The morning arrives gray and damp over Empire State University, the kind of New York autumn that seeps into your bones before you've even finished your first breath. Low clouds press against the tops of the old brick buildings, and the magnolia trees near the humanities wing have begun dropping their last leaves in lazy, spiraling arcs. Somewhere in the distance, a siren wails—nothing unusual for the city, except now every siren sounds like a threat. Every uniform could be Fisk's. Every shadow could be a spy.

Yoon Ji-woo walks beside you, close enough that your shoulders almost brush, far enough to maintain the illusion of two ordinary students heading to class.

She is dressed for the part, but you've learned to see the details the way she does: as camouflage, not fashion. A black ESU baseball cap sits low on her head, hiding the white-blonde hair that would otherwise draw attention. Her white hair spills out from under the cap in soft, slightly messy strands, framing a face that looks perpetually tired—though whether from late-night planning sessions or the weight of being the last Kumiho, you can never quite tell. A pair of purple headphones rests around her neck, the cord trailing into the pocket of her red crop top, which ends just above the waistband of her black shorts. A red belt with a simple buckle cinches the gray asymmetrical overskirt that drapes over her left hip, giving her a silhouette that's almost elegant despite the casual college aesthetic. Below that, black seam thigh-highs hug her legs, disappearing into scuffed combat boots that have seen better days—and probably will again.

She looks like a hundred other students on campus. That is the point.

But you know the truth beneath the fabric: the nine tails folded into nothing, the fox mask tucked into her backpack, the tactical knife strapped to her inner thigh. You know that her fingers, currently wrapped around a paper cup of lukewarm coffee, have drawn blood in the dark. You know that her calm expression is not serenity but suppression—a constant, exhausting battle to keep the predator leashed.

The two of you walk in silence for a while, past the student union where a group of freshmen are taking photos in front of a mural, past the chemistry building where someone has taped a flyer for a missing cat (ironic, given who you're walking with), past the old oak tree where a couple is arguing about something stupid and temporary. The campus is waking up slowly, yawning its way toward another day of lectures and exams and the kind of mundane problems that must feel like luxury to people who don't know what's really happening in Lower Manhattan.

Ji-woo waits until you've cleared the main quad before she speaks.

"The courier came through last night," she says, her voice low and flat, barely audible over the rumble of a campus maintenance cart rattling past. She doesn't look at you—her eyes scan the path ahead, the windows above, the rooftops. Old habit. Good habit. "Fisk is holding a closed-door meeting tomorrow evening. Something about 'timeline stabilization funding,' which is political nonsense for 'I'm buying more weapons.'"

She takes a sip of her coffee, grimaces at the temperature, keeps walking.

"His security will be lighter than usual during the meeting. Not light—never light—but lighter. Fewer eyes on the Sanctum Sanctorum. Fewer patrols near the Vault." Her thumb brushes the screen of her phone, and she tilts it slightly toward you so you can see the blueprint she's pulled up. The Sanctum Sanctorum's distinctive architecture glows in pale blue lines. "Strange has the Tablet of Life and Time warded to the teeth. He's not stupid. But wards are only as strong as the attention paid to them, and Strange has been... distracted."

You notice the slight hesitation before "distracted." You've noticed it before, whenever she talks about the Sorcerer Supreme. Doctor Strange has been fighting his own battles—timeline incursions, mystical threats, the slow unraveling of reality itself. He's stretched thin. Everyone is stretched thin.

Ji-woo continues, her tone never changing. "We need that tablet. Not for power—for leverage. Fisk wants it. The Gilded Saint wants it. If we get it first, we control the board." She stops walking for a moment, turning to face you fully. Beneath the brim of her cap, her dark eyes are steady, unreadable. "Leverage buys freedom. Freedom buys Luna. And everyone else rotting in that hole."

Her jaw tightens at the name. Luna Snow. Her teammate. Her responsibility. Locked in the Vault because Fisk decided that heroes were the real threat, not the timeline collision, not the Alchemax tower, not the slow death of reality itself.

You've seen Ami—Ji-woo—angry before. It's a cold thing, not hot. Ice, not fire. And right now, the ice is spreading.

She starts walking again, and you fall into step beside her.

"The plan is simple," she says, ticking points off on her fingers like she's discussing a group project instead of a heist. "We hit the Sanctum tomorrow night, during Fisk's meeting. Strange's wards are keyed to magical intrusion—but we're not going through the front door. There's a service entrance on Bleecker Street that predates the wards. Old magic. The kind that doesn't recognize new threats."

She glances at you sideways. "That's where you come in. You'll need to hold the door for exactly forty-five seconds while I disable the inner seal. Any longer, and the wards reset. Any shorter, and I don't have enough time to get through." A pause. "Forty-five seconds. No pressure."

You reach the edge of the campus coffee cart—a cheerful yellow kiosk with a striped awning that seems almost obscenely normal given the circumstances. Ji-woo stops, pulls a crumpled bill from her shorts pocket, and buys two black coffees without asking if you want one. She hands you the second cup, the cardboard warm against your palm.

She knows you do.

"The hardest part," she continues, resuming the walk toward the university gates, "is getting in and out without Strange noticing. He's not our enemy, but he's also not our ally right now. He's too focused on the big picture—timelines, incursions, the multiverse. He doesn't see the people trapped in the Vault. He sees variables." Her voice sharpens, just slightly. "We're not variables."

The university gates loom ahead—ornate ironwork, old brick pillars, the kind of entrance that has watched generations of students pass beneath it. Today, it feels like a border between two worlds. On this side: textbooks, midterms, the gentle hum of ordinary life. On the other side: lockdowns, arrests, the slow creep of a timeline that shouldn't exist.

Students stream through the gates, laughing, arguing, yawning. A guy on a skateboard nearly clips your heel. A girl with purple hair is video-calling someone, her voice bright and unconcerned. No one looks up at the Alchemax tower. No one talks about the heroes in prison. No one seems to notice that the world is crumbling at the edges.

Ji-woo stops at the threshold. She doesn't look back at the campus, doesn't glance at the students, doesn't acknowledge any of it. Her gaze is fixed forward, on the street beyond the gates, on the city that's slowly tearing itself apart.

For a moment, she looks almost human. Tired. Young. Just another student dreading another day of classes.

Then she turns her head slightly toward you, and you catch it—a flicker of something ancient behind her dark eyes. The Kumiho, peeking through the mask. The predator, reminding you that she is not prey.

"We don't know what Fisk is planning with that tablet," she says quietly. "We don't know who else might be hunting it. But we know one thing for certain." A pause. "We get there first. Or we don't get there at all."

She adjusts her cap, pulls the brim lower over her eyes, and steps through the gate. The campus swallows her—another face in the crowd, another student heading to class, another nobody.

But you know better.

You follow, coffee in hand, heartbeat steady, mind already running through the forty-five seconds that might change everything.

"Stay close today," she says over her shoulder, not breaking stride. "And remember—my name is Yoon Ji-woo. I'm a transfer student. I'm boring. I'm nobody."

She glances back at you, and the ghost of something almost like a smile flickers across her lips.

"You don't know anything else."

The crowd closes around her.

You adjust your own disguise—whatever name, whatever face you're wearing today—and walk into the ordinary morning, carrying the weight of an extraordinary secret.

The hunt is on.