Aira had barely settled into her chair when Kairo erupted across the table.

  “WHAT!? No way—this guy’s cheating!”

  She blinked, half-startled, half-amused, as she tracked the source of the outburst. Kairo stood braced like he was about to launch into battle, finger jabbing accusingly at Hyakki who, by contrast, reclined with effortless smugness, one brow faintly arched, the corner of his mouth tilting upward in a quiet challenge.

  It was the fifth reflex-match in a row he’d won. Fifth. The stack of bills on the table had begun as a joke. Now it looked like a monument to Kairo’s suffering.

  Hyakki swept the winnings into his hands with smooth, almost predatory ease, counting the bills one by one as if savoring the victory.

  “Winners win,” he said, voice low and maddeningly calm.

  Lev clapped Kairo on the back. “Bro, he destroyed you. It wasn’t even close.”

  “I want a rematch!” Kairo insisted, glaring daggers across the table.

  Hyakki’s red eyes gleamed dangerously. “You sure you want to do this again?”

  Amari slid in from the side, placing a steadying hand on Kairo’s shoulder. “It might be time to pack it up, chief.”

  “No! This guy isn’t normal!” Kairo insisted, pointing again, indignant. “Who the hell has reflexes like that!?”

  Alyne, sipping her drink with complete serenity, didn’t even bother looking up.

  “Have you considered,” she said coolly, “that it might be a skill issue?”

  Kairo sputtered so violently Aira thought he might combust.

  The friend group dissolved into overlapping chatter—Asha and Runa trying to mediate, Kieran watching with openly entertained amusement, Gavant launching into an absurdly profound speech about betrayal and the fragility of trust, and Yoru giggling softly into her hands. The room buzzed with warmth and lively noise.

  Aira smiled, soaking it in. She loved moments like this—everyone together, bickering, laughing, alive. And she was genuinely glad that Hyakki, for all his aloofness, fit into the group so seamlessly. Somehow he matched the chaos without ever raising his voice.

  But even surrounded by comfort, her mind drifted elsewhere.

  The rumors of the Hollow had resurfaced again.

  Last night, she had stayed up watching old footage—grainy recordings of the Hollow clashing with the Twin Hounds in abandoned industrial zones and collapsing rooftops. The Hollow moved with brutal efficiency, every strike delivering fractures of M.A.W. corruption that split through metal and concrete like disease. Nothing it touched survived intact.

  But the Twin Hounds… they danced.

  Two hunters circling a beast: baiting, weaving, splitting angles, pressing without overextending. Their coordination was uncanny, a kind of shared instinct sharpened into weaponry. They fought Echo the same way—though Echo’s ability to bend and partition spaces made those battles far tighter, far more calculated.

  She had memorized their movements over the years. She knew the rhythms, the signatures. And still—

  The Hollow, the Twin Hounds, Echo… who are they?

  Aira leaned her cheek into her palm, eyes drifting unfocused as Hyakki continued to verbally spar with Kairo nearby. Asha, exasperated, finally raised her hands.

  “Okay, okay—why don’t you settle this with a game of rock, paper, scissors?”

  Runa nodded. “Yeah. Fair and square. We’ll all be the judges.”

  Aira’s gaze flicked upward.

  Rock, paper, scissors…?

  Suddenly—a brilliant, ridiculous, world changing clarity flooded her.

  Aira shot upright so abruptly her chair screeched across the floor, palms slamming onto the table with an energy that jolted everyone out of their conversations.

  “Rock, paper, scissors!!” she blurted, eyes wide. “That’s it!!”

  The table went silent.

  Lev blinked slowly, like his brain had just blue screened. “Huh? What do you mean?”

  But Aira was already moving. She spotted the whiteboard stand leaning against the wall, practically glowing with purpose, and dragged it over with the urgency of someone unveiling a murder investigation. She uncapped a marker, tested it with a quick swipe, then drew a clean triangle with three bold labels:

  Unlawfully taken from Royal Road, this story should be reported if seen on Amazon.

  Hollow. Twin Hounds. Echo.

  She snapped the cap back on and turned toward them with the intensity of someone presenting a groundbreaking thesis.

  “These three,” she declared, slapping her palm against the whiteboard, “are exactly like rock, paper, scissors!!”

  Amari leaned forward, intrigued. “Really? How so?”

  Kairo crossed his arms skeptically. “I don’t see it.”

  Kieran, already smirking, nudged his glasses up. “Hold on. Let her cook.”

  Aira uncapped the marker again, her movements sharp with excitement. “Okay, so—last night I was watching old footage of the Twin Hounds fighting the Hollow. And what they do—”

  She began sketching fast, messy diagram lines.

  “—is this.”

  She drew an “H” in the center of the board, then placed “Dawn” and “Dusk” on opposite sides with looping arrows circling the Hollow.

  “They trap it, see? They keep rotating around it, wearing it down from opposite angles. If the fight lasts long enough, the Hounds always win.”

  She jabbed the marker at the line on the triangle connecting the Hounds and the Hollow.

  “So the Twin Hounds beat the Hollow by surrounding it, containing it—wrapping around it—exactly like how paper beats rock!”

  There was a moment of collective silence.

  Aira watched as realization flickered across the table—first in Alyne’s raised brows, then in Lev’s widening eyes, then in Amari’s delighted gasp, in the way Gavant stroked his chin and how Yoru sat up straighter. Even Kairo’s skeptical squint softened into reluctant intrigue.

  Then—

  “Paper doesn’t beat rock,” Hyakki said flatly, as if announcing a universal truth.

  Runa laughed softly. “It’s literally in the rules.”

  Asha tapped her arm thoughtfully. “So you’re saying the Twin Hounds are paper and the Hollow is rock?”

  Aira pointed the marker at her like a professor calling on the star student. “Exactly! Think about it—paper totally fits them! They’re adaptable, coordinated, flexible, and they never break formation. And paper? Paper can fold into any shape you need! It’s the perfect metaphor!”

  She swept her gaze across the room and felt a thrill jolt through her when she saw it—recognition. The light of understanding flickered to life on every face around the table. She had them now. She turned back to the whiteboard, erased the “H,” and replaced it with a sharp, precise “E.”

  “Okay—now this is where things get even better,” she said, tapping the new letter with the marker.

  She drew in closer, her enthusiasm building as she spoke. “Think about what happens when the Hounds fight Echo. They try to use the same strategy—closing in from both sides, pressuring him, trapping him. But it never works. Because Echo isn’t the Hollow.”

  She began sketching jagged lines across the looping arrows she’d drawn earlier, chopping the clean curves into broken, disjointed fragments.

  “Echo controls the battlefield,” Aira continued, stepping back to admire the chaotic geometry she’d created. “He’s constantly forcing them apart, breaking their formation, isolating them. Every time they try to close in—boom—he cuts the space, reroutes the field, and dismantles the angle before it even forms. They can’t get close because he keeps tearing the connection apart.”

  She gestured widely, as if slicing invisible threads in the air.

  “His whole thing is cutting them off from each other,” she emphasized.

  Yoru, tentative but thoughtful, spoke up. “Just like… how scissors cut up paper? Into smaller pieces?”

  “YES!! Exactly!” Aira lit up like a spark catching flame. She pointed her marker at Yoru with proud excitement. “You get it, bestie!”

  She spun back to the triangle on the board and tapped the side that connected Echo and the Twin Hounds.

  “Echo is scissors. Because he literally cuts apart the Hounds’ formation! He forces them into situations where they cannot coordinate. No coordination means no encirclement. No encirclement means no victory. He dismantles them by slicing their strategy in half before it even exists!”

  Alyne tilted her head thoughtfully. “So by your logic, the Hollow beats Echo.”

  Aira beamed—finally, someone was following her at full speed. She pointed to the final side of the triangle connecting Hollow and Echo.

  “Yes. Exactly. Because unlike the Hounds, the Hollow doesn’t follow structure at all—it breaks it.”

  She uncapped the marker again and drew thick, disruptive streaks across the schematic representing Echo’s architecture.

  “Echo’s entire thing is controlling tech and shaping the environment. But the Hollow? The Hollow uses the M.A.W. to just—”

  She chopped her hand downward in a brutal motion.

  “—break straight through all of it. No pattern. No formation. No angles to manipulate. The corruption spreads, the architecture collapses, and Echo’s powers become completely useless.”

  Aira stepped back with a satisfied flourish, hands on her hips. “It’s brute force versus precision. Scissors can’t cut rock. It’s literally the one thing they’re useless against.”

  The table was practically vibrating now, everyone talking over one another in a buoyant rush of excitement.

  Lev looked like he’d just been handed the secrets of the universe. His eyes were huge, his jaw slack. “Dude, you just BLEW MY MIND. What!? No, seriously—this actually makes sense. The Hollow being a rock?? Like—yeah! It just destroys everything and doesn’t care if you’re good or bad!”

  Hyakki didn’t even look up from the whiteboard. “Classifying things as sides is a mistake.”

  Aira gave him a sideways stare. “Okay, philosophy major. Calm down.”

  Kairo leaned back in his chair, hands folded behind his head, grinning like he’d just witnessed the birth of a legend. “Damn, Aira. I take back my earlier statement. I was unfamiliar with your game.”

  Amari bounced on her heels, practically glowing. “This metaphor is actually SO COOL!! I never thought about it that way!!”

  Yoru nodded so fast her ponytails swayed. “It really does make a lot of sense.”

  Kieran steepled his fingers, deep in thought. “It gets even more interesting when you think about the symbolism. Paper represents communication and knowledge. That fits the Twin Hounds—strategy and coordination are their entire fighting style.”

  Asha snapped her fingers, eyes bright. “And scissors represent precision—cutting threads, dividing structures. That aligns perfectly with how Echo manipulates mechanical systems and breaks formation.”

  Aira lit up even more as she followed the thread. “Right! And rock symbolizes primal strength and durability—something that doesn’t follow structure or rules. That’s exactly like the Hollow.”

  Hyakki, still impassive, murmured, “...So true.”

  Runa rested her chin in her hands, smiling warmly. “You should write an article about this, Aira.”

  “Absolutely!” Aira said, practically glowing. “It’s a bit different from what I usually write, but I think people will love it.”

  Gavant, who had been uncharacteristically silent, suddenly lifted his head with the gravitas of an ancient prophet.

  “You know,” he intoned, “the best ideas arrive like river water—rushing, formless, uncontained—until the shore asks them to take shape.”

  Everyone paused.

  Lev whispered, “Bro, what?”

  But the conversation resumed instantly, the group buzzing with newfound enthusiasm as they circled around the whiteboard, tossing theories and jokes back and forth. Aira couldn’t stop smiling. Her chest felt warm, proud, electric. She glanced at her diagrams, thrilled by how neatly everything fit together.

  “I should tell Akio about this!” she said aloud—then paused, frowning thoughtfully. “Wait… actually… he’s not really into this kind of thing. Neither is Gabriel. Or Damien.”

  She waved off the thought with a shrug. They’d probably think her weird rock-paper-scissors analysis of vigilante combat was boring anyway. Maybe she’d get their opinions later.

  Aira beamed at the whiteboard.

  This was going to make one hell of an article.

  ─ ? NEXT CHAPTER POV ? ─

  Akio