The amusement park had finally fallen behind them.
After everything that had happened at Tokyo DisneySea, everyone eventually went their separate ways, returning to their respective homes.
Sam and Rin, however, headed toward the Japan Dark Knight Headquarters in Tokyo.
Japan Dark Knight Headquarters — Tokyo
The headquarters was unusually quiet.
Inside one of the offices, a printer hummed steadily as sheets of paper slid from its tray.
Cloie, the Second Grandmaster, stood before a computer screen, reviewing the final details of her report.
“Today, an attack at Tokyo DisneySea involving a C-rank devil resulted in eight deaths and fifty injuries, with eight of the injured in critical condition. An organization is suspected to be behind this attack. Dr. Hawk—who had stolen classified documents from the Tokyo office—died during the confrontation, and the documents were destroyed. The individuals he was supposed to hand the documents to have been arrested, though interrogation is still pending. They were conducting experiments on young children to turn them into ‘unnatural spirit holders.’ One child, a victim of this experiment, has been rescued. In today’s operation, Team 7 and Team 11—two of the twelve Japanese units formed under the global special team recruitment and training initiative—played a pivotal role.”
The printer finally fell silent.
Cloie collected the freshly printed pages and began organizing them.
“Cloie, how much longer will that report of yours take?”
Sam was sitting nearby, lazily spinning around in his chair like a bored student waiting for class to end.
“It’s almost done. And would you stop acting like a kid? We’re in the office.”
A small eraser flew through the air and struck Sam.
“Ouch!”
He rubbed the spot with a wounded expression.
“Do you have any idea how much it stings when an eraser hits you? Besides, I’m a teacher now, so reports and stuff like that aren’t my job anymore.”
“I know. Yet you aren’t doing anything. You’ve just shown up at the office after all this time—seemingly just to annoy me.”
Sam gave her an innocent smile.
“Yeah, let it be. But you have to hand it to them—staging their own deaths right in front of their child while preparing to flee…”
His voice gradually faded.
The chair stopped spinning.
The playful expression on his face disappeared.
“Yeah,” Cloie murmured. “And that poor kid doesn’t even realize what’s happening to him.”
She picked up the report.
“So, where do you plan to send him now?” Sam asked.
“I spoke to Yuki. He said to send him to her at the university. He’ll settle in easily with the other orphan children there and learn to control his powers.”
Cloie placed the papers into a folder and stapled them together.
“So, the documents…?”
“I’ll get the documents and everything else sorted out in two or three days. Until then, I’ll keep him with me.”
Sam sighed.
“Forget it. A guy would go crazy hanging out with a single girl like you.”
He looked at Cloie pointedly.
“What makes you think I can’t handle a kid?”
“A girl who doesn’t even have her own life sorted out is going to look after a kid? Forget it. I’m taking him home with me. Besides, I’ve already got three oddballs at my place to look after him.”
“Fine. I don’t mind.”
“Just admit you can’t handle it.”
Sam opened the office door and stepped outside.
His expression softened when he spotted Rin sitting alone on a bench.
No one was watching over him.
No one was speaking to him.
The boy simply sat there, quietly clutching the soft toy Kirito had given him.
Sam glanced back toward Cloie.
“Did you give him something to eat, or have you started treating him the same way too?”
“You know what these people are like.”
Cloie finished arranging the documents and placed the folder aside.
Sam looked toward Rin again.
“Alright.”
He walked toward the boy.
Sam quietly approached the bench and sat beside him.
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For several seconds, neither of them spoke.
Then Sam reached into his pocket and held out a chocolate.
Rin stared at it.
After a moment, he carefully accepted it.
“Thank you.”
His voice was barely above a whisper.
Sam smiled.
“Do you want to meet Kirito?”
Rin’s eyes widened slightly.
“Yes.”
“Then why don’t you come with me? He lives with me. You’ll really like it there.”
Rin hesitated.
Then he nodded.
“Okay.”
“Alright, let’s go then.”
Sam stood with a smile and gently picked Rin up.
Together, they left the headquarters.
By the time they stepped outside, evening had already settled over Tokyo.
Dark clouds stretched across the sky, swallowing what remained of the daylight.
A powerful gust swept through the streets, sending leaves tumbling along the pavement.
Sam looked upward.
“It looks like there’s going to be a heavy downpour today.”
He opened the car door and helped Rin inside.
When they finally arrived, Sam immediately noticed something strange.
The house was locked.
Sam stood in front of the gate, holding Rin’s hand.
“Where have they gone on a day off?”
Just then, a voice drifted through the corridor from inside.
Someone was singing.
Allya appeared carrying a packet of chips and a bottle of Coke.
“What’s my name, what’s my name, what’s my name… My name is Sheila…”
She suddenly stopped.
“Huh?”
Allya squinted toward the entrance.
“That’s Big Bro, isn’t it? How did he get back so early today? Hmm…”
She hurried over.
Then, with a mischievous grin—
“Boo!”
Allya attempted to scare Sam.
Sam barely reacted.
“Where had you gone, Allya?”
“Oh… I was just feeling hungry, so I went down to the shopping mall.”
Allya pulled the house keys from her pocket.
“And where have these two gone?”
Sam brought Rin inside.
“The two of them have gone for a ride with Sis Sherry and the other friends. Sis said they’d be late getting back, so there’s no need to make dinner for them.”
Allya placed the chips and Coke on the table before disappearing into the kitchen.
A moment later, she returned with a glass of water.
“Here you go.”
She handed it to Rin before sitting beside him, her stuffed panda tucked against her side.
Sam looked between them.
“Rin will be staying with us from now on. You guys don’t have a problem with that, do you?”
“I don’t have a problem with it, and it doesn’t really matter what those two say anyway.”
Rin quietly sat on the sofa.
His eyes wandered around the room.
Photographs covered one of the shelves.
There were pictures of Sam and the others smiling together. Beside them stood several sports trophies the three of them had won.
Rin stared at them for a long moment.
Perhaps he was trying to understand what kind of place he had just entered.
For the first time that day, there was something almost peaceful about the room.
“Alright then, I’m going to take a shower.”
Allya stood up.
Then she noticed Rin’s condition.
His clothes were still covered in dust from everything that had happened throughout the day.
“Hmm… I know what I’ll do.”
She tilted her head slightly, as though the solution had just occurred to her.
Then she crouched beside Rin.
“I’ll help you get cleaned up.”
Rin blinked.
“Huh?”
His expression immediately became flustered.
Sam looked over.
“Hey, Allya. If you don’t mind, otherwise I’ll take him away.”
His voice came out a little too quickly, as though he had suddenly realized he should probably intervene.
Allya barely looked up.
“Just concentrate on making dinner. Anyway, there’s only one child. I’ll take care of it.”
Her tone was completely normal.
She gently took Rin by the hand and led him toward the bathroom.
Sam stared after them.
For a moment, his brain simply refused to process what was happening.
Then he slowly turned toward the kitchen, apparently deciding that escaping the situation was the safest possible choice.
He sighed.
“Saman accepts defeat…”
With that, he quietly headed toward the kitchen.
Inside the bathroom's changing closet,
Allya takes off her T-shirt right in front of Rin; her blue bra is clearly visible to him. Yet, Allya is completely unbothered by Rin's presence and calmly adjusts her hair.
Rin becomes flustered and turns bright red, covering his eyes with his hands.
Allya takes a towel and some clothes out of the closet, then slowly bends down to remove her bottoms. She stretches, adjusting the elastic of her bra and underwear. Finally, she wraps her hair in the towel and starts walking towards Rin.
"Sis, I'll bathe myself," Rin says, looking down shyly.
"Why are you so shy? Just accept that you're bathing with your older sister." Allya takes Rin along with her.
Allya helped Rin get cleaned up and made sure he had fresh clothes before leaving him to get comfortable.
Rin still looked embarrassed, but the kindness seemed to reassure him.
Meanwhile — Kitchen
Sam placed his laptop on the counter.
He opened a file and pulled vegetables from a basket.
After washing them, he began chopping.
“So, he chose nighttime to question these people…”
His knife moved rhythmically against the cutting board.
His eyes remained fixed on the laptop screen.
The image displayed a concrete interrogation room.
Rin’s parents had been taken into custody.
They sat restrained in separate chairs while a camera observed the room from the corner.
Sam watched silently.
The heavy iron door suddenly opened.
Cloie entered.
She carried a folder in one hand.
Her expression was cold.
“Catte and Kentaro Sozu—aged twenty-eight and thirty. You both come from a rural village. You eloped and now run a clinic in Tokyo. A normal couple with two children. Your eldest daughter passed away from an illness two years ago. Yet neither of you is ‘Awakened,’ nor do you have any criminal record.”
Cloie pulled out a chair and sat down.
“So, what were the two of you doing with that boy? And who were you doing it for?”
Silence.
Catte glared at her.
Cloie leaned back.
“Then start talking. Or else, I’ll switch to my own methods.”
She calmly turned the object in her hand.
“What do you think? That I’d just tell you everything so easily and let thirteen years of hard work go to waste?”
Catte shouted.
Cloie’s expression didn’t change.
“Why do these married women yap so much? After all, you know that a woman’s worst enemy is another woman, don’t you?”
She leaned closer.
The atmosphere inside the room became suffocating.
Catte’s defiance slowly began to crack.
Cloie’s cold stare remained fixed on her, giving the woman no room to hide behind her silence.
Chloe grabs Catte’s face tightly and pulls it close to her own; her fingernails tear into Catte’s skin, and blood begins to flow from Catte’s cheeks and lips.
Catte tries to scream, but at that very moment, Cloie begins to slowly slice through her vocal cords with a surgical blade. Catte struggles desperately to scream, yet not a single sound escapes her lips; tears stream from her eyes like a river.
Kentaro struggled against his restraints.
“Just stop—please, let her go. I’ll tell you everything. Just leave her alive. I’ll tell you everything.”
His voice trembled as he pleaded, desperation overwhelming whatever resolve he had left
Cloie stared at him for several seconds.
Then she stood.
“Fine.”
The single word echoed through the room.
“Fine.” Cloie spoke softly, dropped the cutter, and kicked her chair.
Catte lay on the ground, breathing heavily; her blood was spreading across the floor.
Kentaro stared at her, breathing heavily.
Cloie calmly crossed her legs.
“I’ve stabilized her condition with mana. It will keep her alive while she recovers. So, start talking.”
She pulled a cigarette from her pocket and leaned back.
A lighter sparked.
The tiny flame illuminated her otherwise emotionless face for a brief moment.
She took a slow breath.
Back in the kitchen, Sam suddenly stopped chopping.
His eyes remained fixed on the screen.
Outside, rain had begun to fall.
The first drops tapped softly against the window before gradually becoming heavier.
Sam narrowed his eyes.
Something about the interrogation made his expression grow noticeably darker.
He stared at the laptop screen in silence.
The knife remained motionless in his hand.
And for the first time since returning home, the peaceful atmosphere of the house felt strangely distant.