{Yumi}

  The laptop screen had been black for twenty-three minutes.

  Yumi sat cross-legged on her apartment floor, surrounded by printed maps of the Koto district, dungeon schematics she'd pulled from the Player Association database, and three empty energy drink cans. Her phone lay beside her, screen cracked from where she'd thrown it after the fifth Player guild told her to stop calling.

  "She's dead," Kenji said from the couch.

  "Shut up."

  "The feed cut out after a forty-meter fall. Into water. While she was already injured."

  "I said shut up."

  Kenji stretched, his photographer's vest crinkling. He'd come over after Yumi's third panicked voicemail, bringing his camera equipment like that would somehow help. Now he just sat there, eating her instant ramen and stating the obvious.

  "Even if she survived the fall," he continued, "that was a C-rank dungeon. Destabilized. You saw those A-rank monsters."

  Yumi pulled up another map on her laptop. The building's blueprint showed seven floors, but dungeons didn't follow architectural logic. The portal could lead anywhere. Down, sideways, into pocket dimensions that shouldn't exist.

  "I'm trying to triangulate possible exit points," she muttered.

  "That's not how dungeons work."

  "Then tell me how they work!"

  The words came out louder than intended. Kenji stopped mid-slurp, noodles hanging from his chopsticks.

  "Sorry." Yumi rubbed her eyes. "I just... I got her into this."

  "No, you didn't."

  "I encouraged her. Gave her publicity. Made her think she could be some kind of hero."

  "She made that choice herself." Kenji set down his ramen. "You saw the footage from her first rescue. She was already committed."

  Yumi stared at the black screen. The last frame before it cut out showed water rushing up to meet the camera. She'd watched it seventeen times, looking for something, anything that suggested Suzume might have survived.

  [Why do I care this much?]

  She'd covered dozens of Player deaths. Written exposés about guild negligence that got people killed. But those were stories. Headlines. This was...

  "You actually like her," Kenji said.

  "What?"

  "Suzume. You actually give a shit about her."

  "She's my exclusive source."

  "Bullshit." He leaned forward. "When was the last time you cried over a source?"

  Yumi touched her cheek. It was wet.

  "Fuck."

  She stood abruptly, knocking over an energy drink can. The remaining liquid spread across a map, turning the Koto district into a brown stain.

  "I'm calling the bureau again."

  "They won't do anything."

  "Then I'll call the association."

  "They definitely won't do anything."

  "Then I'll—"

  "Yumi." Kenji's voice was gentle. "All we can do is wait."

  She hated that he was right. Hated that she couldn't hire a team, couldn't go in herself, couldn't do anything except sit here and refresh a dead video feed.

  The laptop screen stayed black.

  ---

  {Suzume}

  She hadn't blinked in four minutes.

  Her eyes burned, but blinking meant not seeing. Not seeing meant dying. The Cave Weaver had taught her that. One slip on blood and she'd nearly become another skeleton for something to arrange.

  The tunnel stretched ahead, lit by patches of moss that grew in patterns too regular to be natural. Someone had cultivated this. Someone or something that wanted just enough light to navigate but not enough to feel safe.

  A drop of water hit her shoulder.

  She froze.

  Just water. Just condensation from the ceiling. Not blood. Not acid. Not the saliva of something watching from above.

  This tale has been unlawfully obtained from Royal Road. If you discover it on Amazon, kindly report it.

  [Move.]

  Her legs didn't respond.

  [MOVE.]

  She took a step. Then another. Her knife trembled in her grip, the blade still etched with patterns from the Cave Weaver's blood. Three more uses, maybe four before it snapped.

  Something clicked in the darkness ahead.

  She stopped again. Every muscle locked. The click repeated. Rhythmic. Like claws on stone or mandibles testing the air or—

  A water drop hitting a puddle.

  [Just water.]

  But knowing that didn't stop her heart from trying to escape through her ribs.

  She forced herself forward. Ten meters. Twenty. The tunnel opened into another chamber, this one with actual furniture. Stone tables carved from the floor itself. Shelves cut into walls. Books that had rotted to mulch centuries ago.

  Someone had lived here.

  She crept inside, checking corners, checking the ceiling, checking shadows that could hide teeth. Nothing moved. Nothing breathed except her.

  On one of the tables sat a journal, newer than the books. Maybe a few years old. The pages were stiff with moisture but still readable.

  Entry 1: They say I'm brilliant. Top of my class at Tokyo University. IQ of 174. None of that matters down here.

  [Great. Another dead genius.]

  Entry 7: I've mapped three chambers. The lake. The bone room. This study. There are more, but I can hear things moving in them.

  Entry 12: My parents always called me gifted. Special. Like intelligence was armor. Like being smart meant I'd never fail.

  Entry 18: I solved it. The pattern. These tunnels follow a sequence. Mathematical. Beautiful. I can get out.

  The entries stopped there. No explanation. No final message. Just confidence cut short.

  Suzume set the journal down and noticed scratches on the table. Claw marks. Four parallel grooves that went straight through the stone and the journal's final pages.

  [So much for patterns.]

  She kept moving. The study had three exits. She chose the middle one because choosing required thought and thought was better than paralysis.

  The tunnel narrowed. She had to duck, then crawl. The walls pressed close enough that she could feel them on both shoulders. If something came from behind now...

  [Don't think about it.]

  But she thought about it. Imagined teeth closing on her ankles. Imagined being dragged backward. Imagined screaming with no one to hear.

  The tunnel opened up. She scrambled out, gasping.

  Another chamber. This one full of bones. But not arranged. Scattered. Broken. Gnawed. Fresh enough that some still had meat clinging to them.

  Something lived here. Something that didn't care about patterns or organization.

  She backed toward the tunnel, but stopped. Going backward meant the crawling space again. Going forward meant...

  [I'm supposed to be a genius.]

  The thought came unbidden, dragging memories with it.

  She was eight years old, standing beside her desk after class. Tanaka-sensei held her test paper up to the light, squinting at it like the answers might change if she looked hard enough.

  "Every single one correct." The teacher set the paper down carefully. "Suzume-chan, this was meant for sixth graders."

  "Was it too easy?" Her mother stood in the doorway, arrived early for pickup. "Should we look into advanced placement?"

  Tanaka-sensei nodded slowly.

  "She's exceptional. Have you considered—"

  The memory shifted.

  High school. The principal's office smelled like coffee. Suzume sat across from him, transcript spread between them on his desk.

  "Perfect scores." He tapped the paper. "Four years. Not a single question missed." He looked up at her, something between pride and disbelief in his eyes. "Universities will fight over you."

  Her mother sat beside her, practically glowing.

  "Our little genius is going to do great things."

  Another shift.

  The dinner table. Three weeks before Akane's last mission. Their father raised his beer, already two drinks in and getting sentimental.

  "To my brilliant daughter!" He gestured at Suzume with the can. "She'll change the world someday. Cure diseases. Build space stations. Whatever she wants."

  Akane kicked her under the table, grinning. "No pressure though."

  "I'm serious!" Their father's face was red. Happy drunk, not angry drunk. "Your sister here, she's got the kind of brain that comes once in a generation."

  "Dad, stop."

  "Let him brag," Akane said. She leaned over, stealing a piece of chicken from Suzume's plate. "Someone has to balance out us muscle-heads."

  The final memory hit hardest.

  Their last real conversation. Akane's room, a couple of nights before the Shibuya dungeon. Her sister sat cross-legged on the bed, sharpening her daggers while Suzume helped her pack potions.

  "You know what I love about you?" Akane said suddenly.

  "My sparkling personality?"

  "You're the smart one, Suzu." Akane set down the blade. "I mean really smart. Not just good-at-tests smart."

  "You're smart too."

  "No, I'm clever. There's a difference." Akane picked up another dagger, testing its edge. "Clever gets you through the day. Smart changes things. You'll cure cancer or invent flying cars or something amazing."

  "And you'll be the number one Player in Japan."

  "Maybe." Akane's smile turned thoughtful. "But that's just hitting things really hard with style. What you'll do? That matters."

  "Akane—"

  "Promise me something."

  "What?"

  "When you do change the world, make sure you dedicate your Nobel Prize to your badass older sister."

  "Deal."

  They'd laughed. Suzume had thrown a pillow at her. Akane had threatened to tell everyone about Suzume's middle school poetry phase.

  Three days later, Akane was dead.

  [I'm supposed to be smart.]

  The memories faded. Suzume stood in the bone chamber, trembling at shadows, paralyzed by water drops. All that potential, all those expectations, and here she was about to become another gnawed skeleton in a C-rank dungeon.

  [No.]

  The word surprised her. It came from somewhere deeper than thought. Deeper than fear.

  [I'm a genius. I studied. I prepared. I know things.]

  She pulled up her status window. Level 4. HP full from regeneration. MP at 95. Toolkit available in twelve minutes. Emergency Treatment ready.

  She had tools. She had knowledge.

  She had a brain that everyone always said was special.

  [Time to prove it.]

  A newfound energy burned through her.

  She studied the bone chamber properly this time. Not just looking for threats but analyzing. The gnaw marks were consistent. Same size jaw. Same angle of bite. One creature, not multiple. The bones were dragged from the left tunnel, eaten here, discarded to the right.

  A feeding chamber. Which meant the left led to hunting grounds and the right led to a den.

  [Neither sounds fun.]

  But dens meant the creature would be there. Hunting grounds meant it might be out.

  She went left.

  The tunnel sloped up sharply. Her boots struggled for purchase on stone worn smooth by something heavy dragging prey. She used her hands, climbing more than walking.

  A sound echoed from below. Claws on stone. Something was coming up behind her.

  She climbed faster. The sound got closer. She could hear breathing now. Wet. Ragged. Excited.

  The tunnel leveled out. She ran.

  Behind her, something burst from the tunnel. She didn't look back. Looking back was how people died in places like this.

  But she listened. Counted the footfalls. Four legs. Heavy. Fast but not faster than her. Something built for ambush, not pursuit.

  [I can outrun it.]

  The thought was clinical. Calculated. The genius everyone always talked about finally showing up when it mattered.

  She ran into darkness, leaving whatever it was snarling in frustration behind her.