Natami had gone completely pale. Her blade was in her hand. Raised between them. She was shaking.
"Zenjiro," she breathed. "What are you? You just murdered that innocent man."
He looked down at his hands. They were covered in blood.
"I killed him?" he whispered. He stared at the blood. "I don't remember doing it."
The mother was screaming. The little girl was crying, her small hands pressed over her eyes like she could unsee what had just happened. Natami's blade was still pointed at him, her hand trembling so badly the tip wavered in the air.
"Natami, I didn't mean to. I don't know what happened. One second I was standing there and then everything went black and then I was..." He looked at her. At the blade between them. "I almost killed you too."
"Stay back," she yelled. Her voice was shaking as badly as her hands. "Just stay back, Zenjiro."
"I'm not going to hurt you."
"You just tried to!" Her eyes were wide with fear.
"Your hand was at my throat."
"But I didn't."
"That doesn't make me feel better!" She took a step backward. The blade stayed raised. "I watched you move, Zenjiro. You were so fast I could barely see it. Your fingers got longer. Your nails turned into claws. Your eyes.....both of them were red. And then you just..." She gestured at the father's body. "You cut his throat so fast he didn't even have time to scream."
The mother was still sobbing. Backing away with her daughter. "Monster," she kept saying. "Monster."
"He was infected," Zenjiro said weakly. He looked at the body. "I could smell it on him. The chemical scent. The way his heartbeat was too fast. The black veins on his neck."
"That doesn't give you the right to execute him!" Natami's voice was rising. "Every Shadow Crane member was given instructions not to hurt the human beasts! They are fucking humans. They're one of us. We haven't killed a single one we've tackled because there is a cure. These people see us as heroes. Not murderers."
"I'm sorry," Zenjiro whispered. "I didn't choose that decision."
"Even if he was infected, what about me?" She took a step closer, her blade still trembling. "You asked if I was one of them too. Was I infected, Zenjiro? Or were you just going to kill me anyway?"
"I don't know. I don't remember thinking that. I don't remember any of it."
"You don't remember?" She let out a bitter laugh. "How convenient. You don't remember trying to kill me."
"Natami, please. You have to believe me. I would never hurt you. Whatever took control of me. It wasn't me."
"Then what was it?"
He had no answer for that.
How could he explain that it wasn't him? That something else had been piloting his body? That he'd been there but not there, aware but helpless?
He didn't know what the thing inside him would have done if that pain in his chest hadn't spiked, hadn't forced the claws to retract, hadn't given control back to him.
Voices were approaching. The mother's screams had drawn attention. Shadow Crane operatives would be here any second.
"We need to leave," he said. "Right now. If they find me like this, covered in blood, they'll kill me."
"Maybe they should," Natami said. But her blade lowered slightly.
"Natami, please."
She stared at him for a long moment. Her expression was conflicted. Finally, she said, "If you try that again. If whatever that was takes control of you again. I will kill you. Do you understand? I don't care what we've been through. I don't care that we're both Shadow Cranes."
"I understand," he mumbled.
"Let quickly moved, the rest would arrive any moment from now," she mumbled, staring at the main road.
They moved through the alleys. Behind them, he could hear the mother's screams intensifying as the operatives arrived. Heard someone call for backup. For medical. For whatever protocols they had for a murder scene.
Natami stayed ahead of him. Her blade still drawn. Glancing back every few seconds to make sure he was still human.
"Your eyes are normal now," she said after they had put several blocks between them and the scene. "And your hands look normal too."
He looked down at his bloodstained hands. They were shaking violently. "I don't understand what's happening to me."
"Neither do I." She stopped in a narrow gap between buildings. Pressed herself against the wall. "But whatever it is, it's dangerous." She turned to face him properly. "Because you almost killed me. If you hadn't snapped out of it when you did, I'd be dead right now."
"I'm sorry," he mumbled.
"We need to figure out what's wrong with you. Before the other operatives find you and put you down like a rabid animal."
"How? I don't even know where to start."
"Start by telling me everything. When did this begin? Have you felt like this before?"
"Something like this had never happened," he replied. He was sure that this had to do with the blue veins on his chest. It felt like he had a second heartbeat sometimes.
"Are you sure?" she whispered.
He thought about the gaps in his memory. The times he had woken up somewhere else with no idea how he got there. The way the Alimabies beasts seemed to target him specifically.
"I've had blackouts before," he admitted. "Times I can't account for. I thought it was exhaustion from training, but now I'm not sure."
"How many times?"
"Three. Maybe four in the last week."
Her face went even paler. "A week? That's coincidental."
"What's coincidental?"
"I don't want to point fingers at you or anything. Zenjiro, as a member of the Shadow Cranes, I want to make you aware that a very few of us have been given a secret mission. I'm saying that as a member of the Shadow Cranes, I've been given certain classified information. Information that most of the other recruits don't have access to."
"What kind of information?"
"We've been tracking something. A select few of us. Commander Yuza, Master Kurogane, a handful of senior operatives. We call it the Midnight Predator."
His blood turned to ice. "The... what?"
"It only appears at night. It hunts infected people. Kills them before they can fully transform. But it doesn't just kill them, Zenjiro. It makes the bodies disappear completely. Nothing left behind except sometimes blood on the floor."
He thought of the man crawling across the pavement in his fragmented memories. The way he'd asked if the man was infected. The casual efficiency of the kill.
The body began to dissolve into streams of blue light that flowed into his palms.
No. That couldn't have been real. That had to be a dream, a nightmare his brain had conjured from stress and fear.
"How long has it been active?" His voice didn't sound like his own.
"About a week."
The same timeframe as his blackouts.
His hands were shaking harder now. He shoved them into his pockets to hide it.
"How many has it killed?" he asked, afraid of what answer she might give.