The blood-red sunset clung stubbornly to the horizon, refusing to yield to approaching night. Slanted light painted every building on the island with what looked like fresh scarlet, as if the structures themselves had been dipped in blood.
What had been, just hours earlier, a densely populated street connecting residential neighborhoods was now a warzone. Abandoned civilian vehicles littered the road in random patterns, some overturned, others simply left where panicked drivers had fled on foot. Doors hung open. Personal belongings scattered across pavement. Evidence of lives interrupted mid-moment.
Wisps of choking smoke rose continuously from numerous buildings, their structures burning and collapsing in slow motion. The acrid smell of burning plastic, wood, and things that shouldn't burn filled the air, coating throats and stinging eyes. Every breath tasted like ash and chemicals.
The sound was worst of all. Gunfire cracked constantly from multiple directions, creating overlapping echoes that made it impossible to determine where threats originated. Explosions punctuated the chaos at irregular intervals, each detonation sending shockwaves through the ground and adding new pillars of smoke to the already obscured skyline.
It was a battlefield. Nothing less.
In the corner formed by ruins of a wall destroyed by rifle grenades, Police Chief George Stacey crouched low, his hands moving with practiced efficiency despite their trembling. He was changing the magazine in his department-issued submachine gun, each movement precise through muscle memory alone because his conscious mind was struggling to process the nightmare surrounding him.
Stacey wore light body armor, the kind designed for active shooter situations in schools or domestic terrorism incidents. It wasn't rated for war. The vest was torn in places, scorched in others, covered in dust and debris that had once been building materials.
His appearance had deteriorated beyond recognition. No one would mistake him for a police chief now. His uniform was shredded, face blackened with soot and dried blood, hair wild with sweat and terror. Between his furrowed brows lived endless frustration and barely suppressed fear. This wasn't what he'd signed up for. This wasn't law enforcement. This was survival.
"Jack! When will our support arrive?!" Stacey's voice cracked with strain, pitched higher than normal. His cheek muscles twitched involuntarily, eyelids blinking rapidly, repeatedly, as if trying to clear vision that refused to make sense of the chaos. "What the hell kind of gang gunfight is this?! This is war! This is fucking rebellion!"
He turned to stare at his deputy, the only other survivor from their entire response team.
"We need massive police support! We need the National Guard! We need the goddamn army!"
Deputy Jack slumped against the corner, his dark skin turned gray and clammy. Cold sweat beaded across his forehead, streaming down his face despite the cooling evening air. Blood soaked his pants leg from a gunshot wound to his thigh, the makeshift tourniquet barely slowing the bleeding.
Jack smiled bitterly, the expression painful to witness. He shook his head slowly, each movement seeming to cost enormous effort.
"Chief, I don't think we have any support coming." His voice was weak, fading. "Both mobile phone networks and radio signals are completely jammed. And even before the communications blackout, dispatch gave us their official answer." Jack's laugh was hollow, broken. "We're just experiencing a gang conflict. Minor disturbance. We should try our best to de-escalate and manage the small-scale violence."
He paused, gathering breath.
"In other words, according to official records, we're not at the scene of any intense fighting. We're not even really here." Jack's eyes met Stacey's, and the despair there was absolute. "Maybe the powerful people who actually run this city don't want us getting out alive. Witnesses complicate narratives."
Hearing his deputy's defeated words, watching the life literally draining from Jack's leg despite their best efforts to stop it, something broke inside Stacey.
His face flushed deep red, anger and horror and helplessness combining into pure rage. He suddenly raised one arm, pointing wildly at the numerous damaged buildings surrounding them, at the violent explosions still erupting in the distance like hellish fireworks.
"How does this look like a fucking gang conflict?!" He roared, voice tearing through his throat. "The dispatch center must be blind! Deliberately blind! An entire police response team suffered massive casualties! Only you and I are left from twelve officers! What about all the civilians who haven't been evacuated yet? The families trapped in their homes?"
Stacey's voice climbed higher, breaking.
"How are those damn bureaucrats going to explain this? How do they fill this massive hole in their narrative? Oh my God, what the hell is happening to this city?!"
Deputy Jack, huddled in the corner and shivering from blood loss and shock, opened his mouth to respond. Before words could form, new sounds cut through the ambient chaos.
Gunfire approaching. Footsteps on broken pavement. Movement converging on their position from multiple angles.
A slender figure appeared, running at full sprint across the broken street. The person moved with obvious combat training, using abandoned vehicles as cover, advancing in short controlled bursts that minimized exposure.
Both officers immediately raised their guards, weapons tracking the figure instinctively. They watched with held breath, trying to determine friend or foe.
Then more movement. All around the running figure, emerging from building shadows like materializing nightmares, came figures in black leather armor. They wore full face coverings, moved with inhuman grace, carried katanas that caught the dying sunlight in bloody flashes.
Ninjas. Actual fucking ninjas, Stacey's mind supplied uselessly.
Each ninja held traditional bladed weapons paired with what looked like specialized dart guns, some kind of hybrid between ancient and modern warfare.
The slender white-haired figure suddenly changed direction, pivoting mid-stride with impressive agility. An automatic rifle came up, gripped in pale hands. The weapon's dark muzzle tracked toward the nearest black-armored ninja and fired without hesitation.
The gunfire was deafening at close range, muzzle flash bright in the dimming light.
Bullets struck the ninja dead center. Should have torn through flesh and bone, should have dropped the target immediately.
Instead, the rounds simply bounced off the black leather armor with metallic pinging sounds, as if striking hardened steel rather than leather. Completely ineffective. The bullets fell to the pavement, rolling with soft tinkling noises.
Ding ding ding...
The white-haired woman, Madame Gao, her eyes glowing with eerie green luminescence, showed no fear despite the weapon's failure. Her expression remained cold, calculated. She released the emptied automatic rifle, letting it clatter to the ground.
But she didn't flee. Instead, impossibly, she charged forward directly toward the encircling ninjas.
Something gathered in her other hand, invisible but palpable. The air around her palm began distorting, wavering like heat shimmer over summer asphalt. A whistling sound built, low at first, then rising in pitch and intensity.
Invisible air currents swirled and compressed, brewing into concentrated force that made the hairs on Stacey's arms stand straight despite the distance.
Madame Gao roared, a sound of pure concentrated fury.
The nearest black-armored ninja, mid-swing with his katana, became her target. She thrust one arm forward, fingers splayed wide. The blade of light, or compressed air, or whatever impossible force she commanded, shot from her palm like a cannon discharge.
It struck the ninja's short, compact body with devastating impact.
The sound was wrong. Not the crack of breaking bones but the dull thump of flesh being pulverized, organs liquefying from blunt force trauma. Countless fierce air currents exploded outward from the point of impact, creating visible shockwaves in the smoky air.
The black-armored ninja flew backward like a rag doll launched from a catapult. His body arced through the air, tumbling without control, and crashed into the broken wall of a nearby building with bone-shattering force.
For a moment, the ninja's corpse lay crumpled against the rubble.
Then, impossibly, the entire body simply dissolved. It turned into shadow, into darkness given momentary physical form, and vanished completely into the air as if it had never existed. No blood, no remains, nothing.
Stacey stared, his mind refusing to process what his eyes had just witnessed.
Unfortunately for Madame Gao, killing one enemy bought her no respite. More black-armored ninjas closed in immediately, moving with coordinated precision that spoke to extensive training or hive-mind coordination.
These ninjas wielded their katanas with obvious intent to capture rather than kill. They avoided vital areas, instead targeting her extremities with surgical strikes. Blades flashed, cutting deep gashes across her arms and legs, leaving horrific wounds that bled freely.
Madame Gao stumbled, her movements growing sluggish as blood loss accumulated.
Then reinforcements arrived. Gang elites in black combat uniforms poured from behind nearby building ruins, arriving late but arriving nonetheless. They gritted their teeth and opened fire, weapons barking uselessly at the black-armored ninjas, bullets bouncing harmlessly away.
But the distraction was enough. It gave Madame Gao an opening to escape.
She took it without hesitation, cold expression never changing despite her injuries. She dragged her seriously wounded body toward the nearest building with impressive determination, seeking any cover, any temporary refuge.
By chance or desperation, she found the corner formed by the pile of ruins where Stacey and Jack hid.
She rushed into their concealment without seeing them, focused only on survival.
A submachine gun's muzzle immediately pressed against her head. The metal was warm from recent firing, the pressure firm and unmistakable.
Madame Gao froze completely, half-kneeling on the ground, every muscle locked in place.
"Madame Gao!" Stacey's voice was hoarse, barely controlled. His bloodshot eyes tried to open wider, to focus properly through exhaustion and trauma. "What the hell have you gang scum done?! Look around you! Do you understand how much damage you've caused to this city?!"
His finger rested on the trigger, pressure building.
"What are those weird ninjas? Why did your organization start such a massive war with them?!"
Madame Gao slowly raised her white-haired head, meeting Stacey's eyes despite the gun barrel pressed against her skull. Her expression showed no fear whatsoever, only cold calculation.
"George Stacey," she said, voice flat and emotionless. "This is not information you should possess. You would be wise to shut your mouth and forget what you've seen."
Then her eyes, still flashing with green light, narrowed slightly.
"Not that it matters. Not only do you want answers, I want them as well." Bitterness crept into her tone. "Not long ago, my operatives successfully assassinated the remaining three Fingers of the Hand organization. We were about to present a glorious victory to our Lord, proof of the Hand's complete destruction."
She gestured weakly toward the chaos beyond their hiding place.
"But now their undead ninja teams have returned to this city like self-reproducing cockroaches! Either we've been fighting only peripheral members all along and these undead ninjas represent their true core strength... or some unknown power has reunited the Hand that was on the verge of collapse. Given them new vitality and purpose."
Madame Gao's whispered words contained stunning information that Stacey's police instincts automatically cataloged despite the circumstances. But he refused to be distracted from his primary concern.
The submachine gun never wavered.
"Madame Gao! I don't care about your ulterior motives or criminal ambitions!" Stacey's breathing came rapid and harsh. "I just want your people to escort us out of this nightmare! I want to report everything that happened here! Even if I never work as a police officer again..."
"You're too late." Madame Gao cut him off coldly. "No one leaves now."
At that moment, violent shaking transmitted through the ground. Not an explosion. Something else. Something massive approaching with methodical, measured steps.
A deep roar built from the distance, growing steadily louder. Engines. Multiple heavy engines moving in formation.
Madame Gao, who'd been listening intently, suddenly turned her slender neck. She opened her cold eyes, green light flashing brighter with satisfaction or relief or both.
She stared at Stacey and his useless gun, and a sneer crossed her bloodied face.
"The power of our Lord has arrived," she announced, voice carrying absolute certainty. "From this moment forward, any heretical forces become nothing more than testing grounds for evaluating combat effectiveness."
Her voice rose to a shout that echoed across the ruins.
"Long live the Primarch!"
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