Her sword was gone.
The hilt lay at her feet, useless now, a testament to the limits of even perfect tools.
"I guess the person who hired me didn't think about this."
She stepped over Alain's body and walked out of the alley.
The street was chaos. Bodies pushed past her, around her, through the space where she stood, but none of them touched her. She moved through the crowd like water through stone, finding the gaps, the openings, the paths that others couldn't see. Her gray eyes swept the scene, cataloging, assessing, eliminating.
The target was gone.
Not surprising. He was fast, she knew that from the file. Smart, too. He would have taken one of the obvious escape routes, the ones she'd identified during her surveillance, the ones she'd prepared for.
She began to walk.
The crowd parted around her without seeming to notice her presence. She was just another face in the chaos, another body moving through the destruction. The explosions continued, distant now, but still audible.
Her concern was the target. The boy with violet eyes. The weapon that the government feared would become another Sophia Miller.
She found him in a cafe.
Not the target. Someone else. Someone she recognized.
Sam found himself alone.
The crowd had swept him away from the others, a surge of panicked bodies that separated him from Edward, from Lucy, from the remaining agents. He'd tried to fight it, tried to maintain formation, but there were too many people, too much chaos, and his primary objective [Hoshimi] had vanished into the sea of faces.
[Miss Reina wouldn't be pleased to hear this.]
He sat at a small table near the window, a cup of coffee cooling in front of him, his red hair catching the gray light in ways that made it look almost artificial.
The street he found himself on was quieter. Not empty, nowhere in the city was empty now but less chaotic. People were heading toward shelters or homes or wherever they went when the world was ending. Sam let them flow around him.
She was here.
Jiyeon.
Sam's hand found the grip of his sidearm. He didn't draw.
"Hello, Sam."
She wasn't holding a weapon.
"Jiyeon." The name came out flat. Professional. "It's been a long time."
"Has it?" She stepped out of the shadow, into the gray afternoon light. Her movements were fluid, economical, no wasted motion. "I hadn't noticed. Time moves differently when you're working."
"Still taking contracts?"
"Obviously, I took this one."
She crossed to his table and sat down across from him. The chair was hard, uncomfortable, designed to discourage lingering. "And you? Still playing guard dog for whatever master holds your leash?"
"Whoever pays the most, but right now, my allegiance lies with this country's government."
"You knew I was coming."
"Of course." He picked up his coffee, took a sip, grimaced. "Cold. Should've ordered tea. You always did say tea was better."
"You never listened."
"No." His smile widened. "I never did."
The cafe was nearly empty. A few other customers huddled at distant tables, their faces pale, their eyes darting toward the windows with every distant rumble of explosion. They were afraid.
Jiyeon ignored them.
"The target," she said. "You're protecting him."
"Yep."
"Why?"
Sam set down his coffee cup. His smile faded, just slightly, just enough to reveal something older and more tired beneath it. "Because it's Reina that asked me to."
The name hung in the air between them.
Reina.
"You're working for her," Jiyeon said.
"You know what she's like."
"She sent you to stop me."
"She sent me to protect the kid." Sam's dark eyes met hers. "Stopping you is just... a bonus. A side effect. A consequence of my primary objective."
"No wonder they were willing to pay so much for this mission, it's Reina's toy." Her eyes narrowed. "If I meet her, I'm dead so I'll have to make this quick, but do you really think you're enough for me?"
"Probably not." He shrugged. "But I have to try. I have to make sure that she knows I tried my hardest, she's watching me and every single thing I do. If I slack off, who knows what she would do?"
Jiyeon studied his face. The lines around his eyes. The gray beginning to show at his temples. The way his hands, resting on the table, had the same calluses as hers.
"How long has it been?" she asked.
"Since Seoul? Seven years. Maybe eight. I stopped counting after the first few."
"You look older."
"I'm human, of course I age." His smile returned, softer now. "But you look the same. How do you do that? Is it a technique? A treatment? Good genetics?"
"I don't know."
"You never did." He leaned back in his chair. "That was always your thing, wasn't it?"
Jiyeon didn't respond. She simply sat there, patient and still, her gray eyes fixed on his face, waiting.
Sam's smile faded completely.
"Reina, she's rather scary isn't she?" He said quietly. "Reina, she asked me about you before you even came here, it's as if she knew that you would take this job."
"And you told her?"
"Of course." His dark eyes met hers.
"Why are you here if you'd knew that you'd fail?"
"Because she asked me to be." His voice was simple. Honest. "And frankly, I'm terrified of her more than I'm terrified of you."
The silence stretched between them.
Jiyeon thought about Minjae. About the cabin in the mountains.
"This is my last contract," she said.
Sam's expression flickered. "Is it?"
"Yes."
"Then I'm sorry."
He moved.
Faster than she'd expected from someone like him. His hand went for the knife concealed beneath his jacket, his body already shifting into a stance she recognized from a hundred training sessions in a hundred forgotten rooms.
She caught his wrist.
Her grip was gentle. Almost tender. Sam's eyes widened but not with fear.
He twisted. Not trying to break her grip. He was using the momentum of her hold against her, rotating his body in a way that should have thrown her off balance, should have created an opening.
She flowed with the movement.
Her body adjusted, compensated, found the new center of gravity before he'd finished shifting his weight. Her free hand came up, palm flat, and pressed against his chest..
His leg swept toward hers, a low kick that should have taken her feet out from under her. She jumped, barely, the sole of his boot brushing against her ankle as she rose. Her grip on his wrist became a hold.
He continued to resist.
The joint popped. Sam's face went pale, but his smile didn't waver. His free hand found her shoulder, his fingers digging into the pressure point there, and she felt her arm go numb from the elbow down.
She released him.
They separated, kicked the desk into the air, and just far enough to reassess. The other customers had fled, their chairs overturned, their coffee cups shattered on the floor. The cafe was empty now except for the two of them and the distant thunder of explosions.
"You've gotten slower," Jiyeon observed.
"That's what a desk job does to you." Sam rotated his shoulder, wincing. "Too much paperwork. Not enough field work." He shrugged. "You know how she is. Says one thing, does another."
"I know."
The silence stretched.
She moved.
This time, she didn't hold back. Her strikes came from everywhere and nowhere, from angles that shouldn't have been possible, with a speed that turned the air itself into a weapon.
Sam blocked.
Not all of them. Not even most of them. But enough. He took hits that should have dropped him and kept fighting, his smile fixed in place, his dark eyes bright with something that might have been joy or might have been desperation.
Her palm struck his chest.
His ribs cracked, she felt them give beneath her touch, felt the sharp intake of breath that meant real pain, felt his body trying to fold around the injury even as he forced himself to keep fighting.
She struck again. His shoulder. His knee. His solar plexus.. He crumpled, slowly, like a building collapsing in stages.
Another strike.
He deflected. Barely. His forearm caught hers, redirecting the blow just enough that it glanced off his ribs instead of sinking into his chest. The impact still drove the air from his lungs, still sent him stumbling backward, but he was still alive.
Then came a knife-hand aimed at his throat. He ducked under it, felt the wind of its passage ruffle his hair, and drove his own palm toward her midsection.
She flowed around it like water.
He pressed forward, not giving her space to breathe. A jab to her face—deflected. A knee to her stomach—sidestepped. An elbow aimed at her temple—caught and redirected.
"Come on Sam, stay down, I don't want to kill you, I don't want to see her face either."
He drove forward again, pressing his advantage. His strikes came faster now. She blocked and deflected and flowed around him, but she was giving ground. Inch by inch. Step by step.
Then she stopped retreating.
Her hand caught his wrist, not hard, not forceful, just there, her fingers wrapping around his pulse point with the precision of a surgeon. He felt the pressure, felt his grip weaken, felt his hand open against his will.
Her other hand found his throat.
She squeezed.
His vision went gray at the edges. His lungs burned. His hands came up, to fight, to push, to do something, but her grip was iron, unbreakable, and his strength was fading, fading-
She released him.
Sam dropped to his knees, gasping, his hands pressed against his throat. The world swam back into focus slowly, the gray light, the empty plaza, Jiyeon standing over him with that same unreadable expression.
"The boy. Hoshimi." Her dark eyes fixed on his. "Is he worth it?"
Sam swallowed, as if he was learning to breathe again.
"I don't know," he said finally. "But Reina seems to think he is."
Jiyeon nodded slowly. "Then I'll find out for myself."
She turned and walked away. Her footsteps made no sound on the pavement. Within moments, she had vanished into the shadows between buildings, leaving Sam alone in the empty plaza, his throat burning.
Jiyeon moved across the rooftops like a ghost, silent, invisible, a shadow among shadows. The city sprawled beneath her, a maze of streets and alleys and forgotten spaces, but from up here, it was simple. Clean.
"Damn it, I have to catch up."
The city below was still chaos. The explosions had stopped, whoever was responsible had either achieved their objective or been stopped, but the panic continued. Sirens wailed. People screamed. The machinery of emergency response ground into motion, too slow, too late, too little to matter.
[I didn't cause the explosion, there must be more after him, I need to get to him before the others catch up]
She leaped across a gap between buildings, landing silently on the next rooftop. The wind caught her hair, pulling strands free from her ponytail, but she didn't notice. Her focus was absolute, a blade's edge of attention that cut through everything except the mission.
The girl with him was easier to track. Her mana was volatile, unstable, leaking from her in irregular pulses that left clear traces. Like blood from a wound. Like breadcrumbs through a forest.
"A clue."
[I need to get there faster, faster than the others, faster than Reina can catch up to me. Meeting her would be a death sentence]
There.
The boy with the violet eyes, his face blank, his movements deliberate. The girl with brown hair clinging to his sleeve like a drowning person clutching driftwood. And the small blonde one, Neila Shaw.
She found them in a narrow street near the city's edge. The buildings here were older, shorter, their rooftops accessible to someone who knew how to climb. The street below was empty, the residents had either fled or hidden, leaving behind a silence that was almost peaceful after the chaos of the city center.
The target emerged from between two buildings.
He was moving carefully now, not running, but not lingering either. The girl was still attached to his sleeve, her fingers curled into the fabric like she was afraid he'd disappear if she let go. The blonde one followed a few steps behind, her blue eyes scanning the rooftops, the windows, the shadows.
She saw Jiyeon.
Their eyes met across the distance, blue and gray, predator and prey, though which was which remained to be seen. Neila's expression shifted, just slightly, just enough to reveal that she understood what she was looking at.
"Hoshimi," she said. Her voice was quiet, controlled, but it carried in the empty street. "Move, she's found us."
She followed them from above, keeping pace easily. The rooftops here were close together, old buildings, poorly maintained.
She leaped to the next rooftop. Then the next. The street below curved, and she adjusted her course to follow.
The industrial district loomed ahead. Warehouses and factories and the skeletal remains of a city that had once been something more. Perfect ground for an ambush. Perfect ground for an elimination.
Jiyeon stood on a streetlamp.
It was an old one, cast iron and frosted glass, designed for gas rather than electricity. It hadn't worked in decades. But it was sturdy, sturdy enough to support her weight, to give her the elevation she needed to survey the street below.
His violet eyes found Jiyeon once more.
She stepped off the streetlamp.
The fall was controlled, precise, her body flowing through the air like water finding its level. She landed in the center of the street, between them and their path forward, her gray eyes fixed on the target's face.
The street was silent.
The distant sirens continued their wail, a reminder that the city was still burning, still dying, still struggling to survive what had been done to it. But here, in this narrow space between old buildings, there was only the four of them and the weight of what was about to happen.
"Who sent you?" he asked.
"What makes you think I'd tell you?"
"I thought it might work."
Jiyeon considered him for a moment.
[He's trying to buy time. Probably for Reina]
Hoshimi's hands moved towards his pockets.
[He's reaching out for something]
Jihyeon dashed towards him, so unnaturally fast that it seemed like she was a bullet train dashing straight towards him.
"Vigil Hexa!"
Crack.