The Master’s Move

Meanwhile, in the command hub, Renji moved with purpose, his hands tracing faint currents above exposed wires and humming transformers as alerts stacked across the monitors. Outside, the city’s power grid was already destabilizing. This was not a single surge. It was the opening act.

He paused before speaking to Haruto, voice low, clipped. “Don’t tell Hina about this. Not yet. She’s stable, but she doesn’t need to know I’m going in first.”

Haruto turned sharply. “Renji, that’s not your call alone.”

Renji met his eyes. No sparks, no bravado. Just certainty. “If we go together like this, we fail again. She stays here. I’ll handle the first wave.”

A beat.

“No one tells her,” Renji added. “Understood.”

Haruto exhaled through his teeth. “Understood,” he said, even though every instinct told him this was going to end badly.

Renji was already walking.

Ginza erupted before the convoy even reached the perimeter.

Transformers blew in sequence, not randomly. Streetlights shattered, rails screamed, and arcs of raw electricity tore across intersections like living things. Civilians scattered. Tactical units fanned out, containment fields snapping into place.

Renji stepped into it like he belonged there.

The first attack was brutal but unfocused. Ishikawa was testing the field.

Renji grounded the surge cleanly, redirecting power through the asphalt, snapping unstable currents back into the grid. Sparks spiraled around his arms, controlled, elegant. His team barely had to move.

“Containment holding,” a soldier reported.

Renji didn’t answer. He felt it. The city responded to him. Every line, every pulse, every fault point aligned under his awareness.

That was when Ishikawa appeared.

Not dramatic. Not rushed. Just there, standing amid the chaos like the storm had formed around him by choice.

Back in the command hub, Hina entered the room mid-alert.

She stopped short.

Every screen was alive now. Live feeds. Energy maps. Renji’s signature burned unmistakably at the center of Ginza.

Her stomach dropped.

Haruto looked up too late.

“He went without me,” she said quietly. Not a question.

Haruto’s silence was answer enough.

Hina moved to the main console, eyes scanning data faster than most operators could follow. Her grounding instinct flared automatically, a low resonance beneath her feet.

“He shouldn’t be alone,” she said, jaw tight.

Before Haruto could respond, the feeds shifted.

Ishikawa engaged.

Renji moved with precision through the wrecked streets of Ginza. Sparks arced along his fingertips, coiling and uncoiling like restrained serpents. Ishikawa’s next wave came sharper, faster, more deliberate.

Renji countered every strike.

Redirect. Ground. Suppress.

Perfect timing. Perfect flow.

The city hummed in response, a massive circuit bending to his will. For a brief, dangerous moment, he let himself believe it.

He was winning.

Then the current shifted.

Not stronger. Smarter.

A hesitation no sensor flagged. A spark that lingered a fraction too long.

Ishikawa struck.

A concentrated bolt tore through Renji’s rhythm and hit him square in the chest.

In the command hub, the monitors spiked.

Hina’s breath caught.

“Renji—”

The feed showed him stagger.

Just one step. Barely visible.

But she saw it.

Color drained from her face as uncontrolled arcs exploded outward from his position, snapping too close to the tactical team.

“That wasn’t a normal hit,” she said, already leaning forward. “That was targeted.”

Haruto swore under his breath.

The force hit Renji like a hammer. His vision blurred, control fracturing for the first time. Sparks tore free from his hands, wild, disobedient.

He tried to pull the current back.

It resisted.

Ishikawa moved instantly, seizing the opening, threading his influence through the disrupted flow with surgical precision. Not overpowering. Redirecting. Persuading.

Renji felt it then.

The sickening realization that the currents were answering someone else.

“No,” he muttered, teeth clenched, forcing his hands to move. “That’s not—”

Another surge slammed into him. He countered, but too late. He was reacting now, not leading.

Hina’s hands tightened into fists at the console.

“He’s being pulled,” she said. “That’s not brute force. Ishikawa’s anchoring into Renji’s flow.”

Haruto turned sharply. “Can you help from here?”

Her voice shook once. Then steadied. “Not without being there.”

And they both knew why she wasn’t.

Ishikawa smiled.

Not wide. Not triumphant. Satisfied.

“You’re excellent,” he said calmly, electricity whispering around him. “That’s why this works.”

The invisible pressure tightened. Renji fought it, muscles burning, sparks snapping violently as he forced partial control back into place. He wasn’t beaten.

But he was no longer free.

The doubt seeded itself, small and lethal.

His mind flicked, traitorously, to Hina. Safe. Unaware. Not beside him.

The hesitation lasted a heartbeat.

Ishikawa felt it.

In the command hub, Hina went completely still as Renji’s energy signature wavered again.

“No,” she whispered.

On-screen, he straightened, reasserting control just enough to keep standing, just enough to keep fighting. But she could see it now. The imbalance. The interference.

He had been caught.

Not defeated.

Tethered.

“This isn’t over,” Renji growled, forcing power back into alignment, even as the unseen pressure remained.

Ishikawa’s low laugh echoed through the streets. “Of course not. This was just the introduction.”

The tactical team closed ranks around Renji as the fight stabilized into something more dangerous than chaos.

A stalemate.

A setup.

In the command hub, Hina stared at the screen, heart pounding, rage and fear colliding in her chest.

He had gone alone.

And Ishikawa had touched him.

That was enough to break her careful distance.

And Ishikawa knew it.

The battle did not end with an explosion.

That was the cruelest part.

Renji was still standing.

The arcs around him had stabilized just enough to keep the tactical team alive, just enough to convince command that he might be able to disengage. His breathing was heavy, sparks snapping unevenly along his arms, but he forced his hands steady, reclaiming fragments of control through sheer will.

For a moment, even Ishikawa seemed to pause.

Then the city went quiet.

Not powerless. Not dead.

Muted.

Every current in Ginza dipped simultaneously, as if the grid itself had inhaled.

Renji felt it an instant before it happened.

Too late.

The ground beneath him lit up in a precise pattern, not chaotic, not violent. A containment lattice. Ishikawa’s true trap. The influence that had been tugging at Renji’s control snapped tight, no longer subtle, no longer testing.

It locked.

Renji dropped to one knee, teeth clenched hard enough to draw blood. The currents answered him sluggishly now, like limbs half asleep.

“No—” he snarled, trying to force power back through his hands.

Ishikawa stepped forward, calm, almost gentle, placing one hand into the storm without flinching.

“You fought it longer than I expected,” he said. “That makes you valuable.”

The lattice collapsed inward.

Not crushing.

Claiming.

Energy folded around Renji like a closing fist, and the last thing the tactical team saw was a flash of distorted light and Renji’s silhouette being pulled backward, away from them, away from the city.

Gone.

The street went dark.

In the command hub, alarms screamed.

Hina was already at the screen when Renji’s signature spiked violently, then fractured.

“No,” she said sharply. “No, no—”

The feed distorted, static tearing through the image as Renji’s energy collapsed into a singular point.

Then nothing.

The space where he had been went cold.

Dead quiet.

Hina stared at the empty readout, breath shallow, her grounding instinct flaring uselessly beneath her feet, searching for something that was no longer there.

“Renji…?” Her voice cracked, just once.

No response.

Haruto stood frozen, eyes locked on the blank screen. Around them, government officials erupted into overlapping shouts.

“He took him.”

“That’s not possible—”

“If Ishikawa can control him—”

“We’re no longer dealing with a single hostile entity.”

The room shifted from shock to dread with terrifying speed.

One of the senior officials spoke the thought no one wanted to voice. “If Ishikawa fully subjugates Renji… we’re not fighting one master anymore.”

Silence.

“Then we’re fighting two.”

Hina didn’t sit down.

She didn’t cry.

She stood perfectly still, fists clenched at her sides, staring at the space where Renji had vanished, her chest tight like the air had been ripped out of the room.

This was her fault.

Not because she wasn’t strong enough.

Because she wasn’t there.

Haruto turned toward her carefully. “Hina—”

She cut him off, voice low, shaking with restrained force. “He didn’t lose,” she said. “He was taken.”

No one argued.

Her eyes finally lifted, blazing now, not broken. “And that means he’s still alive.”

The officials exchanged uneasy looks.

“Hina,” one of them said cautiously, “if Ishikawa has influence over him—”

“Then I’ll break it,” she snapped.

The room fell silent again.

She took a breath, grounding herself fully, the hum beneath her boots deepening, steady, resolute. “Renji doesn’t belong to him. Whatever Ishikawa did, whatever hold he thinks he has—it’s not permanent.”

Haruto watched her, worry etched deep into his expression. “You’re talking about going after both of them.”

She nodded once. No hesitation. No fear.

“Yes.”

Outside, the city slowly began to recover, power flickering back to life, unaware of what had just been lost.

Renji was gone.

Ishikawa had escalated the war.

And Hina, no longer avoiding her feelings, no longer holding back, had made her decision.

She would get him back.

No matter what stood in her way.