A knock came at the door—light, rhythmic, and just precise enough to betray who it was. Akio didn’t even bother looking up from his cup of tea. He already knew.

  The door slid open to reveal Gabriel, golden blond hair streaked with tufts of crimson that caught the early afternoon light. He wore his usual grin—brilliant, harmless, and utterly insincere—and his eyes were closed in that trademark way that made it impossible to tell what he was really thinking. Dressed in a black collared shirt with the sleeves rolled up, he looked like Akio’s inverse reflection, the shadows to his white.

  “Why hello!” Gabriel said with theatrical cheer, clapping his hands together. “How are we all on this lovely, academically fulfilling day?”

  From her spot at the low dining table, Aira groaned without looking up. She ran a hand through her hair like she was already regretting staying in the room.

  “Hi, Gabriel,” she muttered, flat. “Nice to see you too, I guess.”

  Akio hid his amusement behind his teacup, savoring the moment. “Perfect timing, as always. How did your latest report go? Did the photography compositions work out?”

  Gabriel stepped inside, moving with the casual confidence of someone who’d been in this apartment too many times to count.

  “Brilliantly,” he said, as if stating a fact of nature. “I managed to illustrate the economic and political decline of the Roman Empire using photos of cheese and matchsticks. A tragic metaphor spanning thirty years.”

  Aira lifted her head to stare at him. “Cheese and matchsticks?”

  Gabriel smiled, eyes still closed. “Genius often goes unappreciated.” He turned to Akio. “And you? How did the key turn out?”

  Akio set his cup down, entirely composed. “Quite well. I wrote my entire report following the Fibonacci sequence. Rearranging every nth word spells out the thesis statement.”

  Aira pushed back from the table with a noise somewhere between disbelief and despair. “You two are insufferable. I’m going to my room before I lose brain cells.”

  Akio blinked, perfectly calm. “Why not stay and chat with us a little longer?”

  “Because,” Aira said flatly, “I don’t want to be bored to death by whatever weird nerd thing you’re about to start.”

  Gabriel, unbothered, pulled a deck of cards from his pocket and began shuffling them deftly. “Then how about a game of cards?”

  Aira narrowed her eyes. “No. Because last time we played, I’m pretty sure you were rigging the deck while he—” she jabbed a finger at Akio “—was card counting.”

  Gabriel gasped dramatically, a hand to his chest. “You wound me! We would never!”

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  Akio nodded solemnly. “We’re honest men.”

  Aira gave them both a long, skeptical stare. “You’re weirdos. Every time you’re together, something weird happens. Last time, you were both wearing lampshades on your heads.”

  Akio hid his smirk with another sip of tea, though the memory surfaced immediately. They hadn’t been able to scrub the paint off their faces after fighting that malfunctioning machine overtaken by a virus. The lampshades had been a last ditch disguise when Aira came home early.

  “Contemporary performance art,” Akio said smoothly.

  Gabriel nodded, utterly serious. “A powerful commentary on the symbolism of illumination.”

  Aira groaned, crossing her arms. “I’m going to my room. Whatever weird nerd stuff you do, don’t involve me, okay?”

  She stomped off down the hall, muttering under her breath.

  The door shut behind her. Silence lingered for a moment before Akio and Gabriel exchanged a glance—half smug, half conspiratorial.

  They hadn’t meant to irritate her. It just sort of happened naturally.

  Gabriel’s eyes opened slightly, crimson irises glinting beneath long lashes. He spun the card box in one hand, the faint fluttering of cardboard filling the silence. When his gaze met Akio’s, the easy smile faded into something sharper. Beneath the surface charm, a message passed between them without a word.

  Akio’s pale blue eyes flickered with quiet understanding. He set his teacup down and stood, smoothing invisible creases from his shirt. There was no need for discussion; they both knew why Gabriel had come. Without a word, Akio turned toward his room. Gabriel followed close behind, the soft sound of his steps barely audible against the tatami floor.

  Inside, the quiet deepened. Akio leaned casually against the window sill as Gabriel shut the door, his cheerful demeanor giving way to calm precision. The air felt heavier here, threaded with the familiar tension of unspoken coordination.

  “Echo’s been more aggressive lately,” Gabriel said, leaning against Akio’s desk. His voice was even, but the faint twitch of a card spinning between his fingers betrayed his unease.

  Akio nodded slightly. “I noticed. It’s a good thing we anticipated that siege operation at the secondary power plant last night. If we hadn’t rerouted the grid in advance, casualties would’ve been much worse.”

  Gabriel’s expression darkened with thought. He flicked the card into the air, caught it cleanly, and continued. “His pattern’s changed. He’s planning to strike again—likely in the eastern quadrant. The countermeasures we used last time worked, but he’s probably already working on a way around them.”

  Akio was quiet for a moment, mind already running through possibilities. Over the years, the two of them had dismantled dozens of operations run by organized crime groups and rogue syndicates. But there was one name that never stayed gone—one figure who always resurfaced, threading himself through every major disaster.

  Echo.

  The masked villain’s signature was unmistakable: a faceless mask of clockwork and mirrored glass, voice modulated into something eerie and mechanical. He rarely appeared in person, preferring to manipulate events from the shadows, an orchestrator of chaos. And somehow, no matter how many times the two of them cut through his schemes, Echo always managed to counter them in turn. It was a constant duel of precision versus unpredictability, of plan versus plan.

  Akio crossed his arms, thinking. “If his goal is another blackout, he’s probably already compromised part of the infrastructure. We’ll need to reroute the backup grid manually before he locks it down.”

  Gabriel nodded, still toying with the card. “And if he’s got people in position, we’ll need to move fast. He’s not going to play fair.”

  Akio pieced together the patterns—timing, risk, the margin of error. “We have maybe two hours before the system activates. If he’s hacked the relay ahead of schedule, the whole network could cascade.” He paused, eyes narrowing slightly. “There might also be an issue with the extraction.”

  Gabriel looked up from the card, grin spreading slowly across his face. “What if we added glitter?”

  Akio blinked once. Then, despite himself, a smirk broke through. He knew exactly what Gabriel meant. A bit of improvisation—controlled chaos to throw Echo off. Their enemy thrived on logic, on flawless control and systematized precision. Sometimes, the best counter was to move like the storm he couldn’t predict.

  “Glitter,” Akio repeated softly, the edge of amusement in his voice. “Sounds like a plan.”

  He pushed off the window sill, reaching for his jacket as his calm settled back into focus. The mission had already begun the moment Gabriel knocked on the door.

  “Let’s move,” he said quietly.

  The two of them were gone before the window fully closed.

  ─ ? NEXT CHAPTER POV ? ─

  Akio