The headquarters felt strange without a commander’s voice echoing through it. Too quiet. Too… off.

The arrest of the Hunting Dogs’ leaders had left the entire unit suspended in an awkward limbo. Papers stacked up. Missions stayed unassigned. Even Tachihara had stopped pretending things were “fine.”

Tetchou sat on a bench in the barracks, polishing his saber with slow, methodical motions. Not because it needed it — but because doing nothing felt wrong.

He wasn’t good at waiting. Or thinking too hard. Or… whatever this strange, empty tension was.

“When are they sending someone?” Jouno had asked earlier. No one knew.

So Tetchou kept cleaning the blade. Kept breathing. Kept pretending the silence didn’t press on the back of his skull.

Then footsteps — unfamiliar ones — echoed through the hallway.

Tetchou looked up. Not with the sharpness of a soldier expecting battle, but with simple, open curiosity.

A stranger stood in the doorway. Confident posture. Steady eyes. Carrying the weight of authority without forcing it.

The room shifted. Not dramatically, not like a scene from a movie — but like something finally sliding into place after being stuck.

Tetchou rose to his feet, holding the saber loosely at his side.

“So…” he said, studying the newcomer with quiet interest.

“You’re the one they sent to lead us?”