Pathro stood over the two dead doctors, the shock of his own actions settling over him like a physical chill. The adrenaline-fueled clarity was gone, replaced by a hollow, uneasy awareness. I… killed them. I didn't disarm them. I didn't subdue them. I executed them. He stared at his hands, clean of blood but feeling indelibly stained. The primal, righteous fury that had moved them was now a cold, hard knot in his stomach.
On the table, the girl's wide, terrified eyes met his. She tried to speak, a muffled sound behind her gag, but the sedative flooding her veins was claiming her. Her last conscious thought was a blurred, desperate question Who is he?,before darkness swallowed her.
The violence had not been quiet. The shattering of the door, the brief, brutal struggle, the final silence, it echoed. Alarms Klaxons remained silent, but human alarms had been triggered. Shouts echoed down the sterile corridors. The thunder of booted feet approached.
In the bathroom, the boy from Good Hope cowered, paralyzed. The sight of the organ bank had shattered his courage; the sound of slaughter outside finished the job. He huddled, hands clamped over his ears.
Guards burst into the freezer room, weapons raised. They saw the carnage, their comrades down, the doctors dead, a figure in a guard's uniform standing amid the wreckage.
"Hey! What the hell do you think you're doing?!" one shouted, his weapon trained on Pathro's chest.
Pathro didn't answer. He felt detached, floating outside himself.
"I asked you a question! Report! What happened here?!"
Slowly, Pathro reached up and pulled off the black mask. His face was revealed, impassive, his eyes distant, as if observing the scene from far away.
A beat of confusion, then recognition. "He's Japanese! The boss would never hire…"
Pathro's gaze finally focused, locking onto the lead guard. There was no threat in it, only a terrible, empty certainty.
"FIRE!"
The command ripped through the tension. A storm of gunfire erupted, muzzle flashes lighting the white room. Bullets tore into Pathro's stolen uniform, shredding the fabric. They impacted his torso, his arms, with dull thuds.
He stood there, weathering the fusillade.
The Law of Zutra still held him in its grip. His Meta-Energy was inert, the power to deflect or vaporize the bullets locked away. But his body was a testament to years of grueling conditioning. His skin, muscles, and bone density were superhuman by mundane standards. The bullets bruised, they stung, but they did not pierce. They flattened against his flesh and fell to the floor like leaden hail.
The barrage ceased. The guards stared, their weapons smoking, their faces masks of dawning, abject horror. The man was untouched. Unscathed.
"What the—"
"He's not human!"
"A Japanese soldier!"
Pathro took a step forward. Then another. He wasn't running; he was advancing with a dreadful, deliberate pace. His eyes, which had been vacant, now held a focused, predatory glint.
The guards broke. Some raised their weapons again on instinct; others stumbled back. It didn't matter. Pathro was among them.
What followed was not a fight; it was an extermination. His movements were a brutal economy of force. A palm strike crushed a trachea. A kick caved in a ribcage, driving bone into heart and lung. A twist of his hands snapped a neck with a sound like a green branch breaking. These were not the precise, non-lethal takedowns from the cell. This was the unleashing of a killing engine, efficient and merciless.
Fear turned to pure, animal panic. Those still standing tried to flee. Pathro watched them scramble for a moment. Then he bent down, picked up a discarded assault rifle from the floor, and examined it with a cold curiosity. He turned, aimed with a soldier's ingrained skill, and fired.
Three short, controlled bursts. Three fleeing figures jerked and fell, motionless.
The gunfire from deeper in the complex had finally drawn another. A single guard rounded the far corner, weapon raised. Pathro, still holding the rifle, swiveled and fired again.
This guard didn't fall. A hand blurred, and three bullets were snatched from the air, clattering to the floor. The guard then reached up and pulled off his own mask.
It was Toshiro.
Pathro met his gaze. No words passed between them. Pathro's eyes held a flat, unreadable darkness. He dropped the rifle, the metal clattering on the tile, and turned away. He began moving methodically down the line of surgery rooms, yanking open each door.
The surgeons inside, men and women in bloody scrubs who had hidden during the firefight, now faced him. They pleaded, they begged, they offered money, they cursed. Pathro was deaf to it all. The emptiness inside him had been filled with a cold, singular purpose: eradication. He moved from room to room, a grim reaper in a stolen white coverall stained with other people's blood. Bones broke. Lives ended.
Toshiro watched from the entrance, his own expression granite. He saw the piled bodies of the guards. He saw the intent in Pathro's movements. He understood the line that had been crossed, the bridge burned. When a pair of sobbing surgeons finally broke and ran towards him, seeking any escape, Toshiro didn't hesitate. His hands shot out, precise and forceful, striking pressure points. They collapsed, unconscious, before they could reach the corridor. He would not kill the innocent, but he would not grant them mercy that might compromise the mission.
A new sound tore through the base, a piercing, electronic alarm, wailing from hidden speakers. The silent alarm had been a triage. This was a full, screaming alert.
Toshiro stepped over the unconscious surgeons and moved to where Pathro stood, wiping his hands on his coveralls in the last of the operating rooms.
"You realize this siren has two meanings," Toshiro said, his voice calm but carrying over the blare. "It either summons the master of this house for a last stand… or it signals a full purge and retreat, telling him to abandon the nest."
Pathro looked up, his eyes finally showing a flicker of something alive: a hot, simmering anticipation. "Yeah. I'm hoping he comes. I want to look him in the eye before I kill that coward."
---
A Few Minutes Earlier – Lagos, Nigeria News Network Studio
The afternoon broadcast was cut by a sharp, unauthorized feed. The screen flickered, and a young woman in the distinct, sleek combat uniform of the Japanese Strategic Defense Force appeared, standing before the main news desk. It was Kasumi. Her face was pale but set with iron determination.
"Apologies for the interruption," she said, her voice clear and steady, carrying the weight of command. "This is an emergency security bulletin. I am Operative Kasumi of the Japanese Strategic Defense Force, currently deployed on Nigerian soil. We have successfully located the primary base of operations for the criminal syndicate responsible for the mass kidnappings across this nation. Their reign ends tonight. A decisive strike is imminent."
Across Nigeria, viewers stared in shock. In living rooms, market stalls, and offices, reactions were a mix of disbelief, hope, and cynicism.
"Is this a bluff?"
"If she really found it, why announce it? Just attack!"
"She looks like a child. What kind of game is this?"
But in the homes of the grieving, a fragile, desperate hope flickered. Please… please let it be true. Destroy them.
---
A Secluded Mansion, Undisclosed Location
A well-dressed man sat in a leather armchair, a crystal glass in hand, watching the broadcast on a large screen. He was middle-aged, with the sharp eyes and poised stillness of a predator. He snorted.
"An amateur's gambit," he murmured to himself. "My concealment matrix is flawless. A rookie's senses couldn't pierce it. Is this a feint? Trying to provoke a reaction, to see if I flinch?"
His arrogance was absolute. His phone, resting on a polished teak table beside him, remained silent.
Then it rang. Not a normal tone, but a shrill, pulsating screech coded for one thing only: BASE COMPROMISE – EMERGENCY.
The glass slipped from his fingers, shattering on the floor. Shock wiped the smugness from his face. Attacked? How? My men are armed, numerous. The location is invisible… The face of the young soldier on the news filled his mind. A distraction. She was the decoy.
"Damn them!" he snarled. He had to protect his investment, his operation. He rose, energy crackling around his hands. With a vicious tearing motion, he ripped a portal open in the air before him and plunged through.
---
He emerged into the main corridor of his base. The stench of blood and cordite hit him first. Then the silence. No challenges from his guards. No sounds of struggle. Just the distant, weeping keen of the alarm.
He moved forward, his polished shoes leaving prints in smears of blood. The corridor led to the heart of his operation: the freezer and surgical wing.
The scene that greeted him was an abattoir. His guards lay in twisted heaps. His surgeons were slumped in doorways or over their sterile tables. And in the center of the crimson-splashed white room stood two figures. Teenagers. In bloodied uniforms.
They had been finishing their work. One was calmly ensuring a surgeon would never rise again.
Pathro straightened up as the man entered. He didn't seem surprised. "Well," Pathro said, his voice cold and flat, cutting through the alarm. "I assume you're the big boss. Brave of you to show your face. Or stupid."
The man's fury was ice-cold. "Has Japan fallen so low it sends untested pups to do a man's work? Typical of their arrogant, clumsy ways."
Toshiro turned, his analytical gaze sweeping over the newcomer—the cut of his unseen suit, his posture, his aura. Then he heard the man's voice, saw the subtle, controlled energy that still clung to him despite his rage. The pieces clicked.
"Your accent. Your bearing," Toshiro stated, his voice devoid of emotion. "You're Japanese as well. A soldier. Or rather… you were."
Pathro's gaze was a physical weight, pressing down on the man who had built this charnel house. "I have one question for you," Pathro said, his voice stripped of all heat, leaving only a cold, cutting edge. "Why? What did you think this would achieve?"
The man's lips twisted into a condescending smile. "It's not a reason children could comprehend. And unfortunately for you, you won't live long enough to even try."
"You're not human," Pathro spat, the words laced with revulsion. "This level of disregard for life can't have a reason. It's just sickness."
The man's smile widened, becoming something genuinely unnerving. He gestured around the room, at the dead guards, the slain surgeons. "Look who's talking. You just massacred everyone in this room. Did you pause to hear their stories? Why a man might take a job guarding a freezer, or cutting open a body to feed his family? Some of them lacked a hero. You, the noble soldier, were supposed to save them. Instead, you executed them. Why?" He leaned forward, his voice a venomous whisper. "Why did you disregard their narratives? If you ask me, you're just another monster. So young, and already carrying the weight of all these tragic endings on your shoulders. Their blood is your truth now."
Pathro moved. A fist, faster than sight, aimed to shatter the mocking smile. The man's forearm came up, blocking it with a solid crack of impact that spoke of reinforced bone and trained reflex.
"I am nothing like you," Pathro growled, the dam of his control beginning to fracture. "I fulfilled my duty as a soldier."
"You can lie to yourself, boy," the man retorted, shoving Pathro's arm aside. "But we both see the reality. You're a murderer who comforts himself by calling it 'justice.'"
Toshiro, reading the escalating tension and seeing no path to reason, moved to flank the man, his own body coiling to strike.
The man's eyes darted between them. A cold calculation flashed behind his fury. Fighting here is a tactical error. The Law of Zutra hangs over all of us in this room of death, triggered by his killing spree. Our Meta-Energy is inert. It would be a brawl martial skill against martial skill, two against one. Unacceptable risk.
As Toshiro lunged, the man didn't block. Instead, he swept his hand downward in a sharp, tearing motion. The space at Pathro and Toshiro's feet didn't distort, it vanished, replaced by a swirling, inky vortex of a portal.
There was no time to react. One moment they were on the blood-slicked tile; the next, gravity inverted and they were falling, not down, but through. The sterile white hell of the freezer room vanished, replaced by a blinding, sickening rush of non-space, and then—
They slammed into hard, unfamiliar ground. The air was thin, cold, and carried a strange, metallic scent. Overhead, not one but two sickly, purplish moons hung in a star-strewn black sky, casting an eerie glow over a landscape of jagged, crystalline rock formations. The silence was absolute, profound, and utterly alien.
They were no longer on Earth.
---
Back in the freezer room, the sudden silence after the portal's disappearance was deafening. The boy from Good Hope, trembling, finally pushed the bathroom door open a crack. He had seen it all, the confrontation, the chilling words, the impossible portal. He stared at the spot where the three soldiers had vanished.
"T-they're not human," he stammered to the empty, corpse-filled room. "They're like... gods. Or demons. Pretending to be like us." His gaze swept over the carnage, bodies broken by hand, by gun, by will. "What could possibly oblige beings like that to protect us?"
The sheer scale of violence, of power that could snatch people across worlds, rendered the idea of benevolent guardians absurd. They were forces of nature, and humanity was simply in their path.
---
Kasumi, having left the news studio, moved through the Lagos night like a shadow. The declaration should have forced his hand. If he didn't know about Pathro and Toshiro, he'd have to check his base. Now, to find it.
She centered herself, extending her senses outwards, searching for the concentrated life-energy signature of thousands of captives that had previously been hidden.
And this time… she found it.
A dense, swirling knot of fear, exhaustion, and life, pulsing from a point miles away in the wilderness. The concealment was gone.
They did it. They broke his shield. A surge of pride and relief washed over her. But it was immediately followed by a spike of cold anxiety. I can sense the captives… but I can't sense Pathro or Toshiro. At all. Their unique, powerful energy signatures, which usually stood out to her like beacons, were simply absent from the psychic landscape of Earth.
They're gone. Teleported? The thought was a icy plunge. The boss had that capability. Did he… take them somewhere to kill them? She clenched her fists, pushing down the fear. Focus. The mission. The people here are still alive. Pathro and Toshiro can handle themselves. They have to.
She shifted direction, a streak of motion heading not for the city, but for the newly-revealed scar in the forest, where a hidden base now lay vulnerable, its master possibly gone, and its prisoners waiting.