The heavy black titanium door swung wide, not with a mechanical grind, but with a breath of displaced air. It revealed the heart of the fortress, the reason for the walls, the guards, and the secrets.
Banks of high-intensity floodlights flickered on in sequence—thrum-click, thrum-click, thrum-click—illuminating a cavernous room carved from the living rock. The space was vast, cold, and utterly silent.
Eiden raised his pistol, his muscles tight, expecting guards. Expecting a cell block. Expecting a fight for his life.
Emily raised her flashlight, expecting blueprints for weapons. Expecting barracks for a secret army.
What they found was silence. And shine.
The room was filled, floor to ceiling, with gold.
It wasn't just bars, though there were pallets of those, stacked like bricks in a builder's yard, stamped with seals from nations that no longer existed. There were mountains of ancient coins cascading from overturned chests. There were jeweled chalices, heavy golden crowns, and statues that belonged in national museums. It was a dragon's hoard. It was a library of stolen history. It was billions of dollars, resting in the cold dark, gathering dust.
"Oh... my... god," Linda whispered, stepping past them. Her voice didn't echo; the soft metal of the gold seemed to absorb the sound. She reached out, her fingers hovering over a stack of bullion. "It's true. It's all true. He really is... richer than God."
Emily lowered her hands, the flashlight clattering to the floor. She looked at the mountains of wealth, at the sheer, undeniable proof of avarice. Her face crumbled. The image of her father—the stoic, burdened protector—dissolved.
"It's just money," she whispered, her voice hollow and trembling. "It's just... stolen money. The 'loan.' Rook was right. My father isn't a warlord defending a cause. He's just a thief. A common, greedy thief."
She leaned against a stack of gold bars, sliding down until she hit the floor, looking defeated. The mystery she had built up in her head—of an army, a noble cause, a tragic past—shattered into a million golden pieces. It was just greed. Banal, ugly greed.
Eiden didn't look at the gold. To him, it was just yellow metal. He moved through the aisles, his boots scuffing on the polished floor. He checked corners, looked behind stacks, opened decorative chests.
"Where is she?" he hissed, overturning a tray of diamonds that scattered like ice across the floor. "Where is the cell? Where is the prisoner?"
"There is no prisoner, Eiden!" Emily shouted, her voice cracking with hysteria. "Don't you get it? We were wrong! Both of us! There's no Evergreen. There's no army. It's just this! Cold, hard metal! We risked our lives for a bank account!"
While his daughter wept in a room of gold, Akuma Cronus was in the dark.
He was in his private gymnasium, located in the penthouse of the faculty building. The room was unlit, save for the orange glow of streetlights filtering through the blinds. The air smelled of sweat and old leather.
Akuma was shirtless, his body a map of scars—knife wounds, bullet holes, burns—a testament to a life lived in violence. He was sweating, his muscles glistening.
He was punching a heavy leather bag hanging from a chain.
Thud. Thud. Thud.
The rhythm was perfect. Heavy. Lethal. Each blow was struck with enough force to crack bone.
BEEP.
A console on the wall chirped. A red light flashed, painting the room in blood-colored intervals. SILENT ALARM: SECTOR ZERO. VAULT OPEN.
Akuma stopped mid-punch. His fist hovered inches from the leather. He walked to the console, his movements fluid and precise, and tapped the screen.
A grainy, black-and-white video feed flickered to life.
He saw the open vault door.
He saw the mountains of gold.
And he saw them.
Emily, looking broken on the floor. Linda, staring at the wealth with wide, greedy eyes.
And Eiden. The Wolf. Prowling his sanctuary.
Akuma stared at the screen. He didn't yell. He didn't smash the console.
He went perfectly, terrifyingly still. The rage that filled him wasn't hot; it was absolute zero. It was a vacuum.
He picked up the phone on the wall.
"Maverick."
"Father?" Maverick's voice was breathless, confused.
"Sector Zero has been breached," Akuma said. His voice was not a roar. It was a whisper, vibrating with a tension so pure it felt like heat radiating from the receiver. "They are in the vault."
"They...? Who?"
"Your sister. The cousin. And the Wolf."
Akuma looked at the screen, watching Eiden touch a stack of gold, watching him defile the sanctity of the tomb.
"Seal the exits," Akuma ordered. "Take the Shadows. Go down there. And Maverick?"
"Yes, sir?"
"If the boy resists... paint the walls with him. Bring Emily to me. Drag her if you have to. Do not let them leave with anything."
"Understood."
Akuma hung up. The silence returned to the gym.
He turned back to the heavy leather punching bag. He didn't start boxing again. He reached out and slowly unzipped the side of the bag.
A heavy, wet slump followed.
A body fell out of the bag, tumbling onto the gym mat. It was a man in a Syndicate suit. He had been beaten so badly his face was gone, a ruin of pulp and bone.
Akuma looked at the bloody mess. He looked at his own bloody knuckles. He wiped his hands on a white towel, staining it red.
"They touched it," he whispered to the empty room, his eyes distant and haunted. "They touched my hard work."
Outside the school, the night exploded into activity.
The local police chief, sitting in his cruiser with a lukewarm coffee, spat it out all over his dashboard.
"What the hell is that?"
From the main faculty building, a squad of heavily armed men—Akuma's private army—poured out like black oil. They weren't moving like security guards doing rounds. They were moving like a hit squad, weapons raised, formations tight.
"Dispatch!" the chief yelled into his radio, fumbling for the transmit button. "We have unauthorized movement! Cronus's men are armed—automatic weapons—and moving to the science wing! They're locking down the school! They're sealing the perimeter!"
"Chief, we have orders not to engage—"
"Screw orders! That's a school full of kids! Mobilize all units! SWAT, riot gear, everything! We're going in!"
The Dagger
Back in the vault, Eiden was frantic. He felt like the walls were closing in.
"She has to be here," he muttered, overturning a tray of diamonds, sending them clattering across the floor like worthless pebbles. "The diary... it said on the grounds... it said Cronus was with her..."
"Eiden, stop," Emily said, wiping her eyes, her anger replaced by exhaustion. "It's over. We found the truth. It's just a bank. We're trespassing."
"No," Eiden said, spinning around. "A man like Akuma doesn't build a bunker this deep, with traps like that, just for money. He has banks for money. He has offshore accounts. This... this isn't a vault. It's a shrine."
He stopped.
In the very center of the room, surrounded by piles of gold but touching none of them, was a simple, black velvet pedestal.
It was illuminated by a single, focused spotlight from the ceiling.
Resting on it was not a crown. Not a diamond. Not a deed to a kingdom.
It was a knife.
An old, chipped, curved dagger with a handle wrapped in worn, stained leather. The steel was gray and dull, contrasting sharply with the glittering gold around it.
Eiden froze. The air left his lungs. He knew that shape. He knew the curve of that blade. He had seen drawings of it in the Den's archives.
It was a Wolf's Fang. A traditional blade of his people.
He walked toward it, his breath catching in his throat. He felt a magnetic pull.
He reached out, his trembling fingers brushing the cold steel.
Etched into the blade, faint but legible, was a symbol. A single, stylized pine tree.
Evergreen.
"It's hers," Eiden whispered, the realization hitting him like a physical blow. "It's her blade. Her actual blade."
Emily walked up beside him. She looked at the knife. It looked like trash compared to the gold around it. A rusted piece of junk.
"Why is this here?" she asked, bewildered. "Why is this... the centerpiece? Why does he treat it like...?"
She looked at the small gold plaque on the pedestal.
She read it out loud, her voice trembling.
"To the only thing I could not buy."
The words hung in the air, heavy and suffocating.
"Buy?! Why would Akuma want to keep something of Evergreen in such a place?" Eiden realized, his world spinning.
"Did my father—" Emily whispered, her hand flying to her mouth, horrified. "My father... love Evergreen?"
CLANG.
The massive blast door behind them began to close. The hydraulics hissed.
"Eiden!" Linda screamed, backing away from the narrowing gap.
They spun around.
Standing in the corridor, blocking the exit, was Maverick. He was flanked by ten Shadow guards, their rifles raised. He held a rifle too, but it was lowered. His face was pale, his eyes wide with fear—not of them, but for them.
"Step away from the pedestal," Maverick said, his voice shaking. "Father is... very upset."