"Better at it than I am," he acknowledges with a self-conscious quirk of his lips, which vanishes when he takes a draw of smoke. "You have other things you're good at, too. If the spirits' 'fire snatchers' warning was right, and if the Hunt takes themselves and their goal seriously, we'll need someone on the lookout constantly to defend against them. Several someones. And if they press hard enough, we might just have to hunt them back."

And that, he suspects, is something Soldat would be very good at. It's something he hasn't brought up with Cao Pi or any of the others he's spoken to just yet, but it seems obvious to him that if the Hunt are persistent and disruptive, and damaging to themselves and their efforts to eradicate the World Eaters, then they may have to take some offensive moves against them. Otherwise, all the Hunt has to do is wait for the right moment when they're already recovering from something the green-eyes do, and they'll be able to finish off everyone in Beacon quickly. Waiting, and insisting only on self-defense, would be their downfall.