The silence in the hangar was absolute, broken only by the whimpers of the injured cadet and the faint, electrical sizzle from the plasma rifle in Kikoru's hands.
All eyes were on Kafka. The rookie cadets, who seconds ago were fighting for their lives, now looked at him with a raw, primal fear that was completely different from the hero-worship he'd been seeing. They hadn't just seen a comrade saved. They had seen a man kill a monster by turning his own shadow into a spear. It was a violation of the known laws of the universe.
Kafka's mind was a maelstrom of panic. 'How did I do that?! It just… happened!'
[Your subordinate consciousness, Blackwing, acted on your core desire. To protect,] Jin-Woo's voice echoed in his mind, cool and instructive as ever. [It accessed the most fundamental skill inherent in the shadow essence I gave you. A crude, but effective, application. You are evolving faster than anticipated.]
'This isn't evolution!' Kafka shot back in his mind. 'This is a contamination! They saw it! Shinomiya saw it!'
He looked at Kikoru, and his blood ran cold. She wasn't looking at him with suspicion anymore. It was worse. It was a look of dawning, horrified certainty. She recognized the nature of that power. She had been touched by it herself, and she had stood before its source on the rooftop.
The moment was shattered by the thunder of approaching boots. Soshiro Hoshina, alerted by the commotion, arrived at the head of a squad of fully-armed troopers. He took in the scene in an instant: the dead Yoju, the injured rookie, the terrified cadets, and the two central figures, Kikoru and Kafka, locked in a silent, high-stakes standoff.
"Report," Hoshina commanded, his gaze sweeping the scene, missing nothing.
Kikoru tore her eyes away from Kafka, turning to her Vice-Commander. She hesitated for a fraction of a second, her mind clearly racing. What could she possibly say? 'The janitor-monster just used the god-monster's magic?' The report was literally insane.
"An escaped specimen attacked a cadet patrol," she finally said, her voice strained but professional. "I was in the vicinity but could not intercept in time. Private Hibino… neutralized the threat."
Hoshina's eyes narrowed, shifting to Kafka. "Hibino neutralized it? From this distance?" He gestured to where Kafka stood, a good fifty meters from the corpse. "With what? Did he throw something?"
"No, sir," a young, pale-faced cadet stammered, his voice trembling. "It… his shadow… it…" He couldn't finish the sentence. The reality of what he'd seen was too much to articulate.
Hoshina's deceptively cheerful smile vanished. He walked slowly over to the corpse, crouching to examine the wound. It was a single, perfect puncture through the skull. Clean. There was no entry or exit tearing. It was as if it had been stabbed from the inside out by a perfectly sharp object. But the most damning evidence was the residue. A faint, black, ash-like substance that gave off a chilling, unnatural cold. An energy signature that felt like absolute zero.
He had felt this signature before. On the rooftop. It was the residue of Sovereign.
Hoshina stood up slowly, his gaze now fixed on Kafka with an unnerving, piercing intensity. The air crackled with unspoken questions. He knew what that residue meant. He knew there was only one person on the base, in the world, associated with that kind of power.
But he also knew what was at stake. Their entire new world order was balanced on the razor's edge of their fragile, coerced alliance with Sovereign, and on the lie they had built around Kafka. To expose Kafka now would be to light a fuse on a planet-sized bomb.
Hoshina was many things—a blade master, a sadist, a tactical genius—but above all, he was a pragmatist. And the pragmatist was at war with the part of him that was a hunter, screaming that his prey had just revealed a terrifying new ability.
He made a decision. For now, the lie would hold. The mystery would be contained.
"I see," Hoshina said, his cheerful smile snapping back into place, a jarring and terrifying shift. "Private Hibino must have used a new, long-range, projectile-based function of his experimental suit. Excellent work, Hibino. Your reflexes are top-notch. And the weapon's efficiency is remarkable." He clapped his hands together. "Cadets! Get your injured man to the infirmary! The rest of you, back to your drills! There's nothing to see here!"
The cadets, relieved to be dismissed by a superior who was not, in fact, screaming about shadow-magic, scrambled to obey. Medics arrived, and the scene was quickly, efficiently sanitized, the Yoju corpse whisked away for a very special, very high-security autopsy.
Hoshina walked over to Kafka, his smile unwavering. Kikoru stood silently beside him, her arms crossed, her expression unreadable.
"A 'projectile-based function'," Hoshina said, his voice a low, friendly whisper that was dripping with ice. "We'll need a full, detailed report on this new ability for your file, Hibino-san. I'll expect it on my desk. By morning. Be… thorough."
The unspoken message was deafening. 'I know what I saw. You will explain yourself to me in a way that allows me to maintain this charade, or there will be consequences.'
"Yes, Vice-Commander," Kafka mumbled, his throat dry.
Hoshina nodded, then turned and walked away, leaving Kafka alone with Kikoru.
The silence between them was heavy, suffocating.
"You're a terrible liar, you know that?" Kikoru said finally, her voice low and accusatory.
"I don't know what you're talking about," Kafka said weakly.
"Don't," she snapped, her eyes flashing with a dangerous golden light. "Don't insult my intelligence, Kafka. I was on the roof. I felt his power. I have a piece of his power inside me, remember? I know what it feels like. That… that spear of shadow… that was him. That was Sovereign's magic."
She took a step closer, her voice dropping to a desperate whisper. "What is he doing to you? Is he controlling you completely now? Was that you, or was that him, saving that rookie?"
It was a genuine question, laced with a fear he hadn't expected. She wasn't just angry. She was afraid for him.
"It was me," Kafka answered truthfully, his voice filled with a weary honesty. "I wanted to save him. The power… it just… did the rest. It's a part of me now. It anticipates what I want."
Kikoru stared at him, searching his eyes for the lie. She found none. The truth, in a way, was even more terrifying. His own instincts were now wielding the power of a god. He was no longer just a man in a monster suit. The lines were blurring. He was becoming a hybrid, not just in body, but in soul.
"Be careful, Kafka," she said, her voice losing its edge, replaced by a genuine, solemn warning. "That thing saved your life, but it owns you. Power like that… it always has a price. Don't lose yourself in the shadow he gave you."
She turned and walked away, leaving him standing alone in the now-empty hangar bay.
His secret wasn't a secret anymore. Not to Hoshina, not to Kikoru. It was now just a lie they had all silently, reluctantly agreed to uphold for the sake of a fragile peace. But for how long?
He looked down at his own shadow. It was just a shadow. An ordinary patch of darkness on the floor. But he knew, with a terrifying new certainty, that it was so much more. It was a loaded gun, and his own heart was pulling the trigger. The Monarch's 'upgrade' hadn't just made him stronger. It had made him infinitely more dangerous, to his enemies, and to himself.