As Atama began guiding the team through intense training drills—adjusting their stances, correcting energy control, and giving his usual cryptic wisdom between bites of fruit—the ground-level doors of the training facility suddenly burst open with a loud BANG.
A group of six fighters strolled in with theatrical flair—matching coats, gleaming weapons, and expressions oozing superiority. One stepped forward, clearly the self-appointed leader, and raised his voice.
"We are The Gatekeepers! The elite wall between mediocrity and greatness. Our mission: to purge weaklings from the tournament before they embarrass themselves!"
He smirked, waiting for a dramatic pause.
Crickets.
Nobody stopped. Nobody turned. Seko continued perfecting his chain technique with the composite sword. Izanami practiced her flame-precision against a kinetic dummy. Kiyomi was deep into gravitational conditioning, her aura flaring calmly. Even Violet barely spared a glance—too busy fantasizing about how cool he'd look if Izanami watched him fight.
The Gatekeepers blinked.
Only Akemi responded.
"Hey~," she purred, striding toward them with a mischievous spark in her eyes. "If you're here to act tough, at least be cute while doing it~." She winked, brushing a hand across one of their shoulders. "What's your skincare routine, drama-boy?"
One of them blushed. The leader cleared his throat uncomfortably.
Atama, without turning his head, muttered, "Ignore the filler characters, team. They're just here to test your patience, not your strength."
The Gatekeepers looked at each other, stunned at the complete dismissal. Their grand entrance… wasted.
One of the Gatekeepers hadn't spoken a word since they entered.
While the others postured and flexed, he stayed at the back—hands in his pockets, leaning against the wall with eyes half-lidded in disinterest. He didn't wear the same flashy grin or smug arrogance as his teammates. If anything, he looked bored... or maybe tired of the performance.
As the leader continued barking challenges, he turned to him. "Oi, Crow, don't just stand there. Show these brats what a real Gatekeeper looks like."
Crow exhaled sharply through his nose. "I was planning to leave. This place reeks of overcompensation," he said, flicking a bored glance around the room.
Then, just for a moment, his gaze locked onto Atama.
Something shifted in his expression.
Crow's body stiffened almost imperceptibly. He recognized it. The weight behind that calm, seated man—the sheer density of power. It was like staring into a sun wrapped in silence. His instincts screamed not to engage. That wasn't someone you challenged. That was someone you bowed to, or you died.
He looked away.
"No thanks," he muttered.
"Don't be a coward," the Gatekeeper leader snapped. "Pick one! That vampire kid! The one with the weird sword—he's B-Class! Perfect warm-up."
Crow sighed again, slower this time. "Fine."
He stepped forward without fanfare, walking casually into the training zone. His presence felt colder than before, deliberate. As he walked, his feet made no sound against the floor.
Seko stopped mid-motion, composite sword still humming faintly at his side.
Crow stopped a few meters in front of him.
"…Seko Ikara, right?" His voice was flat, almost indifferent. "I'll be your test today."
Seko narrowed his eyes.
"Just make it quick," he muttered, tightening his grip.
The room's tone shifted. Even Violet, mid-simp mode, paused. Izanami watched closely, arms crossed, while Kiyomi began to subtly adjust gravity in case things escalated. Akemi leaned over to Atama, whispering, "That one's different, huh?"
Atama didn't respond. His eyes were locked on Crow.
Crow's hand moved slowly behind his back, fingers curling around something heavy. With a sharp pull, he revealed a massive chakram—so large it resembled a shield more than a weapon. Its surface shimmered faintly, distorting the light around it like a ripple in reality itself. The sight was unsettling, otherworldly.
Akemi's breath caught as her eyes widened. "Wait… that's low-level space manipulation," she murmured.
But there was no time for further analysis. In a single, fluid motion, Crow flicked his wrist and hurled the chakram. It flew silently through the air—smooth, precise, terrifyingly fast.
SCHHNK!
Too fast.
Seko's head separated from his body in an instant, landing with a dull thud and rolling to a stop near Violet's foot. The rest of the group flinched—just slightly—but none of them panicked. Not one.
Kiyomi exhaled and rolled her eyes. "He's a vampire. He'll be fine."
And sure enough, his body began to twitch.
A moment later, it moved.
Headless, the figure staggered forward and grasped the fallen composite sword. The fragments of the weapon began to rise, trembling as if caught in a magnetic storm, reacting to the volatile energy now surging within him.
Then, with a sickening snap, Seko's head reattached. Muscle and tendon bound together with unnatural precision, and as his eyes snapped open, they blazed crimson.
He rose, fully upright, silent—but not still. There was pain in his expression. And beneath it, a simmering rage.
The composite sword shifted in his grasp, disassembling and reforming in a controlled frenzy. The shards floated and orbited around him, glinting with lethal purpose—no longer overwhelming him, but responding to him. He wasn't just enduring its power anymore.
He was commanding it.
Crow's brow lifted slightly, impressed. "Now that's interesting."
Seko moved. Not with calculated grace, but with raw, unfiltered emotion. His first strike wasn't physical—it was a crimson pulse, an explosive burst of energy that distorted the air and forced Crow to dodge immediately. Then came the true assault: the sword fragments lashed out like whips, reshaping mid-flight into blades, hooks, and spirals. Each fragment bent through the air with precision, warping space around them as they homed in on their target.
Crow's smirk faded.
"…I might've made a mistake," he muttered.
From the sidelines, Izanami whispered under her breath, eyes narrowing as she watched the spectacle unfold. "…That's not just the sword. That's him."
Atama, arms crossed, gave a single nod, his gaze sharp and gleaming. "He's finally synchronizing with it."
The entire room felt different now.
The Gatekeepers—cocky, dismissive just moments ago—stared with widened eyes. Their amusement had vanished, replaced with unease.
What stood before them was no longer a rookie.
It was something far more dangerous.
A monster in the making.
Crow's chakram didn't just return to him. It warped—space itself folded slightly in a crescent-shaped ripple, and the chakram slid back into his hand with a sharp whisper of air. Not a boomerang's arc. Not a magical pull. It was a distortion—low-level space manipulation used with surgical precision.
Seko didn't wait.
His body twisted grotesquely, unnaturally—bones creaking as his torso spun like a wet cloth wrung by invisible hands. With one sudden motion, he detached his own arm—ripping it free with no hesitation, blood flaring in the air like ink in water—and hurled it.
The dismembered arm smacked directly into the path of the returning chakram.
CRACK!
The chakram, startled mid-return by the unpredictable move, jolted sideways, veering off-course with a violent hum and embedding itself into the wall, shaving stone like butter.
Crow's fury erupted.
"Filthy vampire!" he snarled, voice ragged with battle-laced rage, the veins in his neck bulging, magic flaring with his shout.
But Seko…
He didn't scream. He didn't flinch.
His bloodshot eyes remained calm. Cold. Controlled—but underneath that silence, something cracked with every breath. A calm rage, seething like magma behind ice.
Seko grabbed the composite sword—but unlike before, he didn't let it fracture. No fragmented whips, no chaotic dance. Just the full form of the blade. Heavy. Real. Solid.
He ran forward, and Crow met him head-on.
Two energies—space-warped velocity versus vampiric fury—collided.
BOOM!
Their blades clashed with a resonance that shattered nearby glass, the floor beneath them cracking under the gravitational pulse of their clash. Sparks shot outward like electric rain.
And while the world trembled around them—while the fight hung on a knife's edge—
In the background…
"Your eyes light up when you analyze battle formations," Akemi murmured to Violet, fingers toying with the edge of her hair.
Violet blinked, confused for a second, then smirked. "You noticed? You've been watching me too much."
"Oh, I could say the same," Akemi replied, brushing invisible dust from Violet's shoulder. "I like the way you glow when you're not simping."
They giggled.
Meanwhile, Seko detached Crow's shoulder.