Shin Jin was in his quarters when the message came through.
Not a formal report. Not a scheduled update.
A panicked spiritual transmission from one of the recovery seers: "We found them. Cathedral medical wing. Now."
He'd never moved faster in his life.
The medical wing was chaos when he arrived. Seers rushing between rooms, spiritual barriers being erected, the sharp scent of blood and corruption thick in the air. Shin Jin pushed through them all, his amber eyes scanning for—
"Room three," a medical seer said, catching his arm. Her face was pale. "But sir, you should prepare yourself—"
Shin Jin was already moving.
He burst through the door and stopped.
Soo Ah was on one bed, her torso wrapped in heavy bandaging. Broken ribs, the monitors said. Internal bleeding. Spiritual exhaustion. Her eyes were open but distant, staring at nothing.
Piers sat on another bed, refusing to lie down despite clear exhaustion. His hands were bandaged. His face was bruised. But it was his eyes that made Shin Jin's chest tighten—empty, haunted, like he'd seen something that had broken something fundamental inside him.
And Noir—
Noir lay unconscious on a third bed, his crimson suit torn and covered in blood. But he was breathing. Alive. His chest rising and falling steadily.
All three alive.
The relief that crashed through Shin Jin was so powerful it nearly buckled his knees.
"What happened?" he demanded, moving to stand between the beds where he could see all three of them.
Soo Ah's eyes slowly focused on him. When she spoke, her voice was rough. Raw.
"The trap," she said simply. "It was a trap. All of it."
Shin Jin's jaw tightened. "Tell me everything."
...
The story came out in pieces, both of them speaking in turns, their accounts matching almost perfectly.
The arranged bodies. The evolved ripper. The assassin—a sinner named Rui who'd posed as a vlogger. The coordinated ripper pack that had attacked when they were already exhausted.
"Noir was..." Piers stopped, his voice catching. "Critically injured. We thought he was going to die."
"But he didn't," Soo Ah added quickly. Too quickly. "We managed to stabilize him. Between the two of us, we kept him alive long enough for the recovery team."
Shin Jin studied them both carefully. There was something off about the way they were telling this. Something rehearsed. But they'd just survived a coordinated assassination attempt—of course they were traumatized.
"The coordinated pack," Shin Jin said. "How many?"
"Seven," Piers answered. "They attacked simultaneously. Tactical formation."
"And you killed them? All seven? While protecting an unconscious teammate?"
A beat of hesitation.
"We don't remember all of it clearly," Soo Ah said. "Spiritual exhaustion causes memory gaps. But when the recovery team arrived, the rippers were dead."
Another carefully constructed answer. Shin Jin filed that away.
"The evolved ripper?"
"Dead," Piers confirmed. "I destroyed its spiritual core."
"And the assassin?"
"Dead," Soo Ah said, and there was no hesitation this time. "I killed her myself."
Shin Jin nodded slowly, processing. His students had survived something that should have killed them. Had completed the mission despite everything going catastrophically wrong.
They were alive.
That should have been enough.
But the monitoring equipment around Noir's bed was showing readings that made no sense. Spiritual energy fluctuations that shouldn't be possible. Cellular regeneration happening at rates that defied explanation.
"How did Noir regenerate?" Shin Jin asked quietly. "The reports say he had severe injuries. Glass shards embedded throughout his body. Massive blood loss. But now—"
"We don't know," Piers said, meeting Shin Jin's eyes directly. "When we regained consciousness, he was like this. Already healing."
Another too-perfect answer.
Shin Jin wanted to push. Wanted to demand the truth. But looking at his students—exhausted, traumatized, barely holding themselves together—he couldn't.
"Rest," he said finally.
He turned to leave, then paused at the door.
"You did well," he said, not looking back. "All three of you. You survived. That's what matters."
But even as he said it, Shin Jin knew something was wrong. Something they weren't telling him.
Something about Noir's impossible recovery.
Something that made both Piers and Soo Ah look at Noir's sleeping form with expressions that weren't quite relief.
More like fear.
Shin Jin walked through the cathedral corridors on autopilot, his mind racing.
A trap. A coordinated assassination attempt. Professional sinner involvement. An almost evolved ripper and tactical ripper packs deployed simultaneously.
This wasn't random. Wasn't opportunistic.
Someone had arranged this specifically to kill his students.
Or to test them.
He found Mr. Ace in the archives, surrounded by ancient texts and spiritual readings from the industrial district.
"You've heard," Mr. Ace said without looking up.
"They're alive," Shin Jin replied. "Barely."
"But alive. That's more than I expected after seeing these readings." Mr. Ace gestured to the data spread across his desk.
"There was a massive spiritual disturbance at the site. Something manifested with enough power to register on every sensor in the district."
"Noir's manifestation?"
"I don't know. The signature is... wrong. Different from what we recorded in the training chamber."
Mr. Ace finally looked up, his expression grave. "Shin Jin, I think the trap worked. I think it pushed Noir far enough that something broke through."
"The barrier?"
"There is no barrier."
The words hung in the air between them.
Shin Jin stared at his old friend. "What?"
Mr. Ace pulled out a file—confidential spiritual scans, ones Shin Jin had never seen before.
"I've been analyzing Noir's spiritual structure since I first accompanied you during training . I thought there was a barrier suppressing his spiritual energy. But the more I studied it, the less sense it made." He pointed to the scans.
"There's no barrier, Shin Jin. There never was. What we detected was the absence of spiritual energy entirely."
"That's impossible."
"And yet." Mr. Ace's bandaged hands traced the readings. "Noir doesn't have blocked spiritual energy. He has no spiritual energy at all. He's a void. The crimson power isn't being suppressed—it's filling the empty space where his spirit should be."
Shin Jin's mind raced through their training session, every failed attempt to help Noir access his spiritual energy.
It had all been based on a false assumption.
"You knew," Shin Jin said quietly. "How long have you known?"
"I first suspected when Noir's curse went berserk in the underground chamber, under your instructions. Confirmed it days ago." Mr. Ace's expression was pained. "I wanted to be sure before I told you. Before I told him."
"Does Yuusha know?"
Mr. Ace's silence was answer enough.
"How long has he known?"
"Since the beginning, I think." Mr. Ace closed the file. "The mission to the industrial district wasn't random, Shin Jin. The arranged bodies, the almost evolved ripper, the timing—someone orchestrated all of it."
"Yuusha."
"I can't prove it. But yes, I believe so."
Shin Jin felt something cold settle in his chest. "Why? Why would he deliberately endanger them?"
"To test Noir. To see what would happen when he was pushed to absolute limits." Mr. Ace met his eyes. "And based on these readings, something did happen. Something powerful manifested. But what?"
"My students aren't telling me everything," Shin Jin admitted. "They're protecting something. Hiding something."
"Can you blame them?" Mr. Ace asked quietly. "If Noir manifested something unprecedented, something dangerous—they're probably terrified of what the Order would do to him."
The truth of that hit hard.
"I need to talk to Yuusha," Shin Jin said.
"Be careful," Mr. Ace warned. "If he arranged this trap, he won't admit it. And if he knows about Noir's nature... he may have plans we can't predict."
Shin Jin nodded grimly and left.
His feet carried him through familiar corridors, past seers who nodded respectfully, until he stood before an ornate door.
Yuusha's office.