“If you’re not used to it, then step aside.”

The girl standing before her said it, voice like a blade ringing on ice.

Strange—tension coiled tight as a bowstring, yet a small warmth flickered like a candle in a storm.

Mizuki looked at the girl. Her lips moved, but no sound; silence fell like fresh snow blanketing stone.

Yun Shi didn’t flinch. One hand held a Beretta, her feet slid like shadows over water, the muzzle leveled at wolves held at bay.

“I don’t want to kill this many people,” she said, voice steady as winter river.

After a heartbeat, Yun Shi spoke so flat it chilled. Sweat beaded on the enemies’ faces like dew on grass; they edged back like reeds in wind.

“So don’t force my hand.”

Her voice was a wind from hell’s mouth, cold enough to frost bones; she could pull the trigger next heartbeat and ink the earth with new strokes.

“Miss Night Phantom…”

Mizuki stared, dazed, words scattering like startled sparrows. Beside her, Tyrant sighed, a bored gust across dying coals.

“Get used to killing. How long do you plan to be protected?” His tone fell like a hammer in rain.

He left it at that, hefted his greatsword, and plunged back into the melee like a bull into a storm.

Fear cinched Mizuki’s chest like a tight band; her fists knotted like roots in hard soil. She knew what he meant.

No… Miss Night Phantom is sinning in my place, the thought ash-quiet as smoke.

Her eyes went vacant, her body shook like a leaf, her face turned paper-white in moonlight.

Of course she understood: Mizuki couldn’t make the cut, but this girl could, with a resolve like iron in frost. She’d carry Mizuki’s sin like a pack through snow—and there was no debt between them, no special bond, nothing but a thread.

Why? The question pricked like thorns. Was it only because Mizuki had once said, you’re my comrade?

“Mizuki-chan, let’s go.”

Hawk Hunter ruffled her hair, a soft touch like a breeze through reeds, a sigh tinged with pale sorrow.

Yes—this was that girl’s choice. Mizuki could not meddle; she could only swallow it like bitter tea.

She stood. That slender back before her was a lone pine in winter; her heart tightened, then eased like a knot loosening.

More than this, she had to worry about when her skin would harden, the way tide shapes stone.

They pushed into the floors. The Special Task Force ran the stairs like water threading rock, boots whispering on concrete. Aya threw quick hand signs, fingers snapping like sparrows.

Guards at the stairwell saw Witch shadows bloom on the wall like phantoms in fog, and they raked the hall with bullets. The rounds passed through like rain through mist; the shapes were hollow.

Their confusion lasted a breath. A cold line of moonlight kissed their necks; blood opened like a red flower, and death took them from behind without a sound.

Yun Shi and Aya wiped their daggers clean, steel flashing like fish scales, and nodded once.

“From here on, we use this. Don’t let them spot us,” Aya said, voice a low drum in the dark.

They’d use Hawk Hunter’s shadow refraction to cast decoys like mirages on sand, then slip behind and draw their lines across throats like ink on paper.

The plan was infiltration. The Divine Ling Family’s defenses were a wall of thorns; they’d strike like rain, silent and everywhere. No gunfire—the crack would call wolves. Shots had already sounded; this nest couldn’t hold them long. Go deeper, and maybe—like a coin tossed in a well—they’d find a companion in the dark, slim chance or not.

They holstered steel. Their line moved with a cat’s hush on frost, steps softened to moth-wings, a whisper still audible if you listened hard.

They halted. Yun Shi slid forward alone, a shadow peeking like a fox from brush. The others melted back like ink in water, waiting on the next sign.

Her fingers touched the rim of her Goggles. Infrared bloomed; the world flushed red like embers, and patrols stood out as clear as constellations on winter sky.

“Next step: the roof,” she breathed, words a feather on the air.

Aya nodded and turned, hands sketching silent words like cranes in flight. Hand signs were all they had; to keep the night unbroken, the mouth must be still.

They slipped past patrols like minnows when heads turned. In that blink, they were through. The move was one stroke, clean. Only Mizuki faltered like a fawn; Sham hauled her along, the tug biting like a reed cord.

Yun Shi and Aya, killers born of night, climbed in the dark like spiders. Palms clamped mouths, blades drew white lines, and two bodies folded like cut reeds without a sound.

Yun Shi went first, fastest and faintest, a black streak swallowed by night. She left the others behind like leaves in a stream and broke onto the roof alone.

Night wind combed the concrete like cold fingers; the sky poured only darkness and quiet. She tucked into a corner, an owl at eaves, and watched. Only two gunmen here, likely sentries of the Divine Ling Family.

She chose. She rose. One lunge, a hand over a mouth like a seal on a jar, a silver dagger nicking a jugular like a thread. Life drained in silence.

The second turned, catching a shadow of absence, and saw his brother fallen like felled timber. No pause. Yun Shi’s dagger flew, a cold star through black, and buried in his heart.

She exhaled, a thin mist in the wind. Two troubles gone, no alarm bell. She edged to the parapet and looked down; the layout below lay like a map, no different than entry, lines she could trace. She fixed it in memory, a sketch for friends yet to breach the hive.

Infrared opened again; inside was a bramble of heat. No path for a battering ram—only the ant’s way, patient and quiet. To take this whole hive, they’d prune room by room. Kill everyone inside without stirring the outer ring. Hide the blade’s true sharpness under cloth.

Her mind spun tactics like a loom, pulling the quickest thread that wouldn’t break. She shut the heat away and ghosted to the stairs. The team waited like stones in a stream. She drew a plan in air with her hands.

Aya’s smile flashed, dawn behind clouds. She tamped down the surge and motioned: move.

Yun Shi tipped her chin to Hawk Hunter. He hurried up, swung the coil of rope they’d prepped before battle, and hooked the ledge with a flick like a lasso catching a horn.

No frontal push. They’d be the wind at the enemy’s back. Rope would be their path, and Hawk Hunter’s shadow refraction would erase rope and riders alike, a blank slice in night.

“Move.”

Aya went first, a whisper dropping off the wall, sliding along the rope like rain along a gutter, skirting to the building’s rear. The others followed, beads on a string.

Yun Shi vanished down the line, and only then did Mizuki inch in. She gripped the rope, trembling like a chime in wind. Sham’s eyes urged her on, a hearth-glow of trust. Mizuki shut her eyes and stepped, hands firm, body sliding like a leaf down a stream.

Cold wind knifed up, a blade of winter that stole breath, but she followed the line’s pull like a current. Under shadow refraction, no eyes could find them.

They reached their landing. Mizuki blinked to find a window after a full circle around the outer wall, a secret mouth on the building’s back. She didn’t overthink it; she slipped inside like a ghost through a paper door. In a fortress this tight, wandering inside was death. To wrap the building and come to the far side was a miracle; if she knew the risk, she’d have frozen like ice.

Gunfire murmured within, a distant storm behind walls. Another Witch squad had forced entry, perhaps the Single Leaf Clan’s allies. The thought struck like lightning; Aya couldn’t waste a grain of time. Two sharp hand signs: up.

Yun Shi nodded, a clear bell. Finding allies now would be a lantern in a mine.

The Single Leaf Clan had been ground down by the Divine Ling Family, their last line fraying like old rope. Just as the noose tightened, a squad crashed in like thunder—Witches. How had they entered this iron cage? The Single Leaf had bled rivers to breach a single door; now their retreat was dammed, and death’s tide rose.

But these Witches walked through unscathed, like rain slipping between tiles. Before anyone could stitch a thought, their gunfire came down like a monsoon and buried the enemy.

Outside would think their own men had finished the Single Leaf. Suspicion would settle like dust. That was why Aya ordered them to shoot, to turn thunder into cover.

Caught in joy’s blind spot, the enemy had no shield ready. The blow fell like an avalanche. In a breath, they were gone.

Good thing the plan had roots, Aya thought, relief blooming like dawn. Without Yun Shi’s thread, this place would’ve been a briar.

“Miss?”

The leader of the friendly squad stared at Aya, eyes wide like a stag’s.

“Oh? Tiandao, is that you?” Aya blinked, surprise flickering like a firefly.

“Yes. My thanks, Miss. Because of you, we slipped the tiger’s jaws,” he said, bowing like a reed in wind. “On behalf of my brothers, our sincerest gratitude.”

“No need. Give me something useful,” she said, voice dry as flint.

“Yes, though perhaps not as much as you already know,” he said, abashed, like a lantern with little oil.

He was Aya’s acquaintance. That made the next moves smoother. Yun Shi weighed plans like stones in her palm.

“Amazing, Miss Night Phantom. You’re incredible,” Mizuki burst out, eyes bright as stars. It made Yun Shi pause, as if touched by sun through leaves.

“Right? So amazing, Night Phantom-chan!” Thunder Lady flashed a thumbs-up, grin crackling like a spark. If Yun Shi felt any pride before Thunder Lady, it was only that the girl was a few centimeters shorter—no, she didn’t care, not really.

Praise warmed and confused her, a strange sweetness like warm sake in winter. She wasn’t used to it.

“Tch. Just this once—you did fine,” Tyrant tossed, words like pebbles. No one saw him pocket a small vial, quick as a magpie.

Hawk Hunter smiled, soft as dawn. Relief smoothed his face like rain on dust.

“Mm. You too. Nicely done,” Yun Shi said, voice even as a calm lake.

For once, maybe just this once, she wasn’t the one everyone disliked. A subtle gladness threaded her chest like first light through fog.