I ran, my knees burning as I tried to keep up with them.
Concrete blurred beneath my feet. Every jump sent shocks through my legs, but I forced myself forward. I couldn’t lose sight of them.
The next thing I knew, Bea was launched into the air at terrifying speed, my eyes barely able to track the motion. If I were still human, I would have missed it entirely. It was faster than a blink. Faster than thought.
Jia followed instantly.
She cut through the sky like a blade, closing the gap in a heartbeat. Her bowstaff flashed, and the strike landed with brutal precision, sending Bea crashing downward toward the ground below.
No hesitation.
No mercy.
I pushed off the rooftop with everything I had.
The air tore at my face as I leapt. Using my enhanced strength, I grabbed onto Ratsuyo’s unconscious body with one arm and caught Bea’s remaining hand with the other, dragging us all forward through sheer momentum.
My joints screamed from the strain.
I didn’t care.
I needed to stop this.
This was my fault.
If I hadn’t hesitated. If I hadn’t been weaker. If I had been stronger from the start. Somehow, some way, this had spiraled because of me.
I didn’t know how she had lost control.
I didn’t know how she had changed so violently.
But I felt responsible.
And I wasn’t going to let Jia end her without at least trying.
I managed to make it to the empty warehouse, a few seconds after they had landed. My knees throbbed from the distance I had forced myself to cover, every jump stretching me to my limit.
Dust still hung in the air.
Steel beams creaked.
And there before me stood Jia.
Her bowstaff had already shifted into a spear. The silver tip angled forward with surgical intent, aimed directly at Bea’s heart.
I didn’t need to see her face to understand.
This was an execution.
Bea whispered what she believed were her final words.
But I didn’t believe it.
And I wasn’t going to allow it.
“Wait, Jia!”
She did not hesitate.
She did not turn.
She moved.
Closing the distance in an instant, spear thrusting forward with lethal precision.
“Enough!”
Metal screamed.
Katana met spear mid-lunge.
The shockwave cracked through the warehouse as force met force. Kicks collided with counterstrikes. A sharp elbow deflected a follow-up thrust. In a blink, the two separated.
Jia slid back into stance.
And between her and Bea stood Talia.
Both katanas drawn.
Balanced.
Unyielding.
She planted herself in front of Bea without a word, blades angled outward in a defensive cross. Her posture was calm, but her eyes were sharp.
Jia did not look pleased.
She adjusted her grip, expression unwavering, still locked onto the task at hand.
“Woah.”
The word slipped out before I could stop it.
Talia had descended from above and intercepted the strike in a single instant. No warning. No wasted movement.
She had preserved Bea’s life by a single breath.
Jia recovered first.
From where I stood, barely breathing, I saw her spear rotate in a tight figure-eight, testing Talia’s guard. No wasted motion. She stepped in with a shallow diagonal thrust aimed for Talia’s liver.
Talia shifted half a step left.
Her right katana dropped to intercept, sliding along the shaft of the spear to redirect its line, while her left blade angled inward toward Jia’s wrist in a controlled cut meant to disarm without severing.
Jia released one hand instantly, letting the spear roll through her palm as she pivoted on her rear foot. Her elbow snapped toward Talia’s jaw.
Talia ducked beneath it and countered with a rising knee toward Jia’s ribs.
Blocked.
Jia absorbed the impact and returned a low sweep to destabilize Talia’s base.
Talia hopped the sweep cleanly and rotated both blades outward, pressing forward with a dual-angle assault. One blade threatened Jia’s shoulder while the other probed for the thigh.
“She's back to normal,” Talia said calmly as steel rang against silver.
“It could be a trick,” Jia replied flatly, slipping inside the range and driving a palm strike toward Talia’s sternum.
Talia twisted her torso and allowed the strike to glance off her shoulder instead of landing flush. She responded with a tight cross-cut that forced Jia to withdraw half a step.
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“Then we restrain her,” Talia said. “We hold her down.”
“It’s a security risk.”
Jia lunged again, this time abandoning the spear mid-rotation and shifting fully into hand-to-hand. Her footwork shortened. Her hips lowered. She entered into Talia’s space where long blades became harder to leverage.
Her martial arts were cleaner.
Sharper.
A rapid sequence of straight punches and short-range knees pressured Talia’s guard. Talia parried with the flat of her blades, minimizing lethality while maintaining spacing.
“Stop!” I shouted. “You’re both being idiots!”
Neither of them even looked at me.
If anything, the pace increased.
Talia’s expression hardened.
Heat shimmered faintly along the edges of her katanas.
Jia’s next kick collided with Talia’s guard and sparks erupted. The temperature spiked as Talia infused her blades with hot and cold energy, the steel glowing faintly at the edges.
Jia retaliated immediately.
Her movements became heavier. Stronger. Each strike now carried increased force, testing Talia’s stance. She drove forward with a shoulder check meant to break her balance.
Talia barely absorbed it, grunting before answering with a thermal burst.
A controlled explosion detonated between them, pushing Jia backward across the concrete in a spray of dust.
“I will not warn you again,” Talia said, voice steady. “Stand down.”
“It’s my job,” Jia replied, regaining her footing. “If she goes rogue, I’m the one who puts her down. That’s the rules.”
“She’s no longer rogue.”
“That’s your assumption.”
They clashed again.
This time Talia escalated.
She stepped in with a crossing strike pattern, forcing Jia’s spear into a defensive bind. A compact thermo-explosion burst along the blade, jolting Jia’s grip.
Before Jia could recover, Talia pivoted and slapped the bowstaff hard with the flat of her katana.
The weapon flew from Jia’s hands and skidded across the warehouse floor.
Jia shifted instantly into a roundhouse kick.
Talia caught it at the shin with her forearm and used the momentum to sweep Jia’s supporting leg. Jia hit the ground but rolled with it, trying to rise.
Talia’s blade came down and stopped an inch from Jia’s throat.
The second katana pressed against her shoulder, pinning her fully.
They locked eyes.
“You know you’re a bad matchup against me,” Talia said quietly.
Jia’s jaw tightened.
“I won't stop doing my job,” Jia replied evenly, “you’ll have to kill me before I let her live.”
Behind them, Bea’s weak voice cut through.
“Please… stop…” Tears streamed down her face. “Just… let Jia kill me…”
My chest tightened.
Talia’s gaze flickered for the briefest moment.
Then she looked back into Jia’s eyes.
They were unyielding, resolute.
Talia exhaled slowly.
“Farewell then.”
Something in me snapped.
“Enough!”
Before I could think it through, I shoved Talia sideways.
It wasn’t elegant. It wasn’t smart.
It was desperate.
Her eyes widened for half a second, shocked that I had even dared touch her.
Then instinct took over.
Her blade moved.
I barely saw it.
I raised my hands on reflex.
Steel met flesh.
Agony exploded through my body.
Half of both my palms were gone in an instant, sliced clean through as I tried to catch the strike. A second slash tore across my left cheek, opening skin to bone. Another carved through my shoulder, blood spraying across the cracked warehouse floor.
I stumbled back but somehow remained standing.
Somehow.
Talia halted herself mid-follow through, her katanas hovering a breath away from finishing me.
Another clash and I would be dead.
“Move,” she warned, her voice colder than I had ever heard it. “Stand in my way again and you die.”
I laughed.
It came out strained and frustrated.
“Can we stop with all this death stuff already?”
Blood poured from my hands, dripping down my wrists. I stepped forward anyway, planting myself between her and Jia.
Between her and Bea.
My torn palms opened outward in a pathetic sign of peace.
I winced from the pain but refused to move.
“We’re supposed to be friends, right?” My voice shook, whether from blood loss or emotion I didn’t know. “And even if we’re not… at least colleagues.”
No one spoke.
I swallowed hard.
“We’re supposed to be killing a Monarch together. Right? Not each other.”
My vision blurred slightly, but I forced myself to stay upright.
“Bea only turned into a vampire to protect me. And she still took down a Duke in the process.”
I looked at Jia.
“What makes her any different from me?”
Silence.
I looked around the broken warehouse, the debris, the blood, the three of us standing on the edge of tearing each other apart.
“What makes her any different from us?”
Talia’s grip loosened first.
Just slightly.
Her eyes lowered, conflicted.
I turned to Jia.
For the first time since this started, she was looking directly at me.
Not past me.
At me.
Her expression was different.
Shocked.
“…Why did you save me?” she murmured quietly.
I didn’t hesitate.
“Because you’re my idol.”
I forced a soft, stupid smile, even as blood ran down my face.
The moment was pleasant, authentic, as if time had stopped for even a moment. Until—
A scraping sound echoed from the warehouse entrance.
Slow.
Wet.
We all turned.
Ratsuyo.
He was crawling.
Half of his skull still split from the earlier impalement, blood pouring down his face as he dragged himself forward with what little strength remained. His spine-blade lay useless beside him, no longer writhing.
He began to laugh.
It was hollow. Broken.
“Pathetic…” he rasped, voice gurgling through blood. “Inquisitors… arguing over mercy… how very huma—”
Talia did not let him finish.
Her arm flicked once.
The katana left her hand in a clean, spinning arc.
It pierced straight through his skull.
No flourish.
No hesitation.
The blade entered above his brow and exited through the back of his head, driving him flat against the concrete. His body twitched once.
Then stopped.
Brain shutdown.
Silence fell over the warehouse.
Dust settled as blood pooled quietly.
Talia walked forward slowly and gripped the hilt, pulling the katana free with a wet sound.
“Truce for now,” she said.
Jia pushed herself up from the floor, brushing dust from her shoulder as if none of this had happened.
“Truce for now,” she echoed lazily.
The casualness of it unnerved me more than the violence had.
Bea, still pale and bleeding, lifted her head and forced a bright, weak smile.
“Truce for now,” she chimed softly, almost cheerful, as if she just wanted to be included.
All three of them looked at me.
Waiting.
It took me a second.
“Oh. Right.” I swallowed. “T-Truce for now.”
It came out hesitant.
Talia nodded once.
“Good enough.”
She grabbed the Duke’s corpse by the collar and hoisted him up like discarded trash.
“Jō,” she said without looking at me, “rejoin Bea’s arm to her body. Quickly. We’re returning to the Church.”
I stared at the severed limb still in my hand.
Rejoin it.
Right.
Sure.
How exactly was I supposed to do that?
And with that question hanging in my mind, I realized this eventful night wasn’t over.
Not even close.
“Talk about never meeting your idols, huh.”
After all, they might just turn out to be borderline insane vampire hunters.
Who has the best fighting style!
