The rain came in sideways, the kind that didn't fall but hunted. Streets ran like bruises.
Fischer walked with his head tilted as if listening to a voice no one else could hear. Axel stomped puddles like they owed him money. Vogro muttered into his coat about pneumonia. Zima glided ahead with them.
They were close.
The copycat had left his cranes on purpose now, bold in the storm, little paper birds weighted with pins so they wouldn't fly away. Each sat at an intersection, pointing like a compass made of obsession.
"He's shepherding us," Vogro whispered.
Fischer's mouth crooked. "Then we let him think we're sheep."
The cranes led them under the elevated tracks into an industrial hollow, where the bones of a clothing factory leaned inward as if whispering gossip. Rusted looms filled the dark. Bolts of fabric rotted in stacks. At the far end: mannequins.
Dozens of them.
They stood arranged like an audience in pews, all facing a crude stage built from pallets and broken lights. Each mannequin wore a mask painted with human features, some smiling, some sobbing, some blank. In the center of the stage, a man waited in his clean coat, radio on his lap, humming with the storm.
"Welcome," he said.
Axel spat on the floor. "Nice dolls. You play house?"
The copycat tilted his head. "Not dolls. Witnesses."
Zima took a step. "Witnesses to what?"
"To me becoming him," the man said. His eyes flicked to Fischer. "I only needed the right audience."
Fischer looked at the mannequins once, twice, and saw it, their fingers twitching, their shoulders jerking. Not props. Puppets. The air tightened with invisible threads.
Then the first mannequin lurched forward. Its painted grin rippled...and for a heartbeat, Fischer saw his own face on it, stretched wrong across plastic. Another stepped down: Vogro's likeness, eyes too wide. Another: Zima, head bowed, movements perfect.
"They're not mannequins," Vogro choked. "They're-"
"Masks," Fischer said. "He steals faces the way he steals art."
The copycat spread his arms. "Why settle for copying when I can be?"
The puppets rushed.
Zima drew first, two clean shots, cracking porcelain heads into dust. Axel barreled through three at once, snapping arms like twigs, laughing like a drunk bulldozer. Vogro stumbled, grabbed a pipe, swung with every ounce of panic he owned.
Fischer moved with patience. He let one puppet come close, its face his face, mouth slack like a mockery. He cupped its chin, tilted it, whispered: "You're not me." Then he crushed the mask in one hand until shards bled down his wrist.
The copycat laughed. "Good. That's the ferocity I needed. Now show me the rest."
More mannequins broke from the dark. Rows and rows. Some half-formed, faces blurred like melting wax. Others perfect imitations, Masaru, some people they regularry talked to and also strangers they half-recognized. The thief had been practicing on everyone.
Axel ripped a mask free, stared at it, then jammed it onto his own face. He turned to the copycat, muffled voice booming: "I am art now, dipshit!" Then he smashed the puppet still attached to it into the ground like a carnival prize.
Even Fischer almost laughed. Almost.
But the copycat wasn't rattled. He stepped onto the stage, lifted the radio high. Static shrieked, and all the mannequins froze mid-attack, strings taut. Their heads tilted in perfect unison toward Fischer.
"You belong in the case," the thief said.
And they surged again, all at once.
Zima cursed, firing point-blank until his clip was nothing. Vogro screamed names of saints he didn't believe in. Axel bit one. Literally bit the face off.
Fischer pushed forward. Every puppet in his way broke, but every break left glass biting his palms, plastic cutting his arms. He welcomed it. Each sting reminded him this wasn't his art. It was a counterfeit sermon.
He reached the stage.
The copycat swung the bone saw like a conductor's baton. Puppets leapt to defend. Fischer ducked low, shoulder-rammed the stage, and the pallets collapsed.
"Exactly in my trap." the collector said.
Every puppet that shattered suddenly started shaking, and in less than a second every part of Fischer was covered in masks and pieces of dolls, pressuring his body. Blood spilled all over the floor.
Out of nowhere, Axel didn't think once, his body got slightly bigger and jumped onto the puppets, literally eating them one by one without chewing till he got Fischer out.
"You not dead right?" Axel said, worried.
"Fucking hell… that was my 5th…" Fischer whispered, looking sad, but not hurt at all. "Thank you, I'm good."
The thief stumbled, mask collection spilling from his coat, faces tumbling like loose coins. "How...how is this possible? My witnesses have spikes all over them when they have contact."
Fischer knelt, picked one up. It was blank until he touched it, his face bloomed across it, serene, lifeless. He stared a heartbeat too long. "Creepy stuff."
"That's your weakness," the thief whispered. "You see yourself everywhere."
Fischer smiled without joy. "No. My weakness is patience. And I just ran out."
He hurled the mask into the radio. Glass burst. Static died. The puppets froze, strings cut.
Axel howled triumph and body-slammed the nearest one for fun. Vogro collapsed against a loom, shaking. Zima kept his gun up, scanning for tricks.
The copycat staggered to his knees, clutching the bone saw like it was holy. "This isn't over," he hissed. "I'll perfect it. I'll be better. I'll-"
Fischer let the blade whisper past, then stepped inside the man's reach and drove his fist into his mouth. The jaw crack like snapping wood. The thief's mouth hung loose.
He screamed, but it came out wet, gurgled.
Fischer shoved him down among the scattered masks. He grabbed a handful, blank until his fingers brushed them, then twisting into faces. His mother. Vogro. Axel. Masaru. Too many. All wrong.
"You call this art?" Fischer hissed. He slammed one mask into the thief's broken mouth. Porcelain cut his gums. The man gagged. "This isn't art. It's vomit in disguise."
He jammed another. And another. Each one scraping teeth, shattering lips. The copycat thrashed, eyes rolling, choking on his own counterfeits. Fischer held him there, knee on chest, shoving lies back down his throat.
"You wanted to be him? To be us? Then swallow it. All of it."
Blood bubbled. A muffled scream, cut short by shards.
The thief clawed at Fischer's arms, but Fischer leaned closer, voice calm.
"Art isn't something you steal. It's something you bleed for."
He pressed one final mask in until the man's throat bulged, air wheezing. The collector gagged, suffocating on his own "masterpieces," face streaked red and white.
Fischer let go. Just enough for the man to sputter, cough shards, drag in a ragged breath.
Then he turned his head toward Axel.
"Hungry?" Fischer asked.
Axel grinned through blood. "Always."
Fischer hauled the copycat upright by his hair, shoved him forward. "He wanted to be real art. So carve him. Piece by piece. No curtain call."
Axel didn't hesitate. He tore into the man's shoulder with teeth first, laughing as flesh ripped. The collector shrieked, muffled by broken jaw and clogged throat. Axel slammed him down and began peeling him apart, limb by limb, eating sloppy, savoring the agony.
Fischer watched without flinching. He crouched beside the dying thief, close enough for his one working eye to focus on him.
"This is what you wanted," Fischer said softly. "An audience. Remember, art only lives if someone's willing to devour it."
The thief's body jerked once more, a final convulsion, before Axel silenced him in a wet crunch.
When it was done, only scraps of porcelain and bloodied fabric lay on the stage.
Fischer rose, hands slick, wiped them on his coat like ink stains. He turned to the others.
"Practice is over," he said. "Next time, we aim higher."
—
Fischer carried the Collector's head by its hair, blood trailing behind him like a painter's brushstroke across the stone floor. Axel padded at his side, jaw still wet with crimson.
The hall of the Organization's higher-ups fell silent as he entered. Every gaze weighed heavy on him.
Masaru was seated at the long table, lounging like a king at a banquet. His fingers drummed idly against a wine glass he hadn't touched. When he saw the head, his lips curled into a smile, sharp, predatory, amused.
"Ahhh…" Masaru's voice dripped with satisfaction. "You brought me proof."
He gestured lazily for Fischer to come closer.
"Hold it higher. Let everyone see the face of a liar."
Fischer lifted the head by its torn jaw, forcing its empty eyes toward the room.
Masaru began clapping. Slowly. Mockingly. Each strike of palm against palm echoed like a gunshot.
"You've silenced the impostor. Efficiently. Brutally. Just as I would have done."
The tension in the room shifted. From suspicion to a twisted form of respect. Masaru leaned forward, voice dropping into a purr.
"Fischer… do you understand now? A traitor never hides for long. All it takes is the right pressure… and they tear themselves apart. But you? You applied the pressure. You crushed him."
Fischer didn't answer. His chest still heaved with the rush of violence, but his eyes stayed locked on Masaru, searching for meaning.
Masaru raised his glass in a mock toast, though he didn't drink.
"To loyalty," he said, grinning. "And to the hands that prove it."
The hall erupted in approval, laughter, cheers, a few banging fists against the table. Fischer just stood there, the Collector's head dangling, Axel gnawing on a finger bone he'd kept like a toy.
Masaru reclined back in his chair.
"Good work, Fischer. You've shown me where you stand."
Fischer nodded stiffly. He should have felt relief. Instead, the praise sat bitter on his tongue.
As the crowd's noise drowned out the last words, Yuma, quiet at the far end, noticed something odd. A tiny paper bird was slipping from Masaru's coat pocket.
Yuma's eyes narrowed.
He said nothing.