The fire door clicked shut behind Hina, and with it, the last vestige of the "Grand Imperial's" luxury vanished.
The stairwell was a tomb of raw concrete, steel, and vibrating fluorescent tubes. The air was stale, smelling of industrial cleaner and the faint, coppery tang of the blood leaking through the seals of the black duffel bag.
Hina stood for a moment on the bottom landing, her eyes fixed on the illuminated red "1" on the wall.
Her heart didn't race or pound with the fear of a normal girl entering a slaughterhouse. Instead, it beat with a slow, rhythmic thud—a drummer marking time for an execution. But deep in her mind, a memory flickered, unbidden and sharp.
"I am Aiko Nakamura!!"
"I am Shota!! Shota Watanabe!!"
"My name is Rina Kobayashi!!"
The names of her old friends, the group of strangers who had offered her a seat in a park when she was a ghost seeking a haunt, during her 'past'. During that time, for a few weeks, Hina had allowed herself to play a role to feel what 'love' was.
She had smiled and even introduced herself as "Hina Ishikawa." She had almost believed that she could exist without a blade in her sleeve.
But the world she belonged to didn't allow for parks and pink-haired girls. It only allowed for stairs and shadows.
"You can run as far as you want, but destiny will always catch up to you, Hina. It will only be a matter of time until you come back to me." Her father's words echoed in her mind, but she tried to ignore everything.
Hina adjusted the weight of the bag on her shoulder.
Luigi Morsuno's head bumped against her hip, a cold and heavy reminder of the "gift" she owed her father.
Then, she reached into the folds of her oversized trench coat and gripped the handle of her combat knife. The cold steel felt more honest than the memory of the park.
She began climbing the stairs.
The first floor wasn't far, but the silence made the distance feel infinite. The hum of the building's emergency systems was the only sound, a low-frequency vibration that rattled her teeth.
As she reached the first emergency door, Hina slowed.
Her senses, sharpened by years of Sabushi's brutal tutelage, caught the change in the air. A faint scent of cheap tobacco mixed with the sound of the soft scuff of a boot on grit.
She didn't wait to be ambushed.
Hina exploded into motion. She slammed her shoulder into the fire door of the first floor, swinging it open just enough to see two figures standing in the dim light of the hallway.
They were Sabushi's men—standard guards in black tactical vests, armed with suppressed submachine guns.
They weren't expecting her to come through the door like a hurricane.
The first guard barely had time to raise his weapon before Hina was on him. She didn't use her knife yet. She swung the heavy duffel bag with a violent, centrifugal force. The bag, weighted by the frozen skull of Luigi Morsuno, slammed into the side of the guard's head with a sickening crack. He went down instantly, his neck snapping under the unnatural impact of the "offering."
The second guard scrambled back, his fingers fumbling for the trigger of his MP5.
Hina dived low, sliding across the polished floorboards. She came up beneath his guard, her knife flashing in the flickering light. The blade entered under his chin and exited through the roof of his mouth, silencing his scream before it could even form. She held him for a second, her grey eyes wide and unblinking, watching the light fade from his pupils.
She let the body slump to the floor. No remorse. No hesitation. Just the cold efficiency of a machine.
"Two," she whispered to the empty hallway.
She stood up, wiping the blade on the guard's vest. The hallway of the first floor was lined with high-end boutiques—jewelers and tailors that were now dark and boarded up.
The silence returned, heavier than before, until a familiar voice broke it.
"You always were a fast learner, Hina-chan."
The voice came from the shadows at the end of the hallway, near the entrance to a closed watch shop. It was a voice Hina recognized, but warped by years of decay and bitterness.
She immediately moved her gaze towards the source of the sound, and then a figure stepped into the pool of light beneath a buzzing neon sign.
Hina's grip on her knife tightened. Her mind flashed back to the park again.
It was the voice of the "fat but nice" guy. The one who had looked at her with such pathetic, yearning eyes while she had laughed with Shota.
Riku Matsuda.
But the man standing before her wasn't the Riku she remembered. The soft, rounded edges of his face had been hollowed out by drug use and the punishing "second chance" Sabushi had given him.
He was emaciated, his skin a sickly, translucent grey, and his eyes were bloodshot and frantic. He wore a tactical vest that looked too large for his shrunken frame, and a jagged scar ran from his ear to the corner of his mouth—a permanent sneer.
"Riku," Hina said, her voice devoid of emotion.
"Oh, so you remember me?" Riku laughed, a dry, hacking sound that ended in a cough. He stepped forward, dragging one foot slightly. "I thought you'd forgotten all about the 'coolest people in the area.' I thought you were too busy playing house with your new little pet. The white-haired boy."
Hina's eyes narrowed into slits. The mention of Kai in Riku's mouth felt like a profanity.
"You look terrible, Riku," Hina said flatly.
"Do I? Well, that's what happens when the girl you love turns you into a laughingstock in front of everyone," Riku spat, his voice rising in pitch. He began to pace, his hands twitching near the holstered pistol on his hip. "I loved you, Hina. I would have given you anything. But you chose Shota. That pretty-boy idiot. And when I tried to show you how much I cared, when I followed you to make sure you were safe... You humiliated me. You broke me."
Hina remembered that night. Riku had been stalking her for weeks, hiding in the bushes outside her apartment, leaving morbid letters in her locker. She hadn't been scared—she had been disgusted.
She had waited until the whole group was gathered at the park, and then she had laid bare every one of his pathetic secrets. She had watched him crumble, his face turning bright red as Aiko and Rina looked at him with horror.
"You weren't a lover, Riku. You were a parasite, a stalker, a disgusting person," Hina said, stepping over the corpse of the guard. "I didn't break you. I just showed you what you were. In fact, look at yourself now."
"And what am I now?" Riku screamed, suddenly drawing his gun. He didn't point it at her; he pointed it at the ceiling, his hand shaking violently. "Sabushi found me in a gutter, Hina! He gave me a purpose! He told me that one day, you'd come back. He told me that I'd be the first thing you saw on your way to the top. He gave me the first floor because he knew I'd enjoy it the most."
Hina watched him, her body coiled like a spring. She saw the tremor in his hands, the sweat beading on his forehead.
He was high on something—the "Special" project drugs, most likely. Sabushi used them to turn broken men into loyal dogs. They were the same ones Hina usually used to forget her past momentarily.
"Is this the 'salvage' Sabushi promised you?" Hina asked, her voice a deadly whisper. "To die in a hallway while your 'father' watches from a penthouse?"
"I'm not the one who's going to die today," Riku said, finally leveling the gun at her chest. "Sabushi told me everything. He told me about Kai. He told me how much you love that little brat. He told me how you killed Shota and Aiko. It's pathetic, Hina. You, the 'Blade,' are falling for a sheep. Does he know what you really are? Does he know about the blood on your hands? Or does he see the 'Hina Ishikawa' who likes pastries and comic books?"
Hina didn't flinch. The mention of her apartment, her private life, and the comic books proved that Sabushi had been watching her more closely than she ever imagined.
And the fact that he openly accused her of Shota's death crossed the line.
Her eyes widened to the point of becoming two grey abysses.
"Kai knows exactly what I am," Hina said, her voice gaining a chilling, possessive edge. "And he loves me for it. He's down there right now, Riku, clearing the garage while you're up here talking. He's more of a man than you'll ever be."
She didn't even want to explain what happened to Shota. She had no time to waste, and speaking to a dead man would've been useless.
"Liar!" Riku roared. He lunged forward, his finger tightening on the trigger.
Hina was faster.
She didn't move toward him; she dived behind a heavy marble pedestal that held a display of silk scarves. Riku fired, the suppressed shots thwip-thwiping into the fabric, shredding the expensive silk into colorful confetti.
"You think you're so much better than me!" Riku screamed, firing wildly. "You think you can just walk back in here and take everything! But you're trapped, Hina! Every floor is a memory you tried to kill! Every landing is a person you stepped on!"
Hina moved with the shadows. She was a ghost in the Grand Imperial.
She circled the pedestal, her boots making no sound on the carpeted floor. She could hear Riku's ragged breathing, the frantic clicking of his gun as he searched for her.
"Where are you?! Show yourself, you bitch!"
But the only thing he saw was her oversized trench coat flying past him
Hina appeared behind him like a nightmare manifesting.
She didn't use the knife. She dropped the duffel bag and grabbed Riku's wrist, twisting it until the bone groaned.
The gun clattered to the floor. Before he could scream, she slammed her palm into his chest, driving the air from his lungs, and pinned him against the cold glass of the watch shop window.
Riku gasped, his eyes bulging as he looked into Hina's grey irises.
There was no mercy there. No nostalgia. Just a void.
"You want to talk about the park, Riku?" Hina whispered, her face inches from his. "I remember the park. I remember how Aiko's hair smelled like strawberries. I remember the way Shota's hand felt in mine. I remember when we used to hang out together. I remember Shota's betrayal... it was the only time I felt... human."
She leaned in closer, her grip on his throat tightening.
"But then I remembered that people like you exist—people who want to own something they can't understand. Sabushi didn't save you, Riku. He just found a tool that was already broken and sent it to die, to see if I'm still worthy."
"Kill... me..." Riku wheezed, blood flecking his lips. "Just... do it... You monster..."
"No," Hina said, a slow, terrifying smile spreading across her face. "Killing you is too easy. You're going to stay here and watch the building burn. You're going to watch from the first floor while I take the freedom that Sabushi has stolen from me."
After speaking these words, Hina didn't kill him.
Instead, she slammed his head into the glass window with a brutal, calculated force. The glass spider-webbed but didn't break.
Riku slumped to the floor, unconscious and bleeding, his "second chance" ending in a heap of shame.
If this had happened before she met Kai, Hina would have already slit his throat. But after everything they had been through together, killing no longer felt the same.
She couldn't just be a weapon anymore.
If she wanted a normal life with him, she had to become something else… something better.
Hina stood over him for a second, her chest rising and falling in shallow breaths. The memory of the "Coolest People" felt more distant now, like a photograph being burned from the edges.
To make sure he wouldn't get up again, Hina stripped off her oversized cargo pants, exposing the tactical gear beneath, then used the heavy fabric to bind his legs and her oversized trench coat to tie and gag him.
She didn't want other intruders.
She picked up the duffel bag. The weight of Luigi's head felt lighter now, or perhaps she was just getting used to the burden.
She walked back to the fire door and looked up at the stairs.
"One down," she whispered. "Forty-nine to go."
As she pushed open the door to the next landing, a second explosion rocked the hotel—this one much closer than the first. The lights flickered and died, leaving the stairwell in a pulsing, red emergency glow.
Hina looked up into the crimson shadows. She could hear the sound of footsteps above her—many footsteps. The next floor wouldn't be a single ghost. It would be an army.
She took a breath, adjusted her grip on her knife, and began the long climb toward her father.