The coffee shop Kasumi picked was the kind of place that charged twelve hundred yen for a latte and called it artisanal.

  Suzume sat in the corner booth, hood up, sunglasses on, looking like either a celebrity or someone planning to rob the place.

  Neither disguise was working.

  "That's her," a girl whispered to her friend, not quietly enough. "Rescue Girl."

  "No way. She's smaller in person."

  "Everyone's smaller in person."

  [Please stop staring at me. Please stop staring at me.]

  The bell above the door chimed.

  Kasumi walked in wearing ripped jeans and a Black Dragon Guild bomber jacket that probably cost more than Suzume's rent. Her silver hair was tied up in a messy bun that looked effortless but probably took twenty minutes.

  She spotted Suzume immediately. Of course she did. Even trying to hide, Suzume had the stealth capabilities of a neon sign.

  Kasumi slid into the opposite seat. For a moment, they just looked at each other.

  "So," Kasumi said.

  "So," Suzume agreed.

  "You're Rescue Girl."

  "Yeah."

  "The whole time I was teaching you to fight, you were already—"

  "Yeah."

  Kasumi flagged down a waitress, ordered something with way too many syllables, then leaned back.

  "Start from the beginning."

  So Suzume did.

  She told Kasumi about Akane. About the livestream cutting out. About waiting a month for them to pull her sister's body from the stabilized portal. About the phone, the recordings, the ten days Akane survived while the world moved on.

  "Jesus," Kasumi muttered. "I remember that raid. Everyone said it was a tragedy, but—"

  "But tragedies happen. Players die. The show goes on." Suzume pulled off her sunglasses. No point hiding now. "Except she didn't have to die. None of them did. They just... gave up on them."

  She explained the training. Six months of turning herself into something that could survive where Players couldn't. The running, the studying, the VR simulations until her brain felt like pudding.

  "You trained for six months before ever entering a dungeon?" Kasumi's eyebrows climbed toward her hairline. "Most Players awaken and dive in the same week."

  "Most Players have superhuman strength and magic. I had MeTube tutorials and desperation."

  "MeTube," Kasumi said incredulously. "And you had me, apparently. God, I'm an idiot." The waitress brought Kasumi's drink—something beige with foam art that looked like a swan being murdered. "What are you going to do about the Association?"

  Suzume stared at her own untouched coffee.

  "I don't know. The whole reason I didn't register before was to keep my name out of their systems. But now..."

  If you stumble upon this narrative on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen from Royal Road. Please report it.

  "Now you're Stickypedia-famous."

  "Right. And it still feels..." She searched for the word. "Wrong. Like if I register, I'm saying the system that let Akane die is fine. Like I'm agreeing to play by their rules."

  "Their rules keep Players from killing each other in the streets."

  "Their rules also say rescuing people from dungeons isn't profitable enough to bother with."

  "That's not what they say."

  "They may as well say that."

  Kasumi took a sip of her murdered swan.

  They sat in silence while the coffee shop carried on around them. Someone was definitely taking photos. Suzume could hear the fake shutter sounds.

  "So, what are you going to do?"

  "I'm not sure yet."

  "Whatever you're going to do," Kasumi said finally, "do it fast. Takeshi's an ass, but he's an ass with resources. The Association has teams specifically for handling rogues."

  "Handling."

  "It's exactly as ominous as it sounds."

  [Great. Fantastic. Love that for me.]

  "Are we still friends?" The question tumbled out before Suzume could stop it. "I mean, I lied to you. Kind of. By omission. And I used what you taught me to—"

  "To save people's lives?" Kasumi's laugh was sharp. "Yeah, what a betrayal. How dare you use combat training for its intended purpose."

  "You know what I mean."

  Kasumi was quiet for a long moment. Her fingers drummed against her cup.

  "I need a day or two. To process. It's not that I'm angry, exactly. It's just... I thought I was teaching some random awakened girl with a Fighter class how to not die. Turns out I was training the most famous vigilante in Japan."

  "I'm not that famous."

  "You have fan art."

  "I what?"

  Kasumi pulled out her phone, swiped a few times, and turned it around. Someone had drawn Rescue Girl as an anime character with impossible proportions.

  "Oh my god."

  "There's worse."

  "Please don't show me."

  "Already sent you the link."

  Despite everything, Suzume laughed. It felt good. Normal. Like before her face was on every news site in the country.

  "We're still friends," Kasumi said, standing. "But I need to think about what that means now. The Guild has policies about associating with unregistered awakened. If you don't register..."

  She didn't need to finish. If Suzume didn't register, being friends would make Kasumi a target too.

  "I understand."

  Then, after some brief goodbyes, she was gone, leaving Suzume alone with two dozen staring strangers and a twelve-hundred-yen coffee she hadn't touched.

  ---

  Her apartment felt smaller somehow. Like the walls had crept in while she was gone. Suzume locked the door, closed the blinds, and finally let herself breathe.

  Her laptop hummed to life. Time for research.

  The Awakened Citizens Act was 847 pages of legal jargon that basically boiled down to: register or else. But the devil was in the subsections.

  Clause 14-B talked about "emergency awakening circumstances."

  Section 9 covered "retroactive registration for public benefit cases."

  [There has to be something. Some loophole.]

  She pulled up the Player Association's charter. Their own rules, the ones they had to follow. Most of it was PR fluff about "protecting humanity" and "managing awakened resources," but buried in Article 7...

  [No, that won't work.]

  She switched tabs. The Awakened Citizens Act, Section 12. Something about provisional status for—

  [Nope. Requires a sponsor.]

  Another tab. Guild formation laws.

  Her eyes started to blur from the legalese. Something about guild masters and registration requirements that made her brain feel like it was leaking out her ears.

  [Wait.]

  She read the line again. Then scrolled up. Then opened three more documents to cross-reference.

  [No fucking way.]

  Her heart started racing.

  This was... this couldn't be right. But she checked again. And again. The law was clear, written probably by some bureaucrat who never imagined someone would use it like this.

  Guild leaders had different requirements. Completely different. The law treated them as organizations, not individuals. And organizations had their own set of rules, older rules, from before the System even integrated properly.

  [Holy shit.]

  Her phone buzzed.

  Yumi: "Whatever you're planning, I want in."

  Then another: "Also, I may have found you a lawyer."

  Then: "Also also, check the news."

  Suzume flipped to a news app. The headline made her stomach drop:

  "THREE MORE PLAYERS TRAPPED IN UNSTABLE DUNGEON - SAITAMA DISTRICT."

  The article was two minutes old. The Players had been trapped for three hours.

  Three hours. The Association would wait days before attempting anything. The bureau would call them casualties and move on.

  She stared at her laptop screen, at the loophole that could change everything. Not just for her, but for every person trapped in a dungeon while bureaucrats debated profit margins.

  Her hands shook as she opened a new document. Not to write a proposal or a manifesto, but to take notes. To plan.

  Because if she was going to do this—if she was really going to stand in front of the Association and tell them to go fuck themselves in the politest legal way possible—she needed to be bulletproof.

  [I've got it.]