The emergency lighting cast everything in blood-red shadows as we huddled in the corner of the community center. Outside, the scratching at the doors had become rhythmic, almost hypnotic. Scratch, scratch, pause. Scratch, scratch, pause. Like they were testing the barriers, learning.
I pulled out my phone with trembling hands. The screen was cracked from when I'd hit the concrete earlier, but it still worked. The message from before was still there, glowing in the dim light:
SIGMA PROTOCOL ACTIVE. ALL SHADOW CRANE UNITS REPORT TO RALLY POINT GAMMA. THIS IS NOT A DRILL.
Below it was a map pin marking Rally Point Gamma, the underground bunker beneath the Civic Center on the far side of the city. Three kilometers through absolute hell.
That's where I was supposed to be. Where the real operatives were gathering. The ones who didn't fail their evaluations. The ones who were actually ready for this nightmare.
But looking at Miraza huddled against the wall, her uniform torn and dirty, her face pale with shock, I couldn't just abandon her.
"I have to go," I said quietly, kneeling beside her.
She looked up at me, confused. "Go? Go where? Hajidan, we just barely made it here alive!"
"There's a... a place. A secure location. People who are trained for this kind of thing are gathering there. But it's dangerous. More dangerous than anything we've seen. You should stay here where—"
"Where it's safe?" She let out a bitter laugh. "You heard them arguing. Those things are going to break through eventually. Nowhere is safe."
I gripped her shoulders, forcing her to meet my eyes. "Miraza, listen to me. Where I'm going, I'll be moving fast through the worst of it. If something happens to you because I couldn't protect you..." I couldn't finish the sentence. The thought of watching her get torn apart made my stomach turn.
"And if I stay here and something happens to me?" she shot back. "At least if I'm with you, we have a chance. You know how to fight. You've been training for... whatever it is you actually do."
"Training I've been failing," I muttered.
"But you're still better than nothing." She grabbed my hand, her grip surprisingly strong. "I'm not staying here to wait and die, Hajidan. If you're going somewhere safer, then I'm going with you."
I looked into her eyes and saw that same determination that had made her stand up to Daichi's harassment, even when it would have been easier to just give in.
She wasn't backing down.
Fine," I said finally, knowing I'd probably regret this. "But you do exactly what I say, when I say it. No questions. No hesitation. If I tell you to run, you run. If I tell you to hide, you hide. Understood?"
She nodded solemnly. "I trust you, Hajidan."
Trust. She trusted me.
I stood up, pulling her with me. The argument in the room was still going—people shouting about where to go, what to do. Nobody was paying attention to us anymore.
"Wait," Miraza said, tugging on my sleeve. Her voice dropped to almost a whisper. "Before we go to this secure location... my parents. I need to know if they're okay."
God, I'd been so focused on survival, on following protocol, that I hadn't even thought about them. Were they at home? Were they safe? Had they already turned into one of those... things?
"My house is on the way," I said, my voice thick. "We'll check on both our families first. Then we head to the rally point."
It was a complete deviation from orders. Master Kurogane would be furious. But I couldn't just abandon my parents. Not without knowing.
The woman who had checked us for bites earlier—I'd heard someone call her Mrs. Hayashi—overheard us. "You'll die out there. Those things are everywhere."
"Our families are out there," Miraza said.
"They might already be gone." Mrs. Hayashi's voice wasn't unkind, just brutally honest. "You need to think about survival now. About staying alive."
I looked at Miraza, then at the door where the creatures continued their assault. The woman was probably right. Going back out there was suicide.
But the thought of my parents scared and alone, maybe hurt, maybe calling for me...
*I can't just abandon them. I won't.*
"I'm going," I said firmly.
Miraza nodded. "Me too."
A guy who'd been standing near the broken vending machines stepped forward. He was maybe twenty, with close-cropped hair and the kind of lean build that suggested he was an athlete. "Then you'll need help getting there."
"Why would you help us?" I asked, immediately suspicious. In situations like this, people looked out for themselves.
He shrugged, but I could see the tension in his shoulders. "Because sitting here waiting to die isn't much of a plan either. And because..." His voice dropped, cracking slightly. "My little sister. She texted me right before the networks went down." His voice cracked. "Said she was hiding in the music store near the eastern district. In the storage room behind the drum kits. She knows I always told her if something bad happened, find a small space and stay quiet." He looked down at his hands, which were trembling. "She's only fourteen. Fourteen, and I told her to stay put, that her big brother would come get her. But I've been standing here for twenty minutes, staring at that door, trying to convince myself to go out there alone."
I understood that fear. The paralyzing weight of it.
He met my eyes, and I saw something fear. "I was a parkour instructor. I teach people how to move through urban environments, how to overcome fear, how to trust their bodies. And I couldn't even make myself walk out that door."
"Fear isn't weakness," I said, surprising myself. "Fear is just... information. It tells you the stakes are real."
"Yeah?" He gave a bitter laugh. "And what does your fear tell you?"
I thought about Ryota's words, about being the weakest link, about all my failures. "That I'm probably going to screw this up. But I'm going to try anyway."
He curved his lips into a smile. "Okay. Then let's go screw this up together."
"What's your name?" I asked.
"Kaito. Kaito Yamada."
"Okay, Kaito. We'll help you find your sister." I extended my hand. "But first we check on our families. Then we all get to safety together. Deal?"
He shook my hand, his grip firm. "Deal."
Three of us then. Better than two.
We gathered what supplies we could find, bottles of water from the smashed vending machine, a small first aid kit someone had brought, and whatever could be used as weapons. I ended up with a crowbar that someone had used to board up one of the windows. It felt heavy and awkward in my hands.
I'd never hurt anyone in my life. Never drawn blood outside of a padded training room.
Today might be the day that changes.
"There's a back exit through the storage room," Kaito said, moving toward a door at the rear of the building. "Opens into an alley. If we're quick and quiet, we might slip past them."
The people we were leaving behind watched us go with mixed expressions, some relieved they didn't have to risk it, others looking like they wanted to come but couldn't find the courage.
"Good luck," Mrs. Hayashi said simply. "I hope you find them alive."
We walked through the storage room, stepping carefully over scattered boxes and supplies. Kaito pressed his ear against the back door, listening intently. After a long moment, he held up three fingers, then pointed left.
Three of them outside. On the left side.
He slowly turned the handle, easing the door open inch by inch. The hinges creaked—a sound that might as well have been a gunshot in the tense silence. We all froze, barely breathing.
The snarling started immediately.
But it wasn't just animal sounds. Underneath the guttural growls was something worse: fragments of human voices, garbled and broken, like they were trying to speak through ruined throats. Words that almost made sense but didn't quite form. "Help—" "Help—" "Help—"
They were still trying to be human. That was somehow worse than if they'd been completely mindless.
"Run!" Kaito shouted, abandoning any pretense of stealth.
We burst into the alley and I saw them, not three, but six of the creatures, turning toward us with those dead white eyes. For a split second, I recognized one of them.