Picking the lock of the door, using staples left on the ground, Will opened the door, only to see an empty hallway filled with parchment and plastic wrap. “You said you talked to the doctors in the halls, yes? So how is this possible?”, asked Will, squinting down the hall. Coming out to the hallway, “I said I talked to the white cloths, not doctors. They are two completely different entities, man”, said the girl as she stared into the darkness. Suddenly a large explosion occurred. In the light which shone from the hole the explosion left in the wall, faint, ghost-like figures could be seen. Through the hole, “51 cells, 51 tests. All deemed failures. We will retrieve our fallen, the ones whose potential cannot be determined”, said a male voice as the steps of running men sounded so loud. Scared, Will started to run, down the hall across his cell. Hidden behind a door of an office he found, “I think we are alright, Yuki”, said Will… “Yuki?”, he hesitantly asked – his tone, worried. Amidst the dust and panic, Yuki had gone down from Will's head and onto the ground. Realizing he left the only person who knows what had happened to him, he frantically started to run back.

From the turn of the corner, where Will momentarily hid, “The souls of the hateful – these are the reason to not kill or do sin. Rest assured my friends, as you do not have to bear loathing to those who have killed you – as I have taken the burden for you, to free you and to avenge you”, could be heard from a man in a light suit. Gesturing a waving motion, the man encircles the ghost-like figures in rings of light. In an instant, the ghouls dissipate, leaving nothing but smoke and vapor. “Why did you do that?”, said Yuki, emerging in her human form. “Why did you kill it? Why did you erase them from the existence which was held up by a single thread?”, she added. “Erase… I never heard it described as such before. When I liberated him from the endless torment of eternal vengeance, I only rid him of his material body – in between human and non. I am a saint, you see; I do not kill”, said the man, squatting down to Yuki. “Oh, this is new. There is a lot of things that are missing from you, little miss. What is your name?”, said the man, placing his hand over Yuki’s head and pressing his thumb against her forehead.

Walking around the corner, “Her name is Yuki and she is here with me – Will. Now, tell me, who are you; why are you here?”, said Will, pacing quickly towards Yuki. Silently annoyed, “If you don’t mind me asking, how did I not sense you before you turned that corner?”, said the man, disregarding Will’s question. Seeming to notice the open door in the far corner, “So, you do not have mana. I presume it was from the explosion a month ago. Say, how have you been in the past 28 days?”, said the man as Will suddenly stops. Tapping his heel on the floor once, “28 days, eh? What did you expect me to say? Fine, I guess. Do you know why you cannot sense my existence?”, pauses to search for words, “Because you are weak; weaker than me, weaker than her. You only lie and nothing else. Did you think such a lie would work on me-”, said quite an angry Will, before the man quickly closes the distance. As Will gets punched mercilessly without the slightest chance for him to retaliate, Yuki cannot do anything but watch. Slowing down a bit, “Left… up… left… short… up… right… Every single strike has landed and nothing from your end has connected, why is that, boy?”, a brightly shining rope appears around Will’s neck, “Even now, that you have been beat into a pulp and hung like a spider, you cannot do anything to free yourself as you lack everything I perceive as human: Prestige, power and miracle, all absent from your existence”, said the man, strangling Will up in the air, with the rope-like light.

A single clink could be heard below the place Will was hung – while he struggled for his life, a coin fell from his pocket. Distracted by it, the man had lost focus of his surroundings. Wrapping the man in a fine mesh, “I do not know who you are or what you want but, you really are weaker than me”, said Yuki, flinging and stappling him to a nearby wall. After he was taken care of, Yuki threaded a fine wire to cut the rope which Will hanged on. After coughing and gasping for a little while, “Spare 20 kopek, you should have it, Yuki. Fitting, as we do not have a number to call nor this currency is accepted here”, said Will, tossing the coin to Yuki. In a swift instant the man struck the two, incapacitating both of them…

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After regaining conscience, they find themselves in an office of some sorts. “You good?”, asked Yuki, tied to a chair. A faint voice saying, “What have you brought this time, Leo? One of them is a Mythos and the other is a Reaper; how the hell do you find people like these all the time?”, could be heard from the other side of the door. “You can escape out of that, no?”, said Will, inspecting the zip. Shaking her head, “I cannot. If I do not see it, then I could not do it”, said Yuki. Opening the door, a group of about a dozen people come through. Tossing a coin up in the air, one of them breaks the tie which held Yuki. “Come, sit with us”, said one of them as they all sat to a table.

The one at the end of the table began. “We are a part of an organization which is, by the government's standards, an organized crime syndicate. But you, my friends, are in a particularly sound situation. As we freed you from that facility, covertly run by the government, the fates of yours lie in our hands. But, unlike those who imprisoned you, we will offer you a choice: either you stay with us and potentially rise to your peak or leave us and live a new life nothing like the previous; evading the authorities who would track you tirelessly and running away your entire life but leaving this place only as a bad dream”, said the headmaster. Visibly annoyed, “How the hell do you expect us to believe you? You raided the facility like it was war. You blew a hole right beside the ones you were supposed to save, assaulted the confused residents of the supposed asylum and kidnapped them without their consent. Why? Why would you expect us to believe an oppressor?”, said Will. Calling for tea, “Of the thousands of reasons why we saved you, you ask about the feasibility of us being the bad guys? Then, I will ask you, why haven’t you been killed in Gipfel? We found 50 out of the 51 rooms which housed any patients were empty, all of them with some sign of struggle. Even they saw something in you – something that is essential to both parties. Well, of course, we would not “abduct” a victim of the largest capacitor explosion in the history of German Mana Industry which claimed roughly a hundred people, even 20 of which were our people. We simply liberated you from those abductors, albeit, we had to first prevent any damage which would occur if you were awake for more than you had been”, said the one sitting next to the headmaster.

“Why, of all the people unfortunately expecting a death with nothing notable happening in their life, did you save us from that place? Wasn’t it efficient to look for people like us in the slums? Why did you raid that facility in the first place?”, asked Will, sipping from the cup. “Isn't that sour?”, asked one from the dozen. “Well, as you would know, we gained notoriety from the raids we conduct on disguised government research facilities. Even if you were not there, we would have raided that place to disrupt the operations which could happen if we left it unattended. Even so, we did not really expect people like you to be held in a place like that. We figured it was cluttered with, what we call, “Karma”, a form which a spiteful soul takes after their bodily death, and if untreated, would lead to disasters such as that capacity explosion or other “natural” disasters. And so, we sent Leo, our religious expert and “The Light at the Gate”, specialized in light manipulation to deal with them”, said the headmaster.

“From the reports he provided, you do not seem to have any mana. The reason for it is, well, we do not know. And I doubt the ones who experimented on you for the past 4 weeks would know either. This is only the second time we have faced an individual whose mana cannot be sensed, even by the Advanced Mineral Mana Observer… In short, we need someone like you; that is why we are here talking about your future. Our prior “Reaper”, as we call it, was killed in that explosion about a month ago. So, if you please, consider joining us”, said the headmaster. “If so, then, what about Yuki?”, said Will, emptying the cup. “We have not had any field experience with a Mythos before. But we suspect that she would provide great aid to us, seeing how she effortlessly stapled a stubborn goad like Leo here”, said the headmaster, pointing to a white-haired kid, about 3 years older than Will. “I am Paul Lipinski, Command in Office, but you can call me AMMO or Paul, friends. You already met Leo, one of our executive officers along with Blanc, Iliana and Rafael. We also have Olivia, Izuha, James, Thie, Wright, Errol and Hua, the Retrievers which you will be a part of”, said the headmaster, introducing the dozen.