— a.h.a. headquaters of the oregon state, portland, oregon, september 2022

  "But that's beside the point, ain't it? You need to see a doc," Hayden stated as he looked at Isaac with a raised brow, 'Did he actually just Awaken? But that shouldn't make him look like he's about to croak.'

  "The only chance we have left to meet Choi In-Sung personally," the one in question said and had to pause for a breather, "might be if they need to ask him to find us. If we go back down now, we won't meet him."

  "Is that important now?"

  'Well, I don't want to lose that stupid bet?' He couldn't fathom why Hayden was now trying to argue they would just go, after all the trouble they went through in order to give the Agents the slip. "It's odd that you care."

  It wasn't a snide remark, but rather genuine curiosity. When he kicked that kid in school, he didn't care too much about him either. He wondered if his sudden bout of compassion had anything to do with that Sponsor of his. What did he call it? "The Love"?

  He had heard about Authorities before, it wasn't as if he lived completely under a rock. And surely, he did feel the familiarity a bit now. He would know the nature of what an Authority is more than anyone, after all.

  Yet as he looked at the taller teenager in question, he saw him taken aback, before crossing his arms in front of his chest.

  "We came in together and now you're bleeding for no reason. Should I not question that, or what?"

  He went straight back to anger. Indeed, it likely had something to do with his sponsor. Or maybe it was in his character, which attracted this Authority in the first place.

  Wiping off the sweat on his forehead with a sleeve, Isaac made eye contact. "Just keep it as you usually do and don't care."

  Annoyed, but unable to refute his comment, Hayden shook his head and turned on his heel, figuring out where to go next. They had been standing around in the hallway for a while and even with all of the floors available for them to check, they will sooner or later find them on a security camera up there.

  "Seriously, after all of that, I damn well hope we'll meet this bastard for real," he said, as they hid behind an array of rooms without any cameras.

  Those were all living quarters, likely for guests from other countries or states. Cameras within the room might be found and be the cause for diplomatic issues, so they hoped there weren't any hidden ones either.

  "At this point, even if we don't, I would have won the bet. You did meet Choi In-Sung – you even saw him fight. Added bonus," Isaac replied, plopping down on a fancy sofa in some sort of drawing room.

  Perplexed, the dark skinned youth crossed his arms in front of his chest again. "That's not how it works. I didn't even talk to him."

  "I remember you making unreasonable demands, but there were clear conditions. If you meet him, I win."

  "That's what you think."

  "That's how it works, 'Awakened'." Isaac had used this term deliberately, rubbing in the fact that he was indeed not yet a 'Hunter'.

  Shaking his head, the older tried to determine what the other's self-confidence might have been based on. He remembered that time on the roof, when he simply walked off, just to turn around and bark at him.

  There was nothing to this kid – he was skin and bones and bones just barely. What did he have for him to think he had the upper hand?

  He closed his eyes and calmed the rising emotion inside him, after all, they had come this far and were all exhausted. He couldn't lose his temper here, especially since they just managed to covertly slip away.

  "If I decide I'm not satisfied with it, who' ya gonna call, huh?" he responded instead, though he really did think of letting all of this go and never interacting with the other again, especially since he might actually be an Awakened as well.

  However, Isaac admitted to himself: 'That is true.' If Hayden Chace decided to keep on being a bother, how could he stop him?

  Blinking consecutively, the first thing he thought of doing was to end the other's existence, once and for all. That seemed to solve all of his problems and he could simply visit an old friend to stay at their place for the time being, instead of staying as Isaac Layer. It wasn't that big a problem.

  Stolen from its rightful place, this narrative is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

  He didn't truly wish for it, but the mere thought of the effort it would take to comply with his own terms of losing this bet was driving him over the edge. As he was about to argue with himself over what the best choice would be – including running from authorities by crossing over to Russia, in order to reside with an old friend – Hayden was clicking his tongue.

  "I don't actually care anymore," he surprisingly said, "I was gonna let you off anyway. Would have been more bothersome to have you around."

  "What?"

  "What are you two even talking about the entire time?" Rue intervened, annoyed by their way of talking about something she couldn't quite understand.

  Hayden waved her off. "Doesn't matter. I just want to fight monsters already." He felt pumped, yet at the same time, he had to run away earlier.

  It had been exhilarating and terrifying – it was exactly what he had been looking for.

  Meanwhile, Isaac didn't even know what to say anymore. All of this over literally nothing? Then again, wouldn't it have been worse, had the other said that he had lost the bet, since they hadn't actually "met" In-Sung Choi at all?

  But in his point of view, there were about a handful of things that had to be done a certain way and that certain way only. It had never truly crossed his mind that this boy – this human being – might have had a different inclination. This day, he had been proven wrong.

  Wrong in how he expected things to be, due to his lack of understanding of the character he had judged. Wrong in the way he expected humans to act, measured against what he had known. There had always been those that lost their way or treaded on different paths to begin with, but he could deal with those.

  In this case though, he simply hadn't given it much of a thought at all and that was where he had gone wrong. It wasn't like him to execute a plan this sloppily. He had grown too complacent, because this wasn't something hard to do. If Elijah wanted to meet a human being, he would go and meet them, no matter where they were.

  The words a God spoke were absolute. The meaning was as it was, clad in iron, with no room for interpretation. It had to be like that. Because their words had to have meaning, uttered among the vast sea of things that seemed meaningless in creation.

  He and his siblings, capable of both destruction and construction, had to be held accountable for every word cast like a spell, and threat sworn like a curse. That's the rule he had lived by and the rule he had his peers retain as well.

  A bet once made was an unbreakable vow. If he had lost, he had to pay. Incidentally, that was why it had been the first thing that came to mind when he had wanted to find an easy way out of a sticky situation.

  It would have been easy for him to abandon his life with the Layers and hide away with one of his old friends. Being dead would have absolved him from his payment, after all, so it wasn't lying per se. But for some reason, he hadn't felt like doing so. Now he regretted. Oh, how he regretted.

  Standing there, in an obviously unused room of the American Hunters Association, he realized how wrong he had truly been, upon looking at the supposed Status Window in front of him. Had he never done all of this, he wouldn't have gotten into this situation either, he was sure of it.

  All he had done was to think of the word "Status" and there it was, just as the instruction had told him to do. There were a number of things written there – things he had never bothered inquiring about until this very moment. Again, the regret was seeping into him like the cold after having been drenched in a shower of autumn rain.

  Another bout of silence had befallen them, yet Elijah – no, Isaac – hadn't been able to break it for a while now. He had failed. Failed, not only in the mission he had set for himself, but even at the core objective of this lifetime – peace and quiet. He hadn't necessarily lost the opportunity yet, for sure, but this Window certainly didn't mean his chances had gotten any better.

  They were now upstairs, but who knew when they would be found? It was a miracle they hadn't already been caught because of the all the cameras and the fact they hadn't moved in such a long time, as opposed to keep confusing them. They likely knew the teenagers were still inside the building.

  "I wondered about that before, but you're not using that Skill you mentioned anymore, right?"

  "No, I don't," Hayden enlightened him, "you believe I should?"

  "It would be quite helpful to know if someone has already entered this floor. Since it's not used right now, that would give us a hint to move."

  Of course, his body didn't feel alright and moving right now was the last thing he wanted to do, but he had to check the thing he had seen before and needed to know if he had the time. With all of what had happened, he really did want to finish, no matter what Hayden Chase had said.

  This had turned into a mess of unfathomable size to him. Thus, there were a great many of things that he had wanted to lament about in this very moment.

  Begrudgingly, he held them back and cleared his throat instead. If he had no idea about all of this in detail, then all that was needed was for him to learn now. He could feel something was different, but not much. What he knew was that he was now able to tell that Hayden Chase was indeed an Awakened however Rue Seo was not – he simply knew, but he didn't know why. He could feel his physical body connection to his Authority, but it felt so different from how he would normally access it.

  He was able to feel the density of the Mana around him and it was as if there was something different about the Mana in comparison to what he had known previously. He had felt it once before, when he was walking around as Elijah a few years back and came across a Hunter. Strangely enough, it wasn't as strong back then, despite that official Hunter being a lot stronger than Hayden.

  Now that he experiences the world from the view of a human with a Path of Mana, he could guess why it felt that way. It was flowing through his body, bending to shape and taking on that body's unique stench. It's something that wouldn't happen to an Authority, because they appear in soul form, moving about just a fraction of natural Mana without thinking about it.

  There was simply no need to filter it through a physical vessel.

  Looking at it, it seemed weirdly concise. 'That's so sophisticated. And what is that last one? It looks like an insult.' Isaac couldn't really make heads or tails of it, outside of his name written down.

  And none of it mentioned those Skills that were all the hype among kids at school. Perhaps, did he not have any?