The evening light was fading, and the ruins were bathed in a rust-colored glow. The broken glass reflected the last rays of the dying sun like scattered memories. The air was heavy — not just with dust, but with silence.
Arthur's wrists ached against the cold, black chains that pinned him to the chair. He could feel the faint hum from them — unnatural, absorbing the air, swallowing even sound. His mind was a blur of disbelief and fragments of fear.
Alia was beside him, her expression torn between anger and confusion, and across from them, Kaito's father — Sui Hiroshi — sat still, his eyes dull yet filled with suppressed rage.
And standing before them… Kuro.
The man in the vantablack coat, his eyes faintly red under the sunset's reflection, as if the light itself refused to touch him.
Arthur's heartbeat echoed in his ears.
Kuro turned toward them slowly, his shadow stretching along the cracked floor like a second presence.
Alia broke the silence first. Her voice trembled slightly, though she tried to sound brave.
"Why have you… kidnapped us here? What's your purpose ?
Her tone cracked midway — the cold fear she hid leaking through.
Sui Hiroshi added, his voice deep and controlled despite the chain marks on his wrists.
"What is our use here? You already have Kaito… or at least, you had him. What could you possibly want from us now?"
Kuro smiled. A small, unsettling smile — too calm, too sure.
"I want to save him," he said softly. "That's why you're here."
The words fell like broken glass.
Arthur frowned, the confusion cutting through his fatigue.
Save him?
The same man who led the kidnappers? The same one who used Kaito's power during the eclipse incident?
"What do you mean?" Arthur finally said, his voice hoarse. "You were the one who took him, who treated him like a weapon. Now you say you want to save him?"
Kuro tilted his head slightly, his eyes narrowing with something unreadable.
"True. I was ordered to. But there's something you don't understand, boy."
He turned his gaze toward the cracked window where the light was fading into violet dusk.
"As of now, Kaito Hiroshi is inside Fern Headquarters. My superior — my leader — known to you as 56, has begun to make his move. The plan is simple: he will raid Fern and force Kaito to come out."
Arthur blinked, uncertain if he had heard correctly.
"Raid Fern? Are you insane? You're talking about Fern, the same place that captured Kaito… the same place armed with international forces!"
Alia leaned forward, her brows furrowed.
"Huh? Save Kaito? He couldn't even defeat my brother Alexander… and you're saying you'll storm Fern? You'll die before you reach the front gate."
Kuro chuckled, the sound low and strangely amused.
"Little girl," he said, turning his eyes toward her, "you really think you've seen 56 full strength?"
For a moment, even the air stilled.
Arthur glanced at him, his pulse quickening.
Kuro's voice dropped lower.
"He hasn't even used a fragment of what he truly is. The power that sleeps inside him isn't what you've witnessed.
Sui Hiroshi clenched his fists, his face pale.
"Then what is your real goal?" he demanded. "What do you gain by freeing him? Why involve us? A man like you doesn't act without reason."
Kuro looked back at them, the faintest smirk on his face.
"Ah… you see through people easily, don't you, officer Hiroshi?"
He raised a finger toward Alia.
"You, girl… you'll serve a special purpose. Against Alexander Regan, the No. 2. Your presence will be useful when we move. He'll hesitate — even for a second — and that second will be all I need."
Alia clenched her fists, her eyes flashing with anger. "You're using me as bait?"
Kuro ignored her tone and turned toward Arthur and Sui Hiroshi.
"And you two — I'm taking you for one simple reason."
His voice dropped lower, darker.
"When Kaito is freed, if he refuses to believe us, if he unleashes that power again… he might kill us all. But if you're there — people he knows, people he trusts — he won't turn against me. That's your role."
Arthur felt a chill crawl up his spine.
Kuro leaned forward slightly, his tone changing — calm, but with a strange theatrical confidence.
"Don't call me selfish just yet," he said. "Here's the plan: we free Kaito from Fern, we use his power to destroy the chains binding him, and then—"
He smiled wider.
"—I give him back to you."
Arthur's mind froze.
He didn't know whether to laugh or scream.
"You expect us to believe that? You, a criminal, a manipulator, who hunted him like prey? You think we'll just nod and follow your plan?"
Kuro shrugged, his tone deceptively casual.
"It's a good deal, isn't it? I free him, and you take him. I get what I want — and you get your friend back. Everyone wins."
Alia glared at him. "And what if we refuse?"
The air grew heavy.
Kuro's eyes narrowed into thin slits.
He turned his back slightly, the faint red gleam of his right eye flickering under his hair.
"You won't refuse," he said softly. "Because if you do… your families won't survive the night."
Arthur's body went cold.
"What… did you say?"
Kuro raised a small device — a communicator — and pressed it once.
"I've placed my pawns already. Every person you care about… watched."
Sui Hiroshi shouted, "You're bluffing!"
Kuro looked at him without emotion.
"Then test me."
He reached into his pocket and pulled out a smartphone.
Arthur's phone.
Arthur's heart skipped. "That's mine—"
"Of course," Kuro interrupted, his voice calm. "Let's make a little call, shall we?"
He dialed a number and tossed the phone lightly in his hand. The screen lit up with "Mom."
Arthur's breath caught.
The line connected.
A cheerful voice came through, mixed with static.
"Arthur? Oh honey, you finally called! Your father and I were just—"
Arthur's voice trembled. "Mom, listen—where are you? Is everything okay?!"
His mother laughed softly. "Everything's fine, sweetheart. Oh, you won't believe this! A wonderful colleague from your dad's work gave us a free lottery trip — to the Curu Mountains! We're leaving tonight!"
Arthur's stomach dropped.
Curu Mountains — that was the same area known for its abandoned research routes.
He froze. His hand trembled as he looked up at Kuro.
The man was smiling faintly, watching him.
Arthur whispered, "What did you do…?"
Kuro didn't answer.
Instead, he gestured with a finger.
"Ask your father."
Arthur's voice cracked as he said, "Dad… who's that colleague? Can you put him on the line?"
There was a small shuffle. Then a deep voice came through, cheerful but with a faint metallic tone.
"Ah, Mr. Arthur! Good to finally hear your voice."
Arthur's blood ran cold. He knew that voice.
"Kuro pawn…?"
Kuro tilted his head. "Ah yes, one of my staff members, Micheal. Very punctual."
Arthur gritted his teeth. "You're using them as leverage?!"
Michael's voice continued from the other end.
"Don't worry, Arthur. Your parents will enjoy the mountain view… as long as you cooperate with Mr. Kuro. Understand?"
The line cut.
Arthur's hand shook. His body tensed, anger burning behind his eyes.
"You—monster."
Kuro looked at him without emotion, but there was a flicker of something in his gaze — guilt, or maybe exhaustion.
"Call me what you want. But this is the only way to save Kaito."
The air was still again. The orange sun had disappeared, leaving only faint traces of red on the broken walls.
Arthur's mind spun — part fury, part disbelief.
He looked at Alia, who sat frozen, her eyes glistening in shock. Then at Sui Hiroshi, who had gone silent, his expression empty — the kind of silence that came only from realizing how powerless one had become.
Kuro turned toward the open edge of the building.
The sky was deep crimson now.
"When the sun rises after 3 days," he said quietly, "we move. Fern's gates won't stay closed for long."
Arthur stared at him, unable to find words. His pulse echoed like drums inside his chest.
He didn't know what to fear more — the madness of Kuro's plan, or the fact that somewhere deep inside, a part of him wanted to believe the man's words.
The silence stretched.
A cold wind blew through the hollow window frames, carrying dust and shadows with it.
And as the light faded completely, Kuro's final words before walking away were like a whisper swallowed by the dark —
"Fear not the chains, Arthur. Fear the reason they exist."
---
The chains loosened with a low metallic hum. The faint glow from Kuro's device shimmered across the ruined floor as the bindings faded away, leaving deep red marks on their wrists. None of them spoke — their eyes locked on the man standing before them.
Kuro dusted off his gloves, his movements graceful and calculated, as though even this broken place were a ballroom.
He reached into his coat pocket and drew out three small envelopes — their edges crisp, stamped with golden seals.
He first handed one to Sui Hiroshi.
Then one to Alia.
And finally, one to Arthur.
Each bore the same name printed neatly on the front — Curu Mountain Resort Pass.
Kuro's voice broke the silence, smooth and calm.
"These," he said, "are your tickets. You'll leave in three days. The destination — Curu Mountains."
Arthur looked at the ticket in disbelief. "You're forcing us to go on a trip?"
Kuro smiled faintly, not at all offended by the sarcasm.
"Not a trip," he corrected. "An operation."
He turned his gaze to Sui Hiroshi first.
"For you, officer Hiroshi — you'll tell your family that you're taking a small detour before your next posting. Tell them you just… wanted to see the place Kaito might be near. You don't want to risk their lives, right?"
Sui Hiroshi's fists tightened, but he said nothing. His jaw trembled slightly. The man who once spoke with authority now stared at the ticket like it was a loaded gun.
Kuro then turned toward Alia.
"And you," he said softly, offering a half-smile that didn't reach his eyes. "Tell your family you won these tickets. That it's just a short family trip before exams. You're a bright girl, I'm sure you'll make them believe it."
Alia's brows furrowed. "You think I'll play along with your sick games?"
Kuro's voice deepened, echoing faintly through the broken walls.
"You will," he said, "because you know what happens if you don't."
The silence that followed was sharp, like air before a storm. Alia's hand trembled as she looked at the envelope. Her reflection flickered on the golden seal — tired eyes, dry lips, and a heaviness she couldn't name.
Kuro finally faced all three of them. The last ray of sunset flickered behind him, framing his silhouette against the horizon.
"Oh, I almost forgot."
He straightened, brushed the dust from his shoulder, and then — to their surprise — bowed slightly, one hand on his chest like a butler greeting his guests.
His voice carried a cold elegance.
"I haven't properly introduced myself."
He lifted his head, and his eyes glowed faint crimson under the twilight.
"My name," he said slowly, "is Kuro Butler."
He smiled — not kindly, not cruelly, just… knowingly.
"It's a pleasure to work with you. You have three days to prepare. Pack your things, convince your families, and be ready to leave by the twenty-third."
Arthur's heart pounded. The words "work with you" felt wrong — it sounded less like cooperation and more like a chain disguised as a handshake.
Kuro's tone hardened just enough to remind them of the truth.
"If you don't come," he said, "you already know what will happen."
And with that, he turned, walking toward the ruined staircase that led down the shadowed hall.
His footsteps echoed softly until only the wind remained.
---
The silence afterward was unbearable.
Arthur's fingers dug into the edge of the ticket. He wanted to tear it apart — but the thought of his parents' voices, that fake cheerful phone call, stopped him.
Sui Hiroshi stared at the ground, muttering something under his breath — maybe a prayer, maybe a curse.
Alia sat still, her face unreadable, the golden envelope resting loosely in her palm.
Then, one by one, they were escorted out by Kuro's subordinates — faceless silhouettes hidden in vantablack masks.
The night air outside was cold and wet. The city lights flickered in the distance like distant stars, unaware of the quiet war unfolding beneath them.
---
[Later That Night — Alia's Home]
The clock struck ten. The house was warm and bright — a sharp contrast to the ruin she had just left.
Alia sat on the living room couch, the ticket lying on the table in front of her. The golden seal looked almost harmless now under the lamp light.
Her mother walked in, drying her hands with a towel. "Alia? You've been staring at that thing for twenty minutes. What is it?"
Alia looked up, forcing a small smile. "Ah… it's a ticket. I, um, won a small trip to Curu Mountains. It's supposed to be three days from now — the twenty-third."
Her father, sitting on the sofa across from her, raised an eyebrow. "Curu Mountains? That's far. You sure it's safe?"
"Yeah," she said quickly. "The school was running a small lottery for good grades, I guess. I just… got lucky."
Her father smiled proudly. "That's my girl. You've been studying so hard, you deserve a break. Maybe some fresh air will help."
Her mother added, "But what about school? Don't you have tests coming?"
Alia hesitated for a second, then shrugged lightly.
"I can just take a leave. It's only a few days."
Her mother nodded. "Alright, just don't push yourself. You've been overworking lately."
Alia nodded, trying to mirror their warmth — but inside, her chest felt heavy.
Her father poured tea and handed her a cup. "You don't seem excited, though. Something wrong?"
She looked at him, at the gentle eyes that had no idea how fragile everything was.
"I'm fine," she said softly, forcing another smile.
"It's just… I think the trip might be tiring. That's all."
Her father chuckled. "You'll be fine. You're young, you recover fast."
They both laughed lightly, but Alia didn't. She just stared down at the cup, the steam rising slowly — fading into nothing, just like the illusion she was keeping alive.
When they left the room, her smile vanished. She picked up the ticket again, holding it tightly between her fingers until the edges bent.
"Three days," she whispered to herself.
Her reflection stared back at her from the window — distant, unfamiliar, scared.
And for the first time, she wondered if there would even be a home to return to after that journey.
---
Sui Hiroshi walked with the ticket folded in his palm like a dangerous promise. The corridor two storyed home smelled faintly of oil and laundry detergent; the elevators hummed a tired monotone. He had the sensation again — like a single, careful eye tracking his steps. It had been there all day, a cold notion at the edges of his thoughts, as if someone had traced his outline with invisible fingers. Every time he glanced at the window, there was only his reflection and the city's dull glass lights. Still, the feeling would not release him.
He kept the envelope close as if it were both map and noose. His family would not believe him if he told them the truth. How could he tell them that a man in a ruined building had given him a golden seal stamped "Curu Mountain Resort Pass" and told him that the trip would be for the sake of saving the son he had lost sleep over? How could he explain the phone call that had once more convinced him his life's simplest pleasures could be used as bargaining chips?
When he opened his apartment door, warmth poured out: the soft clink of cutlery, the bright scent of simmering miso, the small domestic hum that felt sacred and fragile. Ayaka and his wife — the two anchors of the life he had promised to protect — were at the low dining table, plates arranged neatly, faces lit by the yellow lamp that made the rice steam like little clouds.
"Sui!" his wife called lightly, the way she called him on normal days, when the world only wrapped them in small household rhythms. Her smile faltered when she saw his face; the warmth of the room tried to fill his hollow bones and didn't quite reach.
"Darling." He set the ticket on the shoe rack instead of the table, then noticed the way his hands trembled when he finally slid it into his palm. His voice felt large in the quiet. "Ayaka, I… I have a ticket."
Ayaka looked up from where she had been arranging the tofu. The ticket looked absurd on the table — a small rectangle of glossy paper with a stamped seal and print that read Curu Mountain Resort — 23rd. For a second the room held its breath; then her face softened into polite curiosity.
"Did you win it?" she asked, because that was the ordinary question. The ordinary question demanded ordinary answers.
He sat across from them, palms open on the wooden table, as if to show he had nothing else hidden. "No. I was given it. It's… it's an opportunity. I can take leave. The posting still stands, but I can tell them I want to check into the countryside before leaving."
Ayaka's brow pinched. "But what about Kaito?" She said the name as if it had weight enough to stir the small sea in the room. "Where's Kaito supposed to be? You said—"
Sui took a breath. The truth tasted like metal on his tongue: he could not tell them there were men with vantablack coats; he could not tell them a ruined building had become a chessboard for strangers. He could not tell them that, for the second time in a month, the safety of his family had been recalculated by someone else.
"Kaito might be nearby," he said finally, choosing shapes over the raw edges of the whole truth. "They told me the area around Curu is near the lake where he could be hiding. It's possible — as a parent, I must go. As a police officer, I must try. We might meet him." He let the sentence rest between them like a fragile bridge. "It might be our chance to see him, to… be with him even for a moment."
Ayaka's fingers tightened on the edge of the table. "A lake?" She sounded hopeful in a way that hurt him: hope like a blade.
Sui did not want to lie to them. He wanted to tell them that he had called ministers, that he had walked the courthouse steps until the soles of his shoes were thin, and that everyone had turned their backs because the matter had slipped into the grey of international jurisdictions and papers stamped "out of remit." But that would only tempt panic, and panic would be a feast for those who already held them like pawns.
"So you'll… go?" his wife asked, trying to place a gentle hand on his forearm.
"Yes." He wanted to say more — that he would take every legal step, that he would not allow bureaucracy to be the tomb of his son. Instead he said, "I'll go. For a few days. I'll be back."
As he spoke, the shadow at the far end of the hallway dissolved. It had been there like a thought he could identify with the corner of his eye — a silhouette attached to a lamp post, patient in the wet veneer of the city. It vanished as if someone had simply pinched it out of the world. Sui felt the vanishing like the closing of a lid; his breath tightened, not from relief, but because the moving thing that had watched him had been confirmed.
In the ruined building, Kuro held a different kind of silence. He had taken to calling the place a cathedral and, perhaps, it served the same perverse function: a site of ritual where outcomes were measured like prayers and discarded if they failed to show grace.
There were buildings beyond the ruin — standing, half-blooming towers of glass and concrete that had survived in strange configurations. The place Kuro called his balcony looked over a miniature cityscape of fragments: broken roofs that glinted like teeth, stairwells half-swallowed by dust, a narrow channel where water still ran, thick with light-bent reflections. Petals had fallen across the broken plaza — blown from the few living trees left standing — and Kuro had been plucking them one at a time, setting the small miracles between his fingers as if they were fortune-telling leaves.
He played the old game: Will they? Won't they? — the child's rhythm of hope and despair, only Kuro didn't hum the nursery rhyme. He numbered the petals not with affection but with method. Card by card, petal by petal: Sui, Ayaka, Arthur, Alia. His team. The pawns. The variables. A soft breeze sent another scattering of pink across the concrete, and Kuro watched them tumble like tiny currency.
"Will they survive?" he murmured to himself, and then plucked the next petal with deliberate slowness.
The petal fluttered, a pale punctuation in the world's grey, and when it fell he inhaled. No. He felt it as if the universe had given the answer through the texture of the air. He set the petal aside and let its shape rest on the cracked stone. He could have said he regretted it; he could have told himself the calculus of a raid, of how the moment Kaito found himself trapped between masters, would not be tidy. But regret did not become him. The mission was a vector and vectors moved only toward their destination.
"It's decided," he said aloud, not for the petals nor for the city. His voice was low, almost ceremonious. "They will not survive."
The phrase hung as if he had written it on the building itself.
He thought of the new power on the horizon — the force he was promised by 56, the fragment of authority that would someday bend the arc of what men like him considered possible. The words felt like a script he had been memorizing: After the raid, the power will be ours. After power, the world will shift. He imagined, sometimes, not the careful handover he had proposed to the captives earlier but a darker necessity: once the power flowed through him, he would be beyond pleading, beyond fear.
"After I get my powers," Kuro said, as if rehearsing a final line of a long play, "I will remove those who stand in the way."
His hand hovered above the next petal. The city slumbered below, lights trembling like breathing things. He saw, in that imagined future, the little map of the town replaced by a different map — one energized and austere, the positions of influence redrawn into a constellation that favored him.
Blue particles drifted through the air near his shoulder, rimmed in a soft luminescence — like microscopic motes from some laboratory experiment. They were harmless and yet symbolic, dancing ribbons of cold light that traced the silhouette of his raised hand. The particles had no sound but they communicated a mood: the future could be engineered, observed, and finally, harvested. They slid past his fingers and clung to the dust as if waiting for instruction.
Kuro watched the city glow, a distant, brittle utopia where people ate dinner and read bedtime stories and misread the long arcs that men like him drew without asking. He wondered how bright it would look when he finally lit the fuse, when the new geometry of power shifted like tectonic plates. Would it melt into color, or be reduced to ash and memory? He found his answer in the shape of a petal, short-lived and absolute.
He scooped up the petal, closed his fist, and felt the grain of it between his fingers. For a moment, something like tenderness flickered — an absurd echo in a man who had chosen to play with lives as if they were pieces in a game.
"Anyways," he said to the empty air, as if to break the thread of sentiment, "it's none of my concern."
The sentence was both a curse and a truth. He had once been haunted by loyalties and causes; now he was devoted to a different kind of certainty. He had been promised that after the raid, after the power's reclamation, the world's axis would turn. When that moment came he would not be asking permission.
He opened his hand. The petal — thin and fragile — slipped from his skin and was carried away by the light wind, landing like an offering on the crumbling parapet below.
Kuro turned his face to the horizon, listening for the cadence of approaching engines or the faint hum of alarms that had yet to be set. The blue rim-motes drifted like little stars, and the city below burned softly in its own small life. He imagined the dawn as a ceremony: men and machines moving in concert, the raid a machine of perfect brutality that would turn everything into a new arrangement of authority.
"Soon," he murmured. "Soon the day will arrive."
He watched the lights, and for the first time in many nights, he allowed himself a smile that was not meant for those who would die. It was meant for the shape of the future he envisioned: a future bright in its cruelty, sharp like a blade honed by the patience of a man who had learned how to wait.
Down on another street, Sui folded the ticket into the inner pocket of his coat. He felt the household's warmth seeping back into him — the smell of miso, the low murmur of Ayaka's voice. He rose and moved to the doorway, pausing to let the moment sit heavy in his chest.
Outside, the city kept its ordinary beat, unaware that petals had been counted and destinies quietly set. Inside the ruined building, Kuro's silhouette stood outlined against a sky that could be both forgiving and malicious. The blue particles drifted on, indifferent witnesses to a plan that had already found its brittle momentum.
And somewhere in the middle of it all, like a thread between fire and water, the family prepared. The father practiced the lie he might tell. The daughter kept her small cup of tea between nervous palms. The man in the ruin set the pieces and watched the map of the world tilt very slightly toward the hand that would pull the strings.
When the dawn finally came, it would find men who had chosen their roles. Some would be playing to save a son. Some would be playing to win power. And some — like petals — would fall, indistinguishable from the rest, into the gutters of a city that had, for so long, refused to listen.