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[The surveillance room, under kagetsu castle]
[Earlier before the fight.]
The quiet hum of machines filled the dimly lit surveillance room. Rows of monitors cast a cold glow over the seated personnel, their screens divided into countless live feeds from across the castle grounds. The steady rhythm of keystrokes and the soft beep of systems processing commands were the only sounds breaking the still air.
Ring. Ring.
A woman seated at the central console clicked the flashing notification on her handheld device, connecting to the incoming call.
"Hello... Yes, sir... Understood. I'll inform them immediately."
The call ended with a soft chime.
She sighed, stretching her fingers before quickly navigating the interface. Her next task was to contact the experimental division, where the captives were housed. With precise movements, she tapped in the call command.
The line rang. Once. Twice.
Her foot tapped idly against the floor as she waited for half a second. Why aren't they picking up?
She exhaled sharply, ending the call before redialing. Still, no answer.
Frowning, she pulled up the live surveillance feed of the division's sector. The screen flickered as the cameras switched views, displaying the sterile hallways lined with reinforced doors.
Then—
Her stomach plummeted.
Blood.
The pristine corridors were now a grotesque display of carnage. Limbs, torsos, and sliced remains lay strewn across the floor, pooling in thick, dark puddles. Some bodies had been ripped apart, organs spilling from gaping cavities. Others had been severed cleanly, as though carved by an impossibly sharp blade.
The scent of death felt almost tangible through the screen.
Her breath hitched. Her pulse pounded in her ears. 'What... What happened?!'
Heart racing, she pushed back from the desk, intending to warn the others "Report!—"
She froze.
The room was silent.
Too silent.
She turned and her eyes darted around the space, and that's when she saw it.
Every single person in the surveillance room was dead.
Some remained upright in their chairs, heads missing, hands still poised as if they hadn't realized they were already gone. Others were slumped over consoles, torsos split open, revealing the mess of organs beneath. A few had collapsed onto the floor, their limbs scattered separately from their bodies.
It was instantaneous.
'When? How?'
A chill ran down her spine. The realization came crashing down—she hadn't heard anything. No gunfire, no screams, not even the faintest shuffle of movement.
Her lips parted in horror, but before she could even process her next thought—
Her vision tilted.
The room spun as her line of sight inexplicably dropped.
Her own body remained standing before her, motionless.
Her lips twitched, but her voice never came. Her own head—detached from her body—was rolling. She felt her perspective shift, tumbling across the cold floor, her limbs following in rapid succession.
She was dead before she even realized it.
As the last traces of awareness faded, the only sound left in the surveillance room was the soft, rhythmic ringing of the telecom devices.
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[Department of Experimental sciences.]
[Room #16]
+ Toru's POV +
'Just a little more...'
Toru crouched beside the cold metal table, his transparent fingers gliding over the near-invisible wire looped around the captive's steel collar. The filament, razor-thin yet impossibly strong, gleamed faintly under the sterile fluorescence of the lab's dim overhead lights.
His form remained unseen, a phantom operating in silence. His mind calculated each precise movement, ensuring nothing would go wrong.
'One last adjustment. A minor shift in pressure.'
With a deft pull—
Clink!
The collar split apart seamlessly, the severed metal clattering onto the table with a soft metallic rattle.
Akemi stirred. A sharp inhale cut through the silence as she jolted upright, her hand instinctively flying to her throat. Her fingers brushed against the bare skin where the restrictive collar had been moments ago, her breathing ragged as disorientation clouded her thoughts.
Toru observed her reaction. 'It's good that she was awake during it all.'
Her gaze darted around the dimly lit lab, trying to make sense of the eerie quiet and the absence of her captors. Then, her attention landed on the far wall.
Upon Toru's command, a message flickered into existence, the delicate strands forming words in shimmering silver thread:
"Gather at the center by following the blue string to meet up with your brother, then follow the red strings to group up with denji. Do not deviate. -Toru"
Beneath the message, an arrow of blue strings stretched toward the open exit. The once-secured steel door now lay flat on the ground, its hinges cut open from an unseen force.
Akemi hesitated. Her mind raced, trying to recall how she ended up here, how long she had been unconscious. But with no clear answers and no time to dwell, she made a decision. She clenched her fists, and chose to trust the message.
Adjusting the loose, sterile-white garments she had been dressed in, she slid off the table, landing lightly on her bare feet. Without another glance back, she followed the glowing path.
Seeing as his message was acknowledged, Toru shifted, his phantom-like form slipping effortlessly through the walls. 'Two down. One more to go.'
He hovered for a beat in the corridor, weightless, scanning the surroundings with unseen senses.
'Or is it three?' His thoughts paused, annoyed. 'Does that chainsaw er... dog? even count as one?'
He contemplated. Then a subtle shiver pulsed through one of his distant threads, like a spider sensing the tremble of its web. His posture didn't shift, but internally, he acknowledged it.
'Another one just tripped a line in the surveillance wing... but late.'
He drifted forward, silent as breath.
'Strange. I expected them all to be dead simultaneously. A lapse in calculation?'
Toru didn't berate himself—he didn't have the luxury of indulging in guilt—but he logged the misstep.
He moved deeper into the maze-like interior, his incorporeal body threading past humming pipes and dim emergency lights that flickered sporadically above. The air here was stale, sterile. Everything stank of chemicals and control.
'Back to the real problem…' His focus narrowed. 'That chainsaw like creature.'
A faint curl of irritation touched his thoughts.
'Is that thing even capable of reading directions? Let alone following them?' He huffed silently.
Toru phased through a mesh-vent wall and emerged above a stairwell shaft, descending straight down through solid floor.
'Hope not. I don't feel like wasting time looking for it. Every second I spend, their reinforcements are getting closer and are sure to investigate.'
He passed through a rusted pipe and landed in a dim, lower hallway lined with reinforced cell doors. The air was cooler here—older—and the weight of silence hung heavy.
His thoughts shifted, eyeing the locked room ahead.
'Denji…'
A pause.
'Based on what Kazuhiro said, I can afford to be a little rough with him. His world deals with demons. That kind of exposure builds durability… probably.'
His phantom-like silhouette hovered just outside the containment room. Phantom like threads moved and spiraled delicately from his fingertips, moving in the still air like silk in slow motion. One of them coiled tightly around the reinforced door latch—tense, poised to snap it apart with surgical precision.
Though he suddenly froze.
He felt a pulse along one of his distant threads. Subtle. Faint. But unmistakable.
Not from the surveillance room this time. No. This signal came from deeper—farther—embedded in a section of the building he deliberately wanted avoid till they left.
That room.
Toru's hand tightened slightly, his fingers curling inward. The luminous filaments responded, vibrating with quiet urgency.
'I didn't feel it cut all the way through.'
He frowned, stress piled.
Toru remembered the fleeting glimpse he had caught earlier—just a brief shimmer of that man's outline through a dozen walls and security barriers. Even through layers of steel and concrete, something about him felt… off.
Unnatural.
His phantom form quivered slightly with anticipation. Not fear. Something colder.
'There's something odd about that man,' he thought, silent and focused. 'I can't to what exactly.' He furrowed his brows
The threads across his body pulsed with tension.
'I don't have much time. I need to get this over with now.'
He adjusted the angle of the string around the lock. More pressure. A cleaner snap. Denji's room wasn't like the others—it had a reinforced seal, likely they couldnt find any documents about his person, or probably ran examination which they found very odd.
'I'll need ninety seconds. One and a half minutes is all I can afford.'
Toru's next thought came with a trace of dry regret.
'Apologies in advance… for any injuries you'll get.'
With that, the string around the door vibrated once—and sliced.
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[Department Center]
Akemi moved swiftly, her breath steady but her heart pounding. The dim hallways seemed to stretch longer, but she followed Toru's directions precisely, never deviating.
Upon reaching the designated meeting point, she halted.
"Asahi…?"
Her twin brother stood leaning against the wall, his silhouette barely illuminated by the emergency lights flickering overhead. Relief momentarily softened her expression before her eyes narrowed in concern.
"You were freed by Toru too…" Her gaze drifted lower. His hand was loosely gripping his throat, his fingers stained red.
Her stomach dropped. "What happened?"
She rushed forward, her hands hovering near his neck, searching for any serious wounds.
Asahi gave a sheepish chuckle, rubbing the back of his head with his free hand. "Ah… nothing serious. Just an itch."
Akemi's brow twitched. "An itch?"
"Toru's strings dug in a little when he tried to free me, and, well… I scratched too hard." He gestured vaguely, as if that somehow excused it.
Akemi smacked him upside the head.
"You absolute idiot! You could get an infection!"
Asahi winced, recoiling slightly. "Ow! Geez! It's just a little scratch!"
"It's not just a scratch! You need to stop being so careless, Asahi!"
Akemi exhaled sharply, regaining her composure. "Look, we don't have time for this. We need to move. Toru's message said we have to regroup with Denji."
Asahi sighed, nodding. "Yeah, you're right… but man, I feel kinda bad, y'know?"
Akemi gave him a look. "For what?"
"For making them come all the way here to rescue us. First Toru, now maybe even Kazu-san too… It kinda feels like we're just dead weight."
Her expression hardened. "Not the time, Asahi."
Her voice was firm, but there was no malice in it. Just urgency.
"You can thank them or apologize later. Right now, we need to focus on getting out of here."
Asahi hesitated for a beat before exhaling, rolling his shoulders back.
"R-right… Let's go."
Without another word, the twins sprinted toward their next destination.
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[Containment room #45]
Toru in his phantom from stood deadpanned at the scene in front of 'I should've expected this…' he thought flatly, watching as Denji sat cross-legged on the floor, grinning childishly while cuddling Pochita like a beloved stuffed toy. The small devil wagged its tongue happily, nuzzling into his chest without a care in the world.
It was obliterated—shattered inward with brutal force. Jagged metal bent like paper, the reinforced structure torn clean through as if cleaved by raw violence.
'Of course,' he sighed internally. 'I feel dumber the more I think about it. It's a literal chainsaw, not to mention, a devil too.'
He floated lower, the hum of tension gone from his frame. A flicker of annoyance passed through him—not irritation at Denji or Pochita, but at himself.
He turned from the scene, moving soundlessly as he phased toward the outer wall of the room.
'The twins should be here any second now.'
He paused just short of the surface, letting his threads unravel ahead of him, feeling through the metal and concrete for weak points in the structure.
'Carving a full tunnel from underground to where my body is stationed… no. That'd take too long. Less risk, but it would require too much work to remove the dirt and all. Not to mention it would require my physical body to get it done'
'Check for any underground manmade exit? No, risky aswell, that man is aware about my trap, and has or will send reinforcement to check on the captives,'
He tensed, the threads coiling slightly before tightening back into his form.
'Which means the only viable route… is up. I'll have to force an exit from the side in the ground level.'
His mind ticked through probabilities as if sifting through gears in motion. The upper floor had been cleared—most of those stationed there now lay cold and butchered thanks to his silent work—but the danger wasn't gone. Not yet.
'Even though I took out all of those stationed up top, doesn't mean it would be easy to get them out and back in market. We might get ambushed in the forest at any moment. Luckily i've set traps around the forest trail, should take care of them.'
He remained still for a few seconds longer, evaluating, calculating.
With a frustrated sigh, he began to move. 'Time and luck is what I need for this to succeed.' His decision had been made.
He floated upward through the foundation, preparing to breach into the surface-level corridor.
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[Kagetsu Castle, The Courtyard]
The courtyard lay in eerie stillness, a grotesque tableau of violence now quieted. Shattered stone crunched beneath Kazuhiro's feet as he stood among the remains—twisted limbs, shattered skulls, entrails still steaming against the cool night air. Blood clung to the ridges of his clawed hands and dotted his pine-green apron in chaotic sprays. The scent of iron choked the atmosphere, thick and metallic.
The only sound breaking the silence came from the faint static of comms left unattended, the broken devices crackling weakly beside their fallen owners. Kazuhiro paid them no mind. His hand moved slowly, deliberately, into his pocket. He withdrew his device and tapped the screen, intending to send a message but stopped himself.
'Judging by his current task, I doubt he'd respond now.'
The screen dimmed awaiting for any input only for his head to turn elsewhere.
Above, the sky began to grumble. Thunder rolled in the far-off distance, a faint tremor underfoot following in its wake. Lightning slashed briefly across the clouds. It wouldn't be long before the rain came. Kazuhiro tilted his faceless head slightly to observe it.
'It's best to leave soon, to move around would cause quite a challenge.'
He looked back at his screen.
'It's best I check the progress through the camera feature. Are they still within?'
He barely had time to tap again when it happened.
BOOM.
A sharp, concussive blast cracked through the courtyard like a cannon—not close enough to strike him, but enough for a odd gust of wind to whip and stir the debris around his legs. His clawed fingers snapped the device shut, sliding it into his pocket.
His claws flexed, each digit twitching with quiet readiness.
The explosion had come from the side of the castle, not the main hall. Stone and plaster belched into the sky as a chunk of the outer wall gave way. Dust and debris clouded the entrance, casting the breach in thick shadow.
Kazuhiro's head shifted, body remaining still as stone.
Only for a figure to drop down from the broken ledge of the breach. It landed with a heavy but controlled thud. The newcomer first appeared as a silhouette, wrapped in dust and backlit by faint lightning flickering behind the collapsing sky. But with each slow, deliberate step forward, the haze peeled back to reveal his form—broad-shouldered, clad in tailored black robes with a long, layered haori that suggested formality
Kazuhiro didn't move. Not out of hesitation—but calculation. He needed a clearer view. His observations was suddenly met with a loud siren from his pocket. Reached slowly into his pockets and retrieved his device, tilting it so the screen was in view and never strayed far from the figure.
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Xxxx
WARNING A MAJOR THREAT IS APPROACHING!
Xxxx
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He tapped to expand the notification—but a voice rang out across the courtyard, cutting through the storm-wrought air like a blade.
"How strange," the man said, his voice calm but echoing through the stillness. "You seem focused on an object while a potential enemy stands before you. Distracted already?"
Kazuhiro's head tilted slightly. His fingers flexed around the device but didn't respond.
The man came into full view now, standing just around 15 to 25 meters in range.
He looked to be in his early 40s, but something about his presence betrayed that appearance—an unnatural grace to his steps, a chill behind the stillness in his eyes. A long, pale scar ran across his forehead and above his right brow like a drawn slash frozen mid-cut.
His right hand rested lightly on the hilt of a sheathed katana. The blade had not been drawn—yet the pressure it cast into the air was undeniable.
"Our father sees value in you," the man continued. "He wishes to see you."
His tone remained even. Unbothered. As if the battlefield of corpses meant nothing. Kazuhiro subtly adjusted his posture in case of any sudden actions, as the man noticed making him gently exahle.
"It would be wise," he added, "not to resist. It will save you the bother… and save me the time." The man had his hand wrapped around the hilt of his sword.
Kazuhiro's claws twitched, just slightly.
The device in his hand blinked.
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xxxx
A new threat has been detected!
• THE 8TH (TAKESHI HANAMURA).
A BOSS BATTLE HAS BEEN INITIATED.
Objective(s):
Find a way to escape along with your workers
Reward(s):
︎▪︎ 15 (STA)
︎▪︎ 15 (INT)
︎▪︎ 15 (AGI)
︎▪︎ 15 (AP)
︎▪︎ A new Title
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Failure:
︎ ▪︎ Possibility of Death
︎ ▪︎ Possibility of Akemi's Death
▪︎ Possibility of Asahi's Death
▪︎ Possibility of Denji's Death
▪︎ Possibility of Toru's Death
︎ ▪︎ -25000 SC
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Alternative(s):
Eliminate the threat, with your workers being alive.
Reward(s):
︎▪︎ 25 (AP)
︎▪︎ 25 (INT)
︎▪︎ 25 (STA)
︎▪︎ 25 (STR)
︎▪︎ 30000 SC
︎▪︎ A new title
︎▪︎ A new ability
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Failure:
︎▪︎ Possibility of Death
▪︎ Possibility of Akemi's Death
▪︎ Possibility of Asahi's Death
▪︎ Possibility of Denji's Death
▪︎ Possibility of Toru's Death
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Warning: This Mission has automatically been accepted. Choose between the two objectives to complete it.
Xxxx
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