Chapter 10: Thirty-Six Hours

Jin was in the training room at 4:15 AM.

The secondary facility was empty at this hour—no researchers, no security personnel, just the hum of the ventilation system and the faint glow of emergency lighting. Jin had bypassed the door lock not with his skill but with the access code he'd memorized from watching Marcus punch it in. A small rebellion. A reminder to himself that he could operate without relying on the Null.

He started with the basics Marcus had drilled into him: footwork, stance, breath control. Circle left, circle right, pivot, advance, retreat. His body moved through the patterns with increasing fluidity—not grace, not yet, but something like competence. Two weeks of training couldn't make a fighter, but it could make a foundation.

After thirty minutes of footwork, he moved to the heavy bag. Jab, cross, hook, uppercut. His hands were still healing from the last session, but he'd learned to wrap them properly—twenty loops of cloth tape that protected the knuckles and stabilized the wrists. Each impact sent shockwaves up his arms, and each shockwave reinforced the lesson: *your body is a weapon too.*

At 5 AM, he switched to something Marcus hadn't taught him yet.

He activated the Null.

The training room's few skill-powered systems—the environmental controls, the monitoring cameras, the security lock on the door—flickered and died. Jin stood in the sudden quiet, surrounded by the sphere of negation that was becoming as familiar as his own heartbeat.

Three meters. That was his controlled radius—the distance he could maintain without strain. Inside that sphere, nothing supernatural existed. No skills, no abilities, no power. Just the raw, unaugmented reality of the physical world.

But three meters wasn't enough. If five A-rank hunters came for him, he needed more.

Jin reached deeper into the Null. Not the violent plunge that had knocked out the floor during Haruki's control session—a careful, deliberate expansion. He pushed the edge outward one centimeter at a time.

Four meters. The strain was immediate—a pressure behind his eyes, a tightening in his temples. The Null resisted precise control like water resisted being held in an open hand. It wanted to expand, to fill every space it touched with absence.

Five meters. The headache sharpened to a spike. Jin's vision blurred at the edges. But the radius held—a five-meter sphere of absolute negation, and he was in the center of it.

He held it for thirty seconds before it collapsed. He staggered, caught himself on the heavy bag, and breathed through the pain.

*Again.*

He expanded to five meters, held for forty-five seconds. Collapsed. Expanded again, held for a full minute. The pain was extraordinary—not physical, but existential, as if the effort of maintaining the Null at that range was grinding against the fabric of his own consciousness.

But with each attempt, it got easier. Not painless—but manageable. Like a muscle being torn and rebuilt, stronger each time.

By 5:30, he could hold five meters for two minutes. Not enough. But progress.

---

Haruki found him at 6 AM.

The old doctor appeared in the doorway, coffee in one hand, tablet in the other. His eyebrows were raised with academic curiosity, but his lips pressed tight—the look of a man torn between taking notes and giving a lecture.

"Maya told me you bypassed the lock," he said. "She was monitoring the security logs from home. You scared the hell out of her."

"I needed the room."

"At four in the morning?"

Jin wiped sweat from his face. "Kenta Haruma sent me a message last night. Pinnacle is sending a strike team—five A-ranks. They'll be here in thirty-six hours. Well, thirty-two now."

Haruki's expression didn't change. He took a sip of coffee, set down his tablet, and closed the training room door.

"I know."

"You *know*?"

"The Association's intelligence division intercepted the same information six hours before Kenta's message. We've been aware of Pinnacle's mobilization since yesterday afternoon." Haruki sat on the bench, looking tired beneath the enthusiasm that usually animated him. "Director Tanaka has activated defensive protocols. Commander Reyes is coordinating the security response."

"Why didn't anyone tell me?"

"Because Tanaka wanted to handle it without alarming you. He's concerned that stress could trigger an uncontrolled Null event."

"That's not his call to make."

"No. It's not." Haruki met Jin's eyes. "Which is why I'm telling you now. And why I'm going to tell you something else that Tanaka definitely doesn't want you to know."

He pulled up his tablet and displayed a map of the city. Five dots, red and pulsing, were clustered at a location Jin recognized as the eastern industrial district.

"The strike team is already here. They arrived last night."

Jin's blood went cold. "That's not thirty-six hours."

"Kenta's message was either outdated or deliberately misleading. Either way, the timeline is accelerated." Haruki zoomed in on the dots. "Five A-rank combatants from Pinnacle's Special Operations division. We've identified three of them."

He listed the names and skills:

**Yuki Frost** — A-rank [Ice Prison]. Creates crystalline containment structures that can encase targets in unbreakable ice.

**Daiki Storm** — A-rank [Lightning Chain]. Projects chains of electrical energy that arc between multiple targets.

**Ren Shadow** — A-rank [Void Step]. Short-range teleportation through shadow. Assassination specialist.

"The other two are unidentified. Pinnacle's Special Operations keeps their roster classified." Haruki put down the tablet. "The Association's plan is to confront them before they reach this facility. Reyes is taking a team of S-ranks to intercept."

"And me?"

"You stay here. Behind the wards, behind the security, behind the walls. You let the professionals handle it."

Jin stared at him. "You can't be serious."

"I'm completely serious. You're not ready for a combat engagement with A-rank professionals. Two weeks of training and some expanded Null radius does not make you a fighter." Haruki's voice was firm. "Your job right now is to survive. Let the people whose job it is to fight do the fighting."

"And if they fail?"

"Then we have contingencies."

"What contingencies?"

Haruki didn't answer. But his eyes flicked to Jin's wristband—to the green light that represented the dormant power inside him.

"No," Jin said. "You're not using me as a last resort."

"It's not about using you—"

"It's exactly about using me. The entire plan is: send the S-ranks first, and if they can't handle it, throw the Null-type at the problem and hope for the best." Jin's voice was rising, and with it, the Null stirred. His wristband flickered yellow. "That's not a plan. That's gambling with other people's lives."

"Calm down."

"I am calm. The Null responds to emotion, not to anger—I've learned that in your sessions. It's responding because I'm making a decision, and decisions activate it." Jin looked down at the yellow light. "I'm going to help with the defense. Not as a weapon—as a participant. If those hunters get inside my radius, their skills stop working. That's an advantage no S-rank can replicate."

"It's also a death sentence if they get within striking distance before you negate them. Ren Shadow is a teleportation specialist—he can appear behind you from fifty meters away. In the half-second before your Null hits him, he puts a blade through your spine."

The image was visceral. Jin forced himself to process it without flinching.

"Then I need the radius bigger. I need to be able to catch a teleporter before he finishes his jump." He looked at Haruki. "Help me."

The old doctor's face was a war between responsibility and recognition. He knew Jin was right—the Null was the most effective defense against A-rank skills. But he also knew the risks. A twenty-year-old with two weeks of training against professional combat operatives who'd spent years perfecting the art of violence.

"If I help you expand your radius," Haruki said slowly, "you're going to be pushing against limits that we haven't tested. The mental strain could be significant—migraines, disorientation, possible loss of consciousness. And if you lose control while the Null is expanded, the negation wave could hit everyone in the building. Allies included."

"I know."

"Reyes. Marcus. Maya. Me. Everyone's skills stop working. The building's structural wards fail. In a combat situation, that could be catastrophic."

"I know."

Haruki studied him for a long moment. Then he sighed, a deep exhalation that seemed to age him five years.

"All right. But we do this my way, with proper monitoring and failsafes." He picked up his tablet. "Maya's going to kill me."

---

They spent the morning expanding Jin's limits.

Haruki set up a portable monitoring station in the training room—vital signs, Null radius sensors, cognitive function trackers. Maya arrived at seven, took one look at the setup, and launched into a fifteen-minute argument with Haruki that ended only when Jin pointed out they were wasting time.

"Five meters is your current ceiling with comfort," Haruki said, reviewing the data. "We need to push past that. The goal is a ten-meter radius—wide enough to catch anyone approaching from a distance, including a teleporter mid-jump."

"How?"

"Same technique as before—approach and expand—but faster and harder. We don't have time for gradual acclimation." Haruki's jaw set. "This is going to hurt."

It hurt.

Jin pushed the Null outward, centimeter by centimeter, feeling the resistance build like pressure in a deep-sea dive. Six meters. Seven. The headache bloomed into a white-hot corona that wrapped around his skull. Eight meters, and his nose started bleeding. Nine meters, and his vision narrowed to a tunnel.

"Cognitive function dropping," Maya reported, her voice tight. "Brainwave patterns showing extreme stress. Jin, you need to—"

"Ten meters." He held it. The world was a pinpoint of light surrounded by darkness, and the darkness was the Null—a sphere of absolute absence, ten meters in every direction, centered on his trembling body.

He held it for twelve seconds before the darkness swallowed everything.

---

He woke up on the mat with Maya pressing an ice pack to his forehead and Haruki scanning him with a medical device.

"You passed out," Haruki said. "Eight seconds of unconsciousness. Your Null collapsed immediately—good news, it doesn't sustain when you're down."

"Ten meters," Jin croaked.

"Ten meters for twelve seconds, then a hard crash. That's not viable in combat." Haruki sat back. "But eight meters was stable for thirty-seven seconds before the degradation started. That might be workable."

Jin sat up slowly. The headache was a dull throb now, manageable. His nose had stopped bleeding. "What time is it?"

"Noon." Maya removed the ice pack. Her face was pale beneath her glasses. "Jin... the security team just reported that the Pinnacle group has moved. They're no longer in the industrial district."

"Where are they?"

Maya and Haruki exchanged a look.

"We don't know," Haruki said. "Ren Shadow's ability makes them effectively untrackable. They could be anywhere in the city."

Jin looked at his wristband. Yellow. His Null was partially active, responding to the adrenaline coursing through his system.

Five A-rank hunters, somewhere in the city, coming for him.

Eight meters of negation. Twelve seconds at maximum range. Two weeks of combat training.

It wasn't enough. It was probably never going to be enough.

But it was what he had.

"Get me Marcus," Jin said. "I have questions about how to fight when you're outmatched."

Haruki reached for his phone. Maya gathered her equipment.

And somewhere in the city's shadows, five A-rank hunters were closing in.