Samantha POV
"Who's next?"
My voice, low and guttural, hung in the oppressive air of the warehouse, a stark counterpoint to the whimpering of the broken man at my feet. The reek of blood, sweat, and urine mingled with the smell of my own adrenaline. It was intoxicating. It was disgusting.
The fifteen remaining thugs, who moments ago had been a pack of slavering hyenas, were now a herd of frozen sheep. Their eyes, wide with terror, darted from the still, twisted form of Jiro, to the sobbing, mangled heap that was Gouda, and finally to me. They didn't see Kisaragi Samantha, the sickly, quiet girl from their rival school. They saw the thing that had unmade two of their strongest in less than a minute. They saw a demon wearing a schoolgirl's skin.
Kenji, his face the color of spoiled milk, tried to rally his crumbling authority. "D-Don't just stand there!" he wheezed, clutching his shattered ribs. "Get her! She's just one girl! Fucking kill her!"
His words were hollow, pathetic things, swallowed by the cavernous silence. No one moved. Their bravado had been bled out onto the concrete floor, leaving only a primal, gut-wrenching fear.
My gaze, cold and heavy, locked onto Kenji. A predator singling out the weakest of the pack.
"Kenji-senpai," I said, the honorific a deliberate, mocking insult. "If I have to beat all sixteen of your pathetic friends…" My lips pulled back from my teeth in a smile that held no warmth, only the promise of pain. "You're last. And if you even think about running away before your turn, I promise you, I will make what I did to them seem like a kindness."
Before the weight of my promise could fully settle, a new sound sliced through the tension. It was the high-pitched, furious scream of a high-performance motorcycle engine being pushed to its absolute limit, growing closer at an impossible speed.
It ended with the tortured screech of tires biting into asphalt just outside.
For a heartbeat, there was silence.
And then the massive, corrugated steel door of the warehouse didn't just open. It exploded inward, ripped from its rusted hinges by a single, focused impact, and flew a dozen feet into the room with a deafening, metallic shriek of protest.
Every eye snapped to the entrance.
Silhouetted against the dying violet light of dusk stood a figure. A woman, clad in simple black jeans and a t-shirt, yet her presence filled the gaping doorway, radiating a cold so intense it was a physical pressure.
Kurosawa Akemi had arrived.
She took a single, deliberate step into the warehouse, her movements possessing the fluid, terrifying grace of a stalking panther. Her eyes, dark and chillingly empty, swept across the scene, taking in the tableau of carnage with an unnerving lack of surprise. She saw Jiro's corpse, Gouda's broken form, Kenji's terror, and my blood-spattered uniform. Her expression didn't so much as flicker. It was the look of a god surveying a messy, but entirely predictable, human squabble.
"Kenji."
Her voice was not loud. It was a low, perfectly pitched thing, yet it cut through the warehouse and seemed to vibrate in the very marrow of my bones. It was a voice that didn't need to be raised to command utter, terrified obedience.
"Is this how you spend your free time?"
Kenji's jaw worked, but no sound came out. His face, already pale, turned a pasty, corpse-like gray. "K-Kurosawa-san..." he finally stammered, stumbling back another step. "The… the Ice Queen… you really came…" The carefully constructed world of the schoolyard bully, of the predator, had just shattered. He was nothing. A bug. And the boot was here. "We're… we're screwed."
Gouda, still conscious, let out a wet, gurgling whimper. "She's… she's really his girlfriend?" he choked out, his disbelieving gaze flitting from Akemi's terrifying form to Ren's broken one.
"Akemi-sama…" one of the other thugs whispered, his voice cracking with a mixture of awe and absolute dread. "So that's why… she rejected every guy at school… including me…"
Akemi-nee ignored them completely, as if they were nothing more than squirming insects, background noise. Her glacial gaze finally landed on Ren, slumped and broken in the chair. And for a single, breathtaking moment, the ice in her eyes cracked. It was replaced by a flicker of something so raw, so vulnerable—a flash of pure, undiluted agony—that it stole the breath from my own lungs.
"Ren," she said, and her voice was different now. The steel was still there, but it was wrapped in velvet. It was a sound meant only for him. "You're here."
My brother, his face a swollen mask of pain, managed to lift his head. A faint, wretchedly relieved smile touched his split lips. "Ake…mi…" he croaked, his voice a broken rasp. He was immediately seized by a deep, rattling cough that shook his entire frame. "You came… thank you…"
The sound of his pained cough was like a switch being flipped. The crack in Akemi-nee's composure sealed over. The ice returned, colder and harder than before. The temperature in the warehouse didn't just seem to drop. It plummeted. I could see the faint mist of my own breath in the air.
Seeing my chance, my own rage momentarily banked by the arrival of this superior predator, I scrambled towards her. "Akemi-nee! You came! Thank you, thank you!"
Her hand landed on my head, her touch surprisingly gentle, a stark contrast to the murderous energy pouring off her in waves. Her focus, however, was entirely on my brother.
"Look at him! Look what they did to Onii-chan!" My voice was raw, the fear and fury real. I didn't have to act this part. "He's still tied up! They beat him, Akemi-nee, they beat him so badly! And he can't breathe, I think he's having an asthma attack!"
Akemi-nee's gaze slowly, deliberately, moved from Ren's broken body to Kenji and his terrified lackeys.
"I will give you ten seconds," she said, her voice dropping back to that terrifyingly calm, quiet monotone. "To untie him."
She took another step into the room. The thugs flinched as if she had struck them.
"If my boyfriend is still in that chair when I reach the count of ten…" Her eyes, now completely devoid of light, swept over them. "…I will personally dismantle each and every one of you. I will start with your fingers, and I will end with your spines. Am I clear?"
A collective, silent terror was her answer.
"One."
The word was a soft puff of air, yet it landed like a bomb.
"You heard her!" Kenji shrieked, his voice cracking into a pathetic, high-pitched squeal. "Untie him! Fucking untie him now!"
It was a comical, terrifying scramble. Thugs tripped over each other, their hands slick with sweat as they fumbled with the thick, coarse ropes binding Ren. Their fear of the Ice Queen had utterly eclipsed any loyalty to their sniveling leader.
"Two."
Akemi-nee's voice was as steady and relentless as a funeral drum.
I watched, my body trembling with a mixture of profound relief and a dark, lingering rage. A part of me, the new, monstrous part, mourned the loss of my prey. It wanted to be the one to finish this. But the older, weaker part of me was just grateful to have the nuclear option in my corner.
"Three."
The final rope gave way. Ren slumped forward, his body held up only by the frame of the chair. He gasped, great, shuddering, desperate gulps of air.
"Four."
Kenji held up his hands, his face a mask of pleading terror. "He's untied! He's free! Please… just let us go! We won't say anything! We'll leave town!"
Akemi-nee's lips curved into a smile. It was the most terrifying thing I had ever seen. It was a predator's smile, all sharp edges and cold, merciless beauty.
"Let you go?" she mused, her voice dripping with a saccharine venom. "After you did this to him? Now, why would I do that?"
She took another step. Then I saw my opening. I saw the path to absolute victory.
I stepped forward, forcing my body to tremble, summoning the memory of my terror from moments before. I let my eyes well up with tears, a trick I hadn't used since I was a child trying to get out of a check-up.
"A-Akemi-nee…" I stammered, my voice a perfect imitation of a traumatized, terrified girl. "They… they were going to… to rape me." The words came out as a choked sob. I looked down, hiding the cold, calculating light in my own eyes. "If you hadn't come… they said… they said they were going to make Onii-chan watch…"
A silence, absolute and profound, descended upon the warehouse. It was a dead silence, the kind that precedes a supernova.
Akemi-nee, who had been moving with a slow, deliberate grace, stopped. She turned her head, her gaze locking onto me.
"They. What."
It was not a question. It was a death sentence.
I nodded, letting a single, perfect tear roll down my cheek. "They wanted to… to taste me," I whispered, loading the word with all the horror it deserved. "They said such horrible, horrible things…"
Her gaze snapped back to the thugs. The cold fury from before was gone, replaced by something else. Something utterly empty. A void. It was the promise of a painless, thoughtless, merciless extinction.
"You disgusting, worthless pieces of filth," she hissed, and the air itself seemed to crackle around her.
She turned back to me, the void in her eyes momentarily shielded. "Sam-chan. Take my bike keys. Get Ren to the Keio University Hospital. It's the closest with a top-tier trauma center." She tossed me the keys, her movements sharp and precise. "I will handle this… sanitation problem."
My heart hammered against my ribs. A new, terrifying sound echoed in my mind, a triumphant, cosmic chime.
[Main Mission #2: Save Your Older Brother - COMPLETE!]
[Condition Met: Overwhelming Force Arrived]
[Calculating Rewards…]
[Rewards Granted: 'Spin the Wheel' x 4]
Wow, Sam-chan! Your acting skills are S-Rank! You totally played her! And the mission is complete! Now for the good stuff! Mochi's voice was a ridiculously cheerful buzz in my ear.
"What… what wheel?" I muttered, my head spinning from the emotional whiplash.
The System Gacha Wheel! The cosmic prize machine! You completed an EXTREME difficulty quest, so you get four spins for epic loot! Four! This is huge!
A weak cough brought me crashing back to reality. "Sami…" Ren rasped, his eyes pleading. "Let's… let's go…"
"Right. Onii-chan." I pushed the System notifications to the back of my mind.
I carefully helped him to his feet, draping his arm over my shoulder and taking most of his weight. He was terrifyingly light.
"Akemi…" Ren managed, his voice a faint whisper. "Be… careful."
Akemi-nee was already walking towards the terrified huddle of thugs. She glanced back at him, and the cold smile returned, but this time, it was aimed at him, and it was filled with a fierce, possessive reassurance. "Don't worry about me, Ren. Just focus on getting better."
Her gaze hardened as she turned back to her prey.
"I have some trash to take out."
I guided Ren towards the exploded doorway, Mochi zipping excitedly around my head. The image of Akemi-nee, a lone predator facing down a pack of terrified wolves, was burned into my mind. I knew she could handle them. I also knew that the screams were about to begin.
We reached her bike, a sleek, black monster that looked like it was carved from solidified night. Ren leaned against it, gasping.
"My… inhaler…" he wheezed. "Bag…"
I quickly found it and helped him, my hands shaking. Slowly, his breathing eased. Color began to return to his face.
"Thanks, Sami," he said, his voice stronger. He looked at me, his one good eye filled with a complex mixture of pride, awe, and a sliver of fear. "You were… you were incredible back there."
A hot blush crept up my neck. "I… I just didn't want them to hurt you, Onii-chan."
I helped him onto the back of the motorcycle, a difficult task given his injuries. It was a tight fit. My front was pressed firmly against his back, my arms wrapped around his waist to hold him steady. Mochi zipped onto the handlebars, his blue light glowing.
Let's go, Sam-chan! Let's get you to a safe place so you can spin that wheel! Think of the loot!
I settled into the driver's seat. The machine felt alive beneath me. I took a deep breath, the smell of leather, gasoline, and my brother's blood filling my senses.
"Okay, Onii-chan. Hold on tight."
I twisted the throttle. The engine roared to life, a savage sound in the sudden quiet of the evening. As I sped away from the warehouse and its horrors, I couldn't resist a glance back.
The first scream, high-pitched and full of agony, echoed from within. It was cut off abruptly.
The fight wasn't over. The slaughter had just begun.