The last strip of sunlight slid behind the frozen horizon.

Darkness poured into the corridor, swallowing the mold-stained walls and broken tiles. The weak red glow that had lingered on Louis’ face vanished, and in its place, his eyes stood out. Red against black. Not glowing, not shining. Flat, vivid, inhuman, as if they had always belonged to the dark and were merely revealed now that the light was gone.

Louis chuckled, the sound low and relaxed. “Seems my arrogance made me memorable.” He took another step forward, boots crunching softly over ice and debris. “So, tell me, how does it feel to meet a celebrity in your own little world?”

“Disappointed,” Regan spat. “All that fear. All those stories. And it’s just a brat.”

Louis’ smile widened, but his voice stayed even. Calm. Almost gentle. “That’s funny.” He tilted his head slightly. “You say it’s disappointing that all those men scared of a mere brat? And I do agree. They're pitiful; you're pitiful.”

He bent down and picked up a pebble from the damp floor near the wall, rolling it between his fingers like a coin. The tiny clicking sound echoed in the corridor.

“Look at this, the brat's even still playing with a pebble. Such childish activity, isn't it? Unlike you, who played with human bodies.”

Suddenly, the pebble snapped forward, a full throw from Louis, like a pitcher. It struck Regan’s frozen hand with a sharp crack. Ice burst apart, exploding outward in white shards. Beneath it, bone followed. Flesh tore. The hand shattered with a wet, obscene snap, blood spraying in a violent arc that painted the wall, the floor, Regan’s own face.

“AAAAAH!”

Regan screamed. Raw and animal, ripped straight out of his throat as his body collapsed onto the filthy floor. He thrashed, heels scraping uselessly against moss and rot, blood pumping from the ruined stump and smearing red across the tiles.

“My hand—! Blood—!”

He looked up through tears and shock.

No one moved.

Rosa watched with distant indifference. Flo’s jaw was clenched, his eyes cold and steady. Klaus stood like a wall behind Louis, unmoving. 

And Louis...

Smile is what shows on his face.

Something inside Regan cracked. When he saw people surrounded him, yet no one even stutter while seeing him suffered, he knows he's surrounded by devils. 

“YOU DEMONS!” he shrieked, voice breaking.

With his remaining hand, he slammed his palm against the wall.

<Twister> activated.

Concrete groaned, and then screamed. The corridor warped violently as the wall twisted inward, spiraling and folding in on itself. Stone and steel contorted into a grotesque barricade, poles of warped structure erupting outward in desperate geometry. The passage behind him vanished under mangled architecture.

A final, pathetic act of resistance.

Louis remembered the file he’d read that morning. Regan’s gift had a mandatory condition: direct contact. He had to touch what he reshaped. That was why his palm was pressed flat against the wall now, shaking, slick with sweat and blood.

But unlike before, no ice pinned him down.

And unlike Regan’s hope, no one in the corridor flinched.

Not Louis. 

Not Klaus. 

Not Flo. 

Not Rosa.

They all knew. Regan knew it too, if there was still enough reason left in him to recognize the truth. 

The moment Louis arrived, the chase had already ended.

He roared and hurled his arm forward. The wall behind him tore itself apart, reforming into a spiraling spear of concrete and steel that launched toward Louis with murderous force.

Louis didn’t dodge, nor he braced. He just smiling, like he's in a park.

He lifted the small whistle hanging from his necklace and blew into it.

The sound cut through the corridor. For an instant, everything froze. The air locked in place. Regan felt the darkness rush toward him, thick and crushing, as time itself seemed to hesitate. His life flashed in broken fragments.

Then, the shockwave hit.

The spear disintegrated into dust. The window frames exploded into woodchips. The wall behind Regan collapsed into pebbles and powder as a violent force tore through the corridor. The abandoned school shuddered, glass on the upper floors bursting at once, the structure screaming under the impact.

Regan’s body was launched down the hall like a ragdoll, smashed into the far intersection as if struck by a speeding truck.

The wind alone forced the others back several steps.

Louis Eliana Doyle—known by his title, Howler—lowered the whistle.

His Gift, with the same name as his title, allowed him to manipulate mechanical waves with a terrifying precision, shaping vibration, pressure, and force as easily as breath.

And within Roxley Academy, there was no dispute. By raw power alone, he stood at the top.

After the tremors faded, Louis exhaled slowly. Not from exhaustion—his Gift barely dented him—but from the quiet realization that he now had to cross the corridor and deal with what was left of Regan Rose.

Blood frothed from the man’s mouth in wet, bubbling spurts, each breath scraping out with a sound like a frog choking on mud. His body lay twisted at wrong angles, joints bent just far enough to be agony but not enough to kill him. He was alive. Deliberately so. The same mercy he had denied his own comrades yesterday.

Louis walked toward him at an unhurried pace. 

“Eye for an eye makes the whole world blind, that’s the line people like to quote when they want to sound civilized. Law exists as a prevention so that concept could never be applied. She puts humans under a shackle to maintain civilization, before humans start devouring each other over the smallest grievance.”

He stopped a step away, looking down at Regan with eyes stripped of warmth.

“You might think this is eye for an eye, but it isn't. You slaughtered your own men, more than a dozen. Twisted their bodies, stuffed them into crates and planned to burn the building down with the kerosene you made them steal weeks ago. Compared to that, what I did to you is restraint.”

Louis crouched, bringing himself level with the man’s ruined face.

“You were right about one thing. In my view, death is mercy. At least for people who’ve crossed the line so far that the law is being generous by giving them a quick end. Dead men don’t beg. Dead men don’t feel fear. Death sounds terrifying, but then tell me this: why does a man trapped in constant misery beg for it? That means death is only frightening up to a point. Past that point, it becomes a blessing. A mercy. So when someone earns a death sentence, I don’t ask whether they deserve to die. I ask whether death is the kindest thing left to give them.?”

He leaned closer.

“So talk, Regan Rose. Tell me Donn Marivaldi’s plan. Do that, and I might decide whether you are deserve to get mercy in one form or another.”

However, the only answer was a wet croak. Air rattled through shattered ribs. No words came.

Louis waited. One second. Two. Three. 

Nothing.

He scratched his cheek, mildly annoyed. “Was I outdone myself?” he muttered. He had held back a lot. But still, the shockwave could pulverize concrete. Broken bones, torn muscle, and shredded lungs were expected. 

He straightened and glanced over his shoulder. “Rosa. Can you fix him enough to make him talk?”

Rosa let out a long, tired sigh. Hands settled on her hip as she glared at him. “Again? Seriously, Louis. You ever consider holding yourself enough?”

“My bad,” he replied flatly. “So, can you?”

Her brow twitched. She knew that tone. He wasn’t sorry. He never was. He’d done this more times than she could count since joining his unit, and every time it ended the same way.

She clicked her tongue. “Fine.”

Her boots echoed as she approached. Louis stepped aside, giving her space.

Green light bloomed across her face like spilled paint. A glowing tattoo traced itself into existence, and crystalline antlers pushed from her head with a faint, glassy hum. Warm air spiraled outward, bending the light around her as the corridor seemed to warp. A vast shadow coiled behind her, serpent-like, its outline distorting reality itself.

“Come, <Coatlus>.”

The floor trembled as the shadow solidified.

A dragon emerged. Its serpentine body was forged entirely of green crystal, each scale catching the light like a sharpened gem. Four antlers branched from its head like a stag’s crown. Its face was lupine, predatory, and calm. It moved through the air as if swimming, circling Rosa with slow, deliberate coils.

<Coatlus> was a unique gift. When Rosa activated it, she didn’t merely summon the dragon—she bound it. Scales ghosted across her skin. Her pupils slit vertically, glowing green. The mark on her face pulsed in rhythm with the creature’s breathing.

The dragon drifted forward, its crystalline body scraping softly against the air as it closed the distance to the dying man. When it opened its jaws, rows of jagged teeth unfolded, the kind of grin burned into childhood nightmares.

Rosa raised a finger and pointed. Then, the dragon bit down on Regan’s arm. But there was no spray of blood. No tearing sound. Instead, its antlers flared white.

At the same instant, the antlers crowning Rosa’s head ignited with the same cold glow. Light pulsed between them like a living circuit. Regan convulsed, his breath hitching as something invisible crawled through him. The wounds across his body began to fade, like ink washing out of soaked paper. Bruises thinned. Bones creaked back into alignment. The wet rattle in his lungs softened, then vanished.

His eyes fluttered. He inhaled sharply.

The dragon released him but did not retreat, coiling close, hovering, watching.

“He’ll talk now,” Rosa said.

“Good work,” Louis replied. There was a hum of approval in his voice. Louis stepped forward, boots crunching against debris, and crouched in front of Regan once more. The man was still crippled, still broken, but now fully aware. “Regan Rose, can you hear me now?”

Regan’s eyes slid away. Even without answering directly, Louis knows he can hear him now. 

“I’ll ask again,” Louis continued. “You’ve been meeting Donn Marivaldi for weeks. You stockpiled kerosene. Was it meant for this place, or were you planning to move it somewhere else?”

Regan said nothing.

Blind faith. Louis recognized it instantly. The kind that welded men to causes even as they burned.

But faith didn’t quiet the body.

Facing such a horror, his heartbeat cannot be kept calm, and Regan knew Louis noticed it too. A terrifying ability to manipulate mechanical wave, means right now, Louis can monitor the slight vibration created by Regan's heartbeat. And it'll be a joke if he lied right now. Louis could, and will know immediately.

His gaze drifted toward the shattered windows. Outside, the neon city pulsed beneath a dark sky, reds and blues bleeding together. Somewhere in that glow, something flickered, and understanding settled into his bones.

He wheezed out a laugh, pain spiking as his limbs protested the movement. Still, the smile never left his face.

“I admit it,” he rasped. “I’m done.”

He swallowed, fingers twitching. “But at least I won’t rot alone.”

Louis tilted his head. “Explain.”

Regan drew in a slow breath, savoring it like the last clean air he’d ever taste. “You can’t catch us.”

Louis’ eyes hardened. “Us?”

Regan grinned wider, teeth stained, eyes steady. The calm felt unnatural. Even Louis, who could hear lies in a man’s pulse, felt something crawl up his spine.

Then, a flash of red ignited in Regan’s pupils. His sclera flooded instantly, blood bursting through like ruptured glass. It poured from his nose as his eyes locked onto Louis’.

Louis’ breath hitched.

“FLO!”

The boy moved before the word finished echoing. He vaulted past Louis, hair blazing blue as the halo above his head detonated into white light. His foot slammed into the floor. Ice erupted upward in a jagged wall, and turned red in a heartbeat.

The same pattern. The same nightmare. Louis’ mind dragged him back weeks ago, to William Wilxes. Red eyes. Bursting veins. That split-second of impossible pressure. And a loud bang, followed by squelching impacts and the heavy thud of something that used to be a human body hitting the floor.

The walls, the floor, the ice wall Flo had raised at the perfect moment, everything was drenched in scarlet.

Flo knew it was over. He knew it in the way his body refused to move. His hand hovered, unable to decide whether to lower the ice or keep hiding behind it. The memory hit him without warning. Weeks ago, the same red everywhere, his clothes soaked, and hunks of flesh stuck to him. The smell. The sound. The way his stomach had turned itself inside out until he couldn’t eat for days.

His breathing grew shallow. The corridor narrowed. His heartbeat slammed against his ribs, loud enough he swore everyone could hear it.

Then a voice cut through it, colder than the ice itself.

“Flo. Put down your ice wall.”

Louis.

Flo obeyed immediately. No argument. No hesitation. The ice fractured as it lowered, cracking apart like shattered glass before collapsing into slick fragments across the floor. Flo stepped back, slow and careful, until Rosa reached him. Her dragon was gone. The green glow had faded.

Regan Rose lay sprawled on the floor, drenched in his own blood. What remained of him was obscene; headless, torn apart, painted across the corridor in deep crimson.

Flo looked away.

Rosa frowned, jaw tight.

Klaus clenched his fist.

Louis didn’t move.

They all watched his back, but none of them knew what he was seeing in front of him.

“Should we search him?” Klaus asked at last.

“What’s left to search?” Louis replied.

“Information. Anything.”

“Then call Erna. Have her comb the place for whatever crumbs are left.”

There was a growl beneath his words, low and controlled. Anger packed tight. This was the second dead end in a single month. Not coincidence. Not luck. Someone was moving faster than him. 

Outplaying him.

The intercom crackled before the thought could settle.

Louis exhaled sharply and turned away from the corpse. “Howler here.”

> “LOUIS, THIS IS AN EMERGENCY. A FIRE JUST BROKE OUT IN HERIKE VILLAGE!”

His eyes widened.

The report cut straight through the anger, leaving something colder behind.

“Get Etsune and Mine there. Now. We’ll rendezvous on site. Out!” The line went dead. Louis turned, boots striking hard against the floor as he started walking. “Klaus. Prep the car. We’re heading to Herike Village.”

“Copy.” Klaus moved fast, the others falling in behind him. “Marivaldi?”

“Most likely.”

“But Herike Village is far from his usual routes,” Flo said. The question lingered, uneasy.

Louis was silent for a moment.

“I don’t want to guess,” he said finally. “Because I hope I’m wrong. But if I’m not… he’s going after the kid.”

Klaus didn’t slow. “Which kid?”

Louis didn’t hesitate.

“Theodore Morgan.”