---
The intercom buzzed like the end of the world.
> “Fuhara Apartments. Pickup complete. Open.”
Suho opened the door.
A sleek bck transport hovered just above the rain-slick concrete, humming low like a predator at rest. The surface gleamed despite the filth of District 9. The Counters Academy emblem—a silver fme with fractured wings—was etched into the side, pulsing faintly.
This wasn’t just a ride. It was a message.
Kun zipped his st bag shut with his foot. “Yo, I thought they’d send a cab. This looks like it came outta a sci-fi prison break.”
He gave the apartment one st gnce.
The noodle pot still sat on the table.
The wall poster still peeled like it gave up long ago.
Home. But never again.
Suho strapped his bde to his back and nodded once.
Kun threw on his jacket with fake confidence, spun toward the door—
—and tripped on the strap.
He caught himself, grinned, rubbed the back of his neck.
“Still got it.”
The door closed behind them with a soft click.
---
Outside, District 9 groaned under the rain.
A bck-cd driver stood beside the vehicle, posture straight, face unreadable. The rain didn’t touch him.
> “Get in. 0800 sharp.”
His voice was ft. His eyes never left the front windshield.
Suho stepped inside first.
The interior of the transport was cold and silent.
The seats were a smooth bck material—too clean, like they’d never been sat in.
A low, mechanical hum filled the cabin, almost calming.
There was no smell. No dirt. No life.
Kun slid in after, muttering as he looked around, “Damn… feels like a coffin made by rich people.”
As the door sealed shut behind them, the windows dimmed until the outside world disappeared.
District 9 was gone.
---
They didn’t speak for a while.
Only the soft hum of the engine remained.
Suho watched the bnk screen in front of them.
Kun leaned his head back, chewing the st of a stale rice cracker, trying to act like none of this was bigger than it was.
Then, quietly:
“You think we’ll regret this?”
Suho didn’t look at him.
Eyes forward. Voice steady.
“Only if we survive.”
---
---
The transport rose slowly, drifting higher above the rain-slick rooftops of their part of District 9.
Suho barely moved.
Kun leaned forward, face nearly pressed to the cold gss like a kid seeing the sky for the first time.
Below them, the city bled.
Bent antennas stabbed out of concrete.
Pstic tarps fpped like dying fgs.
Neon signs sputtered through cracked gss.
Some streets were nothing but mud rivers, lit only by the red glow of malfunctioning ad screens.
Two men were fighting in an alley—bare-knuckled and desperate.
A third man filmed it from above, ughing.
“Damn,” Kun muttered. “Even the rain looks dirty from up here.”
He fidgeted with his sleeve, eyes scanning. “You think anyone over there even knows this side exists?”
Suho didn’t answer.
But his jaw clenched.
And his fingers curled tighter around the strap of his bag.
---
The vehicle arched to the right.
A rusted suspension bridge stretched across the gray water like a cracked artery.
Steel beams hung crooked. Rain pooled where pavement had long eroded.
They crossed.
And everything changed.
---
The air cleared—sharper, cooler, filtered.
The soundscape shifted—no more distant sirens or screaming engines.
Just a low, reguted hum.
Even the rain sounded softer.
Potholes turned into marble sidewalks.
Graffiti turned into glowing corporate murals.
Ruined scooters gave way to silent, floating cars—each one polished, identical.
A new side of District 9.
Same city.
New rules.
Kun stared out, jaw tight.
Inside the cars, men and women in polished suits stared bnkly at glowing tablets, faces drained of emotion.
They didn’t look out the windows.
They didn’t see anything.
“Man... who the hell lives like this?” Kun whispered.
Suho didn’t blink.
But the weight in his chest told him everything he needed to know.
---
They passed a towering mall, its gss walls alive with shifting advertisements.
Holographic influencers smiled as they showcased luxury clothes and fwless skin.
Children in sterile uniforms skipped out of a robotic cafe.
A pristine mech patrolled a nearby crosswalk, scanning pedestrians with a soft ping.
It didn’t even gnce at the transport.
Kun sat back slowly.
“Same city,” he repeated.
“Same damn isnd.”
Suho finally spoke.
“No.
Just a different yer of the lie.”
---
The buildings began to fade behind them.
The smooth skyline turned to distant shapes.
Billboards vanished.
The buzz of commerce thinned into silence.
They drove for minutes through nothing but quiet roads and subtle fences, the kind of silence you weren’t supposed to notice.
Then—
The Academy.
It emerged not from the city, but beyond it—set high on distant earth, surrounded by cliffs, forest, and endless sky.
Its structure was immense: bck walls, silver rings, cold towers staring down like sentinels.
The main pza opened beneath them—a sterile field of inspection gates, drone towers, and marked nding pads glowing with pale blue energy.
Tiny lights blinked in the treetops.
Cameras. Sensors. Something else.
The hum of weaponry hung faint in the air.
Kun blinked.
Then muttered:
“…This ain’t no school, man. This is a f*ckin’ compound.”
The feeling of the pce was cold. Unwelcoming. Watched.
He shivered.
Suho just stared.
Not in awe.
In warning.
---
---
The transport nded with a soft hiss, doors sliding open to blinding light, yered sound, and controlled chaos.
Noise. Laughter. Power fres. Someone doing flips.
Kun squinted.
He expected prison walls, cold metal, maybe an execution ptform.
Instead—it looked like a damn festival.
Dozens of rookies flooded the pza—some wide-eyed, others already slinging their powers like they were auditioning for a show.
Energy gloves hummed. Fire lit the air in bursts.
One girl floated on a cloud of feathers.
Another guy’s arm combusted—by accident.
The air crackled with the scent of ozone and burnt metal.
A strange perfume for this apocalypse party.
And at the center of it all—
the girl at the fountain.
Tight bck jacket.
Long legs.
A chest that could cause a civil war.
**And just beneath the hem of her coat—**a slender hidden bde strapped to her thigh.
Kun stopped dead.
Eyes locked.
“Bro,” he whispered. “Tell me I’m not hallucinating. Fountain girl is… divine. I’m gonna go talk to her.”
Suho didn’t look.
Just kept walking with bde-case in hand.
“Ignore me,” Kun muttered. “Let me cook.”
---
The girl looked up from her tablet as Kun strolled over, smirk armed and ready.
She raised one brow, eyes sharp and unreadable.
“Hey,” Kun said with a grin. “So… is it just me, or did the atmosphere get hotter when I walked over?”
She blinked.
“…What?”
“I thought this pce was cold and sterile—then I saw you, and boom. Lies. I’ve been lied to.”
She tilted her head, a smirk forming. “Bold. What’s your name, Heatwave?”
“Kun. Shadow-type. Ramen-duel champion. Still single. Not for long, though.”
She chuckled low. “You’re not serious.”
“I’m serious about you.”
She actually ughed—sharp and genuine.
“You’ll need more than pickup lines to survive here, Kun.”
“Damn. Alright. Coffee after we don’t die?”
“We’ll see.”
---
Kun returned to Suho like a king returning from conquest.
“She ughed, bro. Stage one complete.”
Suho: “She didn’t even ask your name.”
Kun: “Yeah, but she smiled with her soul. That’s victory.”
---
Beyond the chaos stood the Academy itself.
Massive. Cold. Beautiful in a dangerous way.
Polished towers framed by hard angles.
Gss so clean it didn’t reflect—just stared.
The building’s symmetry cut through the air like a bde.
Floating banners shifted overhead, one reading:
> WELCOME NEW RECRUITS
Burn Bright. Fall Hard.
Kun stared at it. “Inspirational. In a st-will-and-testament kind of way.”
---
An assistant zipped toward them, handing gear like a machine.
> “Bracelets are your ID, power-synced. Don’t lose them. Don’t trade them. Yes, someone’s already tried.
Dorm assignments will auto-load. Try not to set anything on fire.”
Kun: “Affection is off the table too? Damn.
This really is dystopia Hogwarts.”
---
The courtyard erupted in flexing:
A girl summoned neon butterflies.
One dude froze his own pants.
Another summoned a two-headed lightning wolf—which looked unstable as hell.
It growled. Sparks flew.
Even the instructor nearby took a nervous step back.
Suho noticed.
Didn’t say a word.
But he filed it away.
---
Kun spun in pce, taking it all in.
“This is insane. We’re inside a damn anime. I love it.”
Suho just watched.
Quiet. Sharp. Focused.
---
---
The line was long.
Too long.
Rookies stretched across the main lobby like cattle waiting for branding, under the flickering WELCOME TO COUNTERS ACADEMY sign that buzzed faintly every few seconds like it was glitching out of reality.
Kun leaned back against a metallic pilr, arms crossed.
“Man, they really got us lining up like we’re trying to renew driver’s licenses during the apocalypse.”
Suho stood beside him, silent.
Observant.
---
Kun dug into his coat and pulled out the crumpled flyer—the one from the apartment wall.
Still soggy.
Still sketchy.
> “JOIN COUNTERS ACADEMY. LIVE WITH PURPOSE. DIE WITH HONOR.”
[CALL NOW]
He grinned.
“Think it still works?”
Suho: “Don’t.”
“I’m calling.”
Suho: “We’re already here.”
Kun tapped it in anyway.
> “YOU’VE REACHED COUNTERS ACADEMY—IF YOU’RE HEARING THIS, YOU’RE PROBABLY ALREADY SCREWED.”
Kun burst out ughing. “Same nightmare hotline as before.”
Suho’s lip twitched. Almost a smirk.
---
Ahead, a recruit tried to flex his power too hard and blew a light fixture.
A drone zapped him unconscious before he hit the ground.
The line shuffled forward like nothing happened.
---
Finally, they reached the registration desk.
A woman sat behind the gss counter, white b coat, eyes dead from dealing with hundreds of rookies.
She didn’t look up as she typed, fingers tapping with the mechanical precision of a drone.
> “Name. Power type. Rank. City.”
Kun stepped up first.
“Kun. Shadow manipution. District 9. Rank… uh, we don’t actually know.”
The woman paused.
Just for a second.
Suho stepped up beside him. “Suho. Void manipution. Same.”
The woman stared at her tablet a beat too long.
Then picked up the desk phone.
> “Yeah. Two unranked from D-9. Shadow and Void types. No prior record. …Right. Yeah. Okay.”
She hung up.
Without saying a word, she slid over their dorm slips.
Then reached for a red pen.
And scribbled one single letter on each of their files.
S
Red. Stark.
Like a warning fre on a bnk page.
---
Kun leaned closer.
Squinted.
“…That can’t mean what I think it means.”
A cold shiver crawled down his spine as he stared at the letter.
Suho didn’t say anything.
But his eyes narrowed.
> “Next.”
---
As they stepped away, Kun looked down at the card again.
> Squad: #13
Dorm: F-Block, Room 047
Assigned Rank: C
“C-rank? Seriously? After all that suspense? Man, they gave me hope just to sp me.”
Suho: “You almost died to a coffee machine.”
“It was haunted.”
---
As they moved down the corridor, the walls shifted from steel to reinforced gss.
The lighting dimmed into a faint blue glow.
And the deeper they walked—
the more the air began to hum.
A low, almost imperceptible frequency.
Not loud, not painful—
Just… wrong.
It made Kun’s teeth itch.
---
A group of other recruits passed them going the opposite direction.
Clean uniforms. Matching silver masks. Each one with a different squad number burned into their sleeves.
One of them, tall and broad, turned as they passed—
smiled.
Too wide. Too calm.
“Squad Thirteen, huh? Good luck staying alive.”
Then kept walking.
Kun blinked.
“...Why did that feel like a curse?”
Suho didn’t answer right away.
But then—
“Because it was.”
---
---
The central gathering hall looked like a military cathedral—wide and towering, with steel archways and holographic banners fluttering like fgs of war.
The air felt heavy, buzzing faintly with the scent of ozone and the low hum of energy fields overhead.
The lights above pulsed in a steady rhythm, subtle but unnatural—like the heartbeat of a machine.
Hundreds of rookies packed the chamber in rows.
Some sat upright with military posture. Others fidgeted, whispering nervously, masking fear with jokes.
The atmosphere buzzed with raw energy—like everyone knew the fun was about to die.
And in more than a few pairs of eyes, that realization had already set in.
---
Kun flopped into one of the metal-backed seats, gncing around.
“This pce feels like a courtroom and a nuclear shelter had a baby.”
Suho: “At least it’s clean.”
Kun: “No roaches. That’s a luxury apartment where we’re from.”
---
Then Kun’s eyes locked onto something—
Someone—
two rows ahead, across the aisle.
A girl.
Ash-blonde hair cascaded in gentle waves, effortlessly tied back.
Her uniform was pristine, not a wrinkle in sight.
Leg crossed. Posture rexed like she wasn’t in a bootcamp—but a coffee shop.
She tapped a rhythm on her wristband, a sequence too precise to be random.
And when the overhead lights shifted slightly, Kun caught it—
a shimmer in her eyes, like gss catching starlight.
Calm. Focused. Unreadable.
She looked like she belonged to a different world.
“…I’m gonna marry her.”
Suho didn’t blink.
“You said that about the fountain girl.”
Kun: “That was different. This one has plot armor.”
Suho: “She’ll kill you.”
“Exactly.”
---
Then static cracked through the air like a warning shot.
> “ATTENTION TO ALL COUNTERS-IN-TRAINING.”
Mr. Park had arrived.
He stood on the center stage—rigid as a bde.
Clipboard in one hand.
Megaphone in the other.
Eyes scanning the crowd like a predator hunting weakness.
His jaw was tight, barely moving as he spoke.
> “WELCOME TO COUNTERS ACADEMY.”
“YOU MADE IT THROUGH SCREENING. CONGRATULATIONS—NOW LET’S SEE HOW FAST YOU BREAK.”
Someone in the back ughed. Nervously.
Mr. Park didn’t look.
Just raised the megaphone.
> “You. Back row. Laugh again and I assign you to mop out the Category 2 cell. Naked.”
Dead silence.
> “GOOD.
YOU THINK YOU’RE STRONG?
HALF OF YOU WON’T SURVIVE THE YEAR.
THE OTHER HALF WILL WISH YOU DIDN’T.”
---
Kun muttered under his breath, “I feel so emotionally safe right now.”
Suho smirked. “Your dream girl’s already looking bored.”
Kun: “She’s just waiting for me to impress her.”
---
Mr. Park flipped the clipboard and raised his voice again.
> “WE’RE CALLING SQUADS ONE AT A TIME.
WHEN YOU HEAR YOUR NUMBER, FOLLOW THE LIGHTS.
YOU’LL MEET YOUR ROOM. YOUR SQUAD. YOUR MENTOR.
AND PROBABLY YOUR REGRETS.”
A long line of rookies stood.
Squad 1 was called. Then 2. Then 4.
One by one, they vanished through steel doors marked with glowing numbers.
Time passed.
The hall emptied row by row.
And every footstep toward the dorms echoed like a countdown.
---
Kun leaned forward, restless.
“We’re gonna be st, huh? Always st.
Or worse… we get called first and die publicly.”
Then—
> “SQUAD 13. ROOM 047. MOVE.”
Kun blinked.
“…Okay I take it back. That’s worse.”
Suho stood quietly, letting out a breath.
Kun followed, whispering as they walked toward the glowing door:
“If angel girl’s in our room… I’m not emotionally prepared.”
---
---
The hallway stretched in eerie silence.
Clean floors. Blue ambient lights.
Each metal door blinked softly with glowing numbers.
Kun and Suho walked in step, bags over their shoulders.
Kun gnced around, voice low. “Why does it feel like we’re about to walk into a cryogenic freezer?”
Suho: “Because it probably is.”
They stopped at Room 047.
Panel blinked.
Door hissed.
It opened.
---
Inside?
Sterile. Cold. Suspiciously clean.
Six bunks. White walls.
Gss window with no actual view.
A shared console table.
A mounted ft-screen TV above it—way too high-end for rookies.
In the corner, a silent, ceiling-mounted air conditioner whispered cool air across the room.
And at the far ends—two bathrooms.
One marked MALE.
The other FEMALE.
Kun stopped mid-step.
“…Wait. Is this a dorm or a secret military spa?”
Suho didn’t answer. He just blinked at the TV.
“…That’s a Q-9 digital wall screen,” he muttered. “That’s… not even in stores.”
He walked in slowly, cautiously, as if expecting the room to self-destruct.
Kun tossed his bag on a bunk and flopped down like it was nothing.
“Shit, if they’re this generous, maybe getting stabbed during training won’t be so bad.”
---
Suho’s gaze drifted up.
Tiny bck dot in the ceiling corner.
Its faint red light pulsed—quiet, constant, watching.
“…Still feels like containment,” he muttered.
---
One of the beds was already cimed.
A tall guy sat there—arms crossed, solid build, eyes exhausted like he’d seen too much.
He gnced up.
No smile. No words.
Kun gave a two-finger salute. “Yo.”
The guy stared back.
“…I already regret being here.”
He rubbed his temples like Kun physically hurt him.
“Cool. Room’s got a fun vibe,” Kun muttered, dropping his head back against the pillow.
---
A low groan came from the top bunk.
Someone peeked over the edge—dark hair, one eye half-open.
“New blood?”
Kun blinked. “Is this guy alive?”
“Might be. Might not.”
Then the head vanished again.
Snoring in five seconds.
---
The door smmed open like someone tried to break it.
> “MOVE OVER, LOSERS! I BROUGHT THE MINI FRIDGE!”
A tiny girl—barely five feet tall—charged in, dragging a dented rolling cooler behind her.
> “I GOT CANDY. I GOT CHOCOLATE.
AND IF ANY OF YOU TOUCH MY GUMMIES—
I’LL SHOVE A KATANA THROUGH YOUR TEETH!”
Kun’s jaw dropped.
“…I love you.”
She paused, scanned him.
> “Wait—are you the guy collecting Corrupted Object stickers?”
Kun nodded proudly. “Yeah.”
Without hesitation, she threw a thumbs-up and a bag of gummies at him.
> “MARRIAGE MATERIAL!”
---
The guy from earlier sighed harder.
“God help us,” he muttered, massaging his forehead.
From the top bunk:
> “I give it three days before someone gets stabbed with a glowstick.”
---
Then—
The door opened again.
Quiet this time.
Controlled.
She stepped in.
Ash-blonde hair. Calcuted movement.
Each step like she’d done it a thousand times.
No words.
No smiles.
She gnced once—at Kun.
Eyes like polished steel.
Expression unreadable.
Then she dropped her bag at the st uncimed bunk and sat.
Pulled out her wristband. Began typing.
Like no one else existed.
---
Kun froze.
“…It’s her,” he whispered. “The angel girl. From the hall. She’s—she’s in our room.”
Suho raised a brow. “You gonna die before or after you embarrass yourself?”
“I can’t live like this.”
The small girl from before leaned over from her mini fridge.
> “You’ve never been normal, Romeo.”
From the top bunk:
> “He’s gonna confess by morning. Die by noon.”
Kun groaned into the mattress.
Suho dropped his bag, sat down, and said ftly—
> “Welcome to Squad 13.”
---
---
Kun sat cross-legged on the floor, frowning at the air conditioner like it owed him money.
“I don’t get it. Six beds, a ft-screen TV, air conditioning, two bathrooms, and candy gremlin with a fridge? This ain't training. This is a government-funded Twitch house.”
From his bunk, the war-torn giant stood.
“Sit.”
“Damn, okay, Dad.”
---
They circled up—well, everyone but the corpse on the top bunk.
“That guy’s still sleeping?”
“He’ll wake up if one of us dies.”
“...Fair.”
---
The soldier cleared his throat.
> “Jackson. Twenty-eight.
Css: Tank.
Power: Damage Absorption.
Rank: A.”
Tall. Muscur. Battle scars. Army haircut.
Looked like he could bench a motorcycle and still have time for leg day.
“Hit me hard enough, I hit you harder.”
“Yo what the hell—are you a punching bag with trauma?”
Jackson blinked. “...Yes.”
---
The gremlin girl shot up.
> “HI! I’m Cssified!”
Jackson squinted. “...What.”
> “That’s my name today. Maybe it’s Zhangwa. Maybe not.
Age? SIXTEEN!!!”
(She was not. She was 18. But why tell the truth when lying is free?)
> “Css: Striker. Rank: B.
Power? Agility Surge! But I just call it:
‘ZOOM ZOOM SLASH SLASH DIE!’”
Shoulder-length bck hair tied in messy twin buns.
Eyes of a 2-year-old demon child who just found fireworks.
Brought her own fridge, sword, and unlicensed rage.
She pointed at Kun.
> “You. You look like the type who gets stabbed by accident and still flirts.”
Kun: “That’s not—okay yeah accurate.”
---
The ash-blonde girl leaned on the wall.
Didn’t even bother walking to the circle.
> “Mika. Eighteen.
Css: Healer.
Rank: B.
Power: Regen Field.”
Her voice could chill a forest fire.
Ash-blonde hair. Cold green eyes.
Looked like she judged you for breathing too loud.
Kun leaned toward Suho. “Do you think she’d stab me for free or charge hourly?”
Suho: “You’d be dead before the rate discussion.”
---
Kun cleared his throat. Stood up. Tried to pose like a protagonist.
> “Name’s Kun. Nineteen.
Power: Shadow Manifestation.
Css and Rank?
ˉ_(ツ)_/ˉ”
Jackson frowned. “You don’t know?”
“Listen man, I just do spooky ninja shit and hope for the best.”
“...Fair.”
---
Suho stood next, deadpan.
> “Suho. Seventeen.
Power: Void Manipution.
Rank and css: Unknown.
Probably cursed.”
Same golden eyes as Kun. Neater hair. Shorter. Smarter. Scarier.
“Sometimes I erase things. Sometimes I erase hope. Depends on my mood.”
Zhangwa whispered: “Hot.”
---
Then… a groan.
Top bunk stirred.
He floated down like a ghost in pajama pants.
> “Smiley. Twenty.
Css: Striker.
Rank: S.
Power: Molecule Manipution.”
Everyone shut up.
Smiley scratched his head, yawned.
“Touch anything, I can make it disappear. Oxygen? Gone. Sword? Gone. Bones? …Yours.”
Kun: “Okay, but like… do you do parties?”
Smiley: “Only funerals.”
---
Jackson exhaled like he aged five years in two minutes.
“Alright. We’re definitely dying.”
Kun turned to Mika, smirking.
“So, now that we know each other, wanna—”
> “No.”
“…I didn’t even finish—”
> “Still no.”
The small girl tossed a gummy at his head. “Cringe.”
Smiley, curling back into his bed: “I give him three more tries before I rearrange his atoms.”
---
Suho climbed into bed, pulled the bnket halfway, and muttered:
> “Goodnight, idiots.”
Kun stared at the ceiling.
“…I’m gonna die here.”
The lights dimmed.
Mini fridge hummed.
The soft whirr of the air conditioner filled the silence.
---
Meanwhile—
Jackson sat on the edge of his bed.
Everyone else was asleep—or pretending to be.
He stared at the floor. Hands csped. Jaw tense.
> “Shadow Manifestation…
Void Manipution…”
His eyes narrowed.
> “Those aren’t just rare.
They’re myth.”
He gnced toward the two brothers—Kun already snoring like a freight train, Suho facing the wall, unmoving.
Jackson’s voice dropped to a whisper.
> “…No way.
They’ve got
ta be lying.”
Still, a bead of sweat slid down the side of his temple.
Because if they weren’t—
> Squad 13 just became more dangerous than anything outside that wall.
---
