Demonic Po*nstar System

Chapter 924: Overwhelming Difference

His measured tone, then a rasp she recognized from yesterday, then a low voice that made her pulse climb before her brain had finished placing it.

They came around the corner of the east wing, walking from inside the construction. Doug in his usual suit, tablet under his arm. Luna in a hoodie and shorts, hood up. And between them, hands loose at his side, unhurried, Kaiden Grey.

Yuna stood up so fast the folding chair almost came with her.

’Professional. PROFESSIONAL.’

”Miss Park.” Doug entered the tent first and set his tablet on the table. ”Any further harassment since we last spoke?”

”I blocked the number.”

”Great.” Doug smiled at that and gestured toward the chairs.

Kaiden stopped in front of her and held out his hand.

”Good morning.”

Same calm. Same weather-report delivery.

Yuna took the hand before her brain had finished processing the offer, and her fingers disappeared. His palm swallowed hers entirely, warm and dry and so much larger than the handshake she’d rehearsed in the mirror that morning, and for one stuttering second every thought in her head replaced itself with the memory of those same fingers closing around her throat on the observation deck.

She was one beat too late to answer.

”G-good morning.”

Her eyes flicked sideways on reflex, and Luna was already looking at her, apple in hand, smirk in full bloom. The gremlin’s gaze dropped to the handshake, climbed back to Yuna’s face, and the smirk widened into gleeful, shameless smugness, ’I see how it is’ written across her face.

Yuna pulled her hand back, ears pink, and sat down so fast the folder nearly slid off the table.

Kaiden dropped into the white plastic folding chair across from her, apparently noticing none of this.

Luna hopped onto the second table, crossed her legs, and bit into the apple. Still smirking.

Doug settled into his chair, pulled up his tablet, and began.

”Miss Park, let us proceed with the final phase of your membership procedure. To start us off, what drew you to Eclipse, and what would you expect from us as your guild?”

Yuna opened her mouth.

Nothing came out.

She’d rehearsed this. She’d rehearsed this in the mirror at five in the morning with toothpaste on her lip, running through answers while the eyelash glue dried. She had a whole speech prepared about growth opportunities and high-tier gate access and learning from the best combat team in the country, and every single word of it suddenly sounded lacking the moment Kaiden Grey was sitting three feet away from her and actually waiting for the answer.

’Think, Yuna. THINK. You practiced this. Growth. Gates. Team synergy. Say team synergy, that sounds professional-’

”This is a waste of time,” Kaiden spoke up all of a sudden. ”Let’s not do this.”

Doug’s mouth stopped. Yuna’s heart stopped. Did she fail already?! It makes sense, who wants an assassin who can’t even speak-

Kaiden was looking at her across the folding table, red eyes level.

”I want her,” he said.

Yuna’s ears, which had been recovering from pink, went straight past it into red. ’Oh, he was talking to Doug only... And he meant that?!’

Kaiden’s gaze didn’t move. ”The only question I need you to answer is this: do you want us, Yuna Park?”

”Yes!” she shouted instantly with more strength in her voice than she would’ve preferred. ”It would be my dream come true to work with you people...”

Doug paused for exactly one second, then grinned. ”Well then.”

He turned back to Yuna, and the grin settled, warmer. ”Congratulations, Miss Park. You’ve passed the interview. Eclipse would like to extend you a conditional offer of membership, pending buyout of your Skyline contract. Should you accept, our legal team initiates the transfer. You continue your current duties at Skyline until the buyout clears.”

He scrolled. ”Membership terms, compensation, gate assignments, and guild protections are in the letter of intent I’ll present at the end. Standard Eclipse contract. No performance-based penalty clauses, no development ledger, and no...” he glanced at his notes, ”...after-hours feedback sessions.”

The last three words landed with surgical quiet, and Doug did not look up.

Yuna blinked. ”You noted that.”

”I note everything, Miss Park.”

The tent was quiet for a moment, just the construction noise outside and Luna’s chewing, and Yuna stared at the folding table and tried to make the math work the way she needed it to. She turned toward Kaiden and spoke.

”Can I ask something?”

He gestured for her to continue.

”The buyout.” She pressed her thumbnail into the edge of the folder. ”Skyline’s ledger is nine digits. That’s... a lot of money to spend on one S-tier. Are you sure it’s worth it?”

Kaiden raised an eyebrow.

”Wouldn’t it be smarter to spend that on scouting?” she continued, and the words tasted like Mercer’s but she couldn’t stop them, because they’d been sitting in her stomach since the bus. ”There are guilds going overseas now, trying to find SS and SSS prospects out of developing countries for a fraction of the cost. People who’d sign for basic necessities and be grateful. Wouldn’t that be a better investment than buying out one S-tier assassin with a contract problem?”

Luna bit into the apple again, loudly.

”Bruh,” she murmured. ”This chick is all over the place. Are you sure you don’t need a guardian with you? Why are you downplaying your value during your interview?”

She then somehow managed to pretend she hadn’t said anything, staring back at Yuna when the assassin looked at her.

Kaiden’s voice broke up the staring competition between the two women. ”Where is this coming from?”

Yuna looked at him, and the rest of it came out before she could dress it up.

”Skyline’s Guild Leader called me after the exam.” She kept her voice level. ”Started with a retention offer. When I said no, he read me the ledger and told me nobody would pay nine digits for a woman who knows her rights when the alternative eats what it’s given and says thank you. He was... very specific about what kind of people these alternatives would be.”

”Indulge me,” Kaiden prompted.

”Racist specific. Sexist specific.” She swallowed. ”Starving African tribesmen who run from lions for ten thousand years, or something stupid like that. Then about me being on my period for wanting to leave. Then he invited me to his office to discuss it privately.”

Doug’s pen clicked once. ”For the record, sir. Miss Park disclosed this during our scheduling call last night. Guild Leader Mercer characterized international recruitment as a race to exploit underprivileged prospects in famine regions, using overtly discriminatory language, to convince Miss Park she had no market value matching her buyout numbers.”

Kaiden said nothing, and his infamous, overwhelming air swelled, dreadful.

”This man reminds me of a certain piece of shit rotting on death row...” he muttered.

”Kai, it’s okay,” Luna said between two bites, and to Yuna’s shock, Kaiden quickly came under control.

”Eclipse legal handles the buyout. Whatever his ledger says, it won’t be a problem.”

Yuna exhaled. She hadn’t realized she’d been holding it.

”But you asked a real question in there,” Kaiden said. ”About tier and what I think it’s worth.”

He looked the assassin straight in the eyes. ”A tier reading is recorded output. It tells you what someone can produce under controlled conditions, and that’s it. Of course we’d take a chance on a high-output prospect, wherever they come from. But output isn’t readiness.”

He looked at her. ”Take your hypothetical SS-tier from a village where they don’t even know what a monster is. Fly him here, hand him a uniform, prepare him however best you can. Then Pebble walks around a corner.”

”He runs,” Yuna said, before Kaiden could.

”He runs. Instinct. Maybe it can be trained out of his system in a few years’ time, maybe it can’t. But one, I prefer not to deal in hypotheticals or years right now, and, two...” He picked up the cup. ”You didn’t run. That’s what I was testing yesterday.”

Nobody spoke.

”Maybe we’d find an SSS-tier recruit using the money we’ll spend on your buyout, but would we get someone I know I can trust to stand her ground when the apocalypse turns for the worst?”

Yuna sat with her hands in her lap, and the two conversations rearranged themselves side by side.

Mercer’s voice and Kaiden’s had started from the same facts. S-tier isn’t the summit anymore, the ceiling moved, the global market is changing. They’d arrived at conclusions that shared nothing.

Mercer had looked at the awakened market and seen inventory. Cheap, grateful, housebroken. A ledger that proved ownership and a woman who should be grateful for the collar.

Kaiden had looked at the same market and seen people. Some would run. Some would stay. The number on the machine told you what they could do in theory, and nothing about what they would in reality.

”Doug,” Kaiden said.

”Ahead of you, sir.” Doug slid a document across the table. ”Letter of intent. Eclipse commits to initiating the Skyline buyout upon your signature. Terms are inside.”

Yuna reached for the pen, ready to sign right away.

”Read it first,” Kaiden spoke up.

She stopped. Kaiden was watching her with the same unhurried patience he’d worn on the observation deck, no pressure in his voice at all.

”Take your time. If you don’t understand something or want counsel, you may postpone the decision.”

Three years ago, Yuna Park had sat in Skyline’s lobby in her best blouse and initialed every page they’d slid across the table without properly reading them, trusting them and thinking it’d look like she wasn’t trusting of leadership.

She pulled the document toward her and read it.

Every page. Every clause. It took twelve minutes, and nobody rushed her. Doug refilled his coffee. Luna finished the apple and started scrolling on her phone. Kaiden leaned over, watching the nonsense that filled his lover’s feed.

The terms were what Doug had described. Salary, gate assignments, equipment, medical, legal representation for the buyout. No confidentiality clause. No development ledger. No penalty structure of any kind.

She kept waiting for the trap. The page where the language would get dense and the font would shrink and the clauses would start eating each other the way Skyline’s had, so that by the time you realized what you’d signed, you’d already signed it.

It never came. The whole document was four pages long, and she could read every word of it.

Her eyes burned. She blinked hard, because she was not going to cry in a tent over a contract that just said what it meant.

She picked up the pen and signed her name.

”Welcome to Eclipse, Miss Park,” Doug said.

”Took you long enough,” Luna said, scrolling. ”Midget’s not just a closeted pervert but she’s dyslexic too.”

Yuna grinned until her cheeks hurt.