The spear tip was ice-cold, one inch from stealing Natalie’s life; yet faced with her tear-bright, panicked eyes, Violet sighed like winter wind and let her go.

“Since you won’t talk, I’ll find it myself.”

Shoved away, Natalie staggered back like a windblown leaf, missed her footing, and hit the ground with a dull thud.

The blood-red cocoons around Violet cracked like shed husks, flaking off her skin. Every scar vanished; her aura rose like a blade drawn from its sheath.

A blood orb in her palm loosened, and the blood-red Demonic Spears slipped free, hovering at her side like scarlet moons.

The ground shuddered like a drumbeat from below. Fresh crimson drew up from the earth like roots, and a giant skeleton was hauled beside Violet on a web of blood threads.

She looked at those winter-pale bones with a face set like stone, chill as frost on steel.

Natalie trembled, lips parted, but the new weight of Violet’s presence pressed like deep water; no words would come.

Before either moved, shadows bled out of the black fog—few in number, yet marching as one, a phalanx of night, their killing intent like iron in the air.

Even Violet’s brow tightened, a wave in a stony lake. Their target, clearly, was the two of them.

“Looks like I don’t need to start. Someone got impatient.”

She laughed, cold as a knife’s edge, and snapped her blood threads. They poured into the towering bones like wildfire catching, as the scarlet Demonic Spears tore skyward and lanced ahead.

Amid the ruins, a black-haired girl collided chest-first with a shadow like two waves slamming. She scrambled up and stared at the figure.

“Who are you?!”

She didn’t get the chance. The other’s shout cracked like thunder, and a cold gun barrel kissed her brow like a snake’s fang.

It lasted a heartbeat. The girl moved on reflex, storm-swift—left hand clamped the wrist, right knuckles rapped the back of the hand like a gavel, and the pistol snapped free.

The armed figure froze, stunned. He meant to fight back, but the girl flowed in like a tide; she caught both arms, twisted with clean leverage, shoved hard, and drove her elbow into the throat, pinning him to an iron door with a clang.

The chain of motions was intricate and exact, yet under five seconds—like a long-trained mechanism clicking through its gears.

The force crushed a cry from his throat—no, hers. Only then did the girl see she’d flattened a fully armed red-haired woman, eyes shot with red like cracked glass, burdened by some crushing weight.

The sight stunned the girl too—why did her body know these holds like old roads? That blink of doubt was all the redhead needed; she threw a punch, trying to knock free the pale forearm at her throat.

The black-haired girl slipped the punch like wind around a corner. Her choking arm didn’t budge; her other fist drove into the ribs, a hammer to a drum, and the redhead’s gasp broke her strength.

“Who are you?”

This time the roles flipped, the girl’s voice low as dusk. The redhead muttered like a mantra, refused to look at her, disgust stamped across her face like a hard brand.

The girl’s helplessness rose first, a sour flutter, then her decision followed. Those moves had been pure reflex; she hadn’t meant to hurt her. But if she let her go, trouble would spread like fire in dry grass.

“I don’t know what you’re after, but…”

She toed the pistol away, the metal skittering like a beetle, and eased the pressure of her pin.

“…I don’t plan to make trouble for you. Don’t bring trouble to me.”

She released the redhead, stepped back like a shadow peeling off a wall, and vaulted the iron door without a second thought. Strength ran through her like a fresh river; even the rubble became stepping-stones under her hands.

She hit the ground and looked out over a city of bones—ruins everywhere, a forest of broken teeth—and didn’t know where to place her next breath, much less her feet.

Pain struck her skull like a spike of ice, and her step faltered, gravel sliding like dry rain.

The red-haired woman stared, disbelief twisting her face. She rasped, voice sanded raw by the choke, and coughed up the words.

“You… you’re not a Fallen Demon?”

The black-haired girl couldn’t hear through the grit of pain. She clutched her hair like a lifeline, fighting the thorns clawing through her mind.

The redhead snatched up the pistol and holstered it with a practiced snap. Not as effortless as the girl, but quick; she vaulted the iron door too, drew again, and kept her distance, muzzle steady as a compass needle.

“Are you… with the Valkyrie?”

The girl didn’t answer. She pressed her head, and the world around her began to quiver—chips of stone rose and hovered like gulls caught in an unseen current.

The air thickened like syrup. Even the redhead felt the weight around the girl, a pressure like an ocean on the chest; the stones didn’t hover but were dragged, iron filings to a magnet.

At the edge of breaking, the redhead’s finger tightened; she meant to fire. The girl’s strength vanished first. She crumpled like a cut string and hit the ground.

Joy flared across the redhead’s face like sun after storm. She dropped the gun’s muzzle, hurried over, and gathered the girl up, bearing her toward the ruins’ shadowed ribs.

Black and white swallowed the world, ink and snow flooding every line.

It wasn’t beloved faces that appeared, but human shapes spun from strange powers, stickwork gods and paper ghosts.

Arguing and murmurs droned like bees; meaningless as buzz, yet the girl heard their meaning as clear as water. Crystals crept up from below like frost climbing a window, swarming to drown and choke.

In that instant, the black-haired girl opened her eyes.

Dim lamplight pooled like weak tea. A red-haired woman slept slumped at her side, her breathing soft as reeds, her guard laid aside.

She’d stripped off body armor and plate like shed bark; in only a tank top and hot pants her figure burned like a coal. A black pistol lay nearby, close as a stretched hand.

The girl pushed herself up gently, a feather on a pane, careful not to stir the sleeper. She looked around at a room battered but unbroken, a name surfacing in memory like a bubble: an apartment?

The bed under her was neatly made, comforter smooth as still water; not its first use. By the bed were stacked supplies and fresh clothes, a tidy cairn—evidence this was the redhead’s long-held shelter.

The woman had sunk into true rest, not the death-tinged panic from before. What had turned that storm into stillness? Curiosity pricked like a pin.

Smiling wryly, the girl rose and drew the blanket up over the redhead’s shoulders like a quiet promise. She slipped into the living room.

Rubble carpeted the floor like a fallen cliff—hall, room, all littered with rebar and concrete. Much of it had been cleared and stacked to block a gaping wound in the wall.

Every intact curtain had been drawn, a fabric shield, as if to shutter hostile eyes. The girl eased a slit open, a hairline of light, and peered outside.

The street lay empty as a stage after the play. No figures. A light pole, warped by some brute force, stabbed the road’s spine; the sight jarred like a bone out of place.

That “lamp post” caught her gaze like a hook. Her body recoiled on reflex, and she yanked the curtain shut, retreating in steps, heart calm but mind ringing with the urge to hide.

She was right. Seconds later, on that wrong-placed pole, an amber eye snapped open—malice sweeping the street like a butcher’s knife, hunting for flesh.

She stepped back again and struck something soft, a living cushion. Her arms moved before thought, reaching for a joint lock like a storm returning to a groove.

“Easy—it’s me!”

The red-haired woman didn’t fight, only forced her voice down to a low hiss, letting the girl hold her arms.

That mercy saved her elbows; the girl checked the break, released her grip, and watched her with wary eyes that glinted like wet stone.

“What are those outside? And who are you?”

She kept her voice low, a thread in the dark.

“Back to the room. Not safe to talk here.”

The redhead rose like a cat from a crouch and led the way to the room where they’d rested. The girl followed, questions piling like snow; only this woman seemed to hold answers.

Back inside, the redhead shut the door with a careful click. She rummaged in the nightstand, fished out a notebook, and scribbled fast, then showed the page.

Who are you?

The girl could only shake her head, helplessness washing in like a cold tide. Truth was, she didn’t know.

The redhead hesitated, pen hovering, then wrote again and turned the notebook.

You’re with the Valkyrie, right?

The girl’s confusion deepened, fog thickening. She didn’t even know herself, much less any Valkyrie.

She reached out a hand, palm open, asking for the notebook like asking for a path.