The smoke ahead of them thickened first, gathering low across the ruined street in patterns too deliberate to be drifting on any actual wind, curling and pooling at three distinct points spaced evenly across the cracked pavement.
Then it began to take shape.
Three silhouettes formed slow out of the black, condensing from haze into something solid, something with edges and weight and a presence that made the hair on the back of Jin's neck rise before his eyes had even finished processing what he was looking at. The fire still burning through the distant skyline cast their forming shapes in flickering orange light, sharpening details a heartbeat before Jin's mind was actually ready to accept them.
None of them carried visible weapons. None of them needed to.
