"What the hell was that…" Satoya mumbled, looking around. Due to the injuries inflicted by Sage, he was unable to move a muscle, except for his strangely healed arm. He took in the destruction around him, the city completely devastated by the attack he had launched in a moment of adrenaline and desperation. He saw Thorin trapped under a collapsed building, a casualty of the shockwave. Nearby, Ragnar lay unconscious, close enough to the blast radius to be affected but not severely harmed.
Satoya tried to muster every ounce of strength to get up, but he was essentially paralyzed. Suddenly, he heard a faint whistling noise and felt a sting on his neck. Instinctively, he grabbed at the source of the sting and pulled out a syringe. His vision blurred, and his mind went into a haze. As he fell to the side, he glimpsed a group of masked soldiers without any identifiable badges or emblems.
Three minutes passed. A VHC rescue team arrived at the district, specifically the destroyed city where Satoya, Thorin, and Ragnar were barely clinging to life. One of them seemed to be the leader, a man with round glasses and blonde hair, who was calling someone on a phone. "My team made it to the scene. An elite rank like Thorin and Ragnar aren't capable of causing such destruction. Are you sure it was them who did this?"
"Just blame it on the G.A.A. and keep the critical state of the two elite ranks there a secret from public eyes. This could ruin our reputation," the person on the other end of the phone ordered. The leader took out a cigarette and lit it. A rescue member called to the leader, "Ragnar is still conscious!"
The leader calmly walked over to Ragnar, who was surrounded by medics wrapping him in bandages. "Is Satoya fine?" Ragnar coughed as he looked up with a worried expression. The medics around him were confused, with one of them asking, "Who? We were only told about two elite ranks." Ragnar was surprised. Before he could ask further, the leader insisted he stop talking to avoid worsening his condition.