Arata walked out of the warehouse, each step sending fresh spikes of pain through his shredded forearms. He paused at the entrance and looked back at the building that had nearly become his tomb. Pieces of cloth torn from his shirt were wrapped around both arms in crude bandages, already staining red where blood seeped through. The makeshift tourniquet would have to hold until he reached proper medical care.

  Candidates possessed accelerated healing as one of the benefits of accumulated votes, though the speed of recovery varied wildly between individuals. Some could close wounds in hours. Others took days. It depended less on raw vote count and more on personal affinity—whether their Aspect or Attributes leaned toward restoration, endurance, or physical resilience. Arata had no idea where he fell on that spectrum. He'd never been injured badly enough to find out.

  From here, it looks like a plain and boring warehouse.

  The thought struck him as darkly funny. To any passing civilian, this was just another industrial building in a district full of them. Rusted metal walls. Cracked concrete foundation. Nothing to distinguish it from a thousand other forgotten structures scattered across Tokyo's outskirts.

  They had no idea what had happened inside.

  Firefighters were finishing their work near the construction site where Arata had rigged the generator to explode. Yellow tape cordoned off the area. A few officials milled around, taking photographs and making notes on clipboards. The smoke had mostly cleared, leaving only the acrid smell of burned plastic and scorched metal hanging in the air.

  Arata pulled out his phone with his less-damaged hand. The screen lit up, showing a single notification.

  [1 New Message]

  His thumb hovered over it, then pulled back. He looked at the warehouse again, eyes lingering on the entrance where bodies were probably still cooling on concrete stained with Takeda's blood.

  His expression was hesitant in a way that didn't suit him—uncertain, almost vulnerable. Then it hardened. He pocketed the phone without reading the message and started walking toward the street.

  There would be time to deal with messages later. Right now, he needed medical attention before blood loss made the decision for him.

  ***

  "He got attacked by a gang," a nurse said to the doctor, her voice carrying the particular tone of someone gossiping about something tragic but ultimately not their problem. "Another one of those delinquents getting what they deserve."

  "Youngsters these days..." The doctor shook his head without looking up from his clipboard. "They always put themselves in trouble. Then they come crying to us to fix them up so they can go right back to whatever stupid thing landed them here in the first place."

  Arata was used to these judgments by now. Adults were always like that—assuming things without bothering to verify whether their assumptions bore any resemblance to reality. They saw a seventeen-year-old with shredded arms and immediately constructed a narrative: gang fight, probably over drugs or territory or some other stupid teenage reason. Never mind asking what actually happened. The story was easier if it fit their preconceptions.

  He wondered if he would also become like them once he reached late adulthood. If the cynicism and lazy thinking were inevitable, a consequence of seeing too many people make too many stupid decisions. Or if it was a choice they'd made somewhere along the way, trading curiosity and empathy for the comfort of simple explanations.

  Arata looked down at his arms while waiting for the triage nurse to finish her assessment. The crude bandages had soaked through completely, red blooming across white fabric like ink spreading through paper. Beneath the cloth, his flesh was carved open—twin furrows where the Reaper's spinning scythe had tried to separate meat from bone. The pain had dulled to a constant throb, his body's pain receptors overloaded and starting to shut down to preserve his sanity.

  He wondered what his blood had fed.

  The Harvesting Game's final round had been triggered. The progress bar climbing as spectators died. HARVEST FOR ??????????????????????????????????????????????? —whatever that entity was, whatever eldritch thing lurked behind those incomprehensible symbols, it had tasted his blood too.

  The thought disturbed him.

  He'd known there was a high chance of walking into a trap when he entered that warehouse. That's why he'd taken precautions. Arata didn't believe in fair fights or honorable combat. He believed in preparation and contingency planning and stacking the odds until victory became statistically certain.

  But he wouldn't have gone to that warehouse for no reason either. He'd known he wouldn't find Mika there—the probability was too low, the Harbor Group was too smart to keep high-value prisoners in active operational sites. But in cases like this, any hint was welcome. Any lead worth following, even if it only eliminated possibilities rather than confirming locations.

  And now he knew more than he had before. The Harbor Group's connection to the Harvesting Game, the White Witch's involvement and Narahara Issei's existence as the puppet master behind the game.

  He had made good progress, even if it had cost Takeda's life to achieve it.

  Arata couldn't afford any more mistakes like that. He wasn't fighting a small group of local thugs or a neighborhood mafia anymore. The stakes had escalated beyond anything he'd anticipated when he first started investigating Mika's disappearance.

  The Harbor Group wasn't something to joke about.

  They were one of the three major criminal organizations operating in Tokyo—smaller than the Yamaguchi-gumi or the Sumiyoshi-kai in raw numbers, but far more dangerous in terms of capabilities. While the traditional yakuza families dealt in protection rackets, gambling, and construction contracts, the Harbor Group had carved out a niche in the more exotic markets: Candidate trafficking, Aspect-related contraband, vote manipulation schemes, and apparently, eldritch sacrificial rituals.

  They were run by a man known only as "the Boss"—a well-known name attached to an unknown face. No photographs existed. No reliable descriptions. People who claimed to have met him in person gave wildly contradictory accounts: tall and short, old and young, Japanese and foreign.

  The authorities knew about the Harbor Group's existence, obviously. But proving anything was nearly impossible when witnesses vanished before trials and evidence burned in convenient warehouse fires. The organization had survived three major police crackdowns in the last decade, emerging each time with its leadership intact and its operations barely disrupted.

  And now Arata had confirmed their connection to the White Witch and the Harvesting Game, which meant the rabbit hole went deeper than organized crime.

  For now, all he could do was heal his arms and get back in the field to finally uncover the mystery behind Mika's kidnapping. But before that, he had another responsibility to face. One that made his stomach clench with something uglier than fear.

  He had to visit Takeda's mother and tell her that her son was dead.

  He had to face the consequences of his actions, to witness firsthand the pain he'd caused to an innocent life. The woman who'd raised Takeda alone, who'd worked double shifts to keep him fed, who'd smiled and told him she was proud even when the world rejected him—she deserved to know what happened to her son.

  Even if the truth would destroy her.

  ***

  The waiting room of Kita General Hospital was exactly what Arata expected from a mid-tier public medical facility. Fluorescent lights hummed overhead with the particular frequency that made you aware of your own skull. Plastic chairs bolted to the floor in rows, half of them occupied by people in various states of injury or illness. A vending machine in the corner sold coffee that tasted like burnt cardboard and water at three times the convenience store price.

  Medical machines beeped from examination rooms down the hall—heart monitors, blood pressure cuffs, the rhythmic hiss of respirators keeping failing bodies functional. Conversations overlapped in a low murmur: nurses discussing shift changes, patients complaining about wait times, family members trying to stay calm while receiving bad news.

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  The smell was universal to all hospitals—disinfectant trying and failing to cover the underlying scents of blood, urine, fear, and the particular chemical sweetness of bodies breaking down.

  Arata had just finished giving his fabricated story to the intake nurse when a young woman entered through the staff door. She was in her mid-twenties, maybe early twenties, with sharp eyes behind wire-frame glasses and dark hair pulled back in a professional bun. Her white coat was immaculate despite the chaos of the emergency department, name tag reading Dr. Kurosawa.

  A nurse intercepted her, handing over a manila folder.

  "Dr. Kurosawa, here are the patient files for Aoyama in room seven."

  She's a doctor?

  Arata blinked, recalculating his assumptions. She looked barely older than him—young enough that calling her "doctor" felt wrong, like a title that shouldn't fit yet. But the nurse's deference was genuine, and Dr. Kurosawa carried herself with the particular confidence of someone who'd earned their authority through competence rather than age.

  The nurse left them alone in the examination room. Dr. Kurosawa opened the folder, scanning the intake notes with quick, efficient eye movements. Then she looked up at Arata, her expression shifting from professional detachment to something more engaged.

  "Alright, let's see what we're dealing with here." She moved to his side and began unwrapping the makeshift bandages with practiced hands. The cloth had stuck to dried blood, requiring careful work to peel away without reopening the wounds. "You're lucky the cuts are relatively clean. Jagged wounds are much harder to close properly."

  "Oh boy, that is a bad cut." Her voice remained steady despite the damage revealed beneath the bandages. Both forearms were carved open in parallel furrows, muscle visible through split flesh. "What did this, a machete? Some kind of industrial blade?"

  Arata stared at her for a moment, then couldn't resist the question that had been nagging him since she walked in.

  "Sorry, but may I ask how old you are? You seem too young to be a doctor."

  Dr. Kurosawa blushed, her professional composure cracking slightly. The reaction was oddly endearing—like catching a glimpse of the person beneath the white coat.

  "Well, um, thank you for the compliment, but you can't ask a lady her age!" She recovered quickly, redirecting to medical matters with the ease of someone who'd deflected personal questions many times before. "Anyway, do you have any other injuries? You should remove your shirt so I can examine your back and torso. Sometimes patients don't notice wounds due to adrenaline and shock. The body's pain response can be delayed for hours, and by then, infections have already taken root in tissue that looked fine initially."

  "No, don't worry. I'm fine." Arata kept his tone casual, but firm. He couldn't afford to let her see the number tattooed across his chest. The moment she identified him as a Candidate, everything would change. Questions would be asked, reports would be filed and eventually, the Harbor Group would learn that one of their targets had survived and was seeking medical treatment at a specific hospital.

  Her expression shifted, disappointment flickering across her features before settling into professional resignation. She nodded once, not pressing the issue, and continued working in silence.

  The rest of the examination passed without conversation. Dr. Kurosawa cleaned the wounds with antiseptic that burned like liquid fire, inspected them for foreign objects or signs of infection, then began the meticulous process of closing them with surgical precision. Needle and thread moving through flesh with the steady rhythm of someone who'd done this hundreds of times.

  When she finished, she stepped back and removed her gloves with a snap.

  "I'm going to have a nurse finish wrapping these and give you aftercare instructions. Keep the wounds clean and dry. Change the dressings twice daily. If you see any signs of infection—redness, swelling, pus, fever—come back immediately." Her tone was clipped, professional, all warmth drained from it. She walked out without another word, leaving Arata alone in the examination room.

  He wondered why she'd become upset so suddenly. His refusal to remove his shirt? Or something else he'd said without realizing?

  Women were complicated. He'd never been good at reading their moods.

  ***

  Arata thanked the nurse who finished bandaging his arms and left the hospital through the main entrance. Rain had started while he was inside—not the heavy downpour that Tokyo got during monsoon season, but a steady drizzle that made everything look grey and depressing.

  He pulled out his phone and made a call, holding it close to his ear with his right hand while running his left through his wet hair. The rain was cold enough to make him shiver.

  "Everything ready?" he asked when the line connected.

  A voice responded—muffled by distance and static, but confirming what he needed to know.

  "Good. I'll be there in twenty minutes."

  He ended the call and pocketed the phone, then looked across the parking lot at a motorcycle waiting near the far edge.

  The rain intensified as he walked toward it, soaking through his shirt and making his bandages cling uncomfortably to his arms.

  ***

  Arata's apartment hadn't changed during his short absence, which made sense given he'd only been gone for a day and a half. The cheap furniture remained cheap. The broken TV remained broken. The thin walls still transmitted every sound from neighboring units—someone's baby crying, someone else's argument about money, the endless white noise of other people's lives compressed into too-small spaces.

  He looked around the single room that contained everything he owned, struck by how little there was. A bed, desk, laptop and a few changes of clothes.

  The laptop sat dead on the desk where he'd left it, battery drained. He'd forgotten to plug it in before leaving.

  Arata sat on the bed and stared at the ceiling, a habit he'd developed years ago when he needed to think through complicated problems. There was something about horizontal perspective that helped his brain organize information—removing the visual clutter of walls and furniture, leaving only blank space to project mental models onto.

  The newspaper sat on his desk, still folded to the article about the Harvesting Game's fourth edition. He'd read it three times already, memorizing every detail.

  Warehouse Massacre Leaves Dozens Dead

  Police Investigating Suspected Gang Violence

  Authorities Urge Public to Avoid Industrial District

  The official story was predictable: gang warfare, probably drug-related, nothing for law-abiding citizens to worry about. The article made no mention of the Harvesting Game, the supernatural elements, or anything that might cause public panic. Just vague statements about "ongoing investigations" and "persons of interest."

  What interested Arata more was the subtext. The police were actually investigating this time, not just writing it off as another Harbor Group incident to be quietly buried. They'd set up a perimeter around the warehouse. They were collecting evidence. They were interviewing witnesses.

  I thought they avoided that place at all costs.

  The Harbor Group had arrangements with local law enforcement—protection money, blackmail, mutually beneficial corruption. Normally the police would show up, take a few photographs, file a report that went nowhere, and pretend they'd done their jobs. The fact that they were actually working the scene suggested something had changed.

  Maybe the body count was too high to ignore. Maybe someone important had died. Or maybe the higher-ups had decided the Harbor Group was becoming too much of a liability and needed to be brought to heel.

  Regardless, it meant Arata's window of opportunity was closing. People would soon notice Mika's disappearance—her best friend, her teachers, maybe even her parents if they bothered checking in on their daughter. Missing person reports would be filed. Questions would be asked. And if Arata didn't find her before the official investigation started pulling threads, everything would become exponentially more complicated.

  He needed to act fast.

  But first, he needed rest. His body was operating on fumes—no sleep for nearly forty hours, significant blood loss, injuries that would take days to heal even with Candidate physiology. His brain was starting to misfire, thoughts coming slower, connections taking longer to form.

  He would sleep for a few hours, let his body begin repairs, then resume the search for Mika as soon as he woke up. That was the plan. Logical and efficient, the smart thing to do.

  His eyes were closing slowly, consciousness fading toward the darkness of exhausted sleep—

  KNOCK KNOCK KNOCK

  The sound cut through his drowsiness like a knife. Arata groaned, forcing himself upright, and stumbled to the door. He opened it without bothering to check the peephole, too tired to care who it was.

  A small figure pushed past him before he could react, moving with the aggressive energy of someone on a mission.

  "WHERE IS SHE?" The girl was already scanning his apartment, opening closets and looking under furniture with manic intensity. "I'M SURE SHE'S HERE WITH YOU!"

  Arata blinked, his sleep-deprived brain taking several seconds to identify the intruder. Sakura Himeno—Mika's best friend and the most aggressively cheerful person Arata had ever met. She was still wearing her school uniform despite it being well past the end of classes, which meant she'd come here directly after noticing both he and Mika were absent.

  Her pink hair was styled in twin pigtails that made her look even younger than her seventeen years. Combined with her small stature—barely five feet tall—and her high-pitched voice, she could easily pass for a middle schooler. She'd probably been using that to her advantage for years.

  Sakura finally turned to look at Arata properly, and her face flushed bright red.

  "WHY ARE YOU SHIRTLESS?!" She pointed an accusing finger at his bare chest, where the large bandage covering his torso was clearly visible. "WHAT DID YOU DO TO MY MIKA?!"

  She pushed past him again without waiting for an answer, continuing her search with even more frantic energy. She didn't seem to notice—or didn't care—that Arata was injured, her entire focus consumed by finding evidence of her missing friend.

  At this point, Arata was too exhausted to stop her. He just stood there, swaying slightly, watching this pink-haired hurricane tear through his apartment.

  "Himeno..."

  "She isn't here." Sakura cut him off coldly, her voice dropping from manic to flat in an instant. She'd checked everywhere—closet, bathroom, under the bed, even inside the broken refrigerator. No Mika.

  She turned back to Arata, and her expression changed as she finally registered what she was seeing. His injuries. His exhaustion. The way he was standing like someone barely held upright by willpower alone.

  "What's with that look?" Her voice carried genuine worry now, the aggressive energy draining away. "What happened to you?"

  "She got kidnapped yesterday."