, wondering if he should let him be or follow after him. He didn't know which to do.
***
Ten hours had passed since the sun climbed over a massacre. The once violent rain had dried from the earth, leaving behind mud turned thick as clay and a forest that looked as if it had aged decades in a single night. Trees remained splintered where lightning struck. Soil was overturned by the boots of rescuers. Red stains still lingered in pools where the rain hadn't washed them away.
By midnight, news had spread across Shioto like wildfire. Every district. Every household. Emergency broadcasts flashed in bright red.
Parents were calling nonstop, overwhelming phone lines and messaging systems. Reporters risked being arrested for trespassing just to get a glimpse of the evacuation centers.
The numbers were staggering:
One Special Rank Hunter dead.
Sixty-five 1st Rank Hunters dead.
Five thousand twenty-two students dead.
Shioto had never seen a tragedy like this. Not in a long time. The public was furious. Angry parents stormed Hunter Agency offices. Lawsuits were filed by the hour. Protesters filled the streets, demanding accountability. People wanted answers. People wanted resignations. People wanted revenge. How had vampires bypassed every predictive measure? How had they ambushed three different evacuation routes at once?
The Hunters were unprepared. Even knowing they were targets. But this meant something. There was a traitor among them. More than three thousand vampires coordinated an attack. All were annihilated. Except for one.
Ame.
Shioto was shaken.
Thousands of families had received calls that shattered their worlds.
Among the students, the injured had already been seen to. Hundreds were still in critical condition. Hundreds more were moved to nearby hospitals for emergency operations. Limbs lost.
Blood lost. Eyes lost. Scars that would never fade.
But some pulled through.
Esmarie opened her eyes in a temporary medical tent around 3 a.m. Her face was pale, expression tired, but she smiled weakly through the pain: "E-Erika… Sylvie… you guys made it too…?"
Erika sobbed in relief, hugging her so tightly that the nurses politely yelled at her to stop.
Sylvie cried silently, brushing Esmarie's hair from her face: "Thank god, you're safe."
Esmarie laughed weakly. It hurt. But she laughed anyway.
Outside, Marlon had already regained consciousness: "Damn vampires… I should've broken a few more of their faces…"
Yuji was right beside him, tense and bruised: "You're alive. Don't push it."
Erika, Sylvie, Esmarie, Yuji, Marlon, Sota… and Remi. All safe, bruised, but safe. Almost everyone that mattered to Dakota was alive. Except the one he would never forgive himself for losing.
And Dakota himself. He was nowhere. His phone was destroyed during the battle. Half the students' phones were. His trail was lost in the forest, trampled by all of the fleeing and arriving footprints. Search teams had begun combing the area, but even they had no leads. Yuji never stopped scanning the treeline.
Sota sat beside him, hugging his knees, tears dried into streaks down his face: "Yuji… Where… where do you think he went…?"
Yuji paused: "I don't know."
But his expression said something different. He regretted not following him.
At five in the morning, the Hunter Agency's President stepped in front of cameras in an emergency press conference broadcast nationwide.
No smiles. No confident posture. No reassurances. Only grief. Only a bowed head. Shioto was shaken to their core. But the students at the evacuation camps didn't watch the broadcast, they were barely awake, huddled under blankets, drifting in and out of nightmares disguised as sleep. Tarp shelters stretched across the outside of the evacuation zone. Heaters glowed red in the night. The trauma team continued to check pulses and stitch wounds. Most students slept from exhaustion, their bodies giving out long before their minds could catch up.
Erika and Yuji didn't sleep. Sylvie barely blinked.
Sota cried himself to sleep. Remi lay curled in a ball, face pressed into her knees, trembling for hours before her body finally succumbed.
Hours later, bright afternoon sun pierced down with unwelcome warmth. Large Hunter Agency buses pulled onto the dirt paths of the evacuation camp, engines rumbling, doors hissing open. Students shuffled forward with blank expressions, bandaged and trauma hidden behind silence. Some clung to each other like lifelines. Others walked alone, staring at the ground. Everyone lost something they could never get back. Erika, Sylvie, Yuji, Esmarie, Sota, and Marlon all boarded the same bus. Seats creaked under the weight of emotional exhaustion. Esmarie leaned into Erika's side. Sylvie held her hand. Yuji kept glancing out the window, scanning every tree. Dakota wasn't on any bus. After an hour of silent driving, the buses rolled into the parking lot of a massive stadium.
Students pressed against the windows in confusion.
"What is this…?"
"Why are we here…?"
"Are they gathering us for something?"
Teachers ushered everybody out. Over 6,000 students were guided down into the field, slowly gathering near the center.
Their whispers merged into a single, trembling hum.
"Who… who is that…?"
A lone figure stood in the middle of the field. Unshaken despite the storm the world had plunged into.
Shoyo.
The strongest Hunter.
The murmurs fell silent.
Shoyo waited until the entire field was full.
Then he spoke. Even without a microphone, his voice carried across the stadium perfectly, as if the air itself bent to deliver it.
Shoyo: "Hello, students. We need to talk about what comes next."
Their uniforms were torn. Bandages wrapped arms and legs. Many had dried blood on their clothes.
Shoyo: "You've all endured something no one ever expected you would." A pause. The wind blew softly across the open stadium, brushing against thousands of still bodies. "Last night," he continued, "the Hunter Academy suffered the greatest loss since its founding. Over five thousand of your classmates, friends, and peers died."
The students shuddered. Remi lowered her head, gripping her sleeves so tightly the fabric tore.
Shoyo continued: "1 Special Rank Hunter and 65 1st Rank Hunters gave their lives."
He didn't sugarcoat anything.
A ripple of unease passed through the students.
Shoyo: "These vampires struck with strategy. With intent. With coordination far beyond what we have witnessed in recent times. The threat is far from over."
The stadium air seemed to compress, hundreds of breaths catching in throats.
Shoyo: "This is only the beginning." He lifted a hand, gesturing to the vast crowd. "I will not mislead you. What lies ahead is darker than anything the Academy has ever prepared you for. There will be a much bigger battle upon us. This is no longer a matter of maintaining peace. There will be a war."
A tremor of fear and understanding in equal measure ran through the stadium.
Shoyo: "There will be no Hunter Academy. The Academy's purpose was to prepare the next generation. To train. To teach. To allow growth in safety before sending you into the world. But safety is no longer guaranteed. Training cannot proceed as normal. We cannot uphold the promise of protection because the enemy has already broken through one time too many."
The stadium seemed to shake with the force of thousands of hearts suddenly beating harder.
Shoyo extended his arm: "But…" And that single word cut through the dread like a blade. "Those who still wish to become Hunters, can."
Not a single murmur. Not a whisper. Everyone waited.
Shoyo: "Even after facing death. Even after losing friends. Even after witnessing the cruelty of this world." His voice carried like a thunderclap. "If you still choose to become a Hunter, if you still choose to fight for Shioto, for the people you love, for those who died protecting you… then stay where you are."
Silence.
Shoyo bowed his head deeply: "And if you choose to leave, if you choose a different life, then leave with your head held high." No judgment. No anger. Only respect. "Each of you has already given much. No one will blame you for wanting peace. Not after what you endured. The decision is yours."
It was a choice that felt heavier than anthing else.
Shoyo: "Thank you for giving the Hunter Academy your youth and your strength. Whatever path you choose, you carry the pride of Shioto with you."
No one moved yet. The weight of the choice pressed down on them. The silence stretched, then a sound broke it.
Footsteps.
One student walking. Leaving. A second pair of feet followed. Then another. Then ten. Then a few dozen. Then a hundred. Followed by hundreds more. The sound grew louder. A wave of footsteps exited the stadium.
Esmarie was sweating, terrified: 'Wh-What should I…?'
But when she turned, she saw Erika's face. Resolute and nwavering. Sylvie's expression was the same. Firm and determined. Esmarie trembled. Then she exhaled. She made her decision. Near them, Sota didn't hesitate. How could he? He clenched his teeth. Dakota inspired him to become stronger. Yuji stood like an anchored boulder, unmoving even as hundreds streamed past him. Marlon folded his arms. Mike looked around, stressed, sweating, horrified by the decision, and by his own fear. But despite that fear, he didn't move. His hands shook, but he stayed. Because leaving meant he had wasted every ounce of suffering he endured. The footsteps continued. It didn't seem like they would end. Some students cried as they left. Some walked with blank faces. Others ran for the exits like the building was collapsing behind them. When the last of the footsteps finally faded, only silence remained.
Just 389 students remained.
Shoyo exhaled softly. And then his voice rang out: "To all those remaining, you have my deepest gratitude." The wind blew softly behind him. "The battle ahead will be long. Harder than anything you've known." He took a breath. The students braced.
"DEDICATE YOUR SOULS!!"
The shout shook the stadium.
Thunderous. Demanding. Heartfelt.
This story had only begun.