Feet tapped against the concrete, nervous and repetitive. A knee bounced uncontrollably, hands tangled in her hair, pulling tight.
'GO!'
The scream echoed in her skull. Her breathing came in quicks short bursts. She had tried to shut them out—Ross and Inaki's voices, their final moments. But they lingered, looping endlessly.
"Alsa!"
She jolted upright. Katana drawn, blade flashing to a neck—Jesse's.
He caught it with a grunt, shoving it down.
"The hell are you doing?" he barked. "This isn't the time for one of your episodes, get your shit together!"
He turned away, slipping twin tonfa over his arms, the tips gleaming like razors. Around them, the earth quaked.
Alsa looked ahead.
Crashing through a row of buildings came the myutant, the same one that had left only ruins and corpses in its wake. Just looking at it made her want to vanish.
She didn't want to be here anymore.
She wanted to go home. Back to Ratten. Back to the quiet. Back to somewhere no one screamed.
'This isn't the time to be fucking around, Rodriguez!'
Her fingers clenched around her scalp. She dropped to her knees, sobbing, her katana clattering beside her. The tears came fast, streaming down her cheeks, pooling into the dust, and then came the blood.
A shadow fell over her.
The myutant stood above, twelve eyes locked onto her—six per side. Its jaw split vertically, a long slit opening in the center of its face, wide enough to devour her whole.
Alsa didn't move.
She didn't want to.
"And that's number three!" a voice shouted.
A crash followed.
The myutant's head slammed into the ground with crushing force, flattened beneath a crimson blade. Blood spurted skyward.
Above it stood an exterminator, red sword in hand, grinning ear to ear.
"Told you I could do it!" she called out, wiping her blade on her coat.
"You've gotten a lot stronger since we last met," Osiris said, strolling forward with a smirk. Then he tilted his head. "Welp... retract that. It's still going."
Elendira glanced down just as the myutant's massive head snapped back and launched her into the air. Her blade snapped into place mid-flight.
"You're embarrassing me!" she shouted, flipping midair before diving back down.
The myutant spun, tail cracking like a whip. It struck her mid-fall, slamming her through the side of a building with a thunderous crash.
"You want some help?" Osiris asked casually, watching the dust settle. A moment later, Elendira burst out of the rubble, eyes glowing red, hands clenched. Her blade was nowhere in sight.
"Ellie, stop."
She froze immediately.
"What did we tell you about using your hands?" Osiris asked, arms crossed.
Elendira blinked, then sheepishly spun around. "Oh! Right—my bad, big bro!"
"Just kill it quick. We've still got others to deal with."
Blade retrieved, she dashed forward again. The myutant screeched, wounds trying to knit back together, but it was too late. The red blade was already wrapped around its throat and with a powerful tug, Elendira decapitated it in one clean motion.
Blood sprayed through the air, but she was already beside Osiris, grinning proudly and pointing. "Told you I could do it!"
"I didn't doubt you," Osiris chuckled, brushing a chunk of gore from her hair. "But good job regardless."
Elendira beamed, hands on her hips. Then her eyes shifted forward, toward a white-clad exterminator standing alone in the aftermath, staring at them.
"Who's that?" Elendira asked, stepping behind Osiris and tugging lightly on his coat.
"No clue." Osiris tilted his head, eyes narrowing at the lone figure. "Absolutely no clue."
Alsa let out a soft sigh. A part of her wished she hadn't been saved. That she died just before.
She stood slowly, forcing a smile. "It's me, Alsa. I was the one who guided you to Raval."
Osiris glanced at her, recognition flickering behind his eyes like a dying bulb. "Third member of Inaki's team," he muttered, already turning away. "What are you doing here?"
"What do you mean?" she asked, her smile faltering. "I came to help with the—"
"Quit." Osiris cut in flatly. Elendira tugged gently on the back of his coat as he walked. "This might be a job that ends in our deaths. But if there's no life left in you, then there's no point."
"I..."
"Tell Sabrina to terminate your contract," he said without turning back. "Go home."
He disappeared around the corner, words reverberating in her head.
Alsa stood frozen, staring not at the street he'd vanished into, but down at her hands, at her bloodstained fingers trembling, at the strands of her own hair curled beneath her nails.
He was right.
She wasn't cut out for this anymore.
A weak smile spread across her lips as she undid the buttons of her coat. The white fabric slipped from her shoulders, falling on the bloodstained ground.
"This was what you wanted, right Ross?" she whispered.
Above her, the sky continued to darken. The rain had long stopped, but the clouds remained. Evening settled in fast. And still no contact from the others. No confirmation of victory.
"Still nothing," Osiris muttered, lowering his hand from his earpiece.
"What should we do?" Elendira asked beside him, her sword bouncing against her back with each joyous step. "The ground isn't shaking anymore. Maybe they're all dead."
"Maybe." Osiris replied. "Let's sweep the perimeter once more. Then we'll—"
A whistle echoed through the air.
To their left, just beyond a mound of rubble. Elendira stepped forward, boots slapping through shallow puddles as she peeked around the edge.
Two men walked side by side—one in white, the other dressed in black. Elendira couldn't place the second, but even in the gloom, one thing was clear.
One of them was definitely an exterminator.
"Do you know him?" Osiris asked, stepping up behind her.
Elendira shook her head. "Never seen him before."
"I see," Osiris muttered. "Well, let's find out what they're up to—"
Before he could finish, the exterminator collapsed. Blood sprayed into the air, painting the rubble in red. In the same instant, the other figure vanished, slicing through the wind with inhuman speed.
Osiris surged forward, sliding to a stop just behind the fallen man. "Ellie—follow him!"
Elendira nodded and darted off, her boots hammering the soaked ground as she pursued the blur.
Osiris dropped to a crouch. The exterminator's condition was worse than bad. His ears had been torn off, half his body scorched and bloodied. His left arm was missing. Breathing shallow. Pulse faint.
He wouldn't make it.
"Who did this?" Osiris asked, fingers pressed gently to his chest.
The man coughed, crimson froth bubbling from his lips. "Diamantis... his friend..." Another wet gasp. "He's... heading for the company..."
His heartbeat slowed, words slouching. "I wasn't going to... take him... he found it... I am sorry..."
Osiris stood in an instant, hand gripping his blade. Without another word, he turned and took off.
Behind him, the dying man's head slumped to the side. His voice, a whisper now, barely carried over the wind.
"I'm... so... sorry."
__________________
Knox walked toward Ansel, slow and deferent, as if approaching a relic. His hand pressed gently to the boy's cheek, fingers trembling with admiration.
"You're excellent... Oh my goodness." His voice was low, awed. "A wonderful specimen. Greater than I... greater than any of us."
"Leave him alone!" Dahlia's voice rang out. Her obsidian hammer tore through the air, screaming toward Knox.
Without even looking, tendrils of blood burst from Knox's back, curling like claws to catch the weapon mid-swing. He barely blinked.
"Let me get rid of these interruptions," he muttered, "so we can be alone, there's so much I have to show you after all."
He flung Dahlia with a snap of his wrist, her body crashing through the nearest wall like a wrecking ball. Debris followed.
Gran didn't shout. He didn't threaten. He simply stared, first at Diamantis's slumped, headless corpse, then at Knox.
"You killed him," Gran said.
Knox tilted his head, slightly confused. "Hm? He was as useless as a frog in the desert. His existence... irrelevant. I actually thought you'd all be more than happy to part ways with him"
Gran's foot sliced through the air, fast and precise.
Knox raised his arm, slow and smooth. The blow struck against his forearm with a loud crack, but he didn't flinch. He merely looked at Gran, like he was observing something mildly interesting.
"Even without arms," Knox said, calmly, "you still choose to fight. What drives you, I wonder?"
A whisper of steel. Ansel moved, quiet and fast, a salvaged blade from the weapons cache pressed to Knox's throat.
The blade slid clean, head tilting off Knox's shoulders like it was nothing.
"You've been corrupted, haven't you?" Knox murmured, his lips still moving even as his head dangled, barely connected by a strand of blood. "That... is a crime worse than any."
"What are you even talking about!" Ansel snapped, blade flashing toward the tendril still tethered to Knox's neck.
But before steel could meet flesh.
A tide of blood erupted across the room like a flood, consuming every inch of space. In the same breath, it hardened. One crimson spike tore into Gran, slamming him back. Another pierced Massiah straight through the chest.
Massiah staggered, standing in front of Sabrina "Leave, Sabrina," he coughed, gripping the spike embedded in him. "We'll hold him. Just get to safety—"
Knox appeared before him in a blink.
A single backhand cracked through the room, snapping Massiah's head to the side. His body was launched across the chamber, crashing against the door with a thud.
"You could've been one of us," Knox said, tone almost mournful. "But now I see why Harkkavel disregarded you."
A blood tendril slithered upward, coiling just beside Knox's head, writhing like a snake ready to strike. "How exactly do you control so many of them?" he asked, "Not only do they follow your orders, they willingly lay down their lives for you..."
Sabrina didn't answer right away. Her fingers instinctively drifted to her waist, but there was nothing there. No hilt. No steel. Just the empty reminder of a sword she'd hung up long ago.
"I don't know," she said, with a shrug that almost masked the tension in her face. "Maybe I'm just that good of a person. Couldn't tell ya."
Knox tilted his head, watching Ansel rise again from the blood slicked floor. "Regardless of what it is," he continued, "you are the root of his corruption. His deviation. So, if I remove you—doesn't that mean it all ends?"
Sabrina took a single step back, and Ansel sprung forward.
The tendril lashed out.
It stabbed into Ansel's chest, not enough to kill, but enough to slam him against the wall and pin him like an insect. His breath hitched in his throat as he struggled.
Another tendril emerged from the ground, rising and twisting as it sharpened, rotating like a drill until it aligned perfectly with Sabrina's heart. It struck—piercing through her coat, through her shirt—and then it stopped. Just short of her skin.
Knox turned, sensing something.
Too late.
A shockwave ripped through the room. He threw up a wall of hardened blood on instinct, but it shattered like glass. Elendira was already on him, her blade nowhere in sight.
Her fist cracked through the barrier and found his throat, lifting him clean off the ground and hurling him into the next room with bone shattering force.
He cratered into the far wall, blood spraying in every direction.
"Are you okay?" Elendira asked, appearing beside Sabrina in a blink.
"He's dangerous," Sabrina said. Her eyes stayed fixed on the wall Knox had gone through. "Can you handle him?"
From the next room came the harsh clatter of metal and collapsing debris. A groan followed, Knox was already back on his feet.
"He'll die today," Elendira replied, stepping forward without hesitation. "I'll make sure of it."
Sabrina turned slightly, her gaze falling on Massiah. He was upright, though just barely. Blood seeped from his chest, his wounds torn back open. "Mass... you don't have to—"
"You don't happen to have a scythe or anything lying around, do you?" Massiah interrupted, rolling his neck with a soft crack.
"I had one ordered from Sever," Sabrina said, brows furrowing. "It was supposed to be a surprise."
"Then we'll have to speed things up," Massiah muttered, a crooked grin appearing on his lips. "Please get me the scythe. That bastard killed Diamantis before we could, he's so gonna pay for that."
Sabrina hesitated. "Are you sure you can handle this?"
Massiah glanced down at the blood soaking into his coat, then back at her. "Only one way to find out."
Knox stepped through the shattered doorway, blood dripping from his fingertips, staining the floor in heavy streaks. His body was already reforming, jaw clicking into place as it healed.
"Another one of my siblings," Knox said, smiling wide. "Just as corrupted as the rest. You truly are a virus."
"I'll kill you," Elendira snarled, her fists clenched at her sides, knuckles pale. Her entire body trembled, not with fear, but with rage. Her eyes had gone bloodshot.
Knox's grin widened. "I came here to reclaim my own," he said, voice smooth, serpentine. "But perhaps... I can have a little fun as well."
The blood at his feet stopped pooling. It hardened—spread—shaped itself. With a thunderous crack, blood-forged spikes erupted from the ground, covering the room in a deadly forest of red.
"Now," Knox said, arms outstretched, "please... do your best to entertain me!"