This world is full of dangerous people.

  Men and women who are completely unable to swallow their pride and admit that they are wrong.

  Men and women who are completely incapable of walking away from the status quo, despite it being the worse way to do things.

  That's the biggest problem we face as a society.

  The inability to walk away from the status quo, even though we hate it.

  —

  “As a veteran sin hunter, what do you think of these people calling themselves the sin brokers?”

  “They're efficient, I'll give em that.”

  —

  “ever since they showed up, we've had way less work to do. Tho, I can't exactly condone what they're doing.”

  –

  “The sin brokers? I don't know those guys.”

  –

  “They can be as strong and efficient as they want but no matter what, nothing’ll change.”

  “But wouldn't change be for the best tho? I mean, the HAS isn't exactly known for being the most moral group.”

  “Uuh, no comment.”

  —

  “No comment”

  —

  “No comment”

  —

  Malik looked up at the man who seemed to be the big ring leader behind this whole organization. He sneered as the prostitutes kept him on his knees.

  If he had his guns right now he wouldn't be in this situation.

  “Who the fuck are you?” Malik spat, trying to rip his hands free from the women who had incredibly tight grips

  “My name is Corveau. Nagul Corveau.”

  “That's a real weird name” the dark skinned boy mocked,

  “Hmm, to you it may be so, but not so much where I come from” Corveau chuckled softly. “you don't see many French men like me in Japan these days, so id say I'm rather rare”

  His gaze then turned very serious, almost icy.

  “Tell me, Malik Garcia,” Corveau said, pronouncing his name perfectly, “do you truly believe the HAS is winning this war?”

  “Against you? No shit, I couldn't really care too much about the HAS, it’s not what I wanted to be apart of. But I don't need to be too invested to know that you're gonna lose. The HAS is ancient as hell.” Malik said.

  “YES, AS HE SAID, NOTHING YOU COULD EVER DO CAN EXTINGUISH THE FIRE OF THE HA- MMMPH MPH” ISHGAR had his mouth being held shut by multiple of the women.

  “I wasn't referring to you against us. I'm well aware that as we stand now we lack the manpower to truly be on par with the hinomoto anti sin division. And the people we do have are… unsavory to say the least. I was referring to the war against the sins. As things are now.. the HAS is far too inefficient, and because of that inefficiency, they will eventually lose. But us? We are far more efficient, and I'm fully confident that if you gave us at SB enough time, we could win the war.”

  Malik’s chest heaved as the women’s hands held him in place. His wrists were chafed from the grip, and every instinct screamed at him to fight, but he knew he was outnumbered, outmatched, and out of options.

  ISHGAR tho, wasn't.

  “YOU ARE WRONG. WE WILL WIN!” the boy threw the army of women off of him, his muscles tearing out of their grip.

  Which gave Malik the distraction he needed to jump in the air, flipping and landing on the backs of the girls who held him down. He kicked them down, freeing himself from their grip.

  Meanwhile a couple of the girls jumped on ISHGAR, trying to hold him down. However, out of seemingly nowhere, the boy produced a giant golden hammer and slammed the floor, the shockwave from which threw them off.

  All except one, who was pretty much face to face with the boy.

  “You wouldn't hit a woman would you”

  “THE HAMMER OF MANLINESS IS UNISEX!”

  Malik kicked one of the girls in the face

  The kick sent her sprawling across the marble floor, skidding to a stop near an overturned chair. Malik landed light on his feet, breath sharp, eyes already tracking the next threat.

  The room erupted.

  Two of the women rushed him from opposite sides, blades flashing from their sleeves. Malik ducked low, the first knife cutting the air where his neck had been.

  He swept his leg out, taking one woman off her feet, then grabbed the second by the wrist and twisted hard. The sound of bone popping could be heard. She screamed, dropping the knife, and Malik shoved her into a pillar hard enough to crack the stone.

  He may not have had his guns, but his exo suit was perfectly fine, meaning he was more than strong enough to pull off something like this.

  Across the room, ISHGAR was fucking shit up, he swung his hammer like it weighed nothing at all, The floor cratered where it struck, sending chunks of stone and dust into the air. Three attackers were lifted clean off their feet, crashing into the walls like broken dolls.

  A case of theft: this story is not rightfully on Amazon; if you spot it, report the violation.

  One woman tried to flank him from behind, daggers raised. ISHGAR didn’t even turn. He slammed the butt of the hammer backward, the impact knocking the wind out of her and folding her to the ground.

  “I WOULD ADVISE YOU TO STAY DOWN.” he roared.

  Corveau watched it all without moving, eyes sharp with interest rather than fear.

  “Such strength, and without an exosuit too, could he be.. like ash? No, this boy's not an angel gear, nor is he anywhere close to the level of strength of that monster at the same age” he muttered, watching the proceedings, he turned his eyes to Malik “it seems he doesn't have his guns. Such a shame, I was really interested in seeing those two in action.”

  Malik vaulted over a fallen table as gunfire erupted, one of the women had drawn a compact pistol. Bullets shredded the wood behind him. Malik rolled, came up behind her, and slammed his elbow into her jaw. She collapsed instantly. He ripped the gun from her hand, checked the chamber, and fired twice, clean shots into the ceiling above Corveau’s head.

  Dust rained down.

  “Next ones won't be warnings,” Malik growled as he aimed the gun at the man

  Corveau smirked, he was definitely his father's son.

  ISHGAR charged, through another group, running them over like bowling pins. He brought his hammer down on the ground.

  The shockwave exploded outward like a wave. The remaining attackers were blasted back, bodies slamming into walls, windows, furniture, everything shook. The lights flickered. Silence followed, broken only by groans and settling debris.

  Malik stood next to ISHGAR with the gun still raised, his chest heaved from the exertion just now, the room was absolutely wrecked and all the girls had been defeated, their bodies scattered around the place.

  Corveau slowly applauded.

  “Impressive, it seems miss juryoku has real talent when it comes to finding talent.”

  “Originally we were just supposed to get in get some info and get out, but now that I've got the big boss at gun point, what's stopping me from just putting your ass six feet under along with the entire SB organization?” Malik glared down at the man who didn't seem too concerned.

  “You're not in a position to be making demands such as that.” The man said which confused the two boys.

  “The hell are you talking about, you've got no guards left and I've got a gun pointed at your head, seems like a pretty good position to me.”

  “Miss ichika” the man said. And as soon as he did Malik's arm was grasped by the arm of a girl, but that can't be right, he knocked them all out.

  It was then that he noticed that the woman- Miss ichika- had her arms open, creating numerous females who walked out of her every second.

  “What th-” suddenly he was kicked across the face by a woman.

  She was the reason there were so many of them.

  That woman must be…

  “No she is not an angel gear.” corveau interrupted the boys thought as both boys were being held down once more by the beauties.

  “How did yo-”

  “Know what you were thinking? It's cause everyone thinks the same thing when they first see it, however I am in possession of a total of 0 angel gear” the man explained, which confused malik immensely, until his mind quickly started catching up.

  “No way, that woman! She's a sin isn't she?” ISHGAR was shocked at what his colleague just said, and corveau was smirking more brightly.

  “What can I say, I'm an open minded person.” The man said, before his face quickly turned serious.

  “I would like to make miss juryoku an offer she can't refuse.”

  — some minutes later—

  “A game?” Liun asked into the phone, he had borrowed konchuu’s when the call came in.

  The two sat on top of a mountain of unconscious bodies. There looked to be about thirty, maybe forty bodies.

  “Yeah, that's what he said, well not exactly, he said something along the lines of, settling this through a competition is much more efficient than what's happening now, whatever that means.” The boy said.

  “So.. this competition, I'm assuming it has something to do with defeating sins, correct?”

  “Yeah, as simple as that. Tho I doubt itll be anything easy, what with this weirdo hiring sins and all” Malik said over the phone.

  “Ah, so you have fought one as well. I myself had been tricked into believing they had an angel gear.“ he sat atop the mountain of bodies, barely scuffed from the battle before hand. He turned to look at konchuu, who had taken out almost as many people as he had, even with a knife in his back.

  Liuns eyes grew steely, like he was thinking. “What exactly is this competition he's proposing?”

  —

  “A 6v6 match huh? 2 of our sin hunters will be dispatched to handle a sin, and he will send 2 of his own hunters to that same area, and whoever defeats the sin first will earn a point for their organization, that's how his game works right? A best of 3” kiyohime repeated the information given to her by ash, her eyes steely. “That man… hasn't changed a bit.” She said

  “Honestly it's kinda weird, for him to straight up challenge us like this? Even I wouldn't do that. Not for lack of capability of course” ash said, stretching his limbs, when he'd gotten that call from Malik, he was surprised by the sheer guts that it took to do something like that.

  “Corveau is fully aware of the tight spot we're in right now. If we refuse, he'll use it against us, imagine ‘HAS backs away from the challenge of a far lower organization’ if we lose hell undoubtedly use it to bolster the reputation of the sin brokers, but if we back away our own reputation will be sullied… and even if that weren't the case. My pride won't allow it. Let your junior know.. that I accept this challenge.” the woman said, staring at the floor. “Tell your juniors to fall back, I'll send-”

  “Actually”

  “ Huh?” Kiyohime was surprised at the interruption. She looked to ash as if telling him to continue.

  “I would like the kids who are on the case right now… to be the ones to take on the challenge.” Ash said, which earned a quick shake of the woman's head.

  “Not happening. How can you even suggest something like that?” The woman said, “they're teenagers-”

  “So were we, in fact if memory serves right… we were only 15, back when we fought the greatest battle of our lives, We were only junior division members, remember”

  “We were different. Back then we had 3 angel gear on one team. An incredibly rare occurrence that has never happened before and likely will never happen again.” The woman said.

  “My point is, if we didn't go through the things we did at such a young age, I really doubt we'd be as strong as we are now. Sure training is good and all. But if you plan to become a major league athlete, you can't just learn about it in some te t books. You have to actually play the sport”

  “I still don't agree… but since you're so stubborn about it, I guess I have no choice… but so help me if even one of those kids get harmed-”

  “Don't worry about it. I'm the strongest remember?” he interrupted “as long as I'm watching, they won't get too banged up.”

  “What exactly is your definition of ‘too banged up’?... Huh?” he had walked away by this point, pulling out his phone to tell Malik what to do.

  “Sigh… I will never understand that man”

  —

  Yui lay on the ground barely awake, that sin… it had defeated her easily. It was nothing like the phase 2 she had fought before, the one that had so thoroughly wiped the floor with her entire division, and even people outside of it. This sin was nothing like that one.. no it was much stronger.

  She was holding back her instinct, holding back the insane urge to kill sins, and because of that, her instincts weren't there to bail her out this time. She was… so quickly defeated.

  She heard the child crying from a ways away. She turned her head to see asaka being thrown into a wall hard enough to crack it, the girl was almost unconscious, she was covered in blood. She was clearly far inferior, yet she was still fighting back, she was capable of not dying instantaneously.

  Nothing like her, who could barely even, see the thing move. It was only now made clear to her.. how much she must have been relying on those instincts. She hadn't actually done any training, hadn't actually learned anything.

  She hadn't actually been any stronger than she was when she came here.

  The kid cried as she grabbed the bear, “no, leave her alone. Leave her alone mama”

  “Huh? M-Mama?” Yui and asaka said in unison, they were surprised. Was this sin… the girls mother.

  Upon seeing the face of the girl, the sin seemed to soften. Disappearing into the girls shadow. Causing the girl to run away.

  Yui looked over, surprised. She'd never seen a sin like that before, a sin that listened to a human? That definitely wasn't normal.

  suddenly her phone rang. It was Malik. She put her phone to her ear, hearing the boy tell her about this challenge. There wasn't much running through her mind at that moment.

  “A challenge? Alright then, I'll fight” she said. Her eyes unfocused staring up at the ceiling.

  She was… ready to fight.