Hikari knew what facing one of the world's largest organizations entailed, but he never imagined they would act so quickly. He had anticipated the trap, but not the timer.
Even so, the uncertainty of when his enemy would strike made him nervous. He could foresee variables, errors, movements… but not the future. That was the only piece that escaped his control. That was why he was searching for the skeleton: to finally understand exactly what the "antithesis" was that his parents referred to regarding the "echo" aspect—a concept he still couldn't quite decipher.
Now, at Hikari's house, as was their custom, the three were skeptical about what their next move would be.
"This is unbelievable..." Haruna said. "We are definitely in a trap, walking that thin paper line that triggers a whole series of consequences. We thought we were superheroes, and now we could die."
Hikari just nodded; he had nothing to refute.
"Kenjiro, I have a question," Hikari said, changing the subject to calm them down. "Why are there American-style lockers?"
"Now that you mention it... It's always seemed strange to me that we have American-style lockers instead of the traditional getabako."
"It's not strange," said Haruna. "It's a direct order from the higher-ups. It was one of the first things that changed when the conglomerate bought the academy ten years ago. They wanted to foster a culture of 'individualism.' Every student with their own private, secure space. Ridiculous, of course. It only gave bullies something to slam people against."
"Yeah, the truth is it really clashes, don't you think?" said Hikari with a smile. "I mean, it just feels... off. In my country, lockers like that don't exist; they just aren't there."
And so, the group dissolved, heading to their respective homes.
The next day, once classes were over, Hikari had to cross a stretch that most students avoided at dusk: a long pedestrian tunnel beneath an elevated highway.
Haruna was walking on the opposite sidewalk. She felt an unease she couldn't name, something that made her walk slower. And, in a flash, she saw Hikari cross into the mouth of the tunnel... or perhaps, into the jaws of the beast.
"Haruna-san, what's wrong?" Yui's voice startled her. She and Kenjiro were approaching.
"Why are you looking over there?" asked Yui, following the direction of her gaze.
Just then, two black sedans with no license plates entered the tunnel from both ends, their high beams trapping Hikari. They stopped, blocking any exit, and six men descended from the cars.
Across the street, Kenjiro felt the worst kind of chill. Yui stifled a scream. Haruna stood motionless, unsure of what to do.
The lead man stepped forward.
"Hikari Akihiko? Mr. Ishikawa sends his regards."
"Eh? Ishikawa-sama?" he said, adopting his nervous tone. "I think there's a mistake. I'm just a student. Are you looking for someone else?"
"There is no mistake... We just have to deliver a message."
Hikari stepped back, raising his hands. "Wait! I'm sorry, I don't want any trouble! If it's about the academy, it was an accident! I'm very clumsy!"
The man with the baseball bat laughed.
"Let's see how clumsy you are when you can't stand up."
He raised the bat and swung it in a horizontal arc, aiming directly at Hikari's head.
For the three spectators, time seemed to slow down until it became a nightmare. The movement was too fast, the distance too short. It was impossible to dodge.
And then, they heard the impact.
It was a dry, sickening crunch. A wet, terrible sound, like a watermelon smashing, amplified by the acoustics of the tunnel.
They saw Hikari's body fly back from the force of the blow. He crumpled like a ragdoll, with no resistance. There was no attempt to break his fall. He lay there, motionless, his head at an unnatural angle.
A heart-wrenching sob escaped Yui, full of guilt.
Kenjiro was in complete shock; his analytical brain had short-circuited.
For Haruna, the ice that contained her shattered. A choked scream, like she had never produced before, died in her throat. She had seen it. She had heard it. The quiet monster, the brilliant strategist, had been eliminated by the simple, brutal force of a piece of metal.
"Boss, your arm..." said one of the subordinates.
"Huh?" The leader looked down, seeing it hanging limp. "What—?!"
Before he could react, his right leg was struck with the force of a hydraulic press: the bone bent with a dry snap, and the leg was left twisted in practically the wrong direction.
And before the man with the bat could even process the pain, he received a powerful punch to the stomach. Then, Hikari swept the feet of the others, using his arms as if they were legs. Simply put, he fought like a wild animal.
After that, he stopped, looking at them coldly. His head moved as if it were "automatic," as if he had trained to the point of exhaustion. He picked up the bat with the same mechanical precision and continued.
Hikari moved among them, using the bat not as a simple bludgeon, but as a precision lever. To compensate for the weight difference, he didn't go for power strikes; he blocked, deflected, and redirected his opponents' energy, using the ends of the bat to hit vulnerable points: elbows, collarbones, and ribs.
One of the men, overcome by panic, pulled out a gun. Before he could even aim at the "helpless boy," Hikari's bat struck his wrist, causing the gun to go off. The bullet grazed Hikari's arm, causing a superficial wound, barely comparable to a knife cut.
The only thing left in the tunnel was silence. Where the sound of gunshots had rumbled moments before, Hikari now felt a kind of "static" in his ears, while his gaze, hidden behind his hair, scanned the scene. He was breathing heavily, but not from fatigue. He knew his friends were watching him; what he didn't know was how they would react.
Before thinking about them, he realized what he had just done and that he had to get out of there fast. It was, in essence, a crime scene, and if he stayed, only consequences awaited him.
He wiped the gun with his clothes and then tossed it into a nearby sewer grate in the tunnel, as if he knew exactly what to do.
"Let's go! Now! Far away from here!"
His order broke the spell that held them paralyzed. Kenjiro stumbled backward, Yui let out a choked sob, and Haruna, her face pale as marble, was the first to move, grabbing her two friends by the arms.
"Do what he says!" she hissed.
Hikari didn't wait. He took an escape route down a dark alley, and they followed him, not as friends, but as witnesses fleeing a crime scene... from a... criminal? No, he had taken down bad people.
When they arrived and entered the garden, the contrast was almost violent.
How could so much peace exist in the world of a monster? Haruna thought again.
Hikari guided them to the main room and lit a single paper lamp.
He simply knelt to prepare tea, as if he hadn't just neutralized people nearly two meters tall.
Haruna couldn't take it anymore.
"Don't you dare...! Don't you dare pretend this is normal... that we just came back from the library."
Hikari stopped his movements, but didn't look at her.
"What you guys saw..."
"I saw you get killed!" Haruna interrupted him. "We heard your skull crack! Kenjiro, tell him!"
Kenjiro, sitting rigidly, nodded.
"The sound... the force of the impact... Physics doesn't allow you to survive that. It's not possible. The data is conclusive. You should be dead."
"And the way you moved after..." Yui whispered, wrapping her arms around herself as if she were cold. "You weren't defending yourself. You were... dismantling them."
Finally, Hikari looked up.
"You're right," he said quietly. "You should have seen me die. But what you saw, what you heard... was an illusion. A trick."
He stood up, took out his phone, and fiddled with it for a moment. Then, he simply held it up.
"The sound," he said. "Listen."
He pressed a button on the screen. A sharp, sickening crack filled the room, identical to the one they had heard in the tunnel. It was so visceral that Yui flinched, and Kenjiro went pale.
"A sound effects app," Hikari explained. "A high-frequency sonic device connected to a small speaker on my belt. It can project focused sound with incredible clarity. I triggered it at the exact moment."
They stared at him, caught in a mix of relief and even greater disbelief.
"But the hit..." Haruna said, shaking her head. "We saw you fall. We saw the force behind it. No sound trick explains that."
"No, it doesn't," Hikari agreed. "This does."
His hand lashed out like a coiled spring, his fingers tapping Kenjiro's shoulder lightly. Kenjiro let out a groan, and his right arm dropped dead to his side, completely limp.
"Kenjiro!" Yui screamed.
"He's fine," Hikari said, ignoring the panic. "It's a pressure point. It doesn't hurt. It interrupts the flow of nerve signals to the arm for a few seconds. No permanent damage."
He turned to Haruna.
"In the instant before the bat hit me, I pressed a similar spot on that man's forearm. His muscles seized up. The blow I took probably wouldn't have even broken a pencil. The fall... was an act. A way to lower their guard. Once they believed I was a neutralized threat, they became easy targets."
He performed a quick movement on Kenjiro's neck, and the boy instantly regained control of his arm, flexing it in amazement.
The explanation was logical. Terrifyingly logical. It explained how he had survived, but it opened the door to an even more unsettling truth.
"Pressure points? A sonic device? Who taught you that? Your 'historian' parents?" Haruna asked.
"My parents traveled a lot," Hikari replied. "They collected more than just history. They collected knowledge. Some of it... unconventional. They taught me how to defend myself. To understand the human body as a system. To use technology to gain an edge."
He sat back down and, finally, began to brew the tea.
"I'm not a monster," he said. "I'm a survivor. And I used everything I knew tonight to remain one. The men who attacked us weren't schoolyard bullies... they were professionals. And now they know we survived. They know they failed."
He poured a cup of tea and slid it toward Haruna.
"The question isn't who I am anymore. The question is what we are going to do now that the game has changed. Because this isn't about exposing corruption anymore. It's about surviving the people who protect it. And for that, you're going to need to know more than just how to dig up ancient laws."
"W-what do you mean? A-are we in this with you?" Kenjiro said, nervous.
"Yes... now all four of us are in this. Tomorrow we will run a campaign for the Student Council and go to the Dojo."
"D-dojo?" asked Kenjiro, surprised.
And with that, poor Kenjiro finally let himself collapse onto the tatami.