Mio
She’d heard stories of incursions closing while delvers stayed behind. How the void invades the eyes, the ears, the mouth, and pulls you into the chasm.
This was not that.
She was draped over a bony shoulder. The sll was faint rosemary, sothing expensive underneath. Everything below her ribs felt like it belonged to soone else.
"Hi, little deer. Miss ?"
She recognized that voice.
Mori’s gaze t hers once. Those perfect eyelashes, the look that Mio loathed. But at that mont, she was actually grateful.
The world lurched. Mio’s stomach tried to crawl up her throat. She was moving. Being carried. The incursion’s gray light was already fading behind them, the air thinning as they crossed through the shimr.
Concrete materialized first, then sky, then the flashing red and blue of ergency lights stacked three deep along the periter.
The shimr collapsed.
Reality sealed itself shut with a sound like tearing silk, and the wrongness drained out of the air. Real sky above her. Real concrete beneath. The pressure in her ears popped, and suddenly she could breathe again.
Mori set her down on a stretcher. The motion was almost gentle.
Kaito was already on another one. dics surrounded him, faces tight. Soone was cutting his shirt away. Soone else had both hands pressed to his chest, light pouring between their fingers. His skin was gray. The blood pooling beneath him had soaked through the canvas.
He wasn’t moving.
Then his eyes opened. Found hers across the chaos.
She thought about what he’d offered her in that gym. Thirty thousand points. His whole life, compressed into a number. And she’d thrown the blade across the room instead.
Neither of them said anything. There wasn’t anything to say.
The dics wheeled him toward an unmarked ambulance. The doors closed. He was gone.
Mio still held the clip in her palm.
She slipped it into her inventory.
"Your turn."
Mori was watching her. Auburn hair catching the ergency lights. That lazy smile that never reached her eyes. She looked like she’d been out for a stroll, not hauling two dying delvers out of a collapsing incursion.
Mio let them load her into a different van. The ceiling was white. The light was harsh. Every bump in the road sent fire through her gut, and there were a lot of bumps.
"What’s her status?"
"She’ll live."
The voice was familiar. Mio turned her head.
Sa robes, sa cross. That weary expression from before, when she’d been patched up at the Bureau. The healer who’d treated her before the first incursion with Kaito. She looked younger than Mio rembered. Hollowed out.
Pale hands hovered over her stomach.
"This is going to feel strange. But you know that."
[Greater nd]
The hole in her gut knit itself shut. The flesh moved like it had sowhere to be. Bruises faded in waves, yellow to nothing. Cuts sealed themselves, leaving skin that was too smooth, too new. Things she hadn’t even known were broken smoothed over like clay under a thumb.
Wrong. All of it. Her body kept flinching at sensations that weren’t there anymore.
But the pain was gone. That was enough.
"Interesting," the healer whispered. "I only had to use a fraction of my mana to heal you to full."
Mio didn’t answer.
"Sothing must be wrong with you."
A lot, actually.
[HP: 1,540/1,540]
"You still need to check in," the healer said. She was already packing her things. Didn’t look up. "Healing doesn’t reverse permanent nerve damage. And it doesn’t touch whatever’s in your head."
Mio didn’t ask what that ant.
Her phone buzzed.
Seventeen missed calls. All from Nana.
Mio’s fingers shook as she called back. One ring, two, then straight to voicemail.
Hello! Do you have a mont to talk about extending your car’s warranty?
A pause. Then an ugly laugh. The kind Nana made when she thought she was being clever.
Mio closed her eyes.
"Your sister’s fine."
The driver was watching her in the rearview mirror. Bureau agent. Face she didn’t recognize. Square jaw, close-cropped hair, forgettable.
"How do you know?"
"Kagami has her. Brought her in about an hour ago." He turned back to the road. "There was an incident at your apartnt."
The words took a mont to land.
"What kind of incident?"
"The kind that levels a city block."
Her hand tightened on the phone. The plastic creaked.
"Is she hurt?"
"No. Kagami handled it," he said. "But your building’s gone. Along with the two next to it."
Gone.
Their apartnt. Nana’s room with the glow-in-the-dark stars on the ceiling, the ones she’d helped stick up three years ago. The balcony where she’d planted the moonpetals. The kitchen where they’d eaten convenience store onigiri and pretended it was dinner. The couch where they’d watched bad movies until midnight. All of it. Rubble now.
"How long until we get there?"
"Ten minutes."
She closed her eyes. Counted her heartbeats. Tried not to think about what "Kagami handled it" ant, or why soone had attacked their ho, or what Nana had seen.
The van halted.
Black vehicles everywhere. Agents in suits moving with purpose, tablets in hand, earpieces glowing. Soone was shouting about containnt protocols. Soone else was on a phone, voice tight, saying "Yes, Minister" over and over. The air slled like exhaust and coffee and sothing burnt underneath.
Mio stepped out. Her legs were steady.
Then she tripped over a ledge.
Nobody saw. Small rcies.
She pushed through the crowd. Kaito’s stretcher was being wheeled in a different direction, deeper into the building, toward the heavy doors she’d never seen open. Their eyes t once. His face was still gray, but his eyes were clear. Alive.
Then he was gone.
"Tai."
Segawa was waiting by the elevator.
Salt-and-pepper hair. That cigarette between his fingers, unlit as always. The sa tired expression he’d worn since the first ti she t him. He looked older in this light. Or maybe she was just seeing him clearly for the first ti.
"Where’s my sister?"
"dical wing. She’s not injured." He held up a hand before she could push past. "But you need to know sothing first."
"It can wait."
"No." His voice hardened. "It can’t."
She stopped.
"Two entities attacked your apartnt tonight. High-grade. Regenerators." Segawa’s eyes were flat. "Kagami killed them. Or killed their avatars, at least. The real ones are still out there."
"Why were they there?"
"For your sister."
"What?"
"We don’t know why yet. But they ca for her specifically. Not you." Segawa took the cigarette out of his mouth. Looked at it. Put it back. "She was bait, Tai. We left Kagami with her because we suspected sothing might happen."
Bait.
"You used her."
"Yes."
"You used my eleven-year-old sister as bait for sothing that could level a city block."
"Yes." Segawa didn’t flinch. "And it worked. We have intel now. Bodies to analyze. A lead on who’s targeting the Marked."
Mio’s hand moved before she thought about it.
Segawa caught her wrist. His grip was stronger than it looked.
"I understand you’re angry." His voice was quiet. "But this is the world you live in now. The world she lives in. We can’t protect her by pretending it isn’t."
"You could have told ."
"Would you have left her there if we had?"
She didn’t answer. They both knew.
He released her wrist.
"Third door on the left. Kagami’s with her."
Mio walked past him. Then stopped.
"Segawa."
"Yeah?"
"If you ever use her as bait again without telling , I’ll feed you to the hunger myself."
A hand closed on her collar.
The wall hit her back hard enough to crack plaster. Mori was there, close enough that the rosemary cut through everything else. Those eyes weren’t lazy anymore.
"Thick head, loud mouth." Mori tilted her head. "Doesn’t go good together."
"That’s enough." Segawa’s voice, sowhere behind her. "She can go."
Mori’s fingers uncurled. She stepped back, though that lazy smile hadn’t changed.
Mio straightened her collar. She dusted off her shoulder, then looked at the woman who had just obeyed her master’s command.
"Good girl."
She didn’t look back.
The hallway stretched ahead. White walls. The sa blinding lights. Sterile in a way that made her skin itch. The third door on the left was closed, but she could see through the narrow window.
Nana was sitting on a bed, legs crossed, holding sothing in her lap. A pot. Clay, cracked on one side, dirt spilling onto the white sheets.
The moonpetals. She’d saved them.
Of course she had. Their apartnt was rubble. Their things were buried under three buildings’ worth of concrete and rebar. But Nana had grabbed the flowers.
Kagami stood in the corner, arms folded, watching the door like he expected sothing to co through it. His expression was blank. His posture wasn’t.
She stared at his right arm. She could have sworn sothing moved. That, or she was delirious.
Mio’s hand found the handle. It was cold.
She pushed it open.
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