Torch
He hit the floor like a sack of laundry.
The one who'd come charging at her took Selene's fist flush in the face and crumpled where he stood, too broken to even scream — nothing left but a long, wet groan.
"That's most of them done..."
She flicked the blood off her hand like it was nothing, dusting her fingers clean with a careless little shake, then rose slowly from where she'd landed and swept her gaze across the room. Bodies everywhere. Even a glance was enough to tell you a hell of a lot of Black Society grunts were sprawled out across the floor.
"It's finally getting quiet in here."
She rolled her shoulders once, loosening up like she'd just finished a light stretch. Right. Now all that's left is finding this so-called Torch...
She lifted her head and looked up at the building proper — an ostentatious, sprawling mansion. Needlessly... fucking enormous.
"Are we really supposed to search this whole place?"
Without knowing where this Torch actually was, combing the grounds corner to corner would take hours, easy.
"No, there's no need for that..."
Selene's voice drifted over from beside me.
"Hm?"
"Hmm..."
She studied the mansion for a moment, then pointed to a far corner with her chin.
"There's a storage vault in that basement. The last one holding out told me about it."
"Told you?"
"To be precise... right before I put him through the wall."
"......"
Honestly, I wasn't even surprised anymore. Well — at least it saved us time.
"Then let's move."
I was just stepping past Selene — still painted head to toe in blood, idly flicking it off herself — when it happened.
Creeeak...
Somewhere deep inside the building, a door swung slowly open. A quiet sound, and yet one with an oddly sharp edge to it.
I turned on reflex, and Selene shifted her weight slightly, locking her gaze on the same spot. A figure emerged from behind that door, walking out with unhurried steps. A silhouette in a black shirt layered with a jacket. One look told me he outranked the groaning bodies littering the floor — an executive, most likely.
He surveyed the downed grunts, then slowly began peeling the glove from his hand as he spoke.
"Should've prepared a little better if I'd known we'd be getting raided tonight."
He snapped the glove against his palm and turned his head toward us, slow and deliberate. His eyes narrowed to razor slits, and an unpleasant curl crept into the corner of his mouth.
"You're after the Torch, aren't you? Where the hell did the information leak from..."
Selene spoke up while the man grumbled in irritation.
"That Torch... if you just hand it over... we'll leave quietly."
"......"
Wow. She really does look pathetic sometimes.
I swallowed a sigh and shot her a sidelong glance. Not a trace of tension in her — same blank face as always, those listless eyes mixed with pure annoyance. The man snorted back at her, like the whole exchange was beneath him.
"Hey, little lady."
The man grinned, dropping his voice low and ugly.
"You think I haven't dealt with girls like you before? A crew whose dumbass captain ran off and whose execs they scraped up off the street like stray dogs — where do you get off acting high and mighty, huh?"
"....."
A quiet stillness settled over the space. He smirked, laughing like it was all a joke, and a handful of grunts who'd trailed in behind him laughed along.
"That... I really can't just let slide."
Selene tilted her head the tiniest bit to one side, not so much as twitching an eyebrow.
"Closer."
"Yeah?"
"Please go on ahead and secure the Torch..."
She loosened her hand with a casual flick.
Crack. Crack—
Joints settled into place, and an eerily sharp sound ran down along her fingertips.
"From here on... I'll play by myself."
With those words, Selene swept her hair back over her shoulder. Her signature combat stance.
I let out a short breath and turned toward the direction she'd pointed — the corner of the building, toward the basement where the Torch was supposed to be. Partway there, I tilted my head back for one last look at her.
Her eyes had changed. The lazy, fogged-over expression she wore like a second skin was gone, replaced by a cold, honed killing intent that was slowly tightening around the air itself.
The face I'd always seen in the game. That face was standing there in the flesh, right in front of me.
...Yeah, she's not the type to die easily.
Grave — executive of the Black Society.
He stared at the woman before him. Blue hair, limp, vacant eyes. The sheer gall of this dopey-faced thing prattling on about negotiations.
"...Ha."
A short laugh escaped him. Glancing around, he found a good number of his own people already rolling pitifully across the ground — one writhing with an arm bent the wrong way, another embedded in the wall. It hadn't even earned the name of a fight. One-sided didn't begin to cover it.
But Grave paid it no mind, curling his lips into a leisurely smile.
Four years in the Black Society. In that time he'd gone up against ability-users of every stripe, and the vast majority had collapsed powerlessly in front of him.
His ability: Sealing. Whatever power the enemy wielded, the moment they stepped inside his range, it simply stopped working. He'd assumed tonight would be no different. And if the woman in front of him was a physical-enhancement type? Even better. Watching someone try to crush him with raw strength, only to strip themselves of their own power the moment they got close — that would be a genuinely entertaining show.
Grave drew a slow breath.
"Cocky little bitch, riding on one cheap ability."
Purple energy rippled outward from Grave's body, spreading slow and certain through the air, creeping across the space, devouring it inch by inch. The woman before him stepped into his domain.
Now it's over.
She was a civilian now. Whatever she tried from here, she wouldn't even be able to resist—
The thought had barely formed.
Crack.
Something slammed into him. In the exact instant he was drawing breath — in that sliver of an opening — Selene's knee drove into his jaw. Faster than his eyes could follow. His joints buckled, and his whole body snapped backward.
SLAM.
The next second, his back hit the wall hard enough to shake dust from the rafters. Air burst raggedly from his nose and mouth, and when his vision finally steadied, her eyes were locked on his. Not nullified in the slightest — quite the opposite. Those eyes were brimming with pure killing intent.
"...What?"
The words tore out of him.
"Your ability... it should be sealed...?"
Grave's lips twitched as he felt for the energy around him. The purple mist was still hanging in the air. His power was running, normal, fully active. Then why—
Selene walked toward him slowly as he floundered.
"That sort of thing... doesn't work on me."
Then she lifted her leg. Grave threw his arms up on pure instinct, dropping into a guard—
But in the next instant—
CRACK—!
The sound of bone snapping. A single kick came out of nowhere, no wind-up, no warning, and sent him rolling across the floor.
"Ghuh—!!"
Selene strolled toward the grinding his teeth, unhurried.
"Fucking... what the hell are you—"
"Why doesn't my ability work on you? Well..."
She tilted her head ever so slightly, her eyes utterly unmoving as she answered.
"I was born this way."
Born... this way?
Grave's pupils wavered. Gritting through the pain, hauling himself half upright, he suddenly froze — like something had just surfaced from the bottom of his memory. A scene buried for years came oozing back up.
Years ago. Before he'd joined the Black Society, back when he was a mercenary drifting from battlefield to battlefield. Back alleys, deal sites, the underground-city bars where mercenaries swarmed like flies — he'd heard it at least once in every one of those places.
A living weapon. A girl who tears people apart. Even the outfits that hunted ability-users for a living supposedly had internal directives to leave her alone if at all possible.
Grave involuntarily recalled a photograph he'd seen back then. The girl in it hadn't had blue hair, and her eyes hadn't been that dull, empty thing he was staring at now. Different hair, different face entirely — that was why he'd failed to recognize her.
"The butcher... the one who kills people..."
At those words, Selene let out a small snort of a laugh.
"To think someone still remembers that name."
"Y-you— fucking hell! Why are you HERE?! You disappeared! I heard you vanished back then—!"
"A lot of things happened."
Selene shrugged.
"So let's try not to dig up old stories..."
She lowered her stance until her eyes were level with Grave's.
"Now then... what was it you said? Something about a crew whose dumbass captain ran off, and execs they scraped up like stray dogs?"
"N-no, that was—!"
Grave reached out a hand, his words trailing off into nothing. He tried to protest, to backtrack, but nothing coherent would come out.
"Doesn't matter."
She raised her arm, slow and steady.
"Brace yourself. I'm about to hit you exactly once, full power, right in the face."
"Wait—!!"
The sentence didn't get to run long.
KWAAAAAANG!
The explosion of sound split the air. Embedded in the wall, Grave slumped forward and stopped moving.
Selene turned her head slightly and patted the red liquid off her hands.
"Ah. Maybe I should've gone a bit lighter after all? This is going to be a pain to clean up..."
She mulled it over for a moment, then gave a small nod, arriving at her conclusion.
"Eh, whatever. It's fine. Not like I'm a hero — we're all villains here."
Muttering that to herself, she turned her head toward the remaining grunts scattered around the grounds.
The basement was damp and dark. The ground underfoot squelched, and the air hung thick with a smell like mold — and on top of that, the stale reek of old oil.
"Could you people maintain things once in a while, seriously..."
I grumbled under my breath as I made my way down along the wall. How long had I been walking?
At the end of the corridor — a dead end — sat a single heavy steel container, the Hero Association mark on it faded to a ghost of itself. One look told me this was it. No need to search any further.
I crouched down to check the lock. Not biometric — thank god, it was an old model that also accepted a standard Association security key. I pulled out the keycard I'd been issued before the operation and pressed it to the locking mechanism.
Beep.
Authentication confirmed. The machine tone chirped once and the lock released. The steel plate lifted slowly, and the container swung open.
One look inside, and exactly one thought crossed my mind.
"This is... the Torch?"
This? This is really... the Torch?
"......"
I stood there for a long while, just staring at it.
I'm supposed to... take this back?
I gazed at it blankly for a beat, then fished out my communicator.
"Ah, yes, Closer — what's up? Did Selene cause trouble? Want me to send a cleanup crew your way? Or the body-disposal team?"
What kind of options are those...
"No, it's not that..."
"Then what is it?"
"I've... found the Torch. Found it, yes, but..."
"Is there a problem?"
"Well, it's..."
A silence stretched between us, and finally I spoke, quiet and flat.
"...This thing is a person."