---
By the time Kazuki and Index returned to the apartment building, the hallway smelled like scorched wiring and burnt paint.
Smoke hung low. Lights flickered.
The door to their apartment was half blown off the hinges, hanging crookedly.
Inside, Touma stood alone—shoulder cut, lip bloodied, his right hand smoldering faintly at the fingertips. The tatami mats were half-burnt, flame glyphs still glowing weakly on the floor.
Stiyl stood on the opposite end of the room, coat torn, expression unreadable. His cigarette had gone out.
The air between them crackled—not with fire, but with tension.
Kazuki stopped at the entrance, Index clutching his sleeve.
He didn't speak.
He just watched.
Analyzed.
Stiyl raised his hand—but hesitated.
Touma's right hand twitched again, fingers curled like a loaded spring.
That hand, Kazuki thought, breaks everything unexplainable.
And it had worked.
Stiyl's runes—precise, ancient, fire-bound—meant nothing once touched.
Kazuki's eyes flicked across the room. Burn marks in glyph-shaped bursts. Footwork positions. Breath spacing.
Too slow. Too linear.
"He's strong," Kazuki muttered. "But not adaptive."
Then something happened.
A click—not physical, but in his head.
A soft shift.
A window opening deeper than the last.
20%.
Kazuki's eyes widened slightly.
The noise in his mind had changed.
More than observation. This was insight.
Predictive branching. Risk modeling. Even faster processing.
He could hear Stiyl's intention in his breathing rhythm.
He could map where flames would go before they ignited.
He didn't say anything.
Just absorbed.
Index looked up at him, sensing the change.
He nodded once.
"It's ending."
---
Stiyl stepped back, breathing heavier than before.
"You're dangerous, Kamijou Touma."
Touma didn't respond. He just wiped his mouth and took a step forward.
Not threatening—just solid.
Unmoving.
Stiyl exhaled and dropped the spent cigarette onto the burnt floor.
"This isn't over. I wasn't sent to kill her. I was sent to retrieve her."
He looked past Touma—right at Kazuki.
For a moment, something flickered in his eyes.
Recognition?
No. Curiosity.
"You're not from here. And yet you're already involved."
Kazuki said nothing.
Just stared back.
Stiyl adjusted his coat and turned toward the broken door.
"You won this round. But the next one's different."
He paused in the doorway.
"They're sending Kanzaki next."
Index flinched.
Kazuki's eyes narrowed.
Touma looked confused. "Who?"
"You'll know when she shows up," Stiyl said simply. "And when she does—run."
And with that, he walked into the smoke and was gone.
---
Silence returned.
For a moment.
Then Touma swayed slightly.
Kazuki stepped forward and caught his arm.
"Sit down before your spine files a complaint."
Touma grunted, dropping onto the only clean patch of floor.
"Did I win?"
"Technically."
"Did you run like I told you?"
"Technically."
Index looked between them, then sat on the floor too—still shaken, but no longer trembling.
Kazuki sat last, eyes scanning the scorched room.
Something had shifted.
Not just in the fight.
But in him.
20%.
And the more it grew, the less the world obeyed the rules he used to understand.
Magic. Memory tampering. People like Index being treated like tools.
It all pointed to something bigger.
And Kazuki was already neck-deep in it.
He looked down at his hand.
Still steady.
Still his.
For now.
---