Rain hissed against the rooftop as Kiro faced the hooded figure, the hunters flanking them like silent shadows. Behind him, Ara's grip on her daggers was white-knuckled.
"Stay behind me," she murmured.
"Not happening," Kiro said.
The hooded figure tilted their head, almost in curiosity. "You unraveled my capture net. No untrained mind should've been able to do that. Who are you?"
Kiro's answer was a sharp, "The wrong person to chase."
The hunters moved first—two breaking into a sprint, their black-thread limbs blurring. Kiro reached for their minds, but they were… hollow. No thoughts, no emotions. Just a pulse: capture.
He changed tactics, grabbing the threads they used to anchor themselves to the rooftop and yanking. Both hunters stumbled mid-lunge, Ara slicing one across the torso in a spray of dissolving shadow.
The other regained balance, swinging an arm that elongated into a jagged spike.
Kiro ducked under it and shoved a burst of mental force into its core. The hunter exploded into a rain of black strands.
The hooded figure finally moved—one gloved hand raised, threads exploding outward in a wave. Golden, silver, black—dozens of kinds at once, weaving together into a living wall.
Ara tried to cut through, but her blades barely scratched it.
Kiro felt the wall pressing against his mind like a tidal wave. If he tried to block it, he'd be crushed.
So he didn't block. He slipped through.
In that instant, he saw everything.
Every thread in the wall. Every anchor in the hooded figure's mind. Every hidden hook the hunters used. It was too much—like looking directly at the sun.
Something inside him cracked open.
And then… power.
Threads all across the rooftop snapped taut in his grip, each one clear and responsive as his own fingers.
The hooded figure froze, as if feeling the shift. "Impossible—"
Kiro didn't let them finish. He wrenched the threads in their body hard enough to stagger them, then spun and detonated the hunters' anchors. Three of them dissolved instantly.
Ara stepped back, eyes wide. "What the hell, Kiro?"
"Don't know," he admitted. "But it works."
He pushed harder, yanking on every enemy thread in range. The hooded figure's control faltered—the wall of threads disintegrated in a rain of sparks.
But the rush came with a cost. Heat built behind his eyes, blood starting to trickle from his nose. His heartbeat thundered in his ears.
Ara's voice cut through the haze. "You're burning yourself out!"
"Not yet," he said, even though he could feel his body shaking.
The hooded figure rallied, dropping into a low stance. "Overdrive," they muttered, almost to themselves. "You're killing yourself for this moment. Fine. Let's see if it's worth it."
They unleashed a single, perfect thread—thin, invisible, but so sharp it split the rain in midair.
Kiro caught it between two fingers of his mind.
For a moment, it was just the two of them, locked in a silent tug-of-war in the storm.
With a final wrench, Kiro ripped the thread out of their control. The recoil staggered the hooded figure backward toward the roof's edge.
Ara didn't hesitate—she grabbed Kiro and sprinted past them, leaping to the next rooftop. The harbor loomed closer with every step.
Behind them, the hooded figure's voice carried through the rain. "Run, anomaly. I'll find you again."
By the time their boots hit the wooden planks of the dock, Kiro's overdrive burned out. His vision dimmed, his legs buckled, and only Ara's arm kept him from hitting the ground.
He could feel the threads slipping from his grasp, the world dulling back to normal.
And yet, even through the exhaustion, one thought stayed sharp:
He hadn't just survived.He'd won.