Kenji found himself strapped to a metal chair. His hands, feet, and neck were bound by a metal brace. Wires connected his nerves to machines to the side, and his head was connected to a steel-looking rod that uncomfortably pricked against his skull.
The room he found himself in resembled the inside of a vault. Metal sheets over metal sheets — and hold on, are those bombs in the corner? What exactly were they holding here?
He's surrounded by a few people. One, a woman by the computer — with black hair and blue eyes. Typing away at a keyboard, she gave a few cursory glances at him from time-to-time.
The other was more familiar. Shō Hakurou stood with his arms crossed. His red gaze was locked with his own red irises. The man had a frown on his face, but that was the only detail Kenji could glean. The Shō he knew and the Shō he's seeing right now might as well be two different people.
With the suit, tie, and professional conduct — he was nothing like the tired, casual, and somewhat of a headache older brother he knows and loves.
'I guess people really are different when they're at work.' Kenji thought to himself. Or maybe it was the circumstances that demanded he act in such a manner.
The last was Rai Luna, the amber-eyed man looked to Kenji. He sipped a bit of coffee he carried in his hands, then set the mug on a nearby table.
"Alright, brat." Rai began, taking a clipboard. "We have a few questions, and I'm sure you know the reason why."
He nodded to the woman, she pressed a few keys, and a monitor came to life. A familiar image projected itself — the frame of the hospital and an infrared sight of his battle. The video feed was garbled, messy, it glitched in and out at the exact times the anomaly shifted causality.
The video feed outright cut-off when he was placed into the infinite space, only to be replaced by a detailed recreation of the battle. How they managed to figure out what happened in that altered reality, Kenji can only ask.
"We've scoured your records. Looked into your schooling history. Even scrounged up deleted search histories and contacts — and we found no indication of how you managed to do what you just did, or why you even know about any of this."
'You've scoured my search history?' Kenji internally grimaced.
He shook the thought, focusing on things more urgent. So they haven't seen Corswain in his contacts? That was odd, he hadn't deleted it from his phone.
"So please, enlighten us how you managed to fight a Type-Five Shroud Anomaly with a literal baseball bat." Rai didn't ask, he demanded. The wires whirred, and the machine behind him beeped.
Kenji opened his mouth, then closed it. Could he even talk about Corswain? Their relationship was nothing more than employer and employee — but...
What would happen if he did?
"I... have this special power." Kenji said, turning to Rai. "It lets me hurt monsters like them."
When the words left his mouth, the woman paused. Her gaze turned to Kenji, then she looked warily over at Rai. The Columba ex Charta gulped, and Shō himself raised a brow.
"As in — did you get these powers yourself?" Rai asked, composing himself.
"Well..." Kenji trailed off, but Shō cut him off.
"Answer this honestly, Kenji." Shō spoke coldly. "This is something we need to assess."
Shō's voice sounded off, almost pleading despite the cold veneer. Despite being thrust into this world, it was one that Kenji was — and still is — ignorant of. He knew there were anomalies, that there were ghosts, that the monsters men had written off as myth still existed.
But that was all there was to it. All Kenji cared about was whether they could die. That was all the job demanded of him — and besides, the anomalies he fought weren't sentient...
He thought.
"No." Kenji answered. "I didn't. It was given to me by my employer."
All three unbound occupants looked to one another. The concern faded for a moment, but shifted back. Rai leaned over to Shō to discuss something privately. Despite the whispers, Kenji could still hear them.
"We can rule out the possibility of him being an awakened psychic." Rai scribbled something down on his clipboard.
"I already told you," Shō countered under his breath. "If he were an awakened psychic, we wouldn't be standing here. No fluctuations, no emotional spikes, no ambient distortions. He's stable."
"Stable." Rai echoed, he glanced at Kenji. "Stable, sure. That's a word for it."
"I can hear you, you know!" Kenji shouted, his voice echoing against the steel walls.
Rai didn't even flinch. He simply raised his pen, scribbling a few more notes down. "Heightened auditory perception. Duly noted." He took a slow sip of his coffee before glancing back at the boy. "Now, you said you had an employer. Who are they? What affiliation do they hold? Tell me everything you know."
Kenji leaned back against the cold metal chair, straining against the restraints just enough to sit upright. "Can't."
Rai's brow arched. "Can't?"
"I signed an NDA," Kenji said, completely straight-faced. "What kind of professional would I be if I screwed over a client?"
The room fell silent. The woman by the keyboard paused mid-type. Shō blinked once, then twice. Rai just stared, the pen frozen halfway to his clipboard. For a moment, he thought Kenji was mocking him — a bad joke in a bad situation.
But the vitals on the monitor were steady. No signs of deception. He was completely serious.
Rai pinched the bridge of his nose, exhaling through his teeth.
"Kid… are you seriously worried about an NDA when you're strapped to a metal chair surrounded by surveillance equipment, hooked to a machine that's reading your nerves, and—" He pointed vaguely toward the far wall. "—sitting in a room with actual bombs in the corner?"
Kenji blinked. "...So those really are bombs?"
Rai stared for a long second. Then he turned to Shō. "Your brother's either the bravest idiot I've ever met or just profoundly unbothered by mortality."
Shō sighed, rubbing his temples. "Honestly, both."
"I can still hear you two!" Kenji's voice reverberated off the steel walls.
"Good," Rai shot back without missing a beat.
"Reflect on this moment and maybe grow some common sense — if you make it out of here alive." He glanced down at his clipboard. "If, by the way. Because right now, it's not looking good for you, Smartass."
Kenji groaned, his head thudding lightly against the chair's metal frame. "You really know how to comfort a patient, huh?"
"If you're that worried about your NDA," Rai continued, ignoring him, "don't be. We have the best lawyers in the world on payroll. We could bankrupt your mystery employer with a countersuit to hell and back — and hand you the profits in a gift box."
Kenji blinked. "…You can just do that?"
Rai looked up from his clipboard, expression flat. "Kid, why do you think you live in a penthouse suite?"
"That's not mine, it's Shō — wait, what?"
"Everyone in the Choir starts with at least a hundred grand a month," Rai said casually, flipping a page. "Bonuses stack with commendations, hazard pay, saved assets —you get the picture. Everyone here is loaded. Lawsuits don't scare us."
Kenji gawked, his jaw working soundlessly. "…So you're telling me I got kidnapped by rich people with bombs?"
Rai didn't even look up. "Congratulations. You're catching on."
Shō sighed deeply, pinching the bridge of his nose. "Rai, please stop terrifying him."
"Not terrifying," Rai said mildly, jotting another note. "Educating."
With a sigh, Rai moved the clipboard down. Now beside his arm, his focus shifted from the notes to Kenji. He placed his free hand on his hips.
"Look. Let me tell you right now, you're not in a good position. Half of the higher-ups want you dead, the other half either don't care or don't care enough to know. So unless you give us something..."
He ran a finger against his throat. The message was clear, and Kenji gulped. The man pulled up his clipboard and looked back up at Kenji.
"Now. Tell me everything you can about your mystery employer, and I'll do my best to keep you alive." Rai pointed the pen to the boy.
Kenji stayed silent for a moment, his lips thinned. He didn't want to die, but there was something deep in him that didn't want to speak. A will that wasn't his own, an implanted desire. But he fought against it, turned to Rai and opened his mouth.
"Fine." He said. He didn't want to die. "My Employer, he's—"
The words died in his throat.
————————
[Warning! Breach of Contract!]
[Initiating Suppression Protocol...]
————————
Kenji gasped. No sound came out. His throat constricted like invisible hands were crushing it. He coughed, wheezed, clawed at the restraints as if he could drag the words out of himself — but only air escaped, torn and useless.
The machines beside him shrieked in alarm.
"Rai!" the woman by the computer snapped. Her blue eyes darted across the monitors. "We're reading a massive spike in Shroud Particles — he's manifesting an anomalous event!"
Rai's pen froze in midair. He looked at Kenji, watching as the boy's mouth opened soundlessly against the weight of something unseen, something enforcing silence itself.
"...So," Rai muttered, almost to himself, "he wasn't bluffing."
Rai's head snapped toward the woman at the console. "Aisha! Status on the Anchors?"
"Seventy percent," she replied, her blue eyes narrowing as lines of data cascaded across the monitors. Her fingers flew over the keyboard, the rhythmic clacking punctuating the rising tension. "Permission to push to maximum output?"
"Not yet." Rai turned back to Kenji, his jaw tightening. The boy convulsed in the chair, breath shallow and ragged, but the suppression hadn't spread beyond him. "Keep monitoring."
Aisha nodded, though her expression flickered with unease.
Rai's gaze drifted to the readouts—numbers fluctuating erratically, reality bending around them like heat mirage. Seventy percent? That couldn't be right. Ontological Anchors at just twenty percent could flatten most psychic or metaphysical interference. At fifty, they could sterilize an entire district of anomalous influence.
They never went above seventy. Doing so risked shorting their own Choir-grade tech —systems built on fragments of the very metaphysics the Anchors suppressed. At that level, even higher-dimensional phenomena would get suppressed and flattened.
And yet, Kenji's contract suppression. The readouts trembled between stability and distortion.
Rai's thoughts hardened into a single conclusion.
'Seventy percent capacity, and he's still manifesting a phenomenon.'
His eyes flicked toward the boy, the faintest unease shadowing his expression.
'Whoever his employer is… they're no ordinary contractor.'
"Kenji!" Shō snapped. His hands were reaching towards his pockets. The man was readying himself to snap the boy back out through any means — even if it meant using his own physical strength.
"You don't have to tell Rai anything! Stop trying! We'll get you out without it!" The man roared out.
Rai snapped his head to Shō, then back to Kenji. Was the boy seriously still trying? Even now, when a literal otherworldly influence could potentially suffocate him?
'He's insane.' Rai thought to himself — then, another thought came. 'Wait, I could use that.'
The boy momentarily paused. His mouth pressed into a thin line, and he let out a deep controlled breath. The idea of telling anyone about Corswain faded from his mind.
His left eye glitched orange for a moment, and a system notice implanted itself in his head.
————————
[Contract Threat: Neutralized]
[Aborting Suppression Protocol]
————————
Kenji inhaled a long, steady breath and forced himself to look Rai in the eye. The interrogator pressed a finger beneath his chin, as if testing that the boy was still solidly human. Then Rai turned to Shō, measuring the man with a glance that said he knew Shō wouldn't like this idea — but that he had little choice.
"I've got a proposition," Rai said, folding his arms. "Your employer — whoever they are — is dangerous. Anyone who can shrug off a seventy-percent Anchor is a serious variable." He let the words hang, letting their meaning settle in the metal room. "You are our only lead."
Rai stepped closer, hands slipping into his pockets. He lowered the clipboard and adopted the patient, clinical tone of someone who had rehearsed this speech a dozen ways.
Kenji was dangerous, yes — but not uncontrollable. His gifts were not raw chaos; they had shape. He'd shown he could fight, survive, and follow orders.
"This season," Rai continued, "the Choir is recruiting. Graduates, veterans, scientists, criminals — we're casting a wide net. We bring people in, train them, and use them. You'd be one of those people."
He met Kenji's eyes, steady and unblinking. "You won't die. I can promise you that, Hakurou."
A pause, heavy enough to be a hinge. Rai spoke, his offer hanging like bait on a hook.
"In exchange — join us."
Kenji blinked — once, twice. Shō did too, but his reaction came sharper. His head snapped toward Rai, disbelief etched deep into his face.
"What did you just say, Rai Luna?" His voice carried a blade's edge, cold and precise. "Kenji Hakurou, joining you? Joining us? Do you even realize what the hell you're suggesting!?"
Rai didn't flinch. His gaze met Shō's with the same weary calm he'd worn since the interrogation began.
"I don't think you realize the situation, Shō Hakurou," Rai said evenly.
"Your brother is in a lot of trouble, and this—" he gestured to the heavy metal room, the Anchors humming, the screens still flickering with traces of Shroud interference, "—is his only way out."
He turned back to Kenji, his tone softening by a fraction. "Look, kid. I get it. We're not exactly the kind of organization people dream of joining. You'll lose your freedom, your privacy, probably your lifespan too—"
"I'll do it!"
The words came out before he could finish. Rai stopped mid-sentence, blinking.
"…Excuse me?"
"I said, I'll do it! I'll join this Choir thing!" Kenji's voice was steady — enthusiastic, even.
Rai stared at him for a long moment, clipboard forgotten at his side.
"Kid," he finally said, "you… do realize this wasn't meant to be the sales pitch, right?"
Shō turned toward his brother, incredulous. "Kenji — what the hell are you thinking? You don't even know what we are!"
Kenji looked between the two men, eyes burning with a reckless spark that neither of them could quite name — defiance, maybe, or desperation dressed up as courage.
"I'm thinking," he said, "if joining them keeps me alive, and lets me keep fighting things like that—" he nodded toward the frozen screen of the anomaly, "—then I'm in."
Rai sighed, running a hand through his hair.
'So why the hell do you look so excited, brat?' he thought.
The reason for it all was simple. Kenji had no life, no future he could dream of. He was beset by memories of uselessness, failure. The scars of which still marred his form — both physical and emotional.
His gaze looked to the three, to their confusion, and he understood that they didn't understand — they never would.
He feared. He bent. He cried. The want for a normal life was a mere mask, one attempt for his true desire. The want for love, affection, and to prove himself useful to a brother who was never here.
So when offered this link, this job — Kenji could only nod and accept. He wanted to, this is what he wanted — even if it killed him.
A sigh escaped Rai's lips. He made his choice, then. "Alright, welcome to the list of initiates. You still have to run through a few tests, written exams, physicals — but judging from your records in school..."
Rai trailed off with a grimace.
"Forget it, I'll just send you through a special recommendation. Just be present at the initial orientation for new recruits." Rai added. He turned and began to walk out the room, Shō's disapproving form following from behind.
He had no words to say, he still had to process what Kenji just said. Before Rai left, he paused mid-step. Turning to Kenji, he hummed and smacked his head.
"Right — nearly forgot, brat." He turned to face the boy. "This is more of a customary thing we do with new recruits, but..."
"Do you believe in ghosts?"