Cardfight!! Vanguard: Bujin

-Part 3

A cold evening of April.

An unassuming Ryuzaki & Co. facility in Osaka.

A worker on his way to the lounge to refill his cup with coffee.

Another mundane night of work.

A blinking lightbulb.

A glitchy screen.

An explosion.

An entire underground level thrown intro a pandemonium of chaos and disorder.

Across the entire level, lights turned on and off like they had a mind of their own, doors that required digital keys to open were repeatedly closing and opening by themselves, computers had their systesm strained to the point the servers in the facility crashed at the same time.

And then, another explosion.

A security team spread thin, their work made harder by those trying to salvage anything from their research from amidst the chaos.

Among the ones scouring the level, a variant. A person who would not have been there in any other night.

A man ran after some of the security team's personnel in search of his companion.

From the corner of his eye, he sees the blur of a figure in white lonesomely walking down a corridor. His goal changes.

Someone in white was to be expected, this was a lab afterall. But only someone with a hand in the chaos would be able to calmy walk through it.

So he ran.

Down the same corridor, through the accessibles rooms at the other end of it, until-

"You're not the one I wanted to see it."

A large room, walls covered in screens that would be showing every nook and crany of the level if not by the unpredictable glitching.

At its center, a tall figure clad in a white tunic with a hood and long sleeves, all black clothing underneath it to hide every corner of its skin, a voice modified to sound raspy, echoeing in the empty space of the curved metal beak of its mask.

"Who are you?! Are you the one behind all of this?!"

"You're neither the first who'll hear my name, nor the first who'll hear my designation. I was hoping for a section director, not the dog of Treasure."

The three doors that lead to the room closed on their own.

"But you'll do, Blaze Inu."

"Treasure...?"

"You don't need to play dumb. I'm aware of the titles you've given the sections in the company. Finance is Treasure, HR is Face, security is Fortress, law is Scales, the CEO is Control, the list goes on. I was hoping for the director of Fortress to be the one finding me, but I'll work under the assumption you've informed Ichinose about my presence."

"Yeah, I've told Mav. You still think you got any shot at getting out of here in one piece?"

"I don't need to think about something I know is factual. The second bomb detonated further south from here, so I doubt Ichinose will get here in the next twenty minutes. Are you a gambling man, Blaze?"

"Hell no. But I'll take it you must be one to pull a stunt like this in the first place."

"A gamble is only that if something is uncalculated for. My actions here tonight are a gambit."

"You think you've won?"

"What do you think?"

Inu narrowed his eyes. The masked figure turned to face him and stared at him with its hollow eyes.