Smoke drifted low between collapsed buildings. Fires still burned in barrels and gutted storefronts, but no voices carried. No laughter. No gunfire. Just the wet drip of something leaking from somewhere it shouldn't.
Netoshka moved through it like a ghost.
Her boots didn't echo. The city bent around her presence, glitching subtly—frames skipping, shadows lagging half a second behind reality. Bodies lay where they fell: gang scouts, lookouts, runners. Some hadn't even realized they were dying.
She hadn't asked them questions.
Not yet.
Ahead, a structure rose above the slums—half-warehouse, half-slaughterhouse. Corrugated steel walls reinforced with scrap plating, spikes welded along the roofline like ritual warnings. Chains hung from the upper gantries, swaying faintly in the night wind.
This was one of the Five.
The Chain-Master.
She could feel him inside.
Netoshka stepped into the open yard.
Motion sensors tried to trigger. Failed.
Turrets twitched—then seized, sparks coughing from their housings as reality hiccupped around them.
A voice shouted from above.
"WHO THE HELL—"
Netoshka vanished.
She reappeared three meters higher, mid-air, fist already driving into a man's throat. Bone collapsed. The body flew backward, smashing into a railing before tumbling screaming into the yard below.
Gunfire erupted.
Too late.
She glitched again—short-range, violent skips. Every reappearance ended with blood. A man lifted a rifle—his arm separated at the elbow before his brain registered pain. Another tried to run—spine crushed into the concrete with a downward kick that cracked the ground.
Chains clattered as men scrambled.
"IT'S HER—!"
Netoshka caught the speaker by the face and slammed him into a wall hard enough to leave a crater shaped like a skull. She leaned in close as his body slid down.
"Where is he."
He tried to laugh through shattered teeth.
She punched once.
The head came off.
Netoshka walked deeper.
The interior was vast—gantries overhead, hooks and chains dangling like metallic vines. Old blood layered the floor. Fresh blood soaked it again as men died trying to slow her.
One charged with a powered hammer.
She let him swing.
The weapon passed through where she was.
She reappeared behind him and drove her fingers into the base of his skull, lifting him off the ground with one hand before throwing him upward—hard.
His body caught on a hanging spike.
It stayed there.
Screaming.
Netoshka didn't look back.
At the center of the facility stood a raised platform. Thicker chains. Reinforced restraints. A throne welded from scrap and vertebrae.
And seated upon it—
A massive man wrapped in chains like ornaments, metal implants fused into his spine and shoulders. His eyes gleamed with augmentation glow. A heavy launcher rested beside him.
The Chain-Master smiled.
"So the monster comes alone."
Netoshka stopped ten meters away.
"Your men tortured children," she said calmly.
He shrugged.
"That was Business."
Something in the air cracked.
Netoshka moved.
He fired.
The projectile detonated—
and missed.
She was already above him.
Chains shot upward as he activated them—spike-tipped links snapping like whips, filling the air. One tore across her shoulder, ripping flesh, sparks of corrupted data flickering instead of blood.
She didn't slow.
She landed on him.
The impact shattered the platform.
They crashed through metal and concrete, landing in the lower pit. Chains lashed out, wrapping her arms, her torso, digging spikes into muscle.
The Chain-Master laughed, hauling her upward with a roar.
"Hang like the rest—!"
Reality broke.
Netoshka's eyes flickered with symbols she no longer bothered suppressing.
She pulled.
The chains didn't resist.
They obeyed.
Every hanging chain in the facility snapped tight at once—wrapping around the Chain-Master's limbs, throat, waist. His laugh cut off as he was yanked upward violently, lifted off the ground like a hooked carcass.
"No—WAIT—!"
Netoshka rose slowly beneath him, blood dripping from her wounds, gaze empty.
"You like chains," she said.
She clenched her fist.
Spikes erupted from the links—through shoulders, through hips, through ribs. His scream echoed through the warehouse, long and wet.
Netoshka glitched upward, appearing level with his face.
"Then Hang for them," she said.
Another glitch. Another yank.
The chains hoisted him higher—up toward the ceiling gantry where massive iron hooks jutted downward.
She let go.
Gravity finished the sentence.
The Chain-Master's body slammed into the hooks with a sickening finality. Spikes punched through flesh, anchoring him mid-air, arms splayed, legs dangling.
He twitched.
Netoshka stepped back, watching him hang there, slowly bleeding out, chains swaying gently.
The slums outside remained silent.
She turned away.
Three of the Five was dead.
2 remained.
And Netoshka didn't feel finished.