The girl’s hand trembled as she reached for the shard. It wasn't a gentle touch. The moment her skin made contact with the Black Glass, the air in the factory screamed.

  It wasn't a sound you heard with your ears; it was a pressure wave that rattled your teeth. The purple smoke swirled violently, sucked into the girl’s body as if she were a vacuum. She didn't scream. She didn't have time.

  Her back arched, snapping with a wet, sickening crack. Shadows erupted from her pores, solidifying into jagged plates of obsidian armor. Her jaw unhinged, stretching wide as rows of needle-like teeth pushed through her gums. In seconds, the terrified teenager was gone. In her place stood a Void Fiend-a lanky, twitching nightmare of bone and shadow, standing seven feet tall on reverse-jointed legs.

  The cultists screamed. The front row scrambled back, tripping over their robes in a desperate bid to escape the monster they had just worshipped.

  "Beautiful," the man in the white suit whispered, his eyes wide with fanatic delight.

  "Wrong word," I muttered, stepping out from the shadows.

  No time for a witty one-liner. The gas mask came off and hit the concrete. My teeth gritted together, the words of the 'manual trigger' Kibi had forced me to memorize tasting like copper in my mouth.

  A quick glance sideways. No phones out. No one filming. Small mercies.

  "By the light of the twin stars," I forced out, the words scraping past my pride like broken glass, "I manifest the iron will. Misaki... reporting for duty."

  Time dilated. A kaleidoscope of pink and gold light exploded around me, blindingly bright against the factory’s gloom. It wasn't a gentle glow; it was a high-pressure surge of mana that felt like being hit by a flashbang at point-blank range. Ribbons of glowing mana wrapped around my limbs, weaving the fabric of my combat dress. It was the kind of sequence that belonged on Sunday morning *shōjo* anime-sparkles, floating hearts, the whole nine yards.

  But the sound wasn't a chime. It was the heavy, rhythmic clank of a bolt carrier group cycling. The ribbons didn't feel like silk; they tightened like Kevlar straps. The frilly skirt materialized with the weight of ballistic weave.

  When the light faded, I wasn't a high school student anymore. I was a weapon.

  Yōko and Inko cleared their holsters in one fluid motion. The twin pistols hummed in my hands, their weight familiar and grounding.

  The Void Fiend shrieked-a sound like tearing metal-and lunged.

  It was fast. Faster than a human, faster than most low-level Fiends. It closed the distance in a blur of shadow. I sidestepped, the wind of its claws cutting a few strands of my hair.

  *Target acquired. Hostile. Erratic movement pattern.*

  Yōko came up. The white pistol flared. *Bang. Bang.*

  Two beams of concentrated light slammed into the Fiend’s shoulder, shattering the obsidian plating. It stumbled, screeching, but didn't stop. It lashed out with a tail I hadn't noticed a second ago, a whip of solid shadow.

  My body dropped flat, sliding across the concrete floor. The tail smashed into a support pillar, pulverizing the brickwork. Dust and debris rained down.

  "Kibi! Analysis!" I shouted, rolling to my feet.

  "It’s unstable!" Kibi’s voice crackled in my ear piece, though he was hiding somewhere in the rafters. "The shard is overloading its biology. It’s burning out fast, but that makes it dangerous. Don't let it touch you!"

  "Noted."

  The story has been taken without consent; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.

  Inko came up next. The black pistol absorbed the ambient light, its muzzle flash a dark void. A rapid-fire barrage tore toward the joints. The shadow bullets didn't pierce; they corroded. The Fiend’s knee buckled as the void energy ate away at the bone.

  It fell, thrashing. No hesitation. This wasn't a duel; it was an extermination. My legs carried me forward, vaulting over a pile of rotting crates to get a clear line of sight on its head.

  "Sorry, kid," I whispered.

  Both guns leveled. The "Double Tap." Yōko's light to crack the physical shell, Inko's shadow to kill what lived inside — a simultaneous discharge designed to destabilize the target's core from both directions at once.

  My fingers squeezed the triggers.

  A wall of absolute darkness slammed down between us.

  My shots hit the barrier and dissipated like water on a hot pan. The recoil jarred my arms, but the impact was zero.

  The man in the white suit stood between me and the monster. He wasn't smiling anymore. He held one hand up, palm facing me, fingers curled as if gripping an invisible throat.

  "Crude," he said. His voice wasn't loud, but it cut through the chaos like a razor. "So crude. Is this the best the 'Guardians' have to offer? Gunpowder and brute force?"

  "It gets the job done," I gritted out, trying to re-aim.

  I couldn't move.

  Gravity increased tenfold around me. My knees slammed into the concrete. It felt like an invisible hydraulic press was pushing me into the floor. Yōko and Inko felt like they weighed a ton each.

  "You understand nothing of the Abyss," the Leader said, walking toward me. The Void Fiend chittered behind him, pacing like a restrained dog. "You treat it as a disease. A pestilence. But it is power. Pure, unadulterated power."

  He flicked his wrist. A tendril of shadow shot from the ground, wrapping around my throat. It lifted me inches off the floor. I clawed at it, but my fingers passed through the smoke. It was solid enough to choke me, intangible enough to ignore my grip.

  "I could let her eat you," he mused, glancing back at the twitching abomination. "It would be poetic. The hunter becoming the meal."

  My vision started to spot. Oxygen deprivation. Options... limited. Magic... suppressed.

  Physical countermeasures... available.

  My hand drifted to my belt. Not to a magazine pouch, but to a small, cylindrical canister.

  "You talk... too much," I wheezed.

  I pulled the pin and dropped it.

  *Flashbang.*

  The explosion was deafening. A blinding white magnesium flare erupted in the confined space. It wasn't magic. It was chemistry. And unlike mana, you couldn't counterspell a few million candelas of light searing your retinas.

  The Leader screamed, clutching his eyes. The shadow tendril around my neck vanished as his concentration broke.

  I hit the ground coughing, my eyes already squeezed shut, my combat visor filtering out the worst of the glare.

  No time wasted on him. A roll forward, coming up in a crouch. The Void Fiend was thrashing blindly, disoriented by the noise and light.

  The barrels of Yōko and Inko pressed against the center of its chest, right where the human heart used to be.

  "Dismissed," I said.

  Both triggers pulled.

  There was no barrier this time. Light drilled from the left, shadow from the right, meeting in the center. A sphere of silver radiance expanded — then collapsed into nothing. Yōko's beam crumbled the bone to powder; Inko's bolt devoured the essence that clung to it. The Fiend didn't scream. It just... unraveled.

  In a second, there was nothing left but a scorch mark on the floor and the lingering smell of ozone.

  Both guns swung up, searching for the Leader.

  The back wall of the factory had collapsed. A jagged hole led out into the night. He was gone.

  "Coward," I spat, lowering my weapons.

  The adrenaline crash hit me a second later. My knees wobbled, and I had to lean against a rusted loom to stay upright. The silence in the factory was heavy. The cultists had fled during the fight. It was just me, the dust, and the empty space where a girl had died.

  My eyes found the scorch mark. No triumph. Just a bone-deep weariness that settled over me like a familiar coat. The same feeling that had followed me out of Fallujah. Out of Mogadishu. Out of every nameless crossroads where I'd pulled a trigger and watched someone stop being a person.

  The objective was complete. The hostile was neutralized. But the cost — the cost was always someone's daughter.

  A soft *thump* on my shoulder made me flinch.

  "You’re sloppy," Kibi said, settling down on my epaulet.

  "I’m alive," I countered, holstering my guns. "And the target is down."

  "The *pawn* is down," Kibi corrected, his voice unusually serious. "The player walked away. And he toyed with you, Misaki. If you hadn't used that thingy, you would be dead. Your assessment was flawed."

  Every instinct screamed to argue, to tell him to shut up. But he was right.

  "He blocked a Double Tap," I said quietly. "With one hand."

  "Exactly. You’re a veteran, Misaki. You’re skilled. But you’re fighting a war against an army with a single pistol. You can't keep doing this solo."

  Kibi licked a paw, smoothing down his fur.

  "You need helpers. You need backup. You need a... team."

  The hole in the wall gaped like an open wound, darkness stretching out beyond the city lights.

  "I work alone, Kibi."

  "Then you’ll die alone," the fox said bluntly. "And the Abyss will win."

  No answer. Just a turn toward the exit, the weight of the night pressing down on my shoulders.