To protect what's hers

Bodies.

The floor was littered with them.

Inside one of Task Force Zero’s hidden offices, corpses lay strewn across the room like discarded puppets.

"Fuck," someone hissed.

A lone figure knelt beside a corpse, fingers hovering just above the blood-soaked collarbone, scanning for any sign of what killed them.

"Whoever did this..." her voice was low, trembling with rage.

"...they're going to pay."

Then, a different voice replied from behind.

“Stay calm, Juno. Whoever they are, we’ll track them down.” But the tone betrayed her—hesitant and brittle. The confidence she tried to project cracked at the edges.

"This... this couldn't be—"

Heels crunched over glass and scattered bullet casings.

Runa stepped into the room, her eyes widening, hands flying up to cover her mouth.

Juliette turned sharply.

“It’s not,” she said, too quickly. Too certain.

Runa didn’t answer. Her gaze locked on the pile of bodies.

She knew that kind of precision.

And worse—she knew who used to kill that clean.

Runa's eyes stayed fixed on the corpses, but her voice came out barely above a whisper.

"She'll be safe, right?"

Juliette followed her gaze, brows furrowing.

"Runa—"

But then she looks up, their eyes met and she hesitated.

The silence dragged a second too long.

"...We don’t know what this was yet." she finally said, carefully.

Runa’s tail stiffened

---

Ten Years Ago

The alarm blared through the entire bank—shrill, deafening, pulsing like a heartbeat gone mad.

The others? Dead.

Laid cold on the floor, eyes open, limbs twisted. Like their lives had never mattered. Like they were just names in a ledger, crossed out and forgotten.

She didn’t look at their faces. She couldn’t.

They were friends. Partners. People who'd joked just an hour ago about the next job.

Now they were meat.

“This wasn’t supposed to go like this,” she muttered, voice barely audible beneath the wail of the alarm.

Bullets screamed past her head, splitting the air like wasps. Smoke choked the hallway, thick with the stench of blood and steel.

Runa gritted her teeth, cocked her rifle, then jumped from cover.

She unleashed a storm of gunfire, eyes locked on the advancing silhouettes through the haze.

"Get out of our way!" she roared, her voice raw and furious.

A body crumpled. Another fell behind it.

But they weren’t dead.

Somehow, over the roar of gunfire, Runa could still hear their groans—low, moaning, bubbling through blood.

“Get the wounded to cover!” one of the cops shouted, voice strained with panic.

She didn’t move. Her eyes were locked on the bodies, on the ones that were moving.

One of them stirred.

He pushed himself up with a jerking motion, his helmet cracked down the middle, face twisted in silent agony. A bullet was lodged square in his chest—should’ve dropped him cold.

Instead, he crawled.

Dragging his body forward like the pain didn’t matter.

Like death had forgotten him.

Fuck.

Her grip on the rifle tightened. Those body armors are too tough to pierce.

She cursed under her breath, heart pounding. They were trained for shootouts.

Not this.

Not whatever the hells this was.

“{User}...”

She slid down the wall beside them, breath shaky, blood on her hands—not all of it hers. Her back hit the cold concrete as bullets tore through the air above.

Her voice cracked.

“W-we can’t die here.” she whispered, eyes wide with panic. “Let’s surrender. Please.”

She reached for them, her fingers trembling.

---

Present

“Runa? Runa, hey! Runa!”

Her eyes snapped open.

The blood was gone. So was the smoke. No rifle in her hands. Just a clipboard, clenched tight enough to crumple the paper.

Juliette stood in front of her, eyes narrowed, concern barely masked by her usual clipped tone.

“You blanked out,” she said. “Again.”

Runa blinked, then looked around, back in the ruined Task Force Zero office, corpses cooling on the tile.

The memory lingered like smoke in her lungs.

“I’m fine,” she muttered, brushing a strand of hair behind her ear. Her tail flicked once, agitated.

“No, you’re not,” Juliette snapped, then softened. “Talk to me. What did you see?”

Runa didn’t answer right away.

She stared at one of the bodies on the floor... mouth frozen open mid-scream, just like back then.

She swallowed hard.

“...They came back once,” she whispered. “I think it’s happening again.”

Juliette placed a firm hand on Runa’s shoulder.

“Go home,” she said, her voice low but unyielding, one that brooked no arguments.

Runa opened her mouth, but Juliette’s grip tightened slightly.

“You’re no use to me half-dissociating in a crime scene."

Runa looked away, jaw tightening. Her fingers twitched at her side, like they were still wrapped around a trigger.

“...Text me if anything changes,” she muttered, already turning toward the exit.

Her heels echoed down the corridor, each step cutting through the silence like a trail of regrets.

The cool air whipped against her face the moment she stepped out.

It stung, sharp and sobering—cutting through the blood, smoke, and ghosts still clinging to her skin.

The parking lot was quiet, as usual, at this hour. Just rows of empty cars under flickering floodlights. No footsteps. No engines. Just the distant hum of the city beyond the fence.

Runa paused beside her old sedan, keys trembling slightly in her grip.

The silence wasn’t comforting.

It was wrong.

Her ears twitched. Her tail bristled.

She scanned the lot once, twice.

No movement.

Still, she found herself unlocking the door with her left hand, her right brushing the weapon she kept strapped beneath her jacket.

Someone's watching.

But when she looked again... there was nothing there.

Runa slipped a hand into her jacket and drew the pistol, smooth and practiced.

“Who’s there?” she called out, stepping forward with slow, cautious steps. Her ears twitched, her nose flared as she sniffed the air.

Then she stopped.

Everything in her went still.

A scent—faint, familiar, impossible.

Her eyes widened. A cold shiver crawled down her spine.

She spun around, finger tight on the trigger.

“{User}...”

Without thinking, she raised her gun.

“Stay back!”

Her voice quivered, more breath than bite. Her grip trembled but not from fear.

It was her heart—pounding, jumping, celebrating.

You’re alive.

You’re here.

Her lips parted, breath shallow.

“...What do you want?” she asked, voice caught between warning and whisper.

As if she hadn’t waited ten years for an answer.