He moved silently, his boots stepping carefully over the rusted debris. The blood trail led him down a narrow, shadowy alleyway, cutting straight through the hollowed-out lobby of a collapsed commercial building.

As he stepped out the other side, the claustrophobic ruins suddenly opened up into a massive, sprawling clearing.

Hide stopped, his grip on Night Singer tightening.

He found himself standing at the entrance of an abandoned amusement park. The sheer absurdity of the location in the middle of a monster-infested ruin was jarring.

A massive Ferris wheel had collapsed in on itself, its rusted metal spokes half-buried in the vibrant moss. The tracks of a roller coaster twisted into the gloomy sky like the bleached ribs of a dead leviathan. The colorful paint of the ticket booths and concession stands had long since peeled away, replaced by the grim, suffocating rot of the gate.

The blood trail he had been following ended abruptly at the base of the park’s main entrance archway.

Hide slowly looked up.

Sitting leisurely atop the broken, rusted sign of the amusement park, with one leg dangling casually over the edge, was a man.

He was wearing a perfectly tailored, completely unrumpled formal suit with a crisp lapel, looking entirely untouched by the apocalyptic dirt and humidity of the loop gate. Covering his face was a pristine white mask with painted diamond eyes, a wide, exaggerated red smile, and a bright red nose.

The Joker.

The masked man took a long, slow drag from a cigarette, exhaling a thin plume of grey smoke into the humid air. He rested his elbow on his knee, tilting his head slightly as he peered down at the teenager standing in the ruins below.

"You took your time," the Joker said, his cheerful, melodic voice echoing clearly across the eerie silence of the empty amusement park. He tapped the ash from his cigarette, the painted smile on his mask seeming to mock the tension in the air. "I was starting to think you got lost."

Suddenly, a notification caught Hide off guard.

[Mana shroud activated]

Hide was confused for a second. What was that? Then he realized that it must be the new skill he got after the adaptation to Rol’s talent completed. He had dismissed the window sometime ago without even looking at it.

The frown behind the Joker’s mask could be perfectly imagined.

"You did this," Hide said. His voice wasn’t a question.

The Joker tapped his cigarette, the ash drifting lazily down toward the moss. "Did what? This place is a mess, dear. If you mean that wolf... it bit me. Terribly bad manners."

A cold, blinding anger flared in Hide’s chest. This man had toyed with him at his mother’s grave, dangled answers just out of reach, and had now violently incapacitated his squad leader.

"I’m going to rip that mask off your face," Hide snarled.

The dark, shifting scales of his Abyssal Scale Carapace materialized instantly, erupting from his skin and locking into place. The armor crawled up his arms and cascaded down his legs all the way to his knees, shredding the fabric of his cheap pants in the process. His eyes flared with a deep blue light.

And then, from his body... Zenith pulled itself into the world. The massive phantom soldier towered behind Hide, its dark armor shifting like liquid smoke, the dark sword gripped tightly in its hands.

Sitting on top of the ruined sign, the Joker paused. The cigarette stopped halfway to his mask.

"What the fuck is that thing?" the Joker breathed, his cheerful, melodic tone breaking into surprise for the very first time. He stared at Zenith, then down at Hide’s armored form. "You awakened your talent... Haha! As expected! You indeed are a monster!"

Hide didn’t wait for him to finish laughing.

With the massive physical augmentation provided by the Carapace, Hide planted his boots against the cracked asphalt and jumped.

The ground beneath him cratered from the sheer force of the launch. Hide shot into the air like a cannonball, clearing the vertical distance in a fraction of a second. He aimed a devastating kick directly at the Joker’s chest.

CRASH.

The heavy iron sign of the amusement park buckled and sheared completely in half, collapsing inward from the impact of Hide’s boots.

But Hide hit nothing but metal.

He landed heavily on the crumbling archway, his eyes darting around.

"Down here, dear!"

Hide looked down. The Joker was standing casually on the cracked pavement inside the amusement park, right next to a ruined cotton candy stand.

’This bastard... how did he get there? How fast is he?’

Hide grit his teeth and dropped from the archway, landing heavily on the ground with a thud that shook the nearby rides.

"Why are you here?" Hide demanded, lunging forward. He swung Night Singer in a wide, lethal arc.

The Joker stepped backward, his movements entirely casual. He didn’t block or parry; he simply moved his torso an inch backward. The black blade sheared off a single button from his suit jacket.

"I heard there was a fair in town!" the Joker laughed, spinning out of the way of a follow-up thrust. "Though the rides are in terrible condition."

Hide pressed the offensive, his speed pushing past the limits of a normal human. "How did you know about this gate? How did you get inside?"

He channeled mana into his fist and threw a heavy, concussive punch aimed at the Joker’s jaw.

The Joker leaned entirely backward, his spine bending at an impossible, ninety-degree angle to avoid the fist, like a reed bending in the wind. He sprung back up instantly, untouched.

"I walked through the door, of course!" the Joker replied, adjusting his cuffs. 𝚏𝗿𝗲𝐞𝚠𝕖𝐛𝗻𝗼𝐯𝕖𝚕.𝚌𝗼𝗺

"Are you some kind of Calamity Lord?" Hide roared, his frustration boiling over. He commanded Zenith forward.

The massive phantom soldier closed the distance in two thunderous steps. It raised its massive sword and brought it down in a vertical cleave that carried enough force to split a tank in half.

The Joker stopped retreating. He looked up at the descending blade.

"Oh, God no," the Joker laughed. "I am more human than you are."

Instead of dodging, the Joker simply took a half-step to the right. Zenith’s massive blade crashed into the pavement, burying itself three feet deep into the concrete and sending a shockwave of debris in every direction.

But the Joker had made a mistake. By stepping right to avoid Zenith, he had stepped perfectly into Hide’s trap.

Hide was already there.

Before the Joker could adjust his footing, Hide stepped directly into his guard. The Carapace armor on his arms flared as Hide drove his left hand forward, grabbing the Joker squarely by the throat.

The impact was solid. Hide’s armored fingers clamped down like a vice on the man’s windpipe, pinning him bodily against the rusted metal fencing of the roller coaster track.

Zenith immediately pivoted, bringing the flat of its massive blade up to block off the Joker’s left side. Hide had him completely boxed in.

The Joker didn’t panic. He didn’t even try to break Hide’s grip. He just stood there, pinned against the fence, the painted smile on his mask entirely unbothered.

"Got you," Hide breathed, his blue eyes glowing fiercely through the dark mist of his armor. He tightened his grip slightly, just enough to make it clear he could snap the man’s neck if he wanted to.

"That day in the cemetery," Hide growled, his voice deadly serious. "You asked me if I wanted to know the truth about my mother’s death. And later you implied my father wasn’t in this world."

Hide leaned in closer, his dark mana practically suffocating the air around them.

"What did you mean? Is my father dead?"

The Joker stared back at him through the diamond eye-holes of the mask. For a long moment, the playful, theatrical energy completely vanished from his posture. The air around him suddenly felt incredibly old, and terrifyingly cold.

Then, the Joker reached up and gently, almost delicately, patted Hide’s armored hand that was gripping his throat.

The next moment, he was out of the grip and standing behind Hide.

"If I were you," the Joker said, his voice dropping into a smooth, serious whisper that sent a chill down Hide’s spine, "I wouldn’t waste time asking questions..."

The Joker tilted his masked head toward the center of the amusement park.

"...when my comrade’s life is in danger."