The night split open.
A sonic wave erupted from the tree line, a wall of compressed air and pure, focused sound that tore through the grass and shattered the remaining windows in its path.
It struck Reina square in the chest, should have caved in her ribs, should have ruptured her lungs, should have thrown her backward like a ragdoll.
She didn't move.
The sonic wave broke against her like water against stone. Her coat billowed. Her hair whipped around her face. But her feet stayed planted. Her posture stayed relaxed.
"Neila," she observed. "Interesting. Something's changed about her too, was it your fault, Hoshimi?" Her gold eyes swept the tree line.
She turned to face the shadows.
"Anyways I'm impressed. She usually runs."
Kira stepped out of the darkness.
Her dirty brown hair was wild around her face, her blue eyes wide but steady.
The skin at the base of her neck was already open, that raw, fleshy valve drinking in the thin morning light, converting it, transforming it into something deadly. Her hands were shaking. Her breathing was too fast, too shallow. But she was standing. She was facing Reina. She was fighting.
"Don't touch him!" Her voice cracked on the words. "I won't-I won't let you! Not anymore! Not ever again!"
She exhaled.
The carbon monoxide poured from her lungs in an invisible tide, flooding the space between the tree line and the dormitory wall. The gas spread outward in a silent, deadly wave, seeking the path of least resistance, seeking Reina's open mouth and working lungs.
Reina held her breath.
"That only works when the opponent doesn't know your ability."
She raised her revolver.
Neila's sonic wave caught her in the back.
This one was different. Not a wall of force, but a needle, a focused point of compressed air that punched through Reina's coat and drew blood for the first time.
A thin line of crimson traced a path down her shoulder blade, and she paused. Looked down at the wound. Looked back at Neila.
She fired.
The bullet caught Neila in the shoulder. The impact spun her around, sent her staggering backward. A bloom of red spread across the dark fabric of her coat.
"Neila!" Kira's scream was raw, desperate.
Hoshimi was already moving.
His leg had healed enough to bear weight, not fully, not properly, but enough. He grabbed his sword, grabbed Kira with his other arm, and ran. Toward Neila. Toward the tree line.
"Vitae Core!"
His veins burned with mana. The healing destroyed him as much as it was saving him, the tissue knitting together in a frantic, messy patch on his leg.
He didn't care. He grabbed Neila and pulled her further into the tree line. His invisibility activated, spreading through their connected bodies like water through channels, and the three of them dissolved into absence.
They ran.
Through the trees. Through the shadows. Through the cold night air that burned their lungs and scraped their throats. Behind them, Reina's footsteps were silent, unhurried.
"You can't outrun me Hoshimi!" Her voice echoed through the forest, carried by some trick of acoustics or magic or sheer, terrifying certainty.
The tree line ended. A highway stretched before them, four lanes of asphalt cutting through the darkness like a scar. Cars passed in the distance, their headlights painting brief streaks of gold across the night.
The city lights glowed on the horizon.
"There!" He pointed at a sedan idling at the edge of the highway, its driver's side door open, its owner still in his car. "Neila, get it started!"
Neila grabbed the driver by the shoulder and threw him stumbling into the forest.
"Shut up!"
They burst from the tree line. The invisibility shattered as Hoshimi released it, conserving what little mana he had left for the inevitable confrontation. Kira stumbled, caught herself, kept running.
"This is a broken car! I need to fix it quickly!"
A gunshot.
The bullet caught Hoshimi in the back. He felt it punch through his shoulder blade, exit through his chest, and embed itself in the car door with a metallic ping. His legs gave out. He hit the pavement face-first, his sword clattering from his grip.
"Hoshimi!" Kira's scream was distant, muffled by the ringing in his ears.
"I'm fine!" He wasn't fine. The bullet had nicked his lung, he could feel the collapse beginning, the awful, sucking sensation of air escaping into his chest cavity. "Vitae Core!"
But his mana output was dwindling but his reserves didn't seem to go anytime soon. The healing was slower now, more labored, each heartbeat sending less and less energy to the wound.
"Neila!"
"The car!" Neila's voice was triumphant. The engine roared to life. "Get in! Both of you! Now!"
Kira grabbed Hoshimi's arm, hauled him upright, and practically threw him into the back seat. Neila slammed the accelerator before the doors were fully closed, and the sedan peeled onto the highway with a scream of burning rubber.
Behind them, Reina emerged from the tree line. She didn't run. Didn't chase. She simply raised her revolver.
And fired.
The bullet curved.
Reina's bullet curved.
It punched through the rear window, through the passenger seat, and buried itself in Hoshimi's thigh. He screamed, couldn't help it, and Kira's hands pressed against the wound, trying to stem the bleeding, trying to hold him together.
"You can't escape me!" Reina's voice was closer now.
Hoshimi looked back. One moment she was out of sight.
And another moment she was right behind them.
The car swerved. Neila took the next exit at a speed that made the tires shriek and the chassis groan.
They tore through an industrial district, past warehouses and factories and the skeletal remains of a city that had been dying long before the bombings, long before the assassins, long before any of them had been born.
But Reina was still there.
A gunshot.
The front tire blew. The car spun, a violent, uncontrolled rotation that sent them careening toward a concrete barrier.
Neila yanked the wheel, fighting for control, and managed to bring them to a shuddering stop inches from a chain-link fence.
"Out!" She was already moving, already opening her door, already preparing to run. "Get out and—"
And Reina stopped the car by placing her foot on the front bumper.
The steel groaned. The suspension flattened. The car, all two tons of it, came to a complete and instantaneous halt as if it had struck an immovable object.
Her boot was planted against the grille, her other foot planted on the road behind her, and her body was angled slightly forward as if bracing against a mild breeze rather than the momentum of a speeding vehicle.
The asphalt beneath her feet had cracked from the impact, fissures radiating outward in a rough spiral.
She stepped back. Her foot left a crater in the pavement.
Neila was the first to move. Her door flew open, and she launched herself at Reina with a sonic burst that should have shattered concrete.
A continuous stream of compressed air poured from her palms, howling with enough force to tear the asphalt from the road.
Reina raised one hand.
The asphalt behind her cracked.
The chain-link fence tore free of its moorings. The windows of a nearby warehouse shattered. But Reina stood untouched, her coat rippling, her hair streaming, her expression utterly, terrifyingly calm.
"Your mana output is increasing. Did you make a contract with that Goddess?"
Neila didn't answer. She was already moving, already snapping her fingers, already sending a needle of focused sound toward Reina's throat with enough force to punch through steel.
Reina caught it.
Not the sound itself. But the compression wave that preceded it, the distortion in the air that marked its passage. Her hand closed around the disturbance, and the needle dissipated harmlessly against her palm.
She reached out. Her hand closed around Neila's throat.
"I'm going to ask you nicely," she said. "Where did you take the Goddess?"
Neila's response was a kick to Reina's solar plexus. It connected, Hoshimi saw the impact, saw Reina's coat ripple with the force of it, but Reina didn't flinch. Didn't move. Didn't even acknowledge the strike.
"FUCK OFF!"
Reina studied her face for a long moment. Then she threw her.
Neila's body flew through the air like a discarded doll, and crashed through the wall of a nearby warehouse. Brick and mortar collapsed around her, a cloud of dust and debris that obscured everything except the faint, flickering pulse of her mana signature.
She was still alive. Barely.
Reina turned toward Kira.
"Daniel Aamon was it? Your pathetic father."
Kira's chest expanded. The skin at the base of her neck opened wider, drinking in the starlight, converting it, transforming it.
"Don't talk about my father!"
She exhaled.
But Reina was already moving, already closing the distance with that same terrible, effortless speed.
Her hand closed around Kira's throat, not squeezing, not yet, just holding her in place and Kira's gas dissipated harmlessly into the night air.
Kira spat in her face.
Reina blinked. A thin glob of saliva traced a path down her cheek.
She wiped it away with her free hand, examined it, and then looked back at Kira with an expression that was neither anger nor surprise.
"You've grown a backbone."
A gunshot.
The bullet caught Reina in the back of the knee. Her leg buckled, just slightly, just enough and her grip on Kira's throat loosened. Kira pulled free and ran.
Hoshimi was on his feet. Blood poured from the wound in his chest, from the bullet hole in his thigh, from a dozen smaller injuries that he'd stopped bothering to count. His sword was in his hand, the blue light along its edge dim but steady.
"You were going to kill her."
"I was. But I have quite the soft spot for her. And my only mission is to kill you."
She raised her revolver.
Before she could pull the trigger, a needle of compressed sound shot toward her shoulder from the cover of a wall. The bullet went wide, ricocheting off asphalt and embedding itself in a warehouse wall.
Reina turned. Her golden eyes found Neila, half-buried in rubble, her hand still raised, her fingers still curled in the shape of a snap. Blood trickled down her forehead, matting her blonde hair to her scalp, but her lips were curved in that familiar, defiant smile.
Hoshimi grabbed Kira. Grabbed Neila. They ran.
Another car, an older model this time, its engine still running from some unseen driver's panicked escape. Neila wrenched open the door and slid behind the wheel. Hoshimi threw Kira into the back seat and dove in after her.
"Go!"
The car lurched forward. Behind them, Reina watched them go.
Just stood there in the middle of the ruined street, her revolver at her side, and watched as the taillights disappeared into the night.
The car screamed down the highway, its engine straining, its frame shuddering with every pothole and crack in the asphalt.
The city lights blurred past in streaks of gold and white and red. The sirens were distant now, fading, swallowed by the roar of the wind through the shattered windows.
No one spoke.
Hoshimi's chest was still healing. The wound in his thigh had closed, a tangled knot of tissue. His hands were shaking. His breathing was ragged. But he was alive.
"Miss Reina doesn't seem to be following anymore."