Chapter 14 – Hunter and Prey

The applause echoed like gunfire in the night.

Kenji stepped protectively between Author and Ellion Sparrow, his muscles coiling. On the across-blasted warehouse floor, Ellion Sparrow stood, lit by broken windows and fog, a sneering grin twisting his lips. His coat flapped loose around him in the wind, a hand resting lightly on the hilt of a saber at his hip.

"Well, well," Ellion drawled. "The little sun god himself. Come all this way just for me?"

Kenji said nothing. His gaze remained locked, cold and steady. Every muscle in his body hummed, ready to move. Author, breathing heavily behind him, gripped a rusted pipe with trembling hands.

Ellion tilted his head slightly, eyes gleaming under the moonlight. "Not much for words, are you? Fine. I'll make this quick."

He snapped his fingers once.

Figures emerged from the shadows—at least a dozen. Thugs and mercenaries, even a pair of filthy-looking bounty hunters purchased by gold rather than integrity. They moved with a predator's caution, closing in very gradually.

Kenji shifted his stance, weighing. His gut cried to hit Ellion, end this before it went too far out of control.

But then he saw it—the direction the attackers' eyes roved not to him, but to Author.

They weren't here to fight him. They knew better.

They were here to rip away what Kenji was protecting.

Author was the target.

Kenji ground his teeth. Smart. Ruthless. Ellion wasn't trying to win by strength. He was trying to break Kenji's focus, to turn his power into a prison.

The first wave came fast.

One of the thugs tried to reach around from the left—Kenji ran quicker than ever, fire erupting in a blaze behind his outstretched hand. A wave of shining air buffeted the attack back before the thug got anywhere near Author.

The second tried a sideways attack on the right—Kenji flurried him onto a hookkick, fire flaring where he landed.

Author swayed backward, trying desperately not to intervene, but he was beside himself with fear.

Even more poured in, swords shining in the dark.

Kenji danced among them, a storm of precision and flame. He could not unleash the full strength of the Sun Sun Fruit here—not with Author so close. Every movement had to be calculated, controlled.

Every burst of flame molded so as not to consume his friend.

Sparks flashed. Swords clanged. Shouts sounded in the broken hall.

As it happened, Ellion stood there, arms crossed, a smile playing on his lips like a man enjoying good theater.

"You can't protect him forever," Ellion shouted lazily. "Blast the world to shreds if you must. He'll still be ash when you're done."

Kenji didn't hear him, focused. Left parry, right flame burst, step, spin, shield Author's flank. His mind thought faster than his body, calculating angles, dangers, opportunities.

But even he couldn't protect all of it.

A dagger flashed toward Author's side—a thug having slipped through the chaos.

Kenji lunged, barely in time.

The blade scraped along his shoulder instead, tearing cloth and drawing a line of blood.

Kenji grunted, pain sharp and immediate. The heat inside him surged, furious, hungry.

Author's eyes widened in horror. "Kenji—!"

"I'm fine," Kenji barked, already moving again. His wound sizzled, cauterizing itself almost instantly under the Sun's power.

But it was a warning.

He was pulled too taut.

Ellion laughed deep in his chest, enjoying the expression.

"You see it now, don't you?" he said, moving forward, boots crunching on broken glass. "Strength is useless if it's bound by weakness."

Kenji's fists clenched, air around him charging more frantically. He could feel it—the Sun inside him, ready to unleash and to burn everything in its path.

But Author stood behind him.

And Kenji had promised to protect him.

Another formation charged. Kenji took them down—each blow harder, more frantic. His breathing was faster now, not from exhaustion but in holding down the seething fire within him.

A gun was discharged.

Kenji spun around, creating a wall of fire just in time to knock the bullet—a shot meant for Author's heart.

Ellion did not lower his smoking gun, but a cold grin creased his face. "How much longer, hero? When will you realize that you can't save him?"

Kenji's hands trembled—not with fear, but with restraint. The air about him rippled and distorted, heat waves spreading in all directions.

The time for compassion was going to get away from him.

He glamed once at Author, his eyes drinking in the bruising, the fear, the stubborn refusal to fall.

Kenji breathed slowly, the fire in his lungs, the growing flame in his veins.

Enough.

He rose, the sun power within him oozing out through his pores, golden and bright. His shadow disappeared utterly in the eye-blinding aura.

Kenji lifted his gaze to Ellion, his voice low and sharp as a sword drawn in the sun of noon.

"You erred, Sparrow."

Ellion's smile faltered, just a little.

Kenji stepped ahead, and the earth beneath him splintered, blackened by the heat.

"You forgot," Kenji whispered.

"The sun doesn't burn alone."

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