Chapter 26

Pressing on with their hunt for Lu, Shin voices open admiration for his boss in combat and wonders aloud whether every member of the Order is as fearsome as Sakamoto once was. Sakamoto answers bluntly: pit ten Shins against a single Order operative and all ten would be finished inside six seconds. He warns his young partner that the only smart move against one of them is to fake being a corpse. Moments later a hidden hatch drops open beneath Sakamoto, swallowing him whole and leaving Shin frozen in disbelief.

Several floors below, on the fifth basement level, Kashima stands flanked by Takamido and Onigahara, the bosses who run the third and fourth floors. The three face down two Order assassins, Shishiba and Osaragi, with a mound of freshly killed henchmen heaped between the two sides. When Kashima steps toward them, the pair explain they have come only for Slur. He counters that Slur is occupied and that the laboratory was his own private venture. Shishiba lays out the violations, illegal weapons manufacturing and the use of hostages for extortion, and states plainly that the operation will be shut down.

The floor bosses ask leave to kill the intruders, and Kashima tells them to do as they wish. Osaragi asks whether Shishiba has finished talking, then beheads both men in a single blur before apologizing for the blood on his coat. Grief-stricken over his slaughtered crew, Kashima weeps and demands to know if the Order holds any regard for life. He tears a stitch from his forearm to release a spray of blades and declares that those who scorn human life forfeit the right to call themselves assassins. The Order pair note the hypocrisy, given his own body count.

Kashima charges and carves a deep wound across Shishiba's torso, insisting his killings are all sanctioned by Slur and therefore justified. Shishiba surges forward and buries a hammer in Kashima's forehead, twisting the head completely around. Believing the fight won, the assassins begin to depart, only for Kashima to rise, straighten his head, and reveal an artificial spine. Before he can act, Sakamoto plummets down and lands squarely on top of him. As the dust settles, Sakamoto and Shishiba stare at each other, both realizing they are no strangers.

Sakamoto measures the raw gulf between an ordinary assassin and an Order member, then vanishes through a trap into the depths of the facility. Shishiba and Osaragi are shown wiping out Kashima's forces, and Osaragi executes the floor bosses Takamido and Onigahara, who debut only to fall in the same scene. Kashima's resilience is exposed through his hidden blades and artificial spine, and the chapter closes on the mutual recognition between Sakamoto and Shishiba.

The chapter's title, Order, is rendered in Japanese with the reading Ōdā. Takamido and Onigahara both make their first appearance here, while Nagumo, Lu Shaotang, and Uzuki, known as X, are only referenced. Running nineteen pages, it was published on June 7, 2021 in issue 27 of that year and belongs to Volume 4. Sakamoto and Shin share the cover.