Akira stared at the three Hunters for several seconds, watching as they spread across the rooftop and blocked the paths leading away from him. The tallest one continued to grin, his weapon hanging loosely at his side, while the other two looked him over as though they had already decided how much his belongings were worth.
Akira slowly straightened his back, wincing as the pain in his shoulder reminded him of his less-than-graceful landing. He brushed the dirt from his uniform and glanced toward the nearest camera hovering above the rooftop, its small red light blinking as it followed his every movement.
"You know killing's banned, right?" he asked, raising a finger toward the camera. "We're also on live."
None of the three men answered.
The tallest Hunter merely tilted his head, while the one standing to his left drew a short blade and began turning it between his fingers. Whatever rules the Hunter Association had established, they didn't seem particularly concerned about following them.
Akira's expression slowly flattened.
"Right. Guess that doesn't matter to you."
Blue flames suddenly erupted from his palm.
The Azure Flames roared to life with a deep, rushing sound, painting the rooftop in brilliant blue light as Akira raised his hand toward the three men. For the first time, their confident expressions faltered, and the tallest Hunter took an instinctive step backward.
Akira smiled faintly.
"You're going to lose on live, too."
The flames surged forward.
They tore across the rooftop like a wave, swallowing the space between Akira and the three Hunters before detonating against the buildings behind them. The explosion shook the surrounding structures, sending shattered glass raining into the streets below as a wall of heat swallowed the rooftop.
The three Hunters disappeared inside the blaze.
For several seconds, blue light danced across the broken windows of the surrounding skyscrapers, illuminating the ruined city as though a second sun had risen between its abandoned buildings.
Then the flames began to fade.
Through the smoke, a single figure walked away from the rooftop.
Akira.
His hands rested casually in his pockets, and his expression carried the same faint boredom it had before the fight began. Behind him, the last traces of Azure Flames flickered against the ruined buildings before disappearing into the wind.
Somewhere beyond the rooftop, the cameras continued to follow him.
To the spectators watching the broadcast, there was no victory pose, no declaration of triumph, and no attempt to draw attention to himself.
There was only Akira Yamato walking away.
The ruined city stretched endlessly before him.
Akira descended from the rooftop and made his way through the narrow streets, stepping over broken concrete and rusted metal as he searched for somewhere he could get his bearings. The distant sounds of explosions occasionally echoed between the buildings, followed by brief flashes of light that illuminated the clouds of dust hanging above the skyline.
The Hunter Games had barely begun, yet the city was already turning into a battlefield.
Akira pulled out his Hunter Card and glanced at his displayed rank. Even before the Games began, his position had placed him among the higher-ranked participants, though he knew better than to mistake a number for proof that he could defeat everyone standing in his way.
Somewhere in this city were Hunters who could crush him without giving him the chance to fight back.
He had felt their Tao inside the Coliseum. Some of them had carried so much power that merely standing nearby had made the air feel heavier.
Akira slipped the card away and continued walking.
Even so, there was one thought he couldn't quite shake.
I'm different.
He didn't know whether it was confidence, arrogance, or simply the stubbornness that had kept him chasing his dream long after other people would have given up. Whatever it was, the thought remained with him as he left the crowded streets behind and approached the outskirts of the ruined city.
Eventually, the buildings grew farther apart, their broken silhouettes giving way to a wide stretch of grass that swayed gently beneath the open sky. The field looked strangely untouched compared to the destruction surrounding it, with clear-cut grass spreading across the ground and only a few scattered stones breaking up the landscape.
Akira stepped into the field and let out a slow breath.
"Finally. Some space."
He rolled his shoulder, testing the lingering pain from his landing, then tilted his head as a faint sound reached his ears.
It was high-pitched, almost like a whistle, yet so quiet that he could barely distinguish it from the wind moving through the grass.
Akira stopped.
The sound came again.
A thin, lingering note drifted across the field before fading into silence, and something about it made the hair on the back of his neck rise. It wasn't loud enough to be heard from a distance, yet he had the uncomfortable feeling that it was meant for him alone.
He turned toward the sound.
A woman stood against the wall of a nearby building, just beyond the edge of the field.
She hadn't been there a moment ago.
Her dark cloak rested over her shoulders, moving only slightly in the breeze, while a black trident stood in one hand. Silver markings had been carved into its shaft; it was luxury, something that a normal hunter wouldn't be able to afford. The intricate lines caught the light whenever she shifted her grip.
Beneath the cloak, she wore a red-and-silver robe fastened with a sash bearing the emblem of the Yoru Kingdom—a beautiful crow spreading its wings as though preparing to take flight. Her dark red hair was tied neatly behind her head, and a bone-white fox mask concealed her face.
The woman tilted her head toward Akira.
It's a different color, but that's definitely the mark of Yoru. Why does she have that? Akira thought to himself.
"There you are," she said softly. "I thought I'd have to spend hours playing that stupid tune."
Her voice was quiet, almost conversational, as though she had simply been waiting for a friend who had arrived late.
Akira stared at her. She lifted the trident slightly, allowing its metal tip to rest against the ground.
"Didn't take long to find you, Akira."
His eyes widened.
For a moment, he didn't move. Then he shifted his weight, lowering his center of gravity as his hand rose toward the woman, his body instinctively preparing for a fight.
"Who are you?"
The woman didn't answer.
Instead, she moved.
SHNK!
Akira barely registered the motion before the trident pierced his side.
"GAH—!"
Pain exploded through his body.
He stumbled backward, his shoes tearing through the grass as blood spread across his clothes. His knees nearly gave out beneath him, and he caught himself with one hand against the ground before collapsing onto one knee.
The woman stood directly in front of him, her trident still angled toward the wound.
"So much Tao," she whispered. "You're impossible to miss."
Akira clenched his teeth and slammed his palm against his side.
Blue flames erupted across the injury.
The Azure Flames spread over the wound with terrifying precision, their heat cauterizing the torn flesh as smoke curled into the air. Akira's body tensed against the pain, and for several seconds, he could do little more than breathe through gritted teeth while the bleeding slowed.
Then he forced himself upright.
His eyes hardened.
"Azure Burial."
He drove his palm toward the ground. Blue flames detonated beneath the woman. The earth shattered.
A violent eruption of Azure Flames swallowed the surrounding grass, throwing dirt and broken stone into the air as the shock wave swept across the field. The explosion sent a deep rumble through the nearby buildings, and the ground beneath Akira's feet trembled as the fire expanded outward.
For a brief moment, the woman disappeared completely.
Akira lowered his hand, breathing heavily as he watched the flames consume the place where she had been standing.
"...Got her."
The words had barely left his mouth when a figure emerged from the fire. The woman walked through the Azure Flames without a single visible burn.
Her robe remained intact. Her cloak hung from her shoulders. Even the bone-white fox mask showed no sign of damage.
Akira's expression tightened.
What?
He barely had time to react before she rushed him again.
The trident flashed toward his throat.
Akira threw himself backward, narrowly avoiding the blade as it sliced across his cheek. A thin line of blood appeared beneath the cut, and he felt the sting a moment later as it ran down his skin.
The woman continued forward, her movements smooth and deliberate, each strike aimed at a vital point rather than wasted on unnecessary flourishes.
Akira blocked one attack with a burst of Azure Flames, only for the trident to change direction in the middle of its movement and slash across his chest.
He staggered away.
"Damn it!"
The woman paused just long enough to tilt her head, almost as though she were listening to something that Akira couldn't hear.
"We're a terrible matchup," she said.
Then she reached up and removed her mask.
Akira's eyes narrowed as the mask came away, revealing a young woman with clouded gray eyes. They remained fixed in his general direction, but there was no clear focus behind them, no movement following his face as he shifted his stance.
She was blind.
"I'm blind," she explained, holding the mask loosely at her side. "I have to rely on my sense of Tao, and my sense of Tao alone."
Her lips curved faintly.
"You're like a fire in the darkness."
Akira's expression changed.
The woman raised her trident, pointing its silver-marked shaft toward his chest.
Now he understood.
She wasn't following his movements by watching him.
She was tracking his Tao.
Every time he moved, every time he gathered energy to attack, the Tao flowing through his body revealed his position to her. His enormous reserves, which had always given him an advantage in a fight, had turned him into a beacon she could follow without ever needing to see him.
And with a Tao pool as massive as his, suppressing it properly was almost impossible.
The trident shot forward again.
Akira twisted aside, but the tip grazed his shoulder.
Another strike followed before he could recover, forcing him to leap backward as the weapon carved a line through the air where his chest had been.
I'll suppress my Tao and confuse her senses
He released a burst of Azure Flames to keep her at a distance, but she slipped around the attack as though she had already known where it would land.
The trident rushed toward his face. Akira ducked at the last possible second, feeling the weapon pass over his head before he blasted himself backward with an explosion of Azure Flames beneath his feet.
For a moment, he gained some distance.
Then the woman followed.
She crossed the gap with frightening speed, her trident flashing through the air as Akira tried to shift his body out of its path.
He wasn't fast enough. The blade cut across him again. Blood sprayed over the grass.
Akira crashed violently against the ground, his body rolling across the dirt before coming to a stop near the edge of the field. His vision blurred, and the world seemed to tilt around him as he struggled to draw air into his lungs.
The woman approached at a measured pace, her trident resting loosely in one hand.
To her, the fight was already over.
"You were hyped up to me as some kind of monster," she said, looking down toward the fallen Hunter. "You're disappointing."
Akira tried to push himself up, but his arm trembled beneath his weight.
There's no way she's actually going to kill me.
His thoughts came slowly, each one interrupted by the pain spreading through his body.
Maybe if I—
Something spoke.
Not the woman.
Not the distant spectators watching through their screens.
The voice came from somewhere deep inside him, echoing through his mind with a weight that seemed to press against the very foundations of his existence.
"Arthur the King..."
Akira froze.
The words sounded distant, like thunder rolling across an empty kingdom.
He coughed, blood spilling from his mouth onto the ground.
"...Who are you?"
The woman continued approaching, unaware of the voice that had interrupted his thoughts.
Inside Akira's mind, the answer came calmly.
"You never wondered why you survived?"
Akira's fingers curled against the dirt.
"A child alone cannot survive this world through luck alone."
A quiet laugh followed, carrying a strange familiarity that Akira couldn't explain.
"When you first fought a Yokai... why do you think it screamed?"
His breathing slowed.
The memory surfaced without warning: the terror of facing something he couldn't understand, the sound of the creature crying out, and the inexplicable moments when his body had moved before his mind could catch up.
He had never found an answer.
Not one that made sense, anyway.
"...What do you want?" Akira whispered.
The voice grew quieter.
Almost gentle.
"I want to help you."
Akira stared at the ground, his fingers digging into the dirt until his nails filled with soil. Every part of his body hurt, and the woman was getting closer with each passing second.
He had chased his dream for so long.
He had endured ridicule, hunger, and the countless moments when the world seemed determined to remind him that he wasn't special.
Now, lying in the grass with blood running down his side, he was about to lose to someone whose face he had barely seen.
Akira clenched his fists hard enough for blood to seep from his palms.
"Then do it..."
A faint golden light flickered through his right eye.
"...Help me."
The woman stopped walking.
For the first time since the fight began, her expression shifted.
Something had changed.
The Tao around Akira, which had been blazing through her senses like a roaring fire, suddenly began to behave in a way she couldn't understand. The energy gathered around him, drawing inward as though the air itself were being pulled toward a single point.
Then Akira raised his head.
"MAKE ME KING."
Something inside him snapped.
Akira slowly rose to his feet.
His movements were unsteady at first, his injured body trembling beneath the strain, but he continued to stand until he was looking directly at the woman. Golden Tao erupted through his right eye, spilling into the air like molten light, while an enormous pressure spread across the field.
The ground cracked beneath his shoes.
The grass flattened.
The surrounding buildings trembled as golden energy flooded the ruined landscape, and above Akira's head, a crown of molten Tao began to take shape.
The woman tightened her grip on the trident.
"What...?"
The world had transformed before his eyes, revealing currents of Tao flowing through the walls, beneath the ground, and between the broken buildings surrounding the field. Every living thing radiated energy, every movement left a trail, and every shift in the air carried a pattern he could suddenly understand.
He could see the Tao inside the woman.
He could see the energy gathered around her trident.
He could even see his own Tao, pouring through his body in immense, glowing streams that seemed to stretch far beyond the limits he had once believed existed.
The woman lunged.
Her trident shot toward his heart, moving with the same deadly precision that had nearly killed him moments earlier.
The woman's eyes widened as the trident pierced empty air. Before she could turn, Akira appeared beside her, his right eye burning with golden light as he extended one hand toward her body.
Then he clenched his fist.
The Tao surrounding her twisted violently.
An invisible force seized her from every direction, wrapping around her limbs and torso like chains. Her body jerked to a halt, and the trident slipped slightly in her grasp as the pressure tightened around her.
"What is—"
Akira pulled his hand aside.
The woman was hurled through the nearby wall, her body smashing through concrete and stone before collapsing into the room beyond. The impact shook the building, sending fragments of masonry tumbling into the street as a cloud of dust swallowed the opening.
Akira remained where he stood.
Golden Tao crackled around his body, and the crown above his head burned like a fragment of a sun that had fallen into the ruined city.
He looked down at his hand, opening and closing his fingers as though he were testing a power that had always belonged to him but had remained hidden until now.
His breathing was still ragged.
His wounds still hurt.
Yet for the first time since the woman had appeared, he no longer felt helpless.
"I've won," he muttered, his voice low and strangely distant. "I... and I alone have complete dominion over Tao. I alone am King"
The words sounded unfamiliar coming from his mouth.
But the power surrounding him answered as though it had been waiting to hear them.
From inside the collapsed building came the sound of shifting rubble.
The woman slowly emerged from the dust.
Blood ran down the side of her face, and one arm hung slightly lower than the other, but she was still standing. Her clouded gray eyes remained directed toward Akira, and despite the damage she had suffered, her expression carried something dangerously close to amusement.
Akira disappeared again.
"Blazing Step."
Azure Flames burst around his body, mixing with the golden Tao that streamed from his right eye. He crossed the distance between them in an instant, appearing behind the woman before she could turn toward him.
His fist ignited.
Then it struck her back.
BOOOOOOOOM!
The impact shattered the street beneath them.
A violent shock wave spread across the field, breaking the pavement into jagged fragments and sending dust spiraling into the air. The woman's body was driven forward, and the force of the strike finally proved too much for the bone-white fox mask covering her face.
It cracked apart.
Fragments scattered across the ground.
Akira stood motionless for a moment, his fist still extended as the last traces of Azure Flames faded around his knuckles. The golden crown continued to hover above his head, but his expression had changed, the fierce determination in his eyes giving way to a brief, uncertain silence.
He slowly lowered his arm.
"Give up," he said, his voice quieter now. "I'm not here to kill people."
The woman remained on the ground for several seconds.
Then she moved.
She pushed herself upright, blood dripping from her face as she turned toward him. Despite everything that had happened, she smiled weakly, as though the fight had confirmed something she had suspected long before they ever met.
"Ito was right..." she whispered.
Her breath caught, but she continued.
"You really are dangerous."
Her Hunter Card suddenly glowed.
A message appeared across its surface.
SURRENDER CONFIRMED.
Light surrounded her body.
Akira watched as the glow grew brighter, swallowing her figure until nothing remained but the broken fragments of her mask lying among the shattered pavement.
Then she vanished.
Silence returned to the field.
For several seconds, Akira remained standing, his golden Tao crown hovering above him while blood dripped slowly from his wounds. The energy around his body continued to surge, but the strength that had carried him through the fight was beginning to slip away, leaving behind a deep, unbearable heaviness.
He tried to take a step.
His knee buckled.
Akira caught himself, breathing unevenly as he stared at the empty patch of ground where the woman had disappeared.
"...First win."
The words escaped him in a tired whisper.
Then the golden light in his right eye flickered.
The crown above his head began to dissolve, its molten glow breaking apart into tiny sparks that drifted through the air before fading into darkness.
Akira reached out instinctively, but his arm refused to obey.
His body finally gave in.
He collapsed onto the broken ground, and the last thing he saw was the pale sky stretching above the ruined city.
Then darkness swallowed him whole.