Akio stepped into the space without a sound. He had scaled the building from the exterior, boots barely disturbing the stone, cloak settling quietly around his shoulders. His double ended blade rested loosely in his hand.
He had already secured the lower levels and cleared every corridor. The mission should have ended there, but he had felt a faint distortion in the structure, the quiet pressure of M.A.W. residue woven into the framework of the building where it had no right to be.
He advanced slowly, measured steps echoing softly across the polished marble. The floor reflected the ceiling’s ring of light and the distant shimmer of the city below, turning the entire room into a suspended arena of gold and violet. To his right, beyond the glass, a clock tower rose in the distance. Its illuminated face aligned almost perfectly with the room’s center, as though time itself were observing the space.
Akio stopped just at the edge of the light. His eyes swept the room again. There was no furniture, no debris. The air was calm. Nothing seemed out of place.
Then something across from him shifted.
His focus sharpened instantly, all idle thought dissolving as he locked onto the dark space just beyond the light. His posture did not change, but his awareness narrowed to a razor’s edge.
A figure stepped forward from the shadows, black cloak trailing around them. The faint scrape of metal chain links dragged against the marble floor. They moved with deliberate calm, as though the darkness itself had decided to take form. The figure stopped precisely at the boundary where shadow met light. They lifted their head and a single red eye locked onto him.
Akio did not react. His mask concealed any shift in expression, though his mind adjusted instantly to the new calculus. The presence of M.A.W. made sense now. Of all variables, the Hollow was one he had anticipated tonight.
He was at a disadvantage without Gabriel, the risk of infection made engaging solo far more dangerous. Should he ever be in an unfavorable position, the window to redirect pressure was circumstantial at best. And yet, retreat was not an option. Neither was escape, judging by the way the Hollow studied him with unsettling stillness.
Akio subtly adjusted his grip, thumb tracing the circular handle at the center of his weapon. For half a second, he weighed outcomes. The Hollow was volatile, but facing it alone was still well within his capabilities. He felt no fear, only clarity.
Without a word, he stepped fully into the light. The ring above illuminated him in pale gold. His blade caught the glow along its curved edges, faint reflections sliding across the metal. The polished surface of his mask gleamed.
Across from him, the Hollow answered the gesture and stepped forward as well. Chain blades hung from both hands, lengths of dark metal coiling and dragging behind them. Thin veins of black fire crawled along the links and curved edges, subtle but alive.
For a moment, neither moved. Two figures beneath a halo of artificial sun. Marble reflecting their silhouettes. The clock tower beyond marking the seconds with patient indifference. The silence stretched, humming with tension.
Then—
The Hollow struck first.
The chain blade snapped forward in a vicious arc, black fire rippling along its edge.
Akio moved on instinct. He angled his double ended blade just enough to redirect rather than absorb, letting the force glance off instead of collide head on. The impact rang sharp beneath the ring light, sparks scattering briefly across marble. He was already pivoting into a counter before the Hollow’s chains had finished recoiling.
The Hollow responded instantly. M.A.W. surged along one length of chain, thickening like oil forced through a vein. It lashed outward—not at him, but at the space he would occupy half a second later.
Akio disengaged mid strike.
He had already predicted the trajectory. His body shifted before the chain completed its curve, cloak snapping behind him as he stepped through the narrow opening in its sweep. He retaliated with a precise horizontal cut aimed at the Hollow’s midline.
The chains twisted, intercepting his blade with minimal contact—not enough time for the M.A.W. to spread, not enough pressure to bind. The Hollow followed up with its twin blades, slashing through the space between them.
The fight dissolved into a rapid succession of close quarters exchanges. Their silhouettes blurred beneath the muted halo of light, reflections fracturing across the polished marble floor. Every clash was measured, brief—blades kissing for the barest fraction of a second before separating.
They were evenly matched, but equilibrium was not neutral.
Akio knew the longer this engagement persisted, the more the probability shifted against him. M.A.W. was not merely a weapon—it was an environmental contaminant. Every near miss, every graze, every microsecond of prolonged contact increased the risk of infection or destabilization.
He predicted the next strike before it formed—the subtle tightening of shoulder, the minute shift of chain tension. He moved first, pressing forward with a flurry of precise strikes that forced the Hollow fully into the light. Curved blade against chain, metal ringing in tight succession. For a heartbeat he held the offensive.
Then the chains expanded outward, reclaiming space.
He was forced back onto the defensive as the links lashed in widening arcs, controlling the arena in concentric patterns.
The biggest threat is its reach.
You could be reading stolen content. Head to Royal Road for the genuine story.
The chains dictated the battlefield. They created invisible boundaries, zones of denial that required constant spatial recalibration. Every step demanded awareness not only of the Hollow’s body, but of the independent will of its weapons.
If I can disarm it and limit its range, elimination becomes viable.
He shifted his angle, circling before closing the distance deliberately.
The Hollow spun to meet him, chains coiling inward to compensate. Their weapons collided again in a rapid, lethal exchange. Akio felt the subtle resistance in the chain links, the way they did not merely deflect but redirected.
Micro binds.
The Hollow was using individual links as articulation points—catching the edge of his blade, altering its trajectory by fractions, bleeding off momentum without sacrificing full control. The chains were not wild. They were orchestrated. Each movement required extreme precision, minute adjustments at every joint.
And Akio realized that in doing so—
It sacrificed M.A.W.
He could not see it as clearly as he felt it. Whenever the Hollow executed a broad, brute strike, the M.A.W. surged heavily along the metal. But during these refined micro binds, the pressure thinned. The black fire along the links receded, narrowing to faint veins instead of flooding the chain.
It made sense. M.A.W. carried metaphysical mass—an entropic density that clung to material and altered its balance. When layered heavily along segmented metal, it stiffened the articulation points, increasing friction at each joint. The more saturated the chain, the less fluid its fine motor control became. Precision required responsiveness. Responsiveness required reduced corruption.
The Hollow was instinctively thinning the M.A.W. along the links during delicate maneuvers, redistributing it to maintain control. Meaning there were moments—fleeting, precise moments—where its weapon was almost purely metal.
Akio recalculated instantly.
The Hollow was operating on a correct assumption—that he would not risk contamination and disengage the moment a strike placed him within infection range. If he could force the Hollow into a micro bind, then subvert the expectation at the exact moment it anticipated his withdrawal, he would have a window. Small, but sufficient.
The exchange played out in his mind in perfect sequence, each motion mapped before it occurred. He disengaged deliberately, adjusting his stance by mere degrees—weight shifting forward, blade alignment subtly altered.
The Hollow advanced, relentless. It closed the distance aggressively, chains snapping inward to compress the battlefield. Akio met every strike, but this time he stepped into the range rather than away from it. He forced the arcs tighter, shorter, sharper.
The chains responded exactly as predicted. Each deflection caught the edge of his blade for a fraction of a second, redirecting rather than overpowering. He felt it before he saw it—the subtle shift in air pressure as the M.A.W. receded along the links to maintain articulation.
There.
Akio angled his next strike slightly higher than optimal, blade parallel to the ground, a fractional overextension. The Hollow seized it instantly. A chain flicked upward to intercept, precise and surgical, its counter blade already moving toward the space it anticipated he would retreat into.
Instead, he committed.
The chain link bit into his palm. A sharp, clean sting as metal sliced across the base of his thumb, tearing through thin leather and into skin. Warmth bloomed instantly—blood, shallow but real. Akio ignored it.
In one decisive motion, he drove his blade downward through the narrowing gap created by the bind. The tip slipped between the Hollow’s grip and the chain’s tension point, slicing cleanly across its right hand—scarring its index and middle fingers with surgical precision. He felt the faint resistance of flesh parting under honed steel.
The Hollow’s hand spasmed and the chain blade dropped. Akio did not pause. He rotated his weapon smoothly around its circular handle, pivoting through the momentum rather than resetting. The second curved edge came around in a seamless arc and carved across the Hollow’s left hand, forcing its remaining grip open with brutal precision.
Metal clattered against marble. The chain fell slack, coiling uselessly at its owner’s feet.
Akio did not need to look; he already knew exactly where the chain landed. He stepped through the falling loops of metal as they collapsed around him, spinning his blade once in his right hand, readjusting his grip. His gaze never left the figure before him.
The Hollow stumbled, balance compromised, and dropped to its knees.
Akio advanced, stepping forward with finality. He stopped an arm’s length away, looking down at the kneeling figure. The tip of his blade rose steadily until it hovered at eye level, precise and unwavering.
The yellow ring light reflected faintly along the steel. The clock tower outside marked another second. Everything stilled. The cut on his palm burned.
But the fight was already over.
And the arena fell silent.
Akio stood over the kneeling figure with cold, methodical composure. The Hollow’s lone red eye stared back up at him, unblinking, calculating. Both of its palms were pressed flat against the marble floor, faint smears of blood glistening under the light. It did not move. Neither did he.
He conducted a swift internal assessment. The cut across his palm burned but remained shallow. He scanned inward with precise detachment and found no signs of M.A.W. infection. His blade hovered at eye level. One clean downward strike and it would be over. The Hollow eliminated.
But Akio didn’t act yet.
Even now, standing mere inches away from his opponent, he still couldn’t tell if it was human or something else entirely. Faint streaks of black fire swirled around the Hollow in small wisps, melting with the figure like extensions of its presence.
Akio adjusted his grip slightly, weighing the possibilities. This felt too easy. The likelihood that its death here wouldn’t be final and instead introduce unforeseen complications was too high for comfort. If he beheaded it now, would that actually kill it? Or would he unwittingly be unleashing something worse? If beheading it resulted in an explosion of M.A.W., there would be no clean way to contain it—and he himself would be caught directly in the blast radius.
Outside, the clock tower chimed. The sound cut through his focus with surgical clarity. He registered the time without emotion.
It’s a quarter past seven.
Then, after a beat, the realization settled again.
It’s a quarter past seven…
Akio blinked, suddenly horrified.
I’m supposed to meet Aira and her friend in fifteen minutes.
A faint sense of dread began to pool in his chest. He was meant to meet them before they went to the movie, he had promised he would. His prior mission had concluded ten minutes ago. He should already be halfway across the district. Instead, he was standing over the Hollow with blood soaking steadily into his glove.
In front of him, the Hollow remained motionless, both palms still pressed to the floor. The probability of it triggering a M.A.W. anomaly to force disengagement was high. If that occurred, the conflict would escalate and time would evaporate entirely.
If he stayed, he could end this.
If he left, he would be sparing the Hollow.
Akio’s fingers tightened slightly around the circular handle of his weapon. Logically, the correct choice was obvious: eliminate the largest active M.A.W. threat to the nation. Opportunities like this did not repeat easily.
And yet…
He remembered the last time he had failed to show up. The way Aira’s anger had flared too quickly. The way it had been covering something else. The way she had insisted it didn’t matter. The way it absolutely had mattered. She had only just recovered. Only just returned to something resembling normal. She had lit up when he promised.
I already disappointed her once.
The blade remained steady in his hand.
I cannot disappoint her again.
The decision snapped into place—and without warning, he turned and ran.
He sprinted toward the observatory exit with decisive urgency. His cloak flared violently as he vaulted through the side opening. He cleared the ledge without hesitation and dropped, catching the adjacent rooftop in a controlled descent that was far more aggressive than strictly necessary.
He recalculated midair: change clothes, disinfect wound, dispose of contaminated glove, reach meeting point within acceptable variance. Margin of lateness: minimal. Preferably nonexistent.
He accelerated across the rooftops, leaps precise but noticeably faster than his usual measured pace. Internally, the situation had escalated to catastrophic proportions. The Hollow would remain alive, but that was fine. Their fight tonight had left him with valuable data he could use in the future. What was not fine, however, was disappointing Aira. Repairing trust would be far harder than any battle he could possibly face.
Akio flew through the night—his priorities set, his mission clear.
Aira was waiting, and he would not let her down twice.
─ ? NEXT CHAPTER POV ? ─
Akio
Novicius in Arte Medica A Novice in the Art of MedicineMedical School is a Warzone. Ashrahan was failing. Then, the System woke up.
Quote: Synopsis: Sleepless nights, borrowed notes, and caffeine. When exhaustion drags Ashrahan to the edge, a silent system awakens, transforming patients into interactive lessons and textbooks into living networks of surgical precision.