Yuki woke with a violent gasp.
Air rushed into her lungs as if she had been drowning in someone else's nightmare. Her vision sharpened unnaturally fast, colors snapping into focus with a predatory vibrancy she had never experienced before. The ceiling above her looked the same as it always had—the peeling paint, the water stain shaped like a crooked heart—but somehow she could see every crack, every dust thread drifting lazily through the air.
She sat up slowly.
And that's when she felt it.
Her body was different.
Her jawline had sharpened into a sculpted, supermodel-like angle. Her shoulders were broader, her neck longer, her limbs slightly elongated like she'd been stretched by some celestial tailor. Even her posture had changed—straight, confident, inhumanly poised.
Her brown hair collapsed over her shoulders in a silky wave, but as she moved, the strands shimmered—then darkened, shifting shade like ink spreading in water. A ripple of pitch-black surged from root to end until her hair was the color of pure void.
Yuki touched it with trembling fingers.
"No… way…"
It wasn't dyed. It was alive. A ghoul's transformation.
The loyalty test had done something to her. Not just spiritually, not mentally—physically.
It had awakened something buried.
Something monstrous.
Something hers.
The room shook suddenly. Not from an earthquake, but from a pressure—two forces colliding, then a third snapping into place. It was spiritual tension thick enough to crush a human's lungs.
Yuki stood.
Her feet felt magnetized to the ground, like gravity had tripled under her. She inhaled, and the taste of the air changed—metal, smoke, and…
Blood.
Lots of blood.
She swung the door open.
The sky outside the web compound pulsed with distorted energy. Three territories—three webs—were clashing in the human world.
Web 678.
The violent ones. The unpredictable ones. Ghoul killers who wore the number like a badge of arrogance.
Her web—the Web of the Sacrificed.
Those molded by loss. Those who summoned their strength from pain, from betrayal, from the bodies left behind.
And…
The Pure Ghouls.
Soul-munchers. Monsters of the old line. Ghouls with no humanity left, no masks, no hesitation.
They flickered across the sky like shadows ripping holes in reality.
Yuki didn't hesitate.
She ran.
Her speed was no longer human. The world warped around her, buildings blurring into streaks of gray. Her heartbeat was steady, powerful—like a drum announcing war.
When she reached the open streets of the city, chaos was already unfolding.
Cars were overturned, alarms blaring. The air stank of panic, gasoline, and burning electricity. Humans were running for cover, ducking behind anything they could, screaming as shadows zipped past them.
And above them—
The three webs tore into each other.
Members of Web 678 leapt from rooftop to rooftop, their bodies enhanced and snarling, their red sigils flashing like neon death marks.
The Sacrificed Web fighters moved differently—quiet, deadly, calculating. Every move they made seemed guided by grief sharpened into precision.
The Soul-Munchers were the worst. Their bodies were skeletal and flexible, their jaws unhinged wider than human anatomy should allow. Their energy was sickening, ancient, hungry.
It was a warzone.
It was deliberate.
They chose the human world on purpose, because it gave them something they all wanted—
A stage.
A witness.
Power.
Yuki stepped out into the open street as three fighters landed in front of her—one from each web.
They didn't speak.
They didn't need to.
They recognized her.
And they all wanted to be the first to kill her.
Her heart didn't race.
Her palms didn't sweat.
In fact—she felt calm. Too calm. As if her mind was being held in place by invisible hands.
She stretched her fingers. Tendons popped. Her knuckles cracked like a promise.
"I'm not picking a side," she said quietly.
The wind seemed to stop moving.
They lunged at her simultaneously.
And Yuki moved.
Her new strength surged through her like liquid lightning. She dodged the first strike, grabbed the second attacker's throat, and hurled him across the street. His body crashed through a parked car, folding it in half.
The third leapt at her, teeth bared, claws extended.
Yuki stepped aside with a dancer's grace, grabbed his arm mid-air, twisted, and slammed him into the pavement so hard the concrete spider-webbed beneath them.
Her breathing remained steady.
Her eyes remained cold.
She stood alone, surrounded but not threatened. A single fighter in the middle of a three-way war.
Above her, sniper scopes flickered with red dots.
Not ghoul snipers.
Human snipers.
The FBI.
They had formed a perimeter at the edge of the chaos. Armored vehicles lined the block. Agents crouched behind barricades, shouting into radios, tracking every move of the battle with horrified confusion.
But they didn't intervene.
They watched.
One agent in particular couldn't tear his eyes away.
Zero.
He clutched the side of a black SUV, his hand trembling as he watched Yuki from across the street. His face drained of color, turning a faint purple hue of shock, disbelief, and something darker.
He recognized what she was.
He recognized the transformation.
His voice cracked as he whispered:
"…Yuki is a ghoul."
His partner asked something, but Zero didn't hear it.
All he saw was the girl he once protected standing in the middle of an inhuman battlefield—beautiful, terrifying, reborn.
A monster.
A queen.
A threat.
A miracle.
All at once.
And Yuki—didn't even know he was watching.
The air throbbed with supernatural pressure as the three webs clashed in violent bursts of glowing sigils and tearing shadows. Yuki stood in the center of it all, her transformed body radiating a quiet, terrifying power. A chill wind curled around her ankles, tugging at her new pitch-black hair as the battlefield seemed to react to her presence.
More fighters descended.
The first wave had been a test.
This second wave was the real attack.
A member of Web 678 sprinted across the cracked asphalt, electricity crackling along his arms. His weapon—a chain laced with cursed metal—whipped through the air in a shrill, slicing arc.
"Stay down!" he roared, swinging for her neck.
Yuki ducked under the chain, feeling it pass a hair's width above her. Her hand shot up, grabbing the weapon mid-swing. Sparks exploded where her fingers touched the cursed metal, but she didn't let go.
Her strength simply overpowered it.
She yanked the chain forward, dragging the fighter with it. He stumbled, eyes widening, as she planted her foot and kicked him square in the chest. The force launched him backward like a rocket.
He tore through a street sign.
Then a brick wall.
Then silence.
A member of the Sacrificed Web rushed her next, eyes dead but determined. He wielded a blade that vibrated with souls—the weapon of someone who had lost too much to ever fear pain again.
"Yuki," he muttered, voice flat. "Stand with us or fall under us."
Yuki stared at him, unblinking.
"I'm done choosing sides."
She grabbed his arm mid-strike, twisted it behind his back with a sickening pop, and flung him into a Soul-Muncher leaping from behind. Their bodies collided mid-air, crashing into the ground in a tangled heap of limbs and curses.
Without pause, Yuki spun on her heel as another shadow lunged at her from the right—a Soul-Muncher with an elongated jaw dripping saliva that sizzled where it landed.
It screeched, its voice a distorted echo of ancient hunger.
The creature dove.
Yuki didn't hesitate.
She punched it in the throat.
The impact sent the monster skidding backward scraping across the pavement, its neck twisted at an unnatural angle. It gurgled, trying to readjust its jaw, when Yuki was suddenly in front of it again—her speed now a blur.
She stomped down on its chest. Hard.
The creature screamed, then fell still.
She didn't look away from the chaos.
Didn't allow the horror of what she was doing to settle in her mind.
Didn't allow the human part of her to speak.
Right now, she was fighting as instinct demanded.
Not human.
Not ghoul.
Something in between.
Something new.
High above, flames erupted from a rooftop as two Web 678 fighters clashed with the Sacrificed Web's top enforcer. Their battle shook the edges of the building, each kick and strike sending shockwaves through the city.
A Soul-Muncher hurled itself from that rooftop like a falling star, claws aimed for Yuki's skull.
She didn't move.
She waited.
Waited until the creature was mere inches from her.
Then she pivoted, grabbed its arm, and slammed it into the ground with the brutal efficiency of a trained predator. The ground cracked like shattered glass. The monster's scream cut off abruptly as her heel drove into its chest.
The concrete beneath them cratered.
The FBI agents flinched at the impact. Cars alarmed. Windows rattled.
Humans were not meant to witness fights like this.
Still, the FBI did not interfere.
They filmed.
They watched.
They whispered.
Zero stood at the barricade, barely breathing as he tracked Yuki's movements. His pupils were blown wide, face pale, heart pounding with a mix of fear and awe.
The girl he once tried to understand—
the one who smiled shyly, who spoke softly,
who cried quietly—
was gone.
Or maybe this was who she had always been.
He didn't know.
A senior agent approached him.
"Zero, we need your assessment. Is she hostile?"
Zero swallowed hard, eyes never leaving Yuki.
"She's not attacking humans…" he whispered.
"But she's killing," the agent pressed.
Zero shook his head.
"She's defending herself. She's in the middle of… something else. Some kind of turf war."
The agent's brows narrowed. "You say that like you know her."
He didn't answer.
He couldn't.
Because at that exact moment, Yuki lifted her head.
Her black hair swirled like a dark halo. Her eyes glowed with an eerie, ghoul-like shimmer. And she was staring directly at the FBI barricade.
Directly at Zero.
Even with the distance between them, Zero felt the connection snap into place like a cord pulling tight around his spine.
She recognized him.
He wasn't sure whether that was good or bad.
A Soul-Muncher leapt at her from behind in that instant, but Yuki reacted with impossible precision—catching the creature mid-air by the skull and slamming it sideways into the ground.
She didn't break eye contact with Zero.
Not once.
Something flickered in her expression.
Something like… apology.
Or warning.
Or both.
Zero stepped forward, despite the agents shouting behind him.
"Yuki!" he called out before he could stop himself.
The sound of his voice cut through the battlefield like a blade.
Web 678 fighters froze.
Sacrificed Web members paused mid-strike.
Soul-Munchers hissed in agitation, sensing some shift.
Every eye turned to Yuki.
And she suddenly felt exposed.
Like her two worlds—the one she was born into, and the one she grew up pretending to belong to—were colliding in the worst possible way.
She clenched her fist.
This wasn't his place.
He wasn't supposed to be here.
The FBI was supposed to stay far, far away from ghoul wars.
The ground trembled under her feet as another massive figure approached.
A Web 678 captain—towering, scarred, and crackling with electricity—landed heavily on a crushed taxi.
He cracked his neck.
Smiled with cruelty.
And said, loud enough for everyone to hear:
"So the rumors are true…
The little girl finally woke up."
Yuki's jaw tightened.
Zero's hand curled into a fist.
The Web 678 captain stepped off the crushed taxi, electricity snaking across his skin like living chains. Each step sent vibrations through the asphalt, spreading dread through anyone with a pulse.
He was one of the originals.
A ghoul born in the deep pits of Ghoul City.
A creature whose heartbeat was said to stop at will.
And he wanted Yuki.
"Move aside," he growled to the fighters near her. "She's mine."
Several Sacrificed Web members instantly positioned themselves between Yuki and the captain, blades raised. Pen, breathless and bleeding from his temple, staggered over to join them.
"Over my dead body," Pen snarled.
The captain smirked and cracked his knuckles.
"That can be arranged."
Yuki stepped forward before Pen could charge.
Her voice was strangely calm.
"Back up."
Pen shook his head. "Yuki, are you crazy? That's—"
"I said back up."
Her tone carried something cold, something commanding—
something that felt ancient.
Pen's mouth snapped shut.
The air around her grew heavier, humming with that unfamiliar power awakened during her transformation. Even the captain paused, studying her more closely.
"So the rumors were right…" he said slowly. "You're not pure. Not sacrificed. Not even standard ghoul."
His lip curled.
"You're something wrong."
Yuki didn't respond.
Instead, her fingers flexed—too fluid, too graceful—like her bones had learned a new language.
The captain lunged.
Lightning exploded from his hand in a spear-shaped blast. It tore toward Yuki, slashing chunks from the pavement. FBI agents dove for cover as the bolt ripped apart a street barrier.
Yuki didn't dodge.
She stepped aside at the last possible second, her movement smooth and effortless. The attack collided with a street lamp behind her, snapping it clean in half.
The captain appeared behind her in a flash, electricity surging along his arm as he swung a fist aimed for her throat.
Yuki spun—just a quarter turn—enough to slide out of range.
His fist skimmed her jaw.
Even that slight touch burned.
But Yuki didn't stop moving.
She ducked, using the captain's momentum to her advantage, and slammed her elbow into his ribs. The impact echoed, but he barely flinched.
He grinned.
"Good. Fight me harder."
He grabbed her by the throat before she could pull away, slamming her into the ground. Her spine struck asphalt with a crack that made even the Soul-Munchers recoil.
Zero shouted her name.
Yuki barely heard him.
The captain lifted her by the neck, electricity crawling up his arm. "You should've stayed human. You were weaker that way."
Yuki's fingers trembled.
Then tightened.
Her eyes flashed—
Sakura's eyes.
Deep crimson, glowing like split moons.
The ground beneath them vibrated as something inside her surged to the surface.
She grabbed the captain's wrist.
And squeezed.
Cracks popped along his bones. His cocky grin faltered.
"What—?"
Yuki twisted with monstrous strength, flipping him over her shoulder and slamming him into the pavement so hard a crater formed beneath his body. Dust and concrete exploded upward.
For the first time, the captain struggled.
He shot lightning up at her, trying to push her away, but Yuki walked through it—hair whipping violently from the blast, skin stinging but refusing to burn.
Sakura's voice whispered inside her skull:
"Break him."
Her foot connected with the captain's chest, sending him sliding backward along the ground like a rag doll. He crashed into a parked truck, caving in the metal with the force of the impact.
Gasps rippled across the battlefield.
Web 678 froze.
Sacrificed Web held their breaths.
Soul-Munchers hissed in uneasy curiosity.
Yuki stood still, chest rising and falling.
Her black hair curled like shadows in the wind.
Her jawline sharp, eyes deadly.
Something about her presence was unnatural.
Something neither ghoul nor human could fully understand.
The captain dragged himself out of the crushed truck, coughing up dark blood. His electricity sputtered and cracked.
"You monster…" he spat.
Yuki didn't blink.
"Look who's talking."
She blurred forward.
Their fists collided—his lightning against her raw force—sending shockwaves down the street. Windows shattered. Car alarms wailed. Debris flew in every direction.
The FBI backed up even farther, Zero pulling an agent away just before a shockwave knocked out several others.
But Zero watched her.
Not out of fear.
Out of heartbreak.
This wasn't the Yuki who cried when she scraped her knee.
Not the Yuki who used to bring him noodles during late-night study sessions.
Not the Yuki who laughed too loud at bad jokes.
This was the Yuki the world never let exist.
The one who had hidden herself for years.
The one who finally snapped her leash.
The captain came at her again, but Yuki caught his punch, twisted his arm, and delivered a spinning kick to his temple. The blow sent him spinning through the air before he crashed into a bus stop.
Silence pressed over the battlefield.
Some Web 678 fighters began pulling back.
Others stared in awe.
Even the Soul-Munchers hesitated.
The captain stumbled out, swaying.
"You don't understand… what you are," he panted.
Yuki's voice was colder than ice.
"I understand enough."
"NO," he roared, staggering toward her again. "YOU DON'T. A creature like you—something half-awake, half-bound—should've died long before now. You don't belong to any web. You don't belong ANYWHERE."
Yuki took a slow breath.
"Then I'll make my own place."
Her fist collided with the captain's jaw.
The sound cracked like thunder.
His body slammed back against the pavement, skidding several feet before going still.
For a moment, no one moved.
Then a whisper spread, carried in tones of shock:
"She beat him."
"She beat the captain."
"What… is she?"
"She's not normal…"
"She's not even pure ghoul."
Agents peeked from behind vehicles.
Soul-Munchers retreated into the shadows.
Even the Sacrificed Web exchanged uneasy glances.
Pen hurried to her, grabbing her arm.
"Yuki—stop. You've done enough. They're retreating."
Yuki looked up.
Web 678 members pulled their injured captain away, glaring but not daring to provoke her again.
Sacrificed Web fighters lowered their weapons.
Soul-Munchers melted into the alleys.
The street slowly fell silent.
Except for Zero.
He stepped past the barricade, ignoring the agents who tried to stop him.
"Yuki…" he whispered.
She finally met his gaze.
Her eyes dimmed from crimson to a soft, exhausted glow.
In that instant, Zero saw all of her tears, all of her pain, all of her changes.
And he realized something terrifying:
The girl he used to know wasn't gone.
She was just buried under everything the world forced her to become.
The fight was far from over.