The city turned.
It was a slow, ugly process, like a great beast rolling over in its sleep. The euphoria of the morning curdled into the panic of the afternoon. The ten-thousand-credit dividend, which had felt like a miracle, now felt like a curse. It was a key that opened no doors, a meal that offered no sustenance. The city's economic engine had seized, and the brief dream of prosperity had given way to the hard, waking nightmare of scarcity.
And now, they had a face to blame.
Ayla Kazuki's picture was everywhere. On the giant holoscreens in the city center, on the small terminals in convenience stores, on the cracked phones of every desperate citizen. The bounty was a myth, an impossible number, but the anger it stoked was very real. She was no longer a person; she was a symbol for their shattered hopes. The girl who had given them everything, only to leave them with nothing.
The hunt began almost immediately. Neighborhood watches became lynch mobs. Small-time gangs, smelling opportunity, began systematically searching the abandoned sectors of the lower districts. The Pale Hand didn't need to lift a finger; they had successfully weaponized the very people Ravi and Ayla had tried to liberate.
In the water regulation station, Ayla was pacing, her hands clenched into fists. "This is my fault," she muttered, her voice trembling. "I was so focused on hurting them, I didn't think about what would happen next. I made them desperate, and now they're giving them a target for that desperation."
"It is not your fault," Ravi said. He was standing perfectly still, his back to her, facing the tunnel that led to the city. "It is theirs. They chose this move."
"It doesn't matter whose fault it is!" Ayla shot back, her fear turning to frustration. "What do we do? We can't fight the entire city!"
"We don't have to," Ravi said, his voice quiet but carrying an immense weight. "We only have to fight the ones who gave the order." He finally turned, and the look in his eyes made Ayla take an involuntary step back.
The placid calm was gone. The analytical coolness was gone. What remained was something ancient and terrifying. It was an abyss of cold, focused rage. It was the look of a celestial body whose orbit has been disturbed, a fundamental law of nature preparing to violently reassert itself.
"Archon Liora," Ravi said, the name sounding like a death sentence. "She is the Hand's sword. She commands their assassins and their enforcers. She believes strength is the only true power. We will correct her worldview."
"We don't know where she is!" Ayla protested. "She's one of the Archons. Her location is the most heavily guarded secret in the organization!"
"We don't need to find her," Ravi said. "She will come to us."
He started walking towards the tunnel.
"What are you doing?!" Ayla cried, running after him. "You can't just go out there! Everyone is looking for us! For me!"
Ravi stopped and looked at her. "You will stay here. You are the priority. Keep the systems monitored. Find me a path to the central communication tower in Sector 3. That is where I will be."
"The communication tower? Why?"
"To send a message," Ravi said. "Liora wanted to turn the city against us by putting your face on every screen. I will do the same." He paused, his eyes glowing with that faint, crimson light. "But it will be her soldiers' screams on every speaker."
Before Ayla could say another word, he was gone, a shadow disappearing into the labyrinthine tunnels.
Duskfall's lower districts were a sea of angry, desperate people. Ravi emerged from a sewer grate into a back alley and was immediately met with the new reality. A group of four thugs, armed with pipes and knives, were shaking down a street vendor.
"We know you're holding out, old man!" one of them snarled. "We're commandeering this stock for the 'citizen protection force'."
As Ravi stepped out of the alley, their eyes fell on him. They didn't recognize him. He was just a kid in a school uniform.
"Piss off, student," the leader grunted. "This doesn't concern you."
Ravi's gaze was fixed on a small, flickering screen on the vendor's cart. It was displaying Ayla's wanted poster.
"You are looking for the girl," Ravi stated. It wasn't a question.
The thug grinned, showing rotten teeth. "Yeah, what's it to you? Know where she is? The ten-million-credit question."
"I do," Ravi said, his voice a dead calm.
The thugs' eyes lit up with greed. "Yeah? Where?"
"She is under my protection," Ravi said. "And you have made the mistake of hunting her."
The lead thug laughed. "Big words for a dead man." He and his friends raised their pipes and charged.
What happened next was not a fight. It was a lesson in divine wrath.
Ravi didn't move from his spot. As the first thug swung his pipe, Ravi's hand shot out and caught it. He didn't stop it; he let its momentum continue, twisting the pipe and the arm attached to it in a full circle, shattering the bone in three places with an audible snap. He used the man as a shield against the second attacker, whose knife plunged uselessly into his friend's shoulder.
Ravi's other hand darted out, his fingers extended and rigid. He jabbed the third thug in the throat, collapsing his windpipe. The man dropped his weapon, clutching at his neck, making a silent, gurgling sound. The fourth attacker, seeing this, froze in terror.
Ravi turned his full attention to him, his eyes burning with cold fire. He took one step forward. The thug scrambled backward, tripped, and fell into a pile of trash bags.
"W-Who are you?!" he stammered.
Ravi leaned down, his face inches from the terrified thug's.
"I am the man who will burn your name out of existence if you ever even think her name again," he whispered, his voice resonating with an unholy power. "Spread the word. The hunt is over. Or the hunters will become the hunted."
He stood up and walked away, leaving the broken, groaning thugs and the terrified survivor behind. The old street vendor stared after him, his eyes wide with a fearful, dawning comprehension.
This was not just a boy. This was the Black Crown.
Ravi walked through the streets of the lower district, not hiding, but moving with a purpose. He didn't seek out trouble, but whenever he came across a group hunting for Ayla, he repeated the lesson. Each encounter was a whirlwind of precise, brutal, and non-lethal violence. A shattered kneecap here, a broken arm there. He was a storm of cold justice, carving a path through the city's desperation.
News of his actions spread faster than any broadcast. A new whisper started, overriding the bounty hunt. A story of a demon in a school uniform, a guardian angel of the damned, who was protecting the "witch" Ayla Kazuki. He was dismantling hunting parties one by one, leaving their members broken but alive, with a single, chilling message.
The message was clear: The girl was off-limits.
In her hidden command center, Archon Liora watched the reports flood in. Dozens of her impromptu hunting parties had been neutralized. The descriptions were all the same: a lone boy, impossible speed, devastating force, and a cold, terrifying wrath.
"He's surfaced," she said, a slow, predatory smile spreading across her face. "He took the bait. He's protecting her."
"Archon," a captain said, his voice nervous. "He's creating a path of destruction. The locals are getting spooked. They're abandoning the hunt."
"Let them," Liora said, her eyes gleaming. "This was never about them finding her. This was about flushing him out. He's leaving a trail. A trail that leads directly to him."
She stood up and donned a long, black coat over her tactical gear. From a weapon rack, she took up a single, elegant blade—a monomolecular katana that hummed with a deadly energy.
"He thinks he's the storm," she purred. "He has no idea what a real hurricane looks like." She turned to her elite guard, the 'Reapers.' "He's heading for the communications tower. He wants to send a message." She smiled, a truly terrifying sight.
"Let's go and give him his audience."