I didn’t sleep.

  I stayed in the house until morning, listening to the silence where voices should have been. The blood dried. The smell lingered. Nothing eased the pressure building behind my eyes.

  By sunrise, I understood something clearly.

  No one was coming to help me.

  The magical world had its own bureaucracy, its own rules, its own people pretending that balance mattered more than what had just happened. They would bury it, ignore it, spin it. So I went to them.

  The presidential residence rose before me, grand, imposing, guarded by layers of armed operatives. Spells already ran across the grounds in surveillance patterns, mana detection wards, binding sigils. They were confident. Too confident.

  I walked forward.

  “Stop!” one guard shouted, wand raised, eyes wide. “Identify yourself!”

  They fired.

  Bolts of compressed mana and magic bullets streaked toward me. Recovery magic hummed beneath my skin. Every strike hit me and vanished. Nothing stuck. Nothing slowed me down. Nothing even startled me. I stepped forward through the rain of fire and steel, calm, precise, untouchable.

  The first guard charged. I caught his wrist. Doom climbed him, tiny but absolute. He didn’t scream. He didn’t have a moment to resist. I let him disappear into the black knot in my hand.

  The rest froze. The spells, the weapons, even the wards faltered under the certainty of what was happening. I let Doom linger just long enough for the point to settle before letting it vanish.

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  “Stand down,” I said. “You’re going to help me.”

  No one moved.

  Inside, the room cleared quickly. Phones rang, guards whispered, the magical hierarchy shifted quietly to obey. They brought him in soon after.

  Kawahara Tatsuya walked through the doors with his usual crooked grin, hands in his pockets.

  “…No way,” he said. His eyes went wide when he saw me, then narrower when he noticed the knot of Doom barely pulsing in my palm.

  “You’re alive?”

  “Unfortunately,” I said.

  He laughed, then froze when he actually looked at me. “…Wait. That’s… a mini Doom?”

  I nodded. It was contained, restrained, but still deadly. Even Tatsuya, who had witnessed the full force of Doom in public once before, looked genuinely surprised.

  “That’s… impressive,” he muttered. “And terrifying, in a small, very personal way.”

  We sat across from each other in a neutral room. Guards lingered outside, but none dared approach. He looked at me, smiling faintly but serious in his eyes.

  “So,” he said lightly, “they tell me you walked through their bullets and spells without flinching. Mini Doom in hand. That’s… a new one, even for you.”

  “It’s Doom,” I said.

  “Yes,” he said slowly, “and now I see why people respect it.”

  He leaned back, expression softening, just for a moment. “Okay. What happened?”

  I told him, just enough. How everything had fallen apart, what I had lost, and what I needed.

  When I finished, he didn’t joke. He didn’t comment. His face hardened, jaw set, eyes alive with recognition.

  “Then this isn’t a normal case,” he said quietly. “This is personal.”

  “No,” I said.

  He nodded once, decisively. “I’ll find them. Whoever did this. I don’t care what laws they hide behind, what world they belong to, or how untouchable they think they are.”

  I studied him. He had always been one of the few who could handle Doom in any form, who could watch it without panicking. But even now, seeing the mini version, he was impressed. That mattered.

  “You understand what you’re walking into?” I asked.

  His grin returned, faint, crooked, but unreadable. “You always had a knack for dragging me into insane situations.”

  I stood. “Good. Because I’m done asking.”

  Outside, the magical city carried on, unaware that the balance had already shifted.

  Somewhere, someone who thought themselves untouchable had just been put on notice.

  And I smiled, letting the calm certainty settle over me.