Suzume's phone wouldn't stop buzzing.

  She cracked one eye open. 6:47 AM. Her apartment was still dark. The phone vibrated again, the screen lighting up her nightstand like a strobe.

  [What now?]

  She grabbed it. Notifications flooded the screen. Emails. Messages. News alerts. All from the last three hours.

  BREAKING: Player Association Files Formal Complaint Against Dungeon Rescue Guild

  Her stomach dropped.

  She sat up, scrolled through the news article. The Association claimed the guild violated "proper extraction procedures" during the Meguro rescue. Unauthorized tactical decisions. Failure to coordinate with local authorities. Reckless endangerment of civilian Players.

  [Are they serious?]

  The article continued. The Association was launching a formal investigation. Until it concluded, the Dungeon Rescue Guild's official recognition would be delayed. All guild activities would be under review.

  Translation: they couldn't complete their remaining requirements. Couldn't take the exam. Couldn't register the headquarters. Nothing until Yagami's bureaucrats decided they'd suffered enough.

  Her phone rang. Yumi.

  "You saw it?" Yumi asked.

  "Just woke up to it."

  "I'm bringing coffee. Don't do anything stupid before I get there."

  "Like what?"

  "Like texting Kasumi back. She's sent you forty-seven messages in the last hour and I'm pretty sure half of them are death threats against Yagami."

  Suzume checked. Yumi wasn't exaggerating.

  Kasumi: I'M GOING TO KILL HIM

  Kasumi: I'M ACTUALLY GOING TO MURDER HIM

  Kasumi: WITH MY SPEAR

  Kasumi: IN HIS ASS

  Kasumi: WHERE THE SUN DON'T SHINE

  The messages continued in that vein for several screens.

  "Don't respond," Yumi said. "I'm ten minutes away. Just... breathe."

  Suzume breathed.

  It didn't help.

  Yumi arrived with three coffees and a tablet full of damage control plans.

  "The good news," she said, setting everything on Suzume's tiny kitchen table, "is that public opinion is still on your side. The bad news is that Yagami doesn't care about public opinion. He cares about procedures, regulations, and bureaucratic warfare. And he's very, very good at it."

  Suzume took one of the coffees. Black, bitter, exactly what she needed.

  "So what do we do?"

  "We play his game. Document everything. Prepare for the investigation. Prove we followed every protocol that mattered." Yumi pulled up footage on her tablet. "I've already sent copies to Sato. She's reviewing the Meguro rescue frame by frame."

  "We saved four people."

  "I know. But that doesn't matter if Yagami can bury us in paperwork for the next six months." Yumi's expression softened. "This is what he does. He picks fights he can win through attrition. Makes you so exhausted that you give up."

  "I'm not giving up."

  "I know. That's why I brought extra coffee."

  The office smelled like stale air and anxiety.

  Sato sat at the conference table, surrounded by documents, her laptop open to what looked like fifty browser tabs. She glanced up when Suzume and Yumi entered.

  "Good. You're here." She gestured to the empty chairs. "Sit. We need to talk."

  Suzume sat. The coffee in her stomach turned to acid.

  "The Association's complaint focuses on three areas," Sato said. "First, unauthorized tactical decisions. They claim you deviated from standard extraction procedures. Second, failure to coordinate with local authorities. And third, reckless endangerment by engaging C-Rank threats without proper support."

  Stolen from its original source, this story is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

  "We had support," Suzume said. "Hikari and Kasumi are both—"

  "I know what they are. But according to Association guidelines, rescue operations require a minimum of six certified Players for C-Rank dungeons. You had four."

  "The guidelines are recommendations, not laws."

  "Correct. Which is why this investigation is largely performative." Sato closed her laptop. "Yagami knows he can't actually shut you down. But he can delay your recognition, tie you up in reviews, and make operating as a guild so bureaucratically painful that you either quit or make a mistake he can actually prosecute."

  "So what do we do?" Yumi asked.

  "We give him nothing. Every decision you made in that dungeon needs to be justified. Every action documented. Every piece of equipment accounted for." Sato pulled up a checklist. "I'm going to need statements from everyone who was there. Kasumi, Hikari, Honoka, and the four Players you rescued. We'll also need bodycam footage, equipment logs, and medical reports."

  Suzume's head was starting to hurt.

  "How long will this take?"

  "If Yagami drags his feet? Months. If we're lucky and public pressure forces his hand? Weeks."

  The office door slammed open. Kasumi stormed in, her face flushed.

  "I'm going to shove my spear so far up his ass that—"

  "Kasumi." Hikari walked in behind her, perfectly composed despite the early hour. "Sit down."

  "I will not sit down! This is bullshit and you know it!"

  "Of course it's bullshit. Now sit down."

  Kasumi sat. She looked ready to murder someone, but she sat.

  Hikari took the seat beside Suzume.

  "I've reviewed the complaint," she said. "It's weak. Circumstantial. Designed to frustrate rather than prosecute."

  "I know," Sato said. "But weak doesn't mean ineffective."

  "Actually, it might." Hikari pulled out her tablet. "The investigation means the Association has to publicly review the rescue. Frame by frame. Every decision. Every action. If we did everything right—and we did—they have to admit it."

  Suzume blinked.

  "You're saying this could backfire on them?"

  "Not could. Will." Hikari's fingers moved across the screen. "Yagami made a mistake. He acted emotionally instead of strategically. He filed this complaint less than twelve hours after the rescue, which means he didn't vet it properly. There are holes."

  She turned the tablet around. The complaint document filled the screen, certain phrases highlighted.

  "Here. 'Reckless endangerment by engaging C-Rank threats.' But the dungeon was destabilized. Engagement was unavoidable for extraction. Here. 'Failure to coordinate with local authorities.' But local authorities had already declared the dungeon too dangerous. We have their public statement on record. Why would we need to coordinate with them when they already said they wouldn't tackle it?"

  Sato leaned forward, reading.

  "You're right. This is sloppy."

  "Because Yagami's desperate." Hikari closed the tablet. "The Meguro rescue succeeded. Four people are alive. The press loves you. He needed to do something, anything, to slow your momentum. So he rushed this complaint without thinking it through."

  "So we can use this," Yumi said.

  "Better. We can make him look incompetent." Hikari's smile was sharp. "Social media. Public opinion. Frame this as bureaucratic overreach. The Association prioritizing procedures over lives. Make them the villains."

  Kasumi grinned.

  "Now that's a plan I can get behind."

  Honoka appeared in the doorway, out of breath.

  "Sorry I'm late! The train was—" She stopped, looking around at everyone's faces. "What did I miss?"

  "The Association's trying to bury us in paperwork," Kasumi said. "But we're going to bury them in bad publicity instead."

  "Oh. Okay." Honoka sat down in the last empty chair. "Um, what do I need to do?"

  "Give a statement about the rescue," Sato said. "Everything you saw, everything you did. Be honest and detailed."

  "I can do that."

  "Good. Let's get started."

  They spent the next six hours reviewing footage.

  Every camera angle. Every decision point. Every moment where someone's life hung in the balance. Sato took notes, cross-referencing with Association guidelines, building their defense.

  Suzume watched herself on screen. Running through the dungeon. Carrying Yuki. Shouting orders. She barely recognized that person. When had she started moving like that? Like she knew what she was doing?

  "Break time," Yumi announced around 2 PM. "Everyone's brains are melting."

  Suzume stood, her back cracking. She wandered to the office balcony. The door led to a tiny concrete space, barely big enough for two people, with a view of other buildings and a sliver of sky.

  The autumn air was cool. She leaned against the railing, closed her eyes.

  "You okay?"

  She opened them. Kasumi stood in the doorway.

  "Yeah. Just needed air."

  "Mind if I join you?"

  "It's a free country."

  Kasumi stepped out, closed the door behind her. She leaned against the railing beside Suzume, their shoulders almost touching.

  "This is a mess," Kasumi said.

  "Yeah."

  "We're going to win, though."

  "How do you know?"

  "Because we're right. And because that stuffy bastard made a mistake by going after us." Kasumi pulled out her phone, scrolled through something. "Check this out. #RescueGuildInvestigation is trending. Number three in Japan. Everyone's calling bullshit on the Association."

  Suzume took the phone. Tweet after tweet supporting the guild. Photos of the Meguro rescue. Videos of Yuki being loaded into the ambulance, alive.

  "Public opinion isn't everything," Suzume said.

  "No. But it's something." Kasumi took her phone back. "And sometimes something is enough."

  They stood in silence for a moment. The city hummed around them. Cars, construction, lives being lived while they fought bureaucrats.

  "Can I ask you something?" Kasumi said.

  "Sure."

  "Why are you so calm about this?"

  Suzume looked at her.

  "I'm not calm. I'm terrified."

  "You don't look terrified."

  "I'm good at faking it." Suzume turned back to the city. "I've been faking it since the day I walked into my first dungeon. Pretending I know what I'm doing. Pretending I'm not about to die every single time."

  "But you keep doing it anyway."

  "Because people need someone to keep doing it."

  Kasumi was quiet for a long moment.

  "You're kind of amazing, you know that?"

  Suzume felt her face heat.

  "I'm really not."

  "Yeah, you are." Kasumi threw an arm around Suzume's shoulders. "And I'm glad I'm on your team. Even if your team is currently being investigated by bureaucratic assholes."

  The door opened. Honoka poked her head out.

  "Um, sorry to interrupt, but there's someone here to see you, Suzume."

  "Who?"

  "She didn't say. Just that she wants to join the guild."

  Suzume and Kasumi exchanged glances.

  "Another one?" Kasumi said.

  "Apparently."

  They went back inside. The office had filled with tension in the minute they'd been gone. Yumi stood near the conference table, her arms crossed. Hikari had positioned herself between Yumi and the door. Sato looked concerned.

  And standing by the entrance was a woman Suzume had never seen before.

  Grey hair, cut short. Arms wrapped in what looked like martial arts tape or bandages. Sharp, red eyes that tracked Suzume's every movement. She wore simple clothes—jeans, a black shirt—but something about the way she stood screamed danger.

  Their eyes met.

  "You're Aoi Suzume," she said.

  "I am."

  "Good." The woman stepped forward. "I'm here to join your guild."