The departure terminal was a cathedral of glass and steel, polished floors reflecting the grey morning light. Leo sat on a hard plastic bench, his single battered bag at his feet, staring at the massive departure board as if it held the answers to the universe.
Flight 372 to Tokyo-Narita. Boarding in 45 minutes.
Forty-five minutes. Forty-five minutes until he left everything behind.
He'd done it clean. Cleaner than he deserved.
The meeting with Korran had been in the old man's cramped office at the academy, the walls covered in yellowed maps and the severed claws of long-dead monsters. Leo had laid it all out—the ring, the voices, the Warden, Kaelen's visit. Everything except Mira's name. He kept her out of it. That was the one promise he intended to keep.
Korran had listened in silence, his weathered face giving nothing away. When Leo finished, the old hunter had stared at him for a long, uncomfortable minute.
"You're an idiot," Korran finally said.
"I know."
"An absolute, grade-A, certified idiot."
"I know."
"But you're not a stupid idiot." Korran leaned back, his chair creaking in protest. "Running is the smart play. The Guild's already circling. That Kaelen character... I've heard whispers. He doesn't take prisoners, Leo. He takes parts."
So Korran had made some calls. Called in favors from his own hunter days, from people who owed him blood debts and didn't ask questions. Twenty-four hours later, Leo had a transfer. A "hunter exchange program" that existed only on paper, paperwork greased with the last of the Wyrm core money, and a seat on a plane to a country he'd only seen in old magazines.
The Guild thought he was being transferred to the Japanese Hunter Association for "specialized training."
The Japanese Hunter Association thought he was a promising low-rank talent seeking international experience.
Nobody asked too many questions. Money had a way of making people quiet.
The one thing Leo hadn't done was tell Mira.
He'd written a letter. It was in his bag, crumpled and rewritten a dozen times. It said all the things he couldn't say to her face. I'm sorry. I love you like family. Stay safe. Don't follow me. Live your life. Forget me.
It was a lie wrapped in good intentions, and it tasted like poison.
He'd left it with Korran, with strict instructions to deliver it after the plane was in the air. Coward's move. He knew it. But if he'd looked her in the eyes one more time, he'd have broken. He'd have let her come. And he'd rather be a coward alive than a hero with her blood on his hands.
Flight 372. Now Boarding.
Leo grabbed his bag and walked towards the gate. He didn't look back.
---
The plane was massive. One of those double-decker monsters that looked like a city with wings. Leo followed the stream of passengers down the jet bridge and into the belly of the beast.
"Common cabin is to the right, sir," a flight attendant said with a plastic smile.
He nodded, shuffling past the curtain that separated the classes. Common was exactly what it sounded like—rows of cramped seats, crying babies, and the faint smell of recycled farts. He found his window seat, 34F, and wedged himself into it like a sardine accepting its fate.
The man beside him was already asleep, mouth open, snoring like a constipated walrus. Leo's other neighbor was a woman knitting what appeared to be an endless scarf, her needles clicking with machine-gun precision.
Home sweet home for the next fourteen hours.
He settled back, letting the background noise wash over him. The ring on his finger was quiet, its usual cold weight somehow... settled. Stable. He'd checked his mana before boarding—still hovering around 3.0, but the channels felt stronger. Cleaner. The "vessel integrity" Korran had drilled into him was improving.
Two charges stored. Fourteen hours of flight time. No monsters, no Guild agents, no cultists.
For the first time in weeks, Leo let himself breathe.
The plane began to taxi, the engines building to a throaty roar. Through the tiny window, he watched the terminal slide away, the grey buildings of New Arcanis shrinking into a smudged postcard.
Goodbye, Mira. I'm sorry.
---
Four hours into the flight, Leo's bladder made its demands known.
He squeezed past Sleeping Beauty and the Knitting Ninja, making his way down the narrow aisle towards the restrooms at the front of the common cabin. As he waited, he noticed something odd.
People were looking past him. Towards the front of the plane. Whispers rippled through the cabin like wind through wheat.
"...did you see..."
"...who is she..."
"...no way, that's..."
".... Holy shit!..."
Leo turned, curiosity overriding his pressing need to pee.
A small procession was moving through the common cabin. Two massive men in black suits, their eyes scanning the passengers with the cold alertness of bodyguards. Behind them, a slim woman in a professional-looking outfit, probably an assistant or secretary, her face pinched with barely concealed stress.
And behind them—
Leo forgot how to breathe.
She moved like a queen walking through a peasant village, completely oblivious to the stares she was attracting. And she attracted all of them.
Her hair was the color of a winter sky, a pale, almost ethereal blue that fell in soft waves past her shoulders. Her skin was porcelain pale, flawless, the kind of complexion that belonged in paintings, not on a commercial flight. Her body was... impossible. Curves that defied physics, showcased rather than hidden by a simple but elegant white blouse and dark fitted pants. The kind of figure that made grown men walk into poles.
But it was her face that truly stopped time.
High cheekbones. Full lips set in a perfectly neutral expression. And eyes—gods, those eyes—the clearest, most piercing green Leo had ever seen. They were the color of sea ice, of deep forest shadows, of something ancient and utterly untouchable.
She wasn't just beautiful. She was devastating. The kind of beautiful that made you feel embarrassed for looking, like you were somehow offending her by existing in her presence.
And Leo knew her.
The recognition hit him like a mana bolt to the chest. He'd seen her face in hunter magazines, in Academy textbooks, in grainy news reports about top-rank dungeon clears.
Icerin.
S-Class hunter. Japan's "Ice Queen." A living legend who had solo-cleared more S-Rank dungeons than most countries had S-Rank hunters. Her combat record was the stuff of whispered awe. Her personal life was a complete mystery. She gave no interviews, attended no galas, and was rumored to have told the Japanese Prime Minister to "schedule an appointment like everyone else" when he'd requested a meeting.
And she was walking through the common cabin of a commercial flight.
What. The. Actual. Hell.
Leo became acutely aware that he was standing in the aisle in a wrinkled shirt he'd slept in for three days, staring at an S-Class goddess with his mouth slightly open. He tried to look casual. He failed spectacularly.
The bodyguards passed him without a glance. The assistant hurried by, muttering into a small communication device. And then Icerin herself was right there, close enough that Leo could see the faint shimmer of mana that clung to her like a second skin, an unconscious aura of absolute power.
Her green eyes flicked towards him.
For one frozen second, they made eye contact.
Leo's brain, usually reliable in a crisis, decided to play dead. It offered no witty remarks, no clever observations, nothing but a single, blaring though..
Leo in thought
"Shit shit shit shit shit shit....what's she's doin here?!?!"
Then she looked away, dismissing him as completely as one might dismiss a slightly interesting pebble, and continued her graceful procession towards the front of the plane.
The assistant peeled off, heading for the VIP cabin, while Icerin herself... stopped.
In the common cabin.
She slid into an empty row of seats—economy seats—and sat down, her perfect posture somehow making the worn fabric look regal. She produced a small book from somewhere and began to read, utterly oblivious to the twenty passengers now openly staring at her.
Leo stood frozen in the aisle, bladder forgotten, brain rebooting.
A hand tugged his sleeve. He looked down. It was an old man in a faded cap, the civilian who'd been sitting two rows back, watching the whole scene with amusement.
"Close your mouth, son. You'll catch flies," the old man said, his voice a friendly rasp.
Leo shut his mouth. Then opened it again. "That's... that's Icerin."
"Yep."
"The S-Class hunter. The Ice Queen."
"The very same."
"She's sitting in economy."
The old man chuckled, a phlegmy sound. "Threw you for a loop, huh? Word is, her private jet got sabotaged. Some idiot rival thought it'd be clever to ground her. Blew up her hangar, damaged the plane." He shook his head, grinning. "Joke's on them, though. She could rent another jet with a snap of her fingers. Buy one, even. But instead, she decides to fly commercial. Know why?"
Leo shook his head, dumbfounded.
"'Cause nobody expects the Ice Queen to be sitting in 17C, waiting for the peanuts. She's hiding in plain sight. Smart lady." The old man leaned back, clearly enjoying the story. "Bet her enemies are tearing their hair out right now. They're watching private terminals, scanning luxury flights... and she's back here with us common folk, reading a book."
Leo looked at Icerin again. She turned a page, her expression serene, utterly at peace in the cramped, noisy cabin.
An S-Class hunter. A living weapon. A woman who could probably destroy this entire plane with a thought if she wanted to.
Reading a paperback in economy class.
Leo finally remembered he needed the bathroom. He stumbled towards it, his mind a chaotic storm of questions, awe, and the lingering burn of those green eyes on his.
While peeing he said one word
"Fuck"