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"Long range. Instant activation. Sustained. Can even work without line of sight, given the right conditions. This is a joke." Ryan was stunned.
"I don't know anything. Arresting me won't help you." The man stated it plainly.
"I know. That doesn't mean you're useless. Walk — time to confess at the church." The Captain gestured for the man to go ahead, then turned to one teammate:
"Head back and have them ready."
That appeared to be the end of it. The residual shock still fading, Ryan came to his senses, slipped away quietly, and had no desire whatsoever to find out where the Nighthawks were based. Knowing wouldn't do him any good.
"Unless it's a one-on-many scenario, that Captain is virtually unbeatable in any normal fight. And the fact that he sent two people in to make the arrest tells you he's not defenseless while using his ability — the earlier perimeter guard was simply because there was nothing for them to do yet." He walked home, still turning it over.
The more he thought about it, the more absurd it seemed. His own abilities had already made clear that supernatural power followed no rules — but this was something else. Even paired with an ordinary person who simply happened to be a good shot, this ability would be enough to threaten every Extraordinary it could affect — short of a potion specifically built around defense, with resistance to physical harm that made vital-organ hits meaningless.
"And in the slums, they were very purposeful — they clearly knew roughly what area the lead was in. Whether they swept it systematically or used some supernatural method to narrow the range is unclear."
Given the brief exchange after the arrest, he leaned toward the latter. So long as some link existed, the Nighthawks had a way to find relevant information.
"Sounds a bit like object-reading or divination for tracking."
The big idiot had picked up enough by osmosis in a world with gods: using something closely connected to the target as a medium — to provide direction and guidance — was one recognized approach.
In this world, with gods present, the knowledge wasn't hard to find if you looked for it. Places like the Kevin bar's underground market always had occult-related books available, and this kind of knowledge circulated in those circles. The problem was that no one could say which parts were true and which weren't. Read too much and the false parts might do the misleading for you.
"It would be so useful to have some way of telling real from fake." He sighed to himself, drifting along the edge of a rooftop.
Because Featherfall automatically deactivated whenever he had solid footing, the most efficient way to move as an Assassin was to find surfaces that couldn't support him normally — keeping Featherfall continuously engaged. That meant avoiding anything flat.
Which was why, when an uneasy feeling suddenly surfaced, he had no good foothold to catch himself. He managed to release Featherfall and adjust his posture quickly — enough to land with at least some shock absorption rather than taking it full force.
But the premonition proved faster than expected. Before he hit the ground, the now-familiar wave of chaos and frenzy hit him again, the whispering in his ear returning. His Shadow Concealment failed instantly, and for a moment he lost the fine motor control needed to execute the roll properly — he hit the ground in an undignified heap.
Fortunately, he'd spent the whole evening traveling via rooftop, so he was already close to his rented room. No one was around. The noise of the fall didn't register with anyone.
"Seriously? I was only a little scared, and you come for me like this?"
Knowing this was a normal occurrence made it easier to manage — even while fighting the urge to wreck everything in reach, he had just enough mental space left over to think ridiculous thoughts.
Known dangers were always less frightening than unknown ones.
The episode passed before long. He was left on the ground with a twisted wrist and bloodied knees, grimacing.
"Like a lump of something unpleasant. Shows up just long enough to ruin my day."
"Was that the Danger Intuition? Could've come a little sooner — that would've been great.
I'm going to sleep. Whatever it is, it can wait until morning."
Whatever motivation had remained evaporated entirely.
Across the city, in the southern part of Moen's northwest district — the area residents generally referred to as the Anjelka District, noticeably different from the more affluent neighborhoods further north despite sharing the same administrative designation — a Church of the Evernight Goddess Nighthawks team's captain, Alec Howard, was calmly reassuring the apologetic young man standing before him:
"You've done well. Get some rest. I underestimated their caution.
And don't be too discouraged. Divination is just one tool — interference is perfectly normal."
"Understood. Goodnight, Captain. May the Goddess watch over you." The young man — clearly educated in his manner — bowed slightly and tapped four specific points on his chest: the symbol of the stars, the mark of the Black Night Goddess.
"May the Goddess watch over you." Alec Howard returned the gesture and the blessing, his hair carrying the faint grey of middle age.
He watched the young man adjust his round-framed glasses and step out, then extinguished the lamp. The room fell dark — but his naturally deep-blue eyes grew, if anything, a little brighter in the absence of light.
As a devotee of the Black Night Goddess, he had always preferred darkness to light. For most Nighthawks, the dark was not an obstacle — it was a source of strength.
He leaned against the wall and studied the sleeping figure in worker's clothes in the silence of the room. Alec Howard murmured quietly to himself:
"Was it simply their caution? Or was there a high-rank entity involved — something that made the divination fail?"
Either way, the investigation would continue. Partly out of duty. And partly because, if he was being honest — it had been rather quiet lately.
With the war's effects continuing to fade and the major churches all launching their most intensive crackdowns on heterodox cults in recent memory, the number of situations requiring Nighthawks intervention had been declining in Moen — as in many other cities.
The next morning, Ryan woke to find the minor injuries from his fall the previous night had completely resolved, leaving no lingering discomfort.
Not that it occupied much of his attention. He skipped breakfast entirely, confirmed his previous night's takings were intact, and headed straight back to the slum district.
He'd actually considered, the night before, stashing the money somewhere discreet and sleeping in the slums. But the potion's episode had killed any motivation for a second trip.
Now, rested and in genuinely good spirits, he had no intention of missing the show. Food could wait — the show couldn't.
As for the money, he'd thought of a better way to handle it.
It was daytime, though — cloud cover or not, operating freely in daylight wasn't like moving at night. He wasn't going to create problems for himself just to catch the drama sooner. So even with a sense of urgency, he covered the distance to the slum district the conventional way: on foot.
His arrival, however, was a disappointment. When he positioned himself near the gang's building and focused his hearing, no one inside seemed to know they'd been robbed.
The building's shadow stretched long in the early morning light — Ryan moved right to the base of the wall to improve the sound pickup.
After a while, he pieced it together. The gang's leader knew the hundred pounds was gone. He'd simply reframed it: the money hadn't been stolen — it had been reclaimed. Someone had broken a rule. The consequences had followed.
The whole building was now buzzing with speculation and curses, trying to work out who among them had violated terms and cost everyone their easy arrangement. What had been a straightforward deal — hardly any work beyond the usual protection fees — was now a ruined opportunity, and they'd have to start finding income from scratch.
"Rat" was the one getting the most suspicion. His habit of disappearing at odd hours had apparently not gone unnoticed.
"Well — you're not entirely wrong, Rat. Just not for the reason they think." Ryan was privately delighted, though he kept it silent.
"But there really is someone running them." He noted it as he laughed.
He checked the upper floors. The leader who'd been sleeping in the bed was gone.
"Out already. And this little gang genuinely seems caught up in something bigger. What do I do with that?" He scratched his head as he made his way toward the Docklands.
He turned it over all the way to the Kevin bar without arriving at anything satisfying. The three Nighthawks from last night had left too strong an impression — any approach to tipping off the church or the police felt uncomfortably exposed. In the end, he gave up on the problem entirely. The Church of the Evernight Goddess was not going to be undone by the loss of one piece of information. Absolutely not.
So he let it go, had a five-pence breakfast at the bar, and then walked toward the Tasok River.
He'd worked it out that morning: coming into a hundred pounds and trying to use it in the same city — no matter how carefully — was too conspicuous if noticed. Moving to a different city was the safer approach.
As for why he was heading to the riverbank rather than buying boat passage, the answer was simple: he was curious what would happen if an Assassin with Featherfall active jumped into a river.
He walked out of the Docklands and followed the Tasok River downstream.
Finding a section where the bank sloped gradually, he laid all his worldly possessions on the ground and weighted them with the revolver. Then, after a moment's thought, he spent considerable effort snapping off a fairly thick branch. Without further preamble, he hefted it like a club, took aim at the water's edge, and jumped.
Just as he was curious to find out whether he could skim across the surface — a premonition of danger hit him.
True to form, the next moment, on contact with the water, Featherfall cut out entirely. He went straight in.
Author's Note (this chapter):Even paired with an ordinary person who simply happened to be a good shot, this ability would be enough to threaten every Extraordinary it could affect — short of a potion specifically built around defense, with resistance to physical harm that made vital-organ hits meaningless.
Tianjin Bishop of the Rose: "What's a vital organ?" / Guardian: "What's getting hit by a bullet?"