"Then he is entirely irrelevant to our parameters," Akira stated coldly, her hand resting casually on the hilt of her sheathed katana. "The Loop is nothing but a hollow corporate construct filled with useless, everything useless. We have extracted our data."
"Let's move out, Himari," Akira commanded.
"Yes, Ms. Akira," Himari replied instantly, stepping off the vehicle without a shred of her previous pride.
Ethan's eyes narrowed into a sharp operational glare. Why is this elite ninja like Himari showing such absolute, subservient politeness? This newcomer isn't just an assassin... she must be a bigshot.
"My apologies," Ethan spoke up, his voice echoing coldly across the empty plaza as he stepped into her path. "But I cannot allow you to take Himari from this location. She remains a critical variable."
Akira stopped, her head tilting slowly to look back at him.
"What exactly gives a insect like you the impression that you possess the authority to obstruct my path?" she murmured, her voice smooth and devoid of human warmth. "Do you truly harbor such an immense desire to see your death?"
Ethan didn't offer a verbal answer; his posture simply flattened into a total defensive guard.
Akira stared deeply into his eyes, her fingers slowly tightening around the black-cloth-wrapped hilt of her weapon.
At that exact terminal second, the ruined side doors of the lobby burst open. Liam materialized through the smoke, his shoulder supporting a heavily bleeding, limping Allen. They both froze, taking in the suffocating atmosphere of the plaza.
Oh, no... Allen thought, his eyes widening in pure horror as he recognized the black-haired woman from the elevator floor. Ethan is about to step against that monster...
"Who the hell is the newcomer?" Liam whispered, his hand instantly flying to his tactical holster.
Akira's crimson eyes locked onto Ethan's unwavering stare. "Your eyes... they carry the exact same disciplined, defiant spark as His," she whispered, her tone dropping into a dark, venomous register. "And I absolutely despise it."
Akira's hand moved.
It wasn't a standard strike. It was a single, clean drawing motion—an old-world battōjutsu form executed at a very high speed.
"DROP!" Ethan roared, his tactical predictive mind screaming in absolute panic.
Ethan violently threw his entire body flat against the asphalt. Reacting on veteran instinct, Liam didn't look; he threw his weight downward, dragging Allen's broken frame into the pavement along with him.
FST.
A microscopic, silver line of absolute vacuum energy hissed through the air exactly four feet above the ground.
For a single, breathless second, there was absolute silence.
Then, the world shattered.
The entire multi-story concrete structure of the Loop's Third Branch building—and the massive, stone-carved Canadian Museum of Nature directly behind it—were cleanly, flawlessly sliced apart along a perfect horizontal axis.
Liam, Ethan, Allen, and Himari watched in absolute, paralyzed horror as the upper halves of both massive structural complexes began to slowly, smoothly slide off their foundations.
"Let's go, Himari," Akira said quietly, sheathing her blade with a soft, final click.
Without looking back at the devastation, the two white-haired figures vanished into the dark alleys of the district.
Ethan snapped back to his feet, his adrenaline spiking as he prepared to sprint through the debris to pursue them, but Liam's blood-stained hand shot out, clamping onto his shoulder with a desperate, heavy force.
"Ethan, stand down! Stop!" Liam barked, his face pale as he looked up at the collapsing high-rise. "Look at the scaling of that asset! We need to vacate this grid immediately!"
A split-second later, the upper structural halves of both buildings crashed into the plaza floor, triggering a catastrophic structural collapse. A massive, suffocating tidal wave of gray dust, concrete debris, and heavy smoke erupted outward, plunging the entire municipal district into absolute darkness.
Utilizing the blinding cloud for cover, Liam and Ethan hauled Allen's broken frame between them, diving down into an open storm drain and escaping into the subterranean sewer network just as the world above them completely caved in.