The One Behind The Mask

BOOM.

A blast of violet light shattered the square. A radiant wall of Solena erupted between the civilians and death—impenetrable, divine.

Bolts cracked and flames scattered. Blades disintegrated.

Every attack was hurled back with an overwhelming force. APC soldiers were flung through the air. The howls of stalkers were like cannonfire. Dust and debris clouded the plaza.

And then—

A figure stood in the light—white coat, scarf trailing, silhouette sharp against the glow.

Eyes glowing violet—piercing, alive. He didn't speak; didn't need to.

The entire square fell still. Civilians stood quiet. The disbelief and awe widespread on their faces.

Tona stepped forward—

Once. Then again. Each step echoing like judgment.

Chaze's hand trembled.

Tona tilted his head and cracked his neck. Finally, he spoke. "I'm Tona Norasachi."

His voice calm, smooth—like this was nothing new.

"The one you're looking for… would be me."

Chaze's eyes widened. A flicker of something rare from the Butcher of Igumi: fear.

Tona's expression remained neutral, but his eyes were filled with the fire of determination. "The audacity..."

A pulse of Solena thundered behind him. "To walk into Memento's home and threaten our people."

Gasps spread through the crowd.

That grin—confident, effortless.

The same one hidden behind the mask on every wanted poster in Alden.

Chaze stuttered with his next words. "YOU?! You're the Ghost?! That's impossible. You're just a—"

Tona, smirking, cracking his knuckles, said,
"Careful, Chaze. Your voice is shaking."

He raised his hand.

A wave of violet Solena pulsed outward. The ground cracks beneath him. The very air shifts, warping with raw force. His purple eyes glowed, mesmerizing and unshaken.

He disappeared in a flash, and for a moment, Chaze was shocked. Tona's presence was now directly behind him.

"Chaze… Don't tell me you're surprised."

Tona grabbed Chaze's arm. He whipped him backwards, releasing the girl in the process. Chaze snarled as he landed on a knee.

Tona grabbed the girl and opened a gate. The other side revealed the yard where Memento forces were cornered, still watching in awe. Tona and the girl stepped through.

"Someone take her back to her family. I've got a date with a blood-lusted creep."

He dashed forward again. In a blink, he was gone.

Tona slammed into a frontline stalker with a palm to the chest—sending the man through a stone pillar.

"Second Gate of Alden," he said, his Solena flaring as the reflective shield formed.

He moved before the battlefield could even register him. Tona spun on his heel, sweeping his arm out with a calm precision that bordered on elegance. A second shield flared to life—smaller this time, forming over his forearm like molten glass cooling into steel. The heat of a fire blast slammed into it point-blank, lighting his silhouette in a searing white flash. But the shield did not break—it drank the flame, swallowed it whole.

Tona flicked his wrist.

The energy snapped back in a violent pulse. A bloom of fire tore through the APC elite who launched the attack—exploding him into a twisting pillar of flame and smoke. Embers drifted in the air like dying stars.

Across the rubble, Chaze staggered a step back, blood slick on his lips, eyes narrowing as if trying to force the moment to make sense.
"He's fast…" he breathed.

Around them, the frontlines trembled. Tsuki watched with mix emotions—not anger or fear, but she had been caught completely off-guard.

Memento soldiers whispered, the words traveling from mouth to mouth like the passing of a long-believed myth made real.
"He's… he's the Ghost…"

Tona's movements didn't match the brutality unfolding. They were too fluid—too graceful. Like dance.
His white coat swept like paint strokes across the chaos, bright against smoke and flame. The battlefield seemed to bend around him, caught in the wake of something inevitable.

His voice was calm, unshaken, cutting through the noise.
"Hatori," he said, not even glancing over his shoulder, "back me up if I stall."

Hatori let out a short, crooked grin, cracking his knuckles.
"Heh. Like you'd ever stall."

Tona shot into the air, shoes scraping sparks as he kicked off a falling stalker's chest. He flipped backward over the fray, twisting through smoke and blood-mist before driving downwards. He landed in a low crouch, the ground beneath him splintering outward in an explosive shockwave.

In the same breath, he launched upward with a Solena-charged uppercut—three Stalkers were lifted like ragdolls, spinning through the air before crashing into shattered stone.

Somewhere behind him—a crossbow string drew tight. Pointed at Tsuki in her daydreaming. Tona noticed and vanished in a blur.

He reappeared beside the soldier, one hand lazily closing around the crossbow before the man even inhaled his next breath.
"You aiming at her?" Tona asked, tone almost bored. "Cute."

He snapped the weapon clean in half—wood and metal crumpling like paper—and hurled the man into the ground with a casual shoulder toss that broke the earth on impact.

But then the air changed. Four stalkers rushed him in a synchronized frenzy.

Tona's posture shifted—barely a movement, but it carried the quiet weight of someone who understood exactly how dangerous the next seconds would be.

His feet slid into a stance that was perfect—absolute. "Ballsy," he murmured.

He ducked under an ice spike and sent a Solena blast into the user's chest. He instantly followed this by pivoting behind the lightning user, who had tried a quiet thrust. Tona grabbed him by the arm and hurled him into the wind user's vortex. A burst of air exploded outward. He stepped on the rebound and axe kicked the sound caster into the stone floor—snapping it beneath her body.

The tide of battle shifted.

As Tona stood amidst the dying embers, Memento forces surged back to life—shouts rising, blades lifting, morale reignited. Civilians peeked from behind shattered walls, no longer cowering in fear of the Ghost, but staring in stunned awe.

Chaze stepped forward, boots grinding against scorched stone, his expression twisted with fury.
"You little shit… you think power makes you righteous?"

Tona walked toward him without hurry, each step controlled.
"No," he answered, voice steady. "But it sure makes this part easier."

The smile on his face dimmed—just slightly—revealing the fury burning beneath.

"You threatened a child. You forced Maro to call surrender. You think you're untouchable just because you bleed power?"

He stopped only feet from Chaze, violet light rising in his eyes. Wind tugged at his hair and coat, the white scarf trailing like a ghost's whisper. He towered over Chaze, looking down—almost peering into his very soul. And then—he smiled, the kind of smile that didn't soften a thing, only sharpened everything around it.

"I've seen the files, Butcher of Igumi. King of the Stalker Corps." His voice dropped into quiet finality. "Your feats don't mean shit to me."

Chaze glared, the hatred in his eyes near feral.
"Tona Norasachi," he hissed, savoring the name like poison. "I can't wait to absorb that blood of yours. Someday." His jaw clenched hard, muscles twitching. "But not today. We retreat. We got what we wanted."
He flicked his hand, and APC forces began withdrawing toward the portal behind him—disciplined and precise.

"Cowards!" Maro roared.

Chaze looked back once, a cruel grin curling across his face. "Your time is coming… old man."

He vanished into a pool of blood, before reappearing in front of the portal. He stepped in, his long black hair the last thing to vanish before the gate snapped shut, leaving only scorched ground and drifting ash in its wake.

Smoke drifted between the broken buildings of Zimala. Cheers echoed faintly in the distance, but near the medical tents, silence hung heavy. Wounded soldiers were carried across the square, their groans swallowed by the urgency of medics rushing them inside canvas shelters. Zimala was won—but at a cost.

Maro stood at the plaza’s edge, dust clinging to his coat.
“Damn it,” he muttered. “They didn’t want to win. They wanted to reveal him. Doji was a plant. A spy.”

Danzo approached quietly, eyes moving over the wounded.
“The Ghost is unmasked. Containment is finished. Orders?”

Maro inhaled sharply, then let the breath go.
“…Then I suppose we explain a few things.”

Tona crossed the plaza toward the Judgment Squad. His steps were calm, but heavy. His violet eyes moved across familiar faces: Tsuki, confused and wounded. Geo, jaw tight. Azumi, blinking back something fragile. Knoxx, stunned. Hatori, steady and unreadable.

He slowed. Maro stepped in front of him, placing a hand out—gentle, protective.
“Let me go first. This isn’t on you.”

Tona blinked, surprised, then nodded once. Together, they stepped forward.

In the distance, cheering rose—Danzo was announcing Zimala’s liberation to civilians and scattered Memento squads. But here, in the smoke-filled plaza, Judgment Squad remained silent, the truth settling around them heavier than the ash in the air.

Maro cleared his throat. “Judgment Squad…”

He hesitated—just for a breath—then steadied himself. “Thank you. Your timing saved countless lives. If you hadn’t arrived when you did, we would’ve been overwhelmed.”

The silence that followed was absolute.

He drew in a slow breath.
“But there’s more. Something I should’ve told you long ago.”

His eyes flicked to Tona, who stood still beside him.

“Tona is the Ghost. The one behind the mask.” Another beat. “He’s the strongest unnatural in Alden.”

The air tightened like a held breath.

Tsuki’s voice came out strained.
“Why couldn’t we know? He’s one of us. He’s family.”

Geo’s arms folded, jaw set.
“So all this time—he didn’t trust us?”

Maro shook his head.
“No. It wasn’t him. It was me.”

He stepped forward, voice firmer now.

“When Tona joined Memento as a teenager, I realized immediately what he was. His strength wasn’t normal—it was overwhelming. If the APC knew then, they’d have sent everything they had to wipe him out before he could grow.”

His tone softened.
“So I hid him. I took him to Velos, a celestial forgemaster in Persetta. He forged the suppression ring Tona wears—it limits his power to a sliver. I had Correna craft the Ghost mask and told her nothing. I assigned Tona missions only he could survive—alone. Every time you saw him without power… that was the ring doing its work.”

I still can’t believe it, Tsuki thought. Part of me suspected something was different... That he was hiding something. But not to this scale.

The quiet that followed was different now—not angry, just heavy.

Even Geo’s posture eased.

Tona finally stepped forward. He didn’t look down. He looked directly at them.

“I’m sorry,” he said. His fingers turned the ring slowly.
“I care about all of you. More than I can say. I wanted to tell you. I just… couldn’t.”

Maro spoke gently, but with certainty, “And I told him not to.”

Tona gave a small, tired half-smile. “That too.”

His gaze moved to each of them—Tsuki’s confusion, Geo’s tension, Azumi’s quiet hurt, Knoxx’s shock, Hatori’s calm understanding.

“But please don’t look at me any differently,” he said. “I’m still me. I’m still here. For all of you. That doesn’t change.”

A cheer rose in the distance—victory echoing through Zimala.

Here, no one spoke.

But something between them—trust, identity, understanding—shifted into place.