40

Haruto blocked another shadow's strike, stepping into Kamo's personal space, voice suddenly fierce. "I'm sorry, let me clarify. Your efforts are towards something idealistically simple, i would guess 'to save others from the eclipse', yes?"

Their eyes locked briefly, tension crackling. Kamo felt vulnerable under Haruto's scrutiny—felt seen in a way he hadn't anticipated. His ideological foundations felt shaky, suddenly shallow. He'd never questioned Fūre's teachings; they had always felt logical enough, convenient truths accepted without scrutiny.

Haruto continued, "But the eclipse is something only we kynenns were blessed with as an opportunity. Who else is allowed to simply showcase strength as a means to power?"

But his focus splintered further, cracks widening into chasms. Haruto's comments were peeling back layers of Kamo's defenses, exposing doubts he had never consciously acknowledged. His breathing grew ragged, uneven, betraying his rising agitation.

Kamo retreated, breathing hard, mind spinning. Haruto's logic wasn't foreign—it was familiar, even compelling. Strength as responsibility; stability as purpose. Something about it resonated uncomfortably. But that resonance felt treacherous, a betrayal of everything he'd learned. It was an alien philosophy, a direct assault on the comfortable simplicity of his beliefs.

Kamo desperately tried to rebuild his mental defenses, shadows forming again around him. Haruto watched impassively, almost bored now. Kamo's jaw clenched, and he rebuilt the constructs, a flicker of raw emotion bleeding into their creation. His lack of precise intentionality made them move faster now, less coordinated but more violently aggressive. The left shadow aimed for Haruto's throat while the right went low, trying to sweep his legs. Kamo followed directly behind, a third point in a triangle of fury.

Haruto bent backward at an impossible angle, avoiding the throat strike, and seemingly ignored the leg sweep. But Kamo was there, driving a hook toward his exposed ribs.

The air around his fist thickened, slowing the punch to a leaden crawl. Haruto's counter, unimpeded, caught Kamo's temple, sending a shower of stars across his vision.

The realization stung worse than the punch itself. Haruto wasn't like the Celaris elite, born with some inherent genetic superiority. He was just… better. Maybe more experienced. He was winning through sheer competence alone, and that fact made Kamo's failure utterly unbearable.

"Power is not what makes a person important, though. How dare you claim that since a man is not strong he deserves death" Nagitsu for the first time joined the conversation. Recovering, he grabbed the chainlike iron stake again. He swung it in a wild, desperate arc, forcing Haruto to duck. The weapon smashed into the arena wall, sending stone chips flying like shrapnel. Nagitsu pivoted, bringing the heavy stake around for another sweep.

And Haruto simply caught it.

His hands wrapped around the solid metal as if it weighed nothing. For a breathless moment, both men strained against each other—Nagitsu starstruck by Haruto's might, holding firm, an immovable object. Then the guard twisted, a sharp, brutal motion that yanked Nagitsu off balance and sent him stumbling forward.

The stake was now Haruto's weapon. He released his grip, not with grace, but with a raw clumsiness that seemed to, once again, to betray his other showings of strength.

"Was I talking to you?" The seemingly playful, educating tone left for Haruto as he replied, "Never did i say my kind deserved death, all I can say is their deaths may be a necessary evil. But do you even know why Kynenn are forced to die? All but one for each generation?"

Kamo's peripheral vision caught movement from across the arena. With both him and Nagitsu on the ground, his eyes swept the bloodstained obsidian, unintentionally counting bodies. He was distracted from the immediate fight, his mind snagged on a single, confusing question: why weren't his reinforcements helping?

I guess they know they would be in the way. Useless brats can't keep up.

He counted five masked members still standing, but they were holding back, simply monitoring the almost double number of security guards on standby. Three of Team B were down. Maybe four, if he counted the one sprawled near the entrance. But they had been twelve strong when they breached the doors. The math was wrong.

Where is everyone else? Were they taken for some type of interrogation? That could be bad.

His mind raced, debatably, this was what begun Kamo's downward spiral. The arena had multiple levels, service corridors, hidden rooms. Places where people could be dragged away without anyone noticing in the chaos of a civilian evacuation.

SHIT. All of this is bad.

The realization hit him like a plunge into icy water. It's exactly as Fūre had feared—none of Celaris came. This was no longer a political assassination attempt. This was quickly becoming a lose-lose scenario. They weren't revolutionaries striking a blow against the system; they were a pest infestation.

"Honestly, don't care. Not for you or anything you have to say. WHERE ARE THE COWARDS THAT YOU"VE SUBMIT YOURSELF TO?!" Kamo could hardly contain his rage in his own mind. So he spoke unintentionally as he thought.

Rage, hot and bitter, surged through him. They had planned this for weeks. Sacrificed fighters, not exactly good fighters, but fighters no less, and for what? To bloody a few special security guards while the real targets sat safely in their towers, probably watching this unfold on a surveillance feed like it was cheap entertainment?

His shadow constructs lashed out with renewed fury, driven by his mounting frustration. Kamo held Haruto's hand in place after blocking a punch, while his shadow brutally slammed its heel into Haruto's knee. It hardly buckled the guard, but it forced another retreat as Nagitsu re-engaged alongside Kamo's full-stamina shadows. But even as they forced Haruto to give ground, Kamo's thoughts churned with implications that made his stomach twist into a cold, hard knot.

Those damn cowards—are they trying to make a fool of Fūre?

The question burned worse than any physical wound. Fūregen had built this entire operation around Kamo's assessment, his recommendation to "kill the captain." They knew it was a trap. They knew Celaris would anticipate an attack. But who would expect them to simply not show up? To leave only expendable pieces on the board and remove any meaningful bait? It was a humiliation by design, a calculated move to expose Ketsuen as reckless amateurs stumbling in the dark.

Kamo hadn't noticed the upward curl of Haruto's face the whole time. He had a smug look that expressed him imagining every thought that was drawn across Kamo's face.

Haruto's brow lifted, his voice syrup-smooth.

"You couldn't possibly be speaking of our kings like that… could you?"

The smile that followed was too knowing to be sincere

"You and those damned kings are going to burn in hell!" Kamo spat, having yet another oddly emotional outburst in response to his lack of superiority. Feeding into Haruto's tease, the guard could do nothing but giggle at the threat. But almost randomly, the goofy facial expression completely left Haruto's face, and the killing intent of his glare was palpable.

The kings', as Haruto called them, absence felt like cowardice. But it also made this whole operation look weak. It made Fūre's decision to attack look questionable.

Kamo hated that. He clamped his jaw downward hard enough to make his bottom lip bleed a little.

His shadows attacked from opposite sides while Kamo flanked wide. Haruto spun around to track the main source of burst damage, parrying the first construct's strike, then thrusting a hand through the second one's torso. The shadow dissipated into mist, but Kamo was already there.

His fist connected with Haruto's cheek, still, soft as it'd been. His elbow found the guard's ribs.

I'm going to skin this bastard for the blasphemy of his masters.

The rage Kamo expressed was enough for him to simply overpower Haruto's senses. And for a fraction of a second, the momentum shifted.

But only a fraction.

Haruto's palm pressed against Kamo's forehead. It felt as if a powerful current pressed so hard inward that it had nowhere to go, collapsing into the smallest point of space before exploding outward, launching him backward across the slick arena floor.

The thought that he could have a bit of help no longer crossed his mind. The words 'I have to actually beat him first.' seemingly evaded Kamo's consciousness.

But he did know he couldn't break the man until he did beat him.

Haruto let out a long, weary sigh, a theatrical projection of stamina. "For such a weak brat, you sure are bold. Or no, I believe a better word for you is ignorance."

Both Kamo and Nagitsu could read the expression of disgust. But even more so the fact that Haruto was no longer hiding the genuine boredom he felt from his face.

"No matter, love or hate it, i will teach you respect. And first we will start with this" Haruto chuckled, calm as still water, "Bow before the future! Next inline to be one your kings!"

And immediately with that statement, Kamo was convinced that this absolutely was some form of Gravity control.