Immersion

As my bond with Hikaru reached fifty percent, I acquired a skill called Dagger Arts.

The description was sparse: the ability to handle a dagger with relative proficiency.

But its effect was enough that even I — someone who had never swung a weapon in my life — could instinctively gauge a dagger's center of gravity and the proper distance.

How to grip it so the wrist took less strain. At what angle to thrust so the force landed true. Where to plant my feet to deflect an opponent's attack and counter.

I can see it.

Everything was visible.

CLANG!

My dagger glanced Scar's fist aside at an angle. I slipped inside immediately and stabbed for a vital point.

SKRREE—!

The blade bounced off, a sharp ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠jolt running up my wrist. I clicked my tongue and fell back.

Even the joints are solid? Then how the hell does he even move?

That made three times already.

The side. The back of the knee. The neck.

I'd aimed for spots that would have been fatal on a human being, but the blade had ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠only scraped off a little stone dust.

His fists, on the other hand, were dangerous with a single graze.

BOOM!

I threw myself sideways as a massive fist smashed into the floor where I'd been standing a moment before.

The one silver lining was that, being made entirely of stone, he was definitely slower than me.

I couldn't win head-on. Having made that call, I turned my back on Scar.

"Stop him!"

At Scar's gravelly shout, the guards flinched.

They'd watched with their own eyes how I fought him. The sight of me holding my own against that enormous stone statue must have looked like a catastrophe to them.

Well, I am an Awakened, after all.

My body loosened up. I was starting to get a feel for how to put Ren's remembered movements to use.

I charged the guards closing the ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠encirclement. My dagger traced a short, glittering arc.

"Ghk—!"

Blood sprayed from a guard's throat, and his body crumpled bonelessly.

My first kill.

I'd expected something to change dramatically — but my heartbeat stayed the same.

Less of a deal than I thought.

It was something I was going to have to go through eventually anyway. I kept moving.

"Die!"

I deflected the wrist of a man swinging a staff from the side and drove the blade into his open flank.

Two.

I severed the wrist of someone thrusting a dagger at me, then took the weapon for myself. I tested the new blade on the man still clutching his stump on the floor.

Three.

Not bad.

Fighting that rock pile had completely ruined my edge. This works out.

I avoided a direct confrontation with Scar and wove through the guards instead.

Whenever he closed in, I opened the distance and used another guard as a shield to change direction.

"You little shit—!"

Scar swung a fist. But he was slow. Slower than before, even.

He's tiring.

I smiled behind the mask. Meanwhile, the number of guards dwindled one by one.

Twenty-four. Nineteen. Twelve.

The floor gradually soaked with blood, and the corpses piled up until they snagged at my feet.

The sensation of a blade grazing the edge of a throat had grown fairly familiar by now. What had caught and jerked at first now slid through smooth.

The guards no longer came near me. Naturally, my gaze shifted to the researchers, who had been watching with a recklessness that bordered on a complete absence of self-preservation.

Those bastards are the same trash as the rest of them anyway.

The moment I changed direction, the researchers' faces went rigid. They must have been absolutely certain that Scar and the guards would protect them.

"W-wait."

A middle-aged man who looked fairly high-ranking among the researchers stepped forward.

"We're not combat personnel."

"So?"

"We only did the research we were ordered to do! W-we didn't want this either."

"…"

"Did you have someone you knew among the test subjects? T-take them all! And if you deal with those guys for us, we'll never go near this kind of work again."

I quietly looked around.

Even after he openly offered to betray them, Scar and the other guards' expressions didn't change.

"Ha."

A snort of laughter escaped me on its own. This was a script.

A manual for when something broke in and the researchers' lives were threatened — a protocol to keep at least the researchers alive.

Which meant there was a larger organization behind this place. Not that a facility like this could have been operating independently in the first place.

"I have a wife and a daughter. Those bastards have been holding my family hostage and shaking me down—!"

"Nice acting. Almost had me."

I cut his throat. His head slid free and hit the floor as cleanly as if I'd beheaded him.

"You insane bastard!"

Scar came thundering toward me, dragging that massive body along. His reaction was completely different from when the guards had been dying moments earlier.

But the moment I slipped in among the researchers, his footsteps stopped. He couldn't approach easily for fear of hurting them.

Just as I thought.

To them, the guards were expendable. The researchers were not.

Specialized personnel who could analyze an Awakened's abilities, design experimental methods, and interpret accumulated data.

Not a position you could easily refill.

I looked at Scar and curled one corner of my mouth.

"Hey. Thanks. Now I know exactly what I need to do."

Scar's face went stiff as stone.

"Stop!"

I didn't answer. I swung my dagger at the researchers around me.

"Aaaagh!"

"S-save me!"

I cut, and cut, and cut again.

Unlike the guards, these people didn't even know how to fight. Turning their backs to run, or covering their heads and dropping to the floor, was the best they could manage.

Every time the dagger passed, another one fell. Thinking of it as taking out the trash even brought a strange little thrill.

"You son of a bitch… Do you have any idea how much it costs to train a single researcher?!"

Scar's roar shook the research wing. I couldn't have cared less, so I didn't even pretend to listen.

The moment I stepped toward the researchers scattering in every direction—

Click.

A strange sound came from under my feet.

What?

I looked down. A black ring was coiling around my ankle.

The ring climbed one leg like a living snake.

I immediately drove my dagger down.

CLANG!

The blade bounced off.

"Trying to cut a shadow with a knife?"

An unfamiliar voice reached me.

Two people were walking slowly down the corridor on the far side of the research wing.

One was a gaunt man. Half his face was covered by dark glasses, and one hand was pointed at the floor.

The ring writhed in time with his moving fingers. Looking closer, I saw the lower part of the ring was connected to my own shadow.

Annoying ability.

Beside the man stood a heavyset woman.

"Oh dear. We're going to get chewed out so hard. Half of them are already dead?"

She raised a hand, and a translucent film unfurled in the air. It wrapped around the researchers huddled in the corner, forming a rounded wall.

What's that?

I kicked a chunk of concrete lying on the floor.

Ting!

The piece struck the transparent wall and dropped limply to the ground.

Restraint and defense.

Of all the abilities that could show up right now, these were the most irritating ones possible.

The researchers exhaled in relief and crowded inside the barrier.

Scar, too, relaxed the rigid set of his face the moment he spotted the two of them.

"What took you so long!"

The man in the dark glasses tilted his head as if put out.

"We did come as soon as the alarm went off, for what it's worth."

"Spare me the excuses. Grab that ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠bastard first."

"I already have."

At those words, the shadow coiled around my ankle cinched tight. My balance broke, and one knee hit the floor.

Scar kicked off the ground as if he'd been waiting for it.

BOOM!

The giant stone statue closed the distance in an instant. Then the shadow locking my ankle vanished.

I planted a palm on the floor and twisted my body. Scar's fist skimmed over my head and pulverized empty floor.

"Aaah, duration's up."

"Are you screwing around?"

"Then finish him faster."

The man shrugged with complete nonchalance.

Scar's face twisted viciously, but there was no time to argue. He swung that massive fist again.

I bit my lip and threw myself backward.

WHOOSH!

The delayed punch skimmed past my nose. The wind pressure alone made the crow mask rattle.

Where I'd retreated, a translucent wall was waiting. My back slammed into the solid membrane.

Part of the barrier shielding the researchers had stretched out long, cutting off my escape.

Click.

That familiar sound came from under my feet again.

He can already use it again?

This time there was no room to dodge. Black rings coiled around both ankles.

The duration was short. But the time needed to reuse it didn't seem very long either.

"Let's not lose him this time."

The man in the dark glasses spoke. Scar raised a fist in answer.

A massive shadow fell over my head. In my current state, I couldn't see a way to dodge.

I dropped the dagger and crossed both arms.

BOOM!

A violent impact shook my entire body.

Scar's eyebrows jumped.

"What. You tanked that?"

My whole arms were numb and my shoulders throbbed, but I could still take a few more. The body I'd brought from reality was far stronger than an ordinary human's.

But the problem wasn't whether I could endure it.

They were dividing roles and expending the bare minimum of effort, while I was absorbing all the damage alone.

Scar dusted off his fist and laughed.

"So you really weren't an ordinary Awakened."

"Thanks for the compliment."

"If we capture you, we might recover some of what we lost by missing that S-rank."

"Who said I was going to come quietly?"

I answered calmly, but my mind was racing.

A short-duration shadow restraint. A barrier that could freely stretch its shape. And Scar — slow, but lethal with a single hit.

They were covering each other's weaknesses. But the important thing was that each of their abilities clearly had a weakness of its own.

System.

The moment I checked the numbers, I understood why my body wasn't keeping up the way I'd expected.

The synchronization rate is lower than I thought.

Probably because Misaki wasn't here. She was the one who stimulated Ren's emotions.

Right now I was nothing more than someone pulling Ren's memories out one by one and imitating them. Even with the Dagger Arts skill backing me up, that didn't mean I was actually good at combat.

"For a guy on his last legs, you've got plenty of confidence."

Scar strode toward me.

The man in the dark glasses twitched his fingers and smiled.

"Looking for a way to escape, perhaps?"

"No need."

The heavyset woman inside the barrier covered her mouth.

"You can't get out of here anyway."

They already seemed to think the fight was over. It wasn't a wrong assessment.

Not by the standards of who I'd been up to now.

"Yeah, well. In this state, it'd be rough."

All three pairs of eyes fixed on me.

I'd been trying not to use Ren's ego and way of thinking as much as possible because of how dangerous they were. But surviving came first.

Scar asked with a sneer.

"Giving up?"

"No."

I quietly closed my eyes.

"From now on, things are going to be a little different."

The choice was already made.