10:41 AM, Hollow Crane, Level 0.(ground floor)
The elevator doors struggled to close, only to be forced open again by the thing lodged between them.
Sheenk… sheenk…
A severed head — eyes rolled white, tongue out — sat in a dark pool of its own blood, the pool widening with each mechanical stutter of the doors.
Kaito slid the black toothpick behind his ear — the way a carpenter tucks a pencil for later.
He crouched low, the rope in his hands pulling taut around his struggling captive, as the "sheenk" sound of the opening and closing elevator echoed through the lobby.
Across the blood-slick lobby, the receptionist — face streaked with someone else's blood — froze mid-breath, eyes fixed on him — Kaito — a lone figure in the center of the room, surrounded by a scatter of severed limbs, torsos, and half-slumped corpses. Everyone from the ground floor… slaughtered.
A final jerk tightened the knot.
Kaito stood, revealing Jinta — trussed up, all fours bound tight behind his back like an overstuffed parcel, surrounded by severed arms and body parts.
Without ceremony, he hooked a single arm under the ropes and lifted Jinta to his side as if carrying a bag of rice.
"Oi! Why the hell are you carrying me around, bastard?!" Jinta barked, thrashing.
"You're my map to the Hollow Crane," Kaito said flatly — tone halfway between mockery and boredom,as he walked towards the closing and opening lift doors.
He stepped into the elevator, nudging the head aside with his boot so the doors could close.
But before they could, Jinta lunged his chin forward, tapping the panel until floors 1 through 6 lit up in sequence.
Kaito glanced at the glowing buttons, then down at him.
"Trying to up your escape chances by stopping at every floor?" His grip shifted. "Not so nice of you… Map."
The doors slid shut.
The receptionist was still locked in place, heart pounding.
Then her body moved before her mind caught up — she shoved the chair aside, tripped over a leg, hit the floor hard, scrambled up again, and lunged for the reception's cable phone.
It rang twice before someone picked up.
"Fourteenth floor," a calm voice answered.
"This is reception— the young lord— he's— he's been taken into the elevator! That monk—"
"Whatt!!?" The voice answered from the other side, panicked.
Hollow crane, Elevator.
Kaito's eyes stayed on the elevator's small display — the arrow beside the glowing 1 inching upward from 0.
"Hollow Crane…?" he murmured, almost to himself. "Don't remember the Beggar Clan living this fancy."
Jinta shifted in the ropes, chin still wet with blood. "That's because we weren't. Not until Nexus backed us. We're big league now." His voice dripped smug certainty. "And once my brother hears about this, you're so dead."
Kaito didn't even glance at him.
"You talk too much for a map."
The elevator chimed. Level 1.
The doors parted — the narrow cabin instantly swarmed by forces waiting outside.
Steel flashed. Voices shouted. Blood sprayed.
From above, it was a blur of tight arcs and quick kills — Kaito's blade cutting red through the hoards.Kaito's boot drove into the wave at the narrow doorway, sending them stumbling back into the mob behind. They tripped, fell, then scrambled up again—only to be cut down the moment they stepped into reach.
Some managed to get past Kaito into the elevator and tried to strike from behind, but the outcome didn't change, they split clean in half before hitting the floor.
By the time the last body dropped, the doors were sliding shut on a slick, crimson floor.
Kaito turned his head slightly, the tip of his blade coming to rest at Jinta's neck.
"So, Mr. Map… where are Ayame and Rika?"
Hollow Crane, Level 15
A man lounged in his chair, bone-white suit glowing faintly under the single overhead light.
A smooth white mask covered his face — no eye sockets, no mouth slit — just black concentric circles painted across its surface, spiraling in toward nothing. His polished shoes rested lazily on the desk.
A phone was pressed to his ear.
"Mm-hm… yeah," he murmured, voice flat but carrying a quiet, coiled menace. "We'll get it done."
A faint chuckle. The phone clicked down.
He leaned forward slightly, gaze shifting to the dim room beyond his desk.
In the center, Ayame and Rika were surrounded by faceless paper men, just like the ones from the car chase. The constructs attacked rika who was defending ayame..
Rika stood at the front, blood trailing from her split lip, breath ragged and uneven.
She lunged forward for a punch—
—but the nearest paper figure ducked low, its folded limbs moving with unnerving precision, and drove a fist straight into her gut.
The impact made her cough blood, stumbling back.
Another figure closed in before she could recover, swinging a tight right hook that cracked against her cheek.
She staggered—
SNAPP!
The sound cut through the room like a whip.
Every paper man froze mid-motion, limbs suspended in their striking poses.
Ayame slid under Rika just in time to keep her from hitting the floor.
Rika's legs gave out, dropping her into Ayame's arms.
"You should've died thirteen years ago," a voice said from across the desk.
Ayame's gaze shot up.
The man in the bone-white suit sat, His hands toyed idly with a sheet of white paper as he spoke.
"The night the Boshin family was erased."
Caption:
Name: Paper Cut
Affiliation: Beggar Clan (Leader), Nexus
Nero Ability: "Origami."
"Your existence can be used against Nexus," Paper Cut said lightly. "Which is why they want you erased…" He folded the sheet into a sharp, crisp paper crane, setting it on the desk.
"...No hard feelings, kid. You should have died anyway."
Then—another SNAPP.
The paper men came alive again.
Ayame muttered under her breath, "Damn it."
She hooked her arm around Rika, dragging her backward as the black-suited paper men advanced.
Gaku who was sitting backwards on a chair in front of the desk, arms draped over the backrest, a lazy grin on his face.
He pulled out a pistol out of the floor, a graffiti gun, sketched into existence by his Nero ability.
He opened fire towards Ayame and Rika.
One struck Rika in the shoulder. She cried out.
"Rika!!." Ayame exclaimed as she desperately tried to drag her to safety.
Before Gaku could fire again, Paper Cut appeared beside him, slipping a finger into the gun's barrel.
"That's the last of the Boshins," he said. "Let her fight before she dies. At least give her that much."
Ayame eased Rika against the wall.
"Forgive me, Rika. You've protected me long enough. My turn now."
She turned back to face the incoming paper men.
Duck under one strike. Sidestep another. Her hand slipped into her coat pocket — pulling free the Phoenix Idol.
She shrugged off the coat — her grandfather's — and wrapped it around the idol, gripping it by the sleeves.
The first swing cracked across a paper man's jaw, the follow-up smashing upward like an uppercut. Another hit snapped a head a full 180 before the body crumpled.
When the paper idol clattered to the ground, Ayame stood between two fallen enemies, breath sharp, eyes locked on Paper Cut.
Her voice was low but it cut clean:
"I've decided to live. You don't get to decide otherwise."
Paper Cut tilted his head, amused.
His hand swept upward. The floor bulged, birthing more paper figures — one tightening its tie, another rolling up its sleeves.
"Then show me what you've got," he said.
A pause.
"Show me the true power of the Heavenly Gum."