"Y-y-you stay away from her!" Daichi stammered, ragged with cold and adrenaline. He planted his feet, knuckles whitening around the busted umbrella. The shaft trembling in his hands.
The boy wiped at his nose, spat on the wet pavement, and smiled. "Well, what do we have here?" he sneered, circling closer. "Another goddamn hero. They always show up when it's convenient, huh?"
His friends chuckled, closing the ring. One of them leaned in. "Last poor sap who tried to play knight? Still sips his breakfast from a straw." The grin on the ringleader's face went hard, teeth flashing. He stepped in until Daichi's back nearly hit the alley wall, forcing the trembling kid to shield Light with his body.
Daichi knew exactly the kind of people he was dealing with. His mind flashed back to what Detectives Kaito and Nishimura had said about delinquents prowling the streets. Packs of bored punks looking to make trouble for anyone unlucky enough to cross their path. He'd seen plenty of that in manga and anime, but never in real life. His own school days had been quiet, uneventful. He'd never thrown a punch, never even thought about it, until now.
And standing there, his face throbbing, the rain in his eyes, Daichi realized just how far fiction was from reality. There were no slow-motion hero moments. No last-minute power-ups. Just the certainty that he'd picked a fight he couldn't win, and that the pain had only just begun.
Daichi swallowed, jaw working. "Look, I don't want trouble. Walk away now, and I won't call the cops. No one has to get hurt."
The boy barked a laugh that bit the air. "Cute. That's assuming your fingers still work after we're done with you."
Then the boy moved. Too fast.
Daichi barely saw the motion before the umbrella was ripped from his hands. A sharp twist, a wrench, and his weapon clattered to the ground. The next thing he felt was pain. Hot and sudden. Exploding across his jaw. His head snapped sideways, blood bursting from his lip. Another fist caught him across the other cheek. Then another. Each blow came quicker than the last.
His knees buckled. A knee slammed into his gut, driving the air from his lungs in a strangled gasp. He folded over, clutching his stomach, the taste of iron flooding his mouth.
"Daichi!" Light's cried as she reached out, but before he could even lift his head, the boy's boot crashed against the side of his face. The impact sent him sprawling through a puddle, water splashing up as he hit the cold concrete.
The ringleader wiped his knuckles, sneering. "That's it?" he said, shaking out his hand. "All that bark, no bite. You'd think with that kinda guts you'd last longer." He laughed, low and cruel. "Just another wannabe hero. This city's full of 'em."
His eyes turned back to Light, a wicked smirk spreading across his face. "Now," he said, stepping toward her, "where were we?"
"Stop…"
The word barely left his throat, raw and broken.
The leader turned, brow furrowing as Daichi forced himself upright. His arms trembled violently, his left eye nearly swollen shut, blood tracing down from his nose and lip. Every inch of him screamed in pain, yet somehow he stood. Swaying, but standing.
"Get… away…" he rasped, raising his fists, crooked and shaking.
The boy groaned, exasperated. "Some people just don't know when to quit." He cracked his neck and lunged.
Daichi swung first. Wild, desperate, the movements of someone who'd never fought a day in his life. His fists cut through air. The boy weaved around each strike with infuriating ease, grinning wider every time Daichi missed. He sidestepped another clumsy punch and drove his fist straight into Daichi's cheek. A spray of blood. Another blow to the gut. Another to the jaw.
Still, Daichi kept coming. Blind swings. Shallow breaths. Each strike weaker than the last, until his knuckles barely brushed air. The boy countered again, every hit sharper, harder, more punishing than the one before. Blood dripped into the puddles gathering at Daichi's feet, rain mixing crimson with gray water. His knees wobbled, ready to give, but they didn't. Somehow, he stayed up.
The ringleader snarled, throwing one last heavy punch that snapped Daichi's head to the side. "Fall already! You tryin' to die out here?"
Daichi spat blood, breathing in ragged gasps. His words came soft but defiant. "I… I didn't hear the bell."
The boy's smirk snapped off his face like a mask. Fury warped his features. His jaw clenched until the tendons stood out. He lunged, a blur of motion. Daichi swung up blindly, but the kid ducked, came up with a brutal uppercut that sent Daichi's head snapping back. A savage kick to the shin folded him onto one knee, and before he could brace himself the boy's boot carved a wide arc and connected with Daichi's temple. His skull kissed the brick with a wet, sickening thud. Blood splattered the wall as he pitched forward, face-first into the grime.
Light sucked in a breath. Color drained from her face. Even the gang's laughter faltered, unease flickering across their features.
"Stay down," the leader sneered, straightening his jacket, about to turn away. "Worthless piece of—"
Then something small and stubborn clung to his ankle. He looked down. Daichi's fingers were wrapped around his boot, knuckles white, eyes half-lidded but burning with a crazed determination. Through the fog of pain he managed a trembling smile. "Y-you're gonna have to do… a whole lot more… to put me down," he rasped.
Rage made the boy tremble. He looked as if he might explode. One of his cronies called out. "C'mon, man, leave it. He's had enough."
The leader shot him a look that shut the kid up, then narrowed his gaze back to Daichi. For a second, something like pity flickered and died. "Fine," he hissed. "You wanna die so bad? You got it." He lifted his boot, looming over Daichi's head.
Daichi turned his head toward Light. She stood frozen in place, hands clamped over her mouth, eyes wide with terror, her entire body trembling. Somehow, he managed a faint, bloody smile and mouthed one word to her. Run.
The boy's boot came down. Only it never hit.
A crack split the air, sharp and sudden. The boy's head snapped back, his body lifted clean off the ground before slamming onto the wet concrete. He slid several feet, blood spraying from his nose, now crooked and broken. His friends just stared, shock washing over their faces before they turned to the man now standing between them and Daichi.
He looked like he'd stepped straight out of the storm itself. Black hair slicked back under a soaked hood, a cigarette clamped between his teeth, smoke curling through the rain. The rough stubble across his jaw caught the neon light, and the old flannel beneath his green jacket clung to his frame. His eyes, dark and cold, fixed on the group.
"Aren't you boys out past your bedtime?" he asked.
Daichi looked up through the haze of blood and pain. The moment his vision cleared, his breath caught in his throat. It was him.
Logan Deschain.
****
"Argh, son of a—!" the ringleader barked as his friends hauled him upright. Fumbling at his face, he spat blood and glared at Logan. "You broke my nose!"
Logan didn't bother to look surprised. He kept his hands in his pockets, the rain plastering his hood to his head. "Coming from your ugly mug, I'd call it an improvement," he said flatly, then glanced down at Daichi. "You walk here often, kid? That's a hell of a detour from the shop."
Daichi managed a shaky laugh that turned into a wince. He glanced at Light. "You're… Kamakura Light, right? Lady's navigator?" he asked.
Light met his eyes, nodded, and moved forward at Logan's silent gesture. The boys hesitated. Logan's stare pinned them in place just long enough for Light to crawl past and kneel behind Daichi, bracing his back against the alley wall.
"Daichi, I'm so sorry," she started, tears fresh on her cheeks.
He waved her off, jaw tight against the pain. "It's fine. Really. I've been hit worse," he said, wincing as he tested his ribs. "Okay, I lied, this is probably the worst."
Logan's stare snapped back to the ringleader and his cronies. He then peeled his hood off. The pale arc of his face caught the sign's amber glow, making his features look carved from bone. "Alright," he said, "you boys had your fun." The words were a warning and a threat rolled into one. He stepped forward, not much. Just enough to close the space between predatory and prey. "So, if you're smart, you'd get out of here before I hurt you." His gaze swept the group. "All of you."
"Screw you, you stupid gaijin!" The ringleader snapped his hands to his nose, trying to shove it back the way it belonged, letting out a pained curse. He turned, venom in his eyes. "You're dead, old man! You hear me? Dead!"
His cronies bristled, fists tensing. Logan drew in a long pull of smoke and let it go slow, the ember glowing like a heartbeat in the gloom. "Look," he said, "I get it. You got your ass handed to you by an old guy who's also a gaijin."
"Small prick, dropped balls. Hormones running your heads?" Logan's words snapped like a wire. Rain stitched his jacket to his skin. "I know you got this little loophole here. Some busted law that lets rabid kids run wild and do the nastiest shit possible and walk away. Fine. That ain't my problem."
He eased forward a hair. The alley answered with the hiss of water on fabric. "But you don't get to pull that shit with me."
"You think you're untouchable cause you're young?" Logan said. "Wrong. Fact, what really frosts me is punks like you, running your mouths about killing and death like it's a joke. You don't know the first thing about taking a life, and you sure as hell don't know what it means to lose someone. You're just kids playing at being monsters."
He spat the last word like a taste. "So, here's the deal. If you're gonna come at me, come ready to fight with everything you've got. Cause the only way any of you little shits walk outta here tonight is if you're prepared to take a life. Otherwise? Turn around, walk away, and pray I never see you again."
Daichi and Light watched him, a cold wire threading down their spines. In the weeks Logan had come by the shop, Daichi had filed him away as stoic and closed-off. A quiet, the sort of man who kept his cards in his pocket. Now that image cracked like thin ice. The look in Logan's eyes was not just anger. It was something far darker, a hard, clinical glint that spoke of hands that'd done worse than fight.
Daichi then felt the blood run ice-cold through his veins at the realization. Logan had served his time for killing a man. Light's shoulders tightened. She glanced at the boys. The swagger that had bristled off them a moment before wilted under Logan's stare. Nervous ticks replaced bravado, feet shuffled, eyes darted to exits. The alley held its breath, waiting to see who would break first.
"I don't rat's ass if you're kids. I don't care if you've got your whole lives ahead of you." Logan continued. "This ain't no schoolyard bullshit, and I'm not a kid who's gonna stop just cause you pass out. In fact, I'm gonna beat sons of bitches so you so bad you'd wish that your mommies strangled you in your crib the night she brought you home." Logan cracked his neck slow. "And let me be clear. I've been in a piss-poor mood lately."
The boys looked at each other. The bravado drained, replaced by the cold calculus of whether they wanted to test a man who'd just knocked their leader clean off his feet.
The ringleader trembled, veins leaping at his throat, rage making his face a mask. "You arrogant little—" he spat, words snarling out between clenched teeth. "I'm gonna gut you with my bare hands. When I'm done, I'll crack your head open and eat your brain!"
Logan's mouth quirked, slow and cold. "So, you're stupid, ugly, and disgusting," he said. "Word to the wise, that ain't a way to go through life."
The kid let out a savage war-cry and launched himself at Logan, fists blurring. Logan flicked the cigarette from his mouth and jerked off his jacket in one smooth motion. For a heartbeat Daichi's eyes went wide. The move looked rehearsed, effortless.
The boy came in wild and noisy. Logan moved like water. He slipped every swing, hands tucked back in his pockets, body folding and sliding around the attacks as if the rain itself guided him. The kid flailed. Hooks, roundhouses, even a clumsy aerial flip, and every time he missed, Logan was there. Close, patient, clinical.
Then, Logan closed distance. His knee hammered into the boy's gut with bone-shuddering force. The kid doubled, air ripped out of him. Before he could catch a breath, Logan's boot snapped into his chest, sending him stumbling backward. No time to regroup, a clean, brutal roundhouse caught the side of his head. Blood spat from his mouth. He collapsed, smashing head-first into the wet concrete, then lay still on his side.
Logan lowered his leg and looked up at the rest of them. Rain ran off his jaw like a slow clock. The other boys stood frozen, color draining from their faces.
"Alright," Logan said. "We gonna stand here all night, or are we doing this?"
They moved as one. A sudden, stupid wall of anger, and charged. Logan folded into the motion like a coiled spring, fluid and precise. He slipped the first wild swing, stepped inside the arc, and his fist came out like a hammer. Clean, brutal, teeth-clattering contact that sent the first kid staggering. He didn't flinch. He kept going, one knuckle after another finding soft places and joints, each hit placed with surgical cruelty.
The others tried to swarm. Logan danced between them, plant, turn, strike. He punched ribs and livers, clipped knees and collars, each blow aimed to stop motion rather than prolong a fight. Boys who'd been cocky seconds before now coughed and stumbled, hands flying to faces, spitting blood. Their attacks were frantic, untrained. His were economy and intent, every ounce of force focused into stopping them.
He yanked one by the shirt, rammed a headbutt into his face, and the boy doubled over, dazed and wet with blood. A roundhouse snapped another across the temple and he crumpled into the wall. A third tried a leap-kick. Logan caught the ankle, flipped him like a sack, and drove his face-first into the concrete. The sound of impact rang in the alley.
Daichi watched with his stomach in his throat. This wasn't a brawl. It was a dismantling. Logan moved from target to target with a grim efficiency, breaking momentum, breaking balance, breaking bodies where it mattered. An elbow snapped under his hands with a sickening pop, a shoulder went out of socket, a punishing knee buried into a skull until the boy went limp.
"You boys punch like little kids," Logan growled. The fourth kid lunged with a wild haymaker, and Logan stepped through it. His fist came up in a clean uppercut that snapped the kid's head back, then a hard combination to the ribs and jaw that sounded like wood breaking.
"Wide, useless swings. Pretty little flips and kicks with no weight behind 'em," Logan kept on as he drove a knee into the kid's gut until he curled. He grabbed the front of the boy's shirt, hauled him upright, and without ceremony slammed his face into the wet concrete wall. The sound was horrible and absolute.
"You dropouts got used to slugging babies and calling it skill!" Logan snarled, brutalizing him against the wall, dragging his cheek across the coarse concrete until skin rasped and blood smeared the stone like fresh paint. The boy's scream tore through the rain. Raw, ragged, full of something that wasn't just pain but panic while the alley reverberated with the awful scrape of flesh on grit.
He then drove then his boot into the side of the kid's head a sickening crunch. The boy slumped to the ground, his face hitting the concrete, spitting a geyser of blood. "But you roll over the moment you meet somebody with real teeth. Somebody who actually means it!"
The alley filled with the wet, ragged sounds as they lay scattered and moaning. A mess of rain, spit and bruised indignity. Rain stitched across Logan's face, breathing slow, chest rising and falling in that steady cadence of someone who'd already done what they came to do. His eyes scanned the ruined boys and came back to Daichi and Light.
"Y'all okay?" Logan asked.
Light began to answer, then froze. She'd caught movement at the edge of her vision. "Behind you!" she screamed.
The ringleader was up, eyes wild, a cinderblock gripped in both hands. "Die, old man!" he roared and brought the block down.
Logan turned on a dime. His fist met the cinderblock and the stone exploded in a shower of dust and jagged fragments. The kid's face went slack for a heartbeat before Logan's knuckles smashed into him. He didn't stop. Didn't give the boy room to recover. Fist after fist hammered into face, ribs, gut. Boots drove shins into thighs, and the alley filled with the wet, metallic thud of bone taking punishment. Blood flecked the concrete like rain.
When the kid tried to scramble, Logan's boot came down like a hammer. The impact cracked through the rain. Wet, sharp, and sickening. The sound alone was enough to twist the gut. The boy screamed, his voice tearing through the alley as he collapsed, clutching at what was left of his leg. Bone jutted through torn denim, white and jagged, blood spilling freely and snaking into the runoff that streamed toward the gutter. Daichi and Light stood frozen, faces drained of color, watching as the kid writhed and cursed on the soaked concrete. His cries echoed off the alley walls, mixing with the hiss of rain.
Logan crouched, grabbed him by the collar, and let the blows talk. "You wanna kill me, huh?!" he spat between the hits. "You wanna end my life?!" Each question punctuated with a punch. "You punk-ass little bitch! Well guess what? You don't got the stones. You don't got the nerve. You sure as hell don't got what it takes!" His face was a hard, ugly thing. Less rage than a clinical, cold force.
"P-please… stop…" the boy choked, blood streaking down his face. "I'm sorry… Let me go, I promise you'll never see us again…"
"Stop?" Logan grunted, driving another fist into the kid's face. Teeth shattered, a metallic rain of enamel and blood spattered the concrete. The boy's head snapped back. The taste of copper filled the air.
"Did you stop when you nearly killed that kid back there?" Logan demanded, hitting him again. His fist now bloodied. "Did you stop when she begged you to leave her alone?" Another blow. "Did you stop the last time someone crossed you and begged for mercy?" He hit him again. Each strike a punctuation.
"You didn't," Logan hissed, breathing hard. "You're an animal. You and your friends. A pack of rabid dogs. You bite, you claw, you hunt anything that can't bite back, because you think that makes you powerful. I learned the hard way that wretched little shits like you will never change. That people like you don't get what they so duly deserve so long as they draw breath."
"A-all right, all right, you win. You win, man!" the boy croaked, blood and broken teeth rattling in his mouth. He swallowed like it hurt. "Call the cops. Arrest us. Take us in."
Logan leaned forward until the rain plastered his hair to his forehead, his breath fogging in the cold air. "Arrest you?" he said. "You're kids. The system'll pat you on the head, toss you in juvie for a month, slap you with some community service, then send you right back out to do the same shit." He spat, the word tasting like contempt. "Where I come from, there's a fine line between men and dogs. Men get arrested…. dogs get put down!"
The boy shrieked, high and raw, before Logan came at him again. His fist smashed into the boy's face. Once, twice, then again and again, until every blow sent a fresh arc of blood across the wall and onto the slick pavement. The sound was wet and sharp, knuckles hitting flesh and bone like a drumbeat. Blood streaked Logan's forearm, soaking into the red flannel as his teeth bared, a guttural growl tearing from his throat with each strike.
Light clapped her hands over her mouth, eyes wide with horror. The splatter echoed with every hit.
Daichi trembled, his whole body locked between fear and disbelief until he couldn't take it anymore. "Logan!" he cried. "Logan, stop, that's enough!"
No response. Just another blow.
Daichi's chest heaved, rage cutting through the fear. "Are you really gonna kill someone again?!" he shouted, the words tearing out of him.
The alley froze.
Logan's fist stopped mid-swing, hanging an inch from the boy's broken, blood-soaked face. For a long moment, he didn't move. The rain filled the silence. Then, slowly, his fingers uncurled. The boy fell limp. Logan rose, eyes hidden beneath the curtain of his wet, black hair. The rain washed the blood from his bruised knuckles, streaking crimson down his hands before it vanished into the runoff at his feet. He stood there, still as stone, surrounded by the wreckage of what he'd done.
He slicked his soaked hair back, dragging in a deep, unsteady breath. His knuckles were torn open, bruised and bleeding, bits of skin raw where teeth had split them. Daichi watched in silence. The fury that once burned in Logan's eyes now dimmed to a hollow quiet. It wasn't peace. It was exhaustion. The kind that came from living with ghosts. Logan turned toward them, his expression heavy, his dark eyes dulled by regret. Without a word, he stooped to pick up his jacket, shook off the rain, and slipped it back on.
"Get your asses to a hospital. There's one a few blocks from here." He tucked his hands into his jeans. His gaze shifted to Daichi. "Stick to counting change and stocking shelves, kid. You're not built for the backstreets. Life ain't a damned anime, and you sure as hell ain't the main character. Out here, you don't get to play hero and walk away without scars."
He turned to leave, footsteps soft against the rain-slick concrete.
"Wait!" Daichi called, stumbling forward, Light catching him before he fell. Logan stopped, half-turned his head but didn't look back.
"You're him, aren't you?" Daichi's voice trembled. "The one they called the Hand of God?"
Light froze, her eyes wide. "Wait… the Hand of God?" She stared at Logan, breath catching. "You mean, the one who trained the Godly Fifteen?"
Logan looked back over his shoulder, rain running down his face, the edge of his eyes narrowing. "Not anymore." He started forward again. "And if you're looking for Dahlia, she's in the parking lot a block from here. Stick to the main roads. Stay out of the alleys."
And with that, he vanished into the rain.
Light and Daichi locked eyes, the same understanding passing between them without a word. Both had come for the same reason, and both knew what they had to do next. They gave a faint nod. Daichi winced, clutching his ribs as Light slipped under his arm, steadying him. Together they hobbled through the rain-slick alley, their footsteps echoing between the walls.
Neither spoke. The only sound was the distant rush of traffic and the soft drip of rain from rusted gutters. As they reached the mouth of the alley, Daichi glanced back once, at the boys sprawled across the ground, battered and broken in the dim glow of the bar signs. Then he turned away, and the two disappeared into the wet, humming dark.
****
The abandoned parking lot thundered beneath the rhythm of Dahlia's boots as she tore through the slick asphalt, cutting through sheets of rain. Water clung to her leather jacket, soaking it through; her black jeans gripped her legs like a second skin as the cold bit deep into her bones. Her breath came fast, white against the dark, her eyes sharp and focused as she lunged into the turn. She ducked low, muscles coiling. The screech of rubber burned through the night as her boots carved white smoke into the pavement. Her gloved hand grazed the asphalt, sparks flickering briefly against the downpour. For a fleeting second, her form was perfect. Clean, balanced, almost graceful. A small, fierce grin broke across her face.
Then her foot slipped.
The world spun, an instant of weightlessness before impact. She crashed into a stack of soaked cardboard, splinters and debris scattering as she rolled across the cold asphalt. The air was knocked from her lungs. She landed flat on her back, staring up at the black sky as rain pelted her face. For a heartbeat, she didn't move. Then the frustration boiled over.
"Dammit!" she cried, slamming her fist into the ground, the sound lost beneath the storm.
Two weeks. Two relentless, sleepless weeks, and nothing to show for it but bruises, soaked clothes, and disappointment. She'd tried everything. Every adjustment, every angle, every damned trick she'd seen in the videos. And every time, the same ending. Another crash, another failure.
Her teeth clenched, muscles trembling with fury and exhaustion. Time was slipping away. The rematch was coming fast, and she was nowhere near ready. Not polished. Not precise. Not even steady on her feet. At this rate, she thought bitterly, it was going to be the same story all over again, only this time, she had far more to lose.
The steady rhythm of rain was broken by the splash of hurried footsteps cutting through puddles. Dahlia froze, still catching her breath, her hair plastered to her face. She lifted her head, the world tilting upside down from where she lay. Two silhouettes emerged from the gloom at the edge of the lot. Her eyes widened. She knew those figures.
"Daichi? Light?" she muttered, blinking rain from her lashes. The sight of them snapped her upright. She flipped over, pushed herself to her feet, and ran toward them, the sound of her boots echoing against the wet concrete. The moment she got close, her stomach twisted.
"W-what happened?" she asked, eyes darting over them.
Daichi gave a crooked grin through a bloodied mouth, one eye swollen shut, his convenience store uniform torn and filthy. Muddy bootprints smeared across his red polo like bruises. "Nothin' much," he said. "Just… took a nasty fall, you know how it is."
Dahlia turned to Light, and her chest tightened further. The girl's ears were pinned back, tail twitching nervously, her school uniform soaked and ripped.
"I was… attacked," Light said softly. "A bunch of boys. Daichi tried to help me." She hesitated, her throat tightening. "They…"
Dahlia's expression hardened, her teeth grinding audibly. "Where are they? I'm gonna go break their legs."
"Whoa, easy, easy," Daichi said quickly, straightening up though his legs wobbled under him. He raised a trembling hand in protest. "You don't have to worry. They won't be hurting anyone for a long, long time." He swallowed. "Let's just say… Logan stepped in and, uh—handled it."
Dahlia's eyes widened slightly. "Logan?" she repeated. "As in Logan from the café. Saburo's friend? That Logan?"
Dahlia's gaze snapped to Light. "And you? Did those bastards do that to you too?"
Light shook her head slowly. "Actually… this wasn't them." She glanced down, gesturing to her torn and dirty clothes before drawing in a shaky breath. "Lady lost again."
Dahlia froze. Shock flashed across her face, then gave way to something darker. Her jaw tightened, and her fists curled so tight her knuckles cracked.
Daichi quickly stepped in before the air could thicken any further. "Hold up. Forget Lady for a second. There's something else, Logan. He's the reason I came looking for you tonight."
Dahlia's brows furrowed. "What about him?" she asked warily.
Daichi raised a hand, trying to steady himself as much as the moment. "Tell me, how much do you know about the Godly Fifteen?"
She blinked, caught off guard by the sudden shift. "Only that they're legends," she said. "The best the world's ever seen. Scarlet and…" she hesitated, the word catching in her throat, "my mother… they used to talk about them all the time. Scarlet practically worshiped Wild Lightning."
"Right," Daichi said. "But do you remember who trained them, and what happened to him?"
Dahlia frowned, thinking. "Now that you mention it… I remember hearing something. That he did something terrible. Got sent away." Her words slowed as realization began to creep in. "His name was…" Her breath hitched. "Logan Deschain." Her eyes went wide. "You can't mean—"
Daichi nodded, a grim smile tugging at his swollen lip. "Yeah. That 'hobo-looking guy' who hangs around the café. The one who drops by the store in the middle of the night." He met her stunned stare. "That's him. Logan Deschain. The Hand of God. The greatest, most decorated trainer of his generation."
Daichi's crooked smile faded, the weight of what he was about to say sinking in. "And there's more," he said quietly. "Wild Lightning, she's here. In Tokyo."
Dahlia's eyes flicked up, confused. Light's ears twitched, her gaze snapping toward him.
"I heard it straight from Detective Nishimura and his new partner tonight," Daichi went on. "They said they're setting up a C.H.A.S.E. division here. A special task force built to take down the MRA. And Lightning? She's the one running it."
The name hung in the rain-soaked air like a warning bell.
Daichi swallowed hard, his words quickening. "Dahlia, she's not just some has-been racer from overseas. She's the racer. One of the most decorated umas in history. A member of the Godly Fifteen. Her record puts her right beside Symboli Rudolf herself. Hell, even the Emperor would call her senpai without blinking."
He stumbled forward, gripping the edge of a broken railing for balance. "And when she retired, she didn't slow down. She went after the MRA. Busted crews, dismantled operations, put racers and trainers in cuffs across the States. Across the world."
He raised his head, meeting Dahlia's dark, unreadable eyes. "Now she's here, and she's coming for the MRA, every last one of them." His tone broke slightly, desperate now. "You have to stop this. You have to walk away before she gets to you. Because if she does…" He shook his head. "You won't be walking out of that race, Dahlia. Not this time."
A heavy silence falls between them, rain the only sound threading through the pause. Dahlia drops her gaze to the wet asphalt, eyes closing for a slow breath before she looks up again. "Thanks for the heads-up, Daichi," she says quietly, "but I didn't come this far to turn around now."
Daichi's face goes slack. "What do you mean, come this far?" he snaps. "You're not even signed up with the MRA. We can talk to that Hazama guy, get the race pulled. There are ways to stop this."
"You don't get it," Dahlia says, the words hard and bright as flint. "I have to do this. Not just for Light. For Scarlet, for me. I've spent my whole life being told I wasn't enough. I'm done being last. I have to beat Lady."
"What's the prize?!" Daichi blurts. "Money? Glory? Light's freedom? It doesn't matter if they cart you off in cuffs. You can't throw your life away on one stupid gamble."
"It's not stupid!" Dahlia snaps. "It's everything." Her knuckles whiten on the straps of her soaked jacket. "I can't just walk away."
Light's voice breaks across them then, small and urgent. "Stop." She presses her palms to her mouth until her fingers tremble. "Please. Don't… don't make this worse."
Her eyes found Dahlia's, her body trembling so violently she could barely stay upright. "This is all my fault," she whispered. "You did this because you wanted to help me. You're risking everything for me… but you shouldn't."
Dahlia's anger faltered, softening into a conflicted mix of confusion and stubborn defiance. "Light, this isn't on you. I chose this. Don't worry, I've got this—"
"No, you don't understand!" Light cried, the words ripping out of her as tears streamed down her face. She sucked in a breath that shook her whole frame. "My name is Kamakura Light," she said. "But my father… his name is Suzuki Hiroshi."
Both Daichi and Dahlia froze. The world seemed to stop around them, the silence heavier than the rain.
"Suzuki Hiroshi?" Daichi repeated, disbelief roughening his tone. "You mean that Hiroshi?"
"That's right." Light's voice broke as she nodded, wrapping her arms around herself as though she could keep the shame from spilling out. "My father… he's the one… the one who put your sister in that chair."