The clash of steel against synthetic armor rang out like a cracked bell, echoing off the limestone cliffs.
Hagi moved like a phantom, a blur of black fabric and silver blade. He parried a vibrating combat knife aimed at his throat, spinning his body with a fluidity that defied physics, and brought his sword down in a diagonal arc. The blade bit into the Chimera soldier's shoulder, sparking against the reinforced plating before slicing through to the flesh beneath.
Black blood sprayed across the white stone of the tomb entrance.
But it wasn't enough.
In 2005, that strike would have cleaved the man in two. Tonight, Hagi's arms felt like they were filled with lead. The hunger was a physical weight, a hollow pit in his stomach that sapped the explosive power from his muscles. He landed from the strike and stumbled, his breath coming in ragged gasps that burned his dry throat.
"Target confirmed," a soldier announced, his voice devoid of fear. "The Guardian is compromised. Power levels critical. Engage suppression tactics."
Three soldiers lunged at once.
"Hagi, look out!" Kai screamed, grabbing a rock from the ground—a useless gesture, but his body moved on instinct.
Hagi didn't look. He felt the displacement of air. He ducked under a swinging rifle butt, but a heavy boot caught him in the ribs. The impact lifted him off his feet and slammed him against the stone wall of the tomb.
Pain, sharp and blinding, exploded in his side. Hagi slid down the wall, coughing. He tasted copper. He tried to raise his sword, but his fingers were trembling uncontrollably.
Thirty years, he thought, watching the green eyes of the soldiers closing in. I only lasted thirty seconds.
"Suppressing fire!" David roared. The old agent had braced himself against a tree stump, firing his heavy pistol with a rhythmic, steady cadence. Bang. Bang. Bang.
One soldier's visor shattered, dropping him. Another took a round to the knee. But there were too many of them, and David was reloading, his hands fumbling with the magazine in the dark.
A soldier raised a heavy, blunt-force baton, electricity arcing blue across its surface. He aimed it at Hagi's head.
"Secure the specimen," the soldier ordered.
Hagi gritted his teeth, preparing to force his body into one last, suicidal lunge. He would not let them enter the tomb. He would die in the doorway if he had to.
But the blow never landed.
A hand—pale, slender, and trembling—reached out from the darkness of the open tomb door. It gripped the edge of the stone frame.
The air in the clearing shifted. The static charge that David and Kai had felt earlier suddenly spiked, becoming a suffocating pressure. The cicadas, which had been silent, began to screech in a frenzy.
The Chimera soldiers froze. Their helmet sensors were screaming.
From the shadows, a girl stepped out.
She was wearing the same school uniform she had worn three decades ago—the white shirt now yellowed with age, the red tie dusty. Her black hair was matted, hanging loose around her face. She walked unsteadily, blinking against the harsh red light of the drone flare overhead.
She looked like a ghost. She looked like a child.
But when she lifted her head, her eyes were glowing a deep, blood-red.
"Saya..." Kai breathed, the rock falling from his hand.
Saya looked at the soldiers. She looked at Hagi, slumped against the wall, bleeding. Her expression was blank, her mind still swimming in the murky waters of long-term hibernation. She didn't know where she was. She didn't know the year.
But she knew the smell of Hagi's blood.
A low growl started in her throat. It wasn't a human sound.
The soldier with the baton turned toward her. "Queen identified. Switch to tranquil—"
He didn't finish the sentence.
Saya didn't have a sword. She didn't need one. She launched herself at him, moving not with grace, but with pure, animalistic ferocity. She tackled the armored man, slamming him into the ground with a force that cracked the limestone pavement. Her hand clamped over his helmet, crushing the sensors, her fingers digging into the metal like claws.
"SAYA! NO!" Hagi screamed, forcing himself up.
He knew the danger. She had just woken up. She was in a Berserker state—pure instinct, no reason. If she lost control now, she wouldn't just kill the soldiers; she would kill Kai. She would kill David. She would tear the world apart until she was fed.
Saya raised her fist to strike again, but a blinding spotlight cut through the trees, accompanied by the roar of a high-performance electric engine.
A modified delivery van—painted a garish neon blue with the Omoro Restaurant logo on the side—smashed through the brush, catching air as it crested the hill. It drifted sideways, tires screaming, kicking up a storm of dirt and gravel that blinded the remaining soldiers.
The side door of the van flew open before it even stopped moving.
"GET IN!" a young voice yelled. "DAD! UNCLE DAVID! NOW!"
Ren was behind the wheel, looking terrified but gripping the steering wheel like a lifeline.
David didn't hesitate. He grabbed Kai by the collar. "Move!"
Kai scrambled toward the van, but he looked back. "Saya! Hagi!"
Hagi was already moving. He wasn't fighting anymore. He dropped his sword into its sheath and lunged for Saya. She was still pinning the soldier, confused by the bright lights, her lips pulled back in a snarl.
Hagi grabbed her shoulders. "Saya! Look at me!"
She whipped her head around, snapping at him. Her red eyes locked onto his blue ones.
For a second, she didn't recognize him. He was older. Thinner. Dying.
But then, he placed his hand on her cheek. His skin was ice cold.
"It is Hagi," he whispered, his voice breaking. "We are going home."
The red in her eyes flickered. The tension in her body snapped. Her knees buckled as the adrenaline of the awakening faded, leaving her with thirty years of atrophy. She collapsed into his arms, dead weight.
Hagi groaned under the strain, his own legs trembling, but he lifted her. He ran—a stumbling, desperate lunge toward the van.
Bullets sparked against the gravel around his feet.
"Covering fire!" Ren shouted, producing a flare gun from the dashboard and firing it blindly out the window. The magnesium flare exploded in the center of the clearing, creating a wall of blinding white smoke.
David grabbed Hagi's coat and hauled him into the back of the van. Hagi fell onto the metal floor, shielding Saya's unconscious body with his own. Kai dove in last, slamming the sliding door shut just as a hail of gunfire erupted from the smoke.
"GO! GO! GO!" David slammed his hand against the partition.
Ren punched the accelerator. The electric van whined, torque kicking in instantly. They peeled out, bouncing violently over the uneven terrain, crashing through the undergrowth and back onto the paved road leading down the cliff.
The van swerved around a hairpin turn, tires screeching, leaving the red glow of the drone and the chaos of the tomb behind them.
Inside the van, the only sound was the heavy breathing of four people and the hum of the engine.
It was dark, illuminated only by the passing streetlights of Koza flashing through the rear window in rhythmic bursts of orange and white.
Kai sat on the floor, his back against the wheel well. He was shaking. He looked across the van.
Hagi was sitting against the opposite wall, his legs sprawled out. His head was tipped back, eyes closed, his chest heaving as he tried to force air into his starving lungs. He looked like a porcelain doll that had been dropped and glued back together—fragile, cracked, and beautiful.
And in his lap, curled up like a child, was Saya.
She was asleep again, or maybe just unconscious from the shock. Her hand was clutching the lapel of Hagi's trench coat so tightly her knuckles were white.
"Is she..." Kai started, his voice cracking.
Hagi opened his eyes. They were dim, the bioluminescence faded to a dull, cloudy gray. "She is alive. She is merely... empty."
David was up front in the passenger seat, reloading his magazine with methodical clicks. "Ren, don't go to the restaurant. They know where we live. Head to the Safehouse. The garage in the Industrial District."
"On it," Ren said, his voice shaky but determined. "Who... who were those guys? They looked like robots."
"Later," David said. "Just drive."
In the back, movement stirred.
Saya shifted. She let out a small, pained sound. Slowly, agonizingly, she pushed herself up. She blinked, looking around the cramped, moving metal box. She looked at Hagi, who offered her a weak, reassuring nod.
Then, she turned her head and looked at Kai.
Kai held his breath. He didn't know what to expect. Would she remember? Had the hibernation wiped her memories again? Was she still the girl who had fought on the roof of the Opera House, or was she a blank slate?
Saya stared at him. Her eyes were no longer red. They were brown—warm, deep, and familiar. She squinted slightly, studying the lines on his face, the gray in his hair, the way his shoulders slumped.
She reached out. Her hand shook as she touched his knee.
"Kai?"
Her voice was rough, unused. It sounded like gravel.
Kai let out a sob he had been holding back for thirty years. He covered her hand with his own. His hand was rougher now, calloused from work, while hers was still the soft hand of a sixteen-year-old girl.
"Yeah, Saya," Kai choked out, tears streaming freely down his face. "It's me."
Saya tilted her head. A small, tired smile touched her lips—the first real expression she had made since waking up.
"You got old," she whispered.
Kai laughed, a wet, ragged sound. "Yeah. I did. I had to catch up to you, didn't I?"
"Did you..." She paused, looking around the van. "Did you wait?"
"Every day," Kai said. "We opened the restaurant. I kept your room ready. I..." He couldn't finish.
Saya leaned forward and buried her face in Kai's shoulder. She didn't cry; she was too dehydrated, too exhausted. She just held onto him, anchoring herself in the smell of tempura and soap that had always been Kai.
"I'm hungry," she mumbled into his shirt.
"I know," Kai said, stroking her matted hair. "I know. We'll get you something. Just rest now."
Hagi watched them from across the van. A look of profound relief washed over his sharp features. The tension that had held his body together for decades seemed to evaporate, leaving him looking incredibly weary.
He looked at his own hands. They were trembling violently. The skin on his fingertips was beginning to turn a faint, bruised purple—the first sign of cellular destabilization. He hid his hands inside his coat sleeves.
"Hagi," Saya murmured, pulling back from Kai but keeping one hand on his arm. She looked at her Chevalier. "You are here."
"I am here," Hagi said softly. "I promised."
"You look..." Saya frowned, her brow furrowing. She reached toward him, sensing what Kai couldn't. She could feel the hollowness in him through their bond. "Hagi, you need—"
"I am fine," Hagi interrupted gently. He forced himself to sit straighter, masking the tremors. "Rest, Saya. We are safe."
Safe.
The word hung in the air, heavy with irony.
Kai looked out the back window. The city of Koza was fading behind them, swallowed by the darkness. But high above the skyline, barely visible against the clouds, the red eye of the drone was still watching, tracking their heat signatures.
They had the Queen. But the war hadn't ended. It had just been waiting for them to wake up.