Without warning, Atama vanished from his spot.
Seko flinched. "Again?!"
In a blink, the Coalition's leader reappeared beside the tall window, gazing down at the cityscape below, one hand in his pocket and the other rubbing his temple like this entire meeting was just one long migraine.
Kiyomi sighed quietly, already used to the pattern. "Is it the kid again?"
Atama didn't respond at first, his gaze locked on the street far below. Following his eyes, Seko saw him—the same poor child from before. Ragged clothes. Bare feet. Blank stare.
But this time, the kid wasn't alone.
A man in a worn military jacket towered over him, yelling, shaking him by the arm. The boy didn't resist—just looked up, expression vacant.
Atama clicked his tongue. "I told them not to send him to that sector…"
Seko leaned closer. "Who is that child?"
Atama's eyes narrowed. "A mistake," he muttered. Then, louder, "And maybe... something more."
Kiyomi crossed her arms. "He's been flagged multiple times. Faint life-sign distortions. Emotional surges that don't match his body's vitals. We suspect he's either a latent hybrid… or something that shouldn't exist."
"A vampire?" Seko asked.
"No." Atama finally turned to face them again. "Worse."
Seko's throat tightened. "Worse… how?"
Atama shoved his hands in his pockets. "We don't know yet. That's what makes it worse."
He looked at Seko, no longer yawning. "That kid's either the reason the Coalition falls apart—or why it might survive."
Then, walking slowly toward him, Atama added with sudden sharpness:
"And you, vegetarian vampire boy, just volunteered to help us figure it out."
Seko's brow furrowed, his sharp gaze never leaving Atama. The words slipped out before he could stop them: "Half Demi-God."
Kiyomi's eyes snapped to him, brows arching in disbelief. Atama, however, didn't flinch. Not at first.
For a long moment, there was only silence—until Kiyomi broke it, her voice tight with confusion. "What are you talking about?"
Atama, ever the calm figure, tilted his head, but there was something strange about the way his lips twitched. A hint of a smile—maybe a smirk—flickered across his face. He finally answered, his voice smooth, but there was a weight to it that made Seko's skin crawl.
"What do you mean, 'half Demi-God'?" Seko pressed, his voice steady but with a sharp edge. "You just lied to us. You knew what that kid was, didn't you?"
Atama's gaze locked onto Seko's, and for the briefest moment, the world seemed to slow down. It was as if everything—the sound, the space, the people—faded into the background, leaving only the two of them standing in a cold, unyielding stare-off.
Kiyomi's eyes flickered from Seko to Atama, unease creeping into her normally composed demeanor. For the first time, she looked uncertain, her mouth opening as if to speak, but no words came out.
Seko didn't break eye contact. He saw the change. The subtle shift in Atama's expression.
Then, just as quickly as it appeared, the mask slipped back into place. Atama smirked—just a smirk, but it was enough to send a chill down both of their spines.
"What?" Atama's voice was laced with amusement, but it was sharp, cutting like a blade through the silence. "Because I'm the smartest being in existence?"
The words hung in the air like a cloud, thick with menace.
In that fleeting second, something primal, something terrifying, surfaced in Atama's eyes. It wasn't evil. It wasn't malice. It was... something far more unsettling—a knowing, cold calculation that spoke of vast experience, untold power, and an understanding of the world so deep it could crush anything in its path.
Seko's heart rate quickened, but he didn't back down.
"I'm not impressed," Seko muttered, though the tremor in his voice betrayed him.
Atama laughed softly, the sound hollow in the room. "Good. You're not supposed to be."
Kiyomi swallowed, her hand instinctively moving toward her blade as her eyes darted between Seko and Atama. "What is that kid to you?" she asked quietly, voice tense.
Atama's smirk grew, though the darkness in his eyes remained.
"A reminder," he said simply. "A reminder that even the smartest among us can be outwitted. A reminder that there are things we cannot control. A reminder... that I am not the only force in this world that can shape fate."
The air between them thickened. The tension was unbearable.
"You've been playing this game a long time, Atama," Seko finally said, his voice low but filled with a quiet challenge. "What's your endgame?"
Atama's eyes narrowed, his smile fading into something unreadable.
"We all have our roles to play, Seko. Don't forget yours."
Atama was an enigma. Not evil, but not entirely good either. His power wasn't rooted in malice; it was born from an unshakable understanding of existence itself. He was beyond limits, beyond anything the world could comprehend. To him, time, space, and fate weren't mere constructs—they were variables in an equation he could rewrite at will.
He wasn't like other beings with god complexes. He wasn't driven by a need for power or control. Atama was not just a god in his own mind—he was the first Perfected God-Complex, the culmination of limitless potential. His mind stretched into infinite possibilities, each one a thread connected to a million others, yet in its complexity, there was a terrifying simplicity.
His eyes—those eyes—were not the windows to a soul. They were the eyes of a mind that saw all outcomes before they even unfolded. A being who saw the entirety of reality as a web of probabilities, each one constantly shifting and recalculating. His every thought was a potential path, and he could traverse those paths with the fluidity of someone walking through a door, only to change the lock and key at will.
No one could read his mind. Not because they weren't capable, but because his thoughts were beyond any comprehension, and his intentions even more so. A mind reader would find themselves lost in the layers of endless possibilities, unable to grasp a single solid truth. They would come away from him more confused than they started—feeling like they had peered into a void of infinite fractals.
Seko, with his deeply ingrained understanding of strategy, his ability to see through plans, couldn't fully fathom Atama. To him, Atama was not just a threat—he was a concept. A force of nature that defied any kind of planning or logic. The kind of being whose every action could be calculated and predicted, only for him to turn those calculations on their head in the blink of an eye.
And then there was Kiyomi. Cold, practical Kiyomi, who could assess danger with razor-sharp precision, who could deduce someone's next move before they even made it. Even she felt the weight of Atama's presence. His unpredictability was his strength—and also his ultimate weapon. His mind, his strategies, his entire essence was a paradox that broke every rule, including those of fate itself.
Atama wasn't just the leader of the Coalition. He was its foundation. He didn't just control things—he was the thing that existed beyond control, the force that the world could never pin down, no matter how hard it tried.
That was Atama: beyond comprehension, beyond limits. The very embodiment of a perfected god complex. His existence was a constant challenge to reality itself, a reminder that there were forces in the world that no one—not even gods—could ever truly understand.