The warm, greasy comfort of the ramen shop faded into the cool night air. As they exited, Hanma didn't give Takemichi a chance to even think about his footing. In one practiced motion, he scooped the blond boy back up into the now-familiar, humiliating princess carry, cradling him against his chest as they walked toward the parked motorcycle.

Takemichi squirmed, his face flushing. "Hanma, I won't run... can you please let me down?" he pleaded, his voice small against the rumble of city traffic.

Hanma just chuckled, his grip tightening. "Who knows? The second I let you down, you might bolt. You're quicker than you look, little rabbit."

"Are you seri—" Takemichi's protest was cut off by a sudden, violent shift in the universe.

A blur of motion came from the alley beside the restaurant. There was a sharp, whip-crack sound of fabric cutting air, followed by a sickening THWACK of a heeled boot connecting squarely with Hanma's jaw. The force was astronomical. Takemichi felt the arms around him vanish as Hanma's head snapped sideways, his body lifted clean off the ground. He flew backwards, crashing into a row of stacked plastic crates with a cacophony of shattering plastic.

Takemichi tumbled, landing on his hands and knees on the cold pavement. He looked up, eyes wide as saucers.

Standing between him and the wreckage, her chest heaving with furious breaths, was Akane Inui. Her professional calm was utterly incinerated, replaced by a ferocity that seemed to make the very air crackle. Her eyes, usually so gentle and clinical, were ablaze with protective rage.

Wow! Akane is super strong! Takemichi's mind reeled, momentarily distracted by the sheer physics of it. Hanma had landed a good five meters away.

Before he could process further, another pair of arms—slimmer, trembling with a different kind of intensity—wrapped around him from behind, lifting him to his feet and pulling him into a secure embrace.

"Seishu!!" Takemichi gasped, recognizing the sunflower-blond hair and the scent of leather and faint cologne. Without thinking, driven by pure relief and the accumulated terror of weeks, he hugged Inupi back fiercely, burying his face in the boy's uniform jacket. The contrast between this embrace and the ones he'd endured in the warehouse was profound. This one felt like safety.

Inupi stiffened for a second, then melted, his own arms tightening. A blush, violent and immediate, exploded across his pale skin, painting his face, neck, and the tips of his ears a brilliant scarlet. "Ah... j-just call me Inupi..." he stammered, his voice thick.

"Okay, Inupi~" Takemichi mumbled into his jacket, the teasing lilt in his tired voice sincere and grateful. He'd missed this. He'd missed them.

Their moment was shattered by a roar of pure, unadulterated fury.

"YOU DOG! HOW DARE YOU KIDNAP HIM?!"

Akane was advancing on Hanma, who was already pushing himself up from the debris, a trickle of blood at the corner of his grinning mouth. The kick had hurt, but it had also ignited the chaotic joy of a real fight in his eyes.

"Heey, heey," Hanma slurred, wiping the blood with the back of his hand, his smile widening into something feral. "Why are you trying to take my rabbit away? The clown and the tiger will not be happy if you do. And neither am I." As he finished speaking, he lunged, not with a wild swing, but with a deceptive, serpentine speed, aiming a knife-hand strike at Akane's throat.

What followed was not a street brawl; it was a terrifyingly realistic clash of styles. Akane, for all her medical training, moved with a predatory efficiency that spoke of deep-seated, hardened skill—perhaps learned in a hard youth, refined by a need to protect herself and her brother. She wasn't a brawler; she was a terminator in heels.

She deflected Hanma's strike with a sharp block from her forearm, the impact echoing in the alley. Hanma followed with a flurry of jabs and low kicks, his tall frame giving him reach, his movements loose and unpredictable, infused with a psychotic glee. He fought like he was playing the most enjoyable game in the world.

Akane fought to end it. She used his momentum against him, pivoting to deliver a crushing elbow to his ribs. He grunted but wrapped an arm around hers, trying to trap her. She dropped her weight, breaking the hold, and spun, her heel aiming for his knee. Hanma jumped back, laughing breathlessly.

"You're good! Really good!" he praised, as if reviewing a performance. He charged again, this time feinting high and sweeping low. Akane anticipated it, leaping over the leg sweep and, in mid-air, driving her other heel down toward his shoulder. Hanma rolled aside just in time, the heel cracking the pavement where his collarbone had been.

It was a brutal, even match. Hanma had youth, reach, and a complete lack of self-preservation. Akane had technique, cold fury, and the precision of a surgeon aiming for vitals. Takemichi and Inupi watched, frozen, from the mouth of the alley. The sounds were horrific: the grunts of impact, the scrape of shoes on concrete, the sharp exhales of pain.

Inupi, holding Takemichi close, finally fumbled his phone out. "Nii-chan! I called the police! We're good!" he shouted, trying to break through Akane's combat focus.

Akane heard him. For a split second, her eyes flicked toward her brother—a medic's instinct to triage, a sister's relief.

It was all the opening Hanma needed.

"Hah.. hah.. you're amazing," he panted, a genuine admiration in his bloodied smile. Then, as Akane's attention wavered, he dropped and swept her legs out from under her with a vicious scissor motion. She hit the ground hard, the wind knocked out of her. Before she could recover, he was on her, his hands closing around her ankles. With a roar of effort, he heaved, throwing her down the alley like a discarded doll. She skidded across the rough concrete, her clothes tearing.

Hanma didn't pursue her. His target had always been the prize. He pushed himself up and sprinted with terrifying speed toward Inupi and Takemichi.

"Takemichi!" Inupi yelled, trying to shove the smaller boy behind him.

Takemichi's body reacted before his mind could. Weeks of helplessness, of being a pawn, of watching his friends suffer, coalesced into one clear, desperate thought: Not again. He braced himself, not to run, but to stand. As Hanma reached for him, hands like claws, Takemichi didn't flinch away. Instead, he ducked under the grasping arms, coming up inside Hanma's guard—a move he'd seen Draken use a hundred times in memory. He couldn't punch, not with any power that would matter. So he did the only thing he could: he slammed the heel of his palm upwards, aiming for Hanma's nose.

It was a pitiful strike from a malnourished boy, but it was unexpected. It connected with a soft crunch. Hanma recoiled more in surprise than pain, blood immediately gushing from his nostrils.

"YOU LITTLE—!" Hanma's laugh was gone, replaced by genuine, snarling anger. He backhanded Takemichi across the face, sending him spinning into Inupi.

That was the moment the universe finally intervened. The blare of police sirens, long-awaited, sliced through the night, their rotating blue and red lights painting the alley in frantic strokes of color. Two squad cars screeched to a halt at the alley's entrance.

Hanma froze, assessing the scene: the furious woman getting to her feet, the protective brother, the bleeding, defiant rabbit, and now the cops. The chaotic joy of the fight warred with the practical need to avoid jail. With a last, bloody, grinning look at Takemichi—a promise of later—he turned and sprinted in the opposite direction, vaulting over a fence with preternatural agility and vanishing into the warren of backstreets just as the officers poured out of their cars.

The police handcuffed a dazed and furious Hanma—or so they thought. In the confusion of statements, as Akane, clutching her ribs, gave her report, and Inupi held a sobbing, shaking Takemichi, the figure in cuffs by the car seemed to slump. When an officer went to put him in the car, they found only the empty cuffs, expertly slipped, and a discarded, blood-stained jacket. Hanma Shuji had melted into Tokyo's shadowy veins once more.

The ride back to Akane's apartment was a blur of quiet tears and held hands. Once inside the sanctuary of the clean, familiar space, the dam inside Takemichi broke completely. He didn't just cry; he wailed, great, heaving sobs that shook his entire slight frame. He cried for the fear, for the chains, for Draken lying in a hospital, for Chifuyu's beaten face, for the impossible weight of a history only he remembered.

Akane didn't speak. She simply pulled him onto the sofa, wrapped him in a blanket, and held him, rocking gently. She stroked his hair, wiped his tears with her thumbs, and whispered, "It's over. You're safe. I'm here. I've got you." Her own bruises and scrapes were forgotten. Inupi hovered nearby, looking helpless, his heart aching at the sight.

When the storm of tears subsided into hiccupping shudders, Takemichi looked up at Inupi, who had defended him, who had come for him. Overwhelmed with a gratitude that transcended words, he leaned over and pressed a soft, chaste kiss to Inupi's cheek. "Thank you, Inupi... for protecting me."

The effect was nuclear. Inupi's brain short-circuited. He made a small, choked sound, his face erupting into a blush so profound he looked feverish. He stammered something utterly incoherent, then practically floated out of the apartment, promising to come back tomorrow. He spent his entire walk back to the Black Dragons' base in a dazed, euphoric daydream, replaying the feel of Takemichi's hug, the sound of his name in that teasing voice, and the impossible, searing warmth of that kiss on his cheek. The world had taken on a soft, glowing focus.

Back at the Valhalla warehouse, the mood was the polar opposite.

Kisaki was reviewing timelines when a battered, furious Hanma returned, his nose swollen and caked with blood, his clothes torn. The story he snarled out—the interference of a woman and the Black Dragon kid, the police, the escape of the rabbit—caused Kisaki to go preternaturally still. The calm on his face was more terrifying than any rage.

"You... lost him?" Kisaki's voice was a whisper of dry ice.

Before Hanma could defend himself, the door slammed open. Kazutora burst in, having heard the news from a lower-level member who'd been lurking near the scene. His usually wild eyes were wide with panic and an anger that bordered on hysteria.

"WHERE IS HE?!" Kazutora screamed, the bell on his ear jangling violently. "WHERE'S TAKEMICHI?! HANMA, YOU SAID YOU WERE FEEDING HIM! YOU LIED!"

"He was taken," Hanma spat back, his own anger flaring. "By some crazy woman and a blond pipsqueak from the Black Dragons!"

"TAKEN?!" The word seemed to break something in Kazutora. He launched himself at Hanma, fists flying. "YOU LOST HIM! YOU LOST MY RABBIT! I'LL KILL YOU!"

Hanma, never one to back down, met him head-on. The warehouse descended into chaos as the two most volatile members of Valhalla brawled savagely amidst the crates, their roars of anger echoing. The carefully cultivated alliance strained at the seams, united only by their shared, furious obsession over a missing boy.

Baji, leaning against a far wall with his arms crossed, watched the scene with an unreadable expression. His mind was on the blond boy from the game center—the one who had blocked his punch, who had looked at him with an ocean of sorrow. The boy who was clearly a prisoner. A strange, cold feeling settled in Baji's gut, unrelated to his own complex mission.

Nearby, Choji cowered, utterly bewildered. The fearsome, cool-headed leaders of Valhalla were tearing each other apart over... a pet? The world had gone mad.

Kisaki finally moved. He didn't shout. He simply picked up a metal folding chair and slammed it down with shocking force onto a nearby crate. The explosive BANG silenced the fight. Hanma and Kazutora paused, bleeding and heaving, glaring at each other.

"He is a variable that requires reassessment," Kisaki stated, his voice cutting through the heavy breathing. His glasses gleamed, hiding the furious calculations behind his eyes. "His connection to the Black Dragons is now confirmed. This changes the board." He looked from Hanma's bloody face to Kazutora's frantic one. "We will retrieve him. But not through mindless rage. We will find where he is. And when we do..."

He didn't finish the sentence. He didn't need to. The promise hung in the air, colder than the chains that had once bound Hanagaki Takemichi. The hunt was not over. It had just become exponentially more personal.

"Suits you im getting him back right now" Kazutora left in a fleet of rage.

"Idiot, nothing good comes from unplanned action" kisaki remarked before leaving the base.