Akira’s POV The debrief ran twenty minutes longer than it needed to because Dort had opinions about the secondary sweep protocol and was not a person who kept opinions to himself when there was a room available to have them in.
I however, sat at the end of the table and listened and contributed the two responses that were asked of me and watched the clock in the way of someone who had somewhere else to be and was managing the gap between that and the current situation.
The team filed out when Dort finished.
I was halfway to the door when Sena called or rather semi yelled my name.
She was still at the table, her mission chip between her fingers, her posture the relaxed uprightness of someone who had decided to stay and was comfortable with the decision.
She looked at me the same way she’d been looking at me since the mission board, like I was a problem she was turning over to find the right angle on.
“Sit down,” she said.
“I have somewhere to be.” “You have the fourth floor,” she said.
“It’ll wait.” I looked at her.
And wondered how she knew about my visits to the fourth floor.
She looked back, unbothered, and tapped the chair beside her once with two fingers.
I sat down.
She didn’t say anything immediately.
She set the mission chip on the table and looked at it for a moment, the expression of someone organizing their approach before committing to it.
“Three missions,” she said.
“One solo.
All D-rank clearances, logged clean, nothing flagged.
Time splits running fifteen to twenty percent below D-rank baseline across the board.” She looked up.
“The mission board algorithm doesn’t flag that range as anomalous because it sits inside the variance window.
But I’ve been running the numbers manually.” “Why?” “Because you interest me,” she shrugged, “and I’d rather understand why before it becomes a problem.” “I’m not a problem.
And even if I were one, what’s it to you?” “That’s what all problems say.” She said it without heat, matter-of-fact.
“What are you doing at D rank?” “Training.
Taking missions.
The standard progression.” “The standard progression for a D-rank hunter doesn’t produce those time splits three missions in.” She tilted her head slightly.
“You’re holding back.” I said nothing.
“It’s deliberate,” she said.
“I’ve seen hunters sandbag before.
It usually looks effortful.
Yours looks… settled.
Like you’ve found the ceiling you want and you’re staying under it.” She paused.
“Why do you have a ceiling you want?” “You’re asking an awful lot of questions about someone else’s mission logs.” “I’m asking about the D-rank hunter who handled two breakaway goblins in under five seconds on his first team mission and then spent the following two solo runs performing at a level that didn’t match it.” She folded her hands on the table.
“One of those things is the real version of you.
I’d like to know which one.” I looked at her for a moment.
She had, I was acknowledging internally, done significantly more work on this than I had anticipated.
The time splits I had considered acceptable.
The comparison against the goblin team mission, cross-referenced against the solo logs… that was more careful than most B-rank hunters bothered to be about someone else’s D-rank record.
“What do you want me to say?” I said.
“Something true.” She stated.
Her hands on her chin while she looked at me with a fierce glint in her eyes.
“I plan on advancing faster than my classification reflects,” I said.
“I have things to do and so little time.
So I’m managing the gap.” She was quiet for a moment, processing this.
“How big is this gap?” “Big enough for me to manage.
Small enough for you not to know” “That’s not a number.
And it’s not a direct answer” “I know.” She looked at me with the specific expression of someone deciding whether an incomplete answer was sufficient for the moment or whether to keep pressing.
I held the eye contact and waited.
The room was empty except for us.
Outside in the corridor someone was talking about the mission board and the voice faded as they moved away.
“Is it a problem,” she said finally.
“The gap.
For anyone besides you.” “No.” “You’re certain.” “Yes.” She picked up the mission chip.
Turned it once in her fingers, the gesture of someone who had reached a provisional conclusion and was deciding how much to trust it.
“Alright,” she said.
“I’m going to keep watching you.” “That’s your right.” “It is.” She stood, tucking the chip into her jacket.
“I want to be clear about something.
I’m not watching because I think you’re a danger.
I’m watching because whatever you’re managing, you’re managing it alone, and in my experience that works until it doesn’t.” She looked at me directly.
“When it stops working, someone usually gets hurt.” “I’ll keep that in mind.” “See that you do.” She pulled on her jacket with the economical efficiency she applied to everything.
“The fourth floor access,” she said, at the door.
I went still.
“The fourth floor is senior authorization only,” she said.
“I’ve been in this guild four years and I’m still on the second.
You transferred two weeks ago.” She glanced back at me, not with accusation… with the same careful assessment she’d had since the beginning.
“Somebody went out of their way for you.” She left before I could say anything.
I sat at the table for a moment after the door closed.
Then I got up and went to the fourth floor.
*** I ran a different sequence twice without thinking about it, which was how I knew I was thinking about something else.
The footwork happened underneath the actual processing, automatic enough by now to run without supervision, and what I was actually doing was turning over what Sena had said and what it meant for the approach I had been taking.
Invisible had been the goal from the beginning.
Come in, log missions, build a record, don’t attract attention.
It was the right instinct and the wrong execution, because invisible and unnoticed were different things, and I had been trying to achieve one while accidentally producing the other.
Invisible meant having no presence worth registering.
No footprint.
No signal.
Uninteresting meant having a footprint that didn’t warrant investigation.
I had been trying to disappear and what I had actually done was create a pattern of small inconsistencies that someone careful enough to look for them could find.
The goblin breakaway, the time splits, the access card, the dagger.
Each one individually was explainable.
Together they composed something that Sena, who was clearly careful enough, had been building a picture from for two weeks.
The picture she had wasn’t the real one.
But it was pointing in the right direction.
What I needed wasn’t less presence.
What I needed was a coherent presence.
A version of myself that made sense from the outside, that produced a picture someone like Sena could build and arrive at a conclusion with and then stop investigating because the conclusion was stable.
A D-rank hunter advancing faster than his classification tracked.
Good instincts, consistent training, a weapon with a backstory he didn’t fully share.
Capable enough that the guild had given him better facility access than his rank warranted.
Associated, somehow, with Kael Vixar in a way that nobody had fully explained.
That was the picture.
I needed to make it the only picture available.
And I was still yet to discover who he truly was.
The book I had read back on Earth had no trace and had made no mention of him.
Which meant my coming her had probably created him as an anamoly or it was simply a butterfly effect.
Either way, I still tried my best to shove him at the back of my mind.
An action that yielded zero fruits each time.
The sequence finished and I started it again and thought about Sena’s voice when she said: when it stops working, someone usually gets hurt.
She hadn’t been threatening me.
She had been telling me something she had learned from experience and was offering as information rather than warning.
I thought she was probably someone worth not lying to more than necessary.
I thought she was probably also someone who would keep watching regardless of what I told her, because that was simply how she was built, and the question was not whether she was going to watch but whether what she saw was going to be useful or alarming.
Uninteresting.
I needed to be uninteresting.
The dagger moved through the arc of the sequence and the fourth floor was quiet around me and somewhere in the city the Thursday afternoon slot was either occupied or it wasn’t, and I had told myself I wasn’t thinking about that, and I wasn’t, mostly.
Uninteresting, I thought.
I had managed harder things.
This shouldn’t be a problem.
Arigato ❤️