The scent of charred sage stung Uragiri's nostrils as he knelt in the obsidian chamber. The wooden box before him pulsed with a sickly rhythm, its surface carved with sigils that squirmed under his gaze, a golden wolf etched into it.. Every breath tasted of copper and spoiled honey. The air itself felt thick, clinging to his skin like oil.
"The contents must never see light," hissed the voice from Flaw 7's shifting shadows. The words slithered against Uragiri's eardrums like serpents. "Burn the hands that touch it. Blind the eyes that see it."
Uragiri's mask vibrated against his cheeks as the box emitted a subsonic whine. He could feel it in his teeth—a dull ache spreading through his jaw. The carvings along its sides seemed to shift when he wasn't looking directly at them, forming new, more disturbing patterns.
"And if the hunters reach it first?" Uragiri asked, his voice carefully neutral.
The darkness before him congealed into something resembling a smile. A faint glow emerged from within the shadows, illuminating the silhouette of a face that had too many teeth. "Let them open it," the voice purred. "Let them see what they're stealing. Then kill them all."
Uragiri bowed his head, but his fingers twitched toward the dagger hidden in his sleeve. The box hummed louder, as if sensing his hesitation. A thin trickle of black fluid seeped from its seams, pooling on the floor like spilled ink.
"Do not fail," the voice warned, fading into the dark.
Uragiri exhaled slowly, watching the liquid at his feet slowly evaporate into tendrils of smoke. The mission was clear.
The hunters would die tonight.
The keycard burned against Lynn's palm like a live coal as he ducked behind a marble pillar. Gunfire chewed the air around him, filling the grand hall with the stench of cordite and shattered porcelain. His ears rang from the close detonation of a pulse grenade, the afterimage still seared across his vision in jagged streaks of blue.
"Amasu! Pattern Delta!"
The card left his fingers in a spinning arc—a perfect, glinting trajectory—just as a guard's pulse round vaporized the space where his head had been. The air sizzled with ionized particles, prickling his skin with static. He could taste the charge on his tongue, metallic and sharp.
Lynn didn't wait to see if Amasu caught it. He was already moving, his revolver barking twice—two guards collapsed, their armor melting like wax under the memory rounds' corruption. A third swung a shock maul at his ribs, but Lynn twisted, feeling the weapon graze his side. The shock charge sent spasms through his muscles, but his counterstrike was pure instinct—elbow to the throat, knee to the groin, then a point-blank shot to the temple.
The card returned to him, seemingly of its own will, ricocheting off a falling chandelier. He snatched it midair, fingers stinging from the impact.
Amasu's ocular implant dilated, time slowing as the card tumbled through strobe-lit chaos. Her enhanced retina tracked every rotation—
—while her whip severed a guard's rifle strap with a sound like tearing silk. The card kissed her fingertips for 0.3 seconds before she flicked it sideways, the motion hidden behind the spray of her monofilament bisecting a champagne fountain. The resulting explosion of crystal and liquor rained down in prismatic shards, refracting the muzzle flashes into a disorienting light show.
A guard lunged at her blind spot. She didn't need to see him—the vibration in the floor gave him away. Her boot met his kneecap with a wet crack, and as he crumpled, she pirouetted, her whip lashing out to coil around another's wrist. A sharp tug, and his hand was no longer attached to his arm.
The card was back in play, skimming off the edge of her blade as she deflected a shock baton.
Hashiba tasted blood and ozone as the card materialized in his peripheral vision. He let it sail past—
—then pivoted on his heel, saber deflecting a shock baton in a shower of blue sparks. The card rebounded off his blade's crossguard directly into a guard's open mouth.
The man choked, eyes bulging.
Hashiba's knee met his diaphragm with a wet crunch. The guard folded, and the card popped free, spinning wildly. Hashiba snatched it from the air, feeling the heat of its energy core through his gloves.
Another guard came at him, pulse pistol charging with a high-pitched whine. Hashiba dropped low, sweeping the man's legs out from under him. The pistol discharged into the ceiling, raining plaster dust. Before the guard could recover, Hashiba slammed the keycard against his temple—not to kill, but to stun. The card's energy discharge left the man twitching on the ground.
He flipped the card back toward Lynn, who caught it without looking.
The dance continued.
The basement air clung to their skin like wet gauze. Hashiba's boots sank into fleshy carpeting that pulsed beneath his soles. The walls here weren't stone—they were veined with something organic, throbbing in time with an unseen heartbeat. The light from their torches seemed to dim as they advanced, swallowed by the unnatural darkness.
Lynn's keycard trembled in his grip, its edges fraying into glowing filaments. The closer they got to the vault, the more the card deteriorated, as if the vault itself was rejecting it.
Amasu's implant shorted out with a burst of static. "It's eating the tech—" she hissed, tapping at the flickering display. "Whatever's in there doesn't want to be found."
The vault door loomed ahead—not built, but grown, its surface a lattice of fused bones and throbbing capillaries. The keyhole wasn't mechanical; it was a vertical slit, like a mouth waiting to be fed.
Lynn hesitated for only a second before sliding the card in.
For three heartbeats, nothing moved.
Then the vault inhaled.
The door peeled open with a sound like tearing flesh.
Beyond it lay darkness.
And something stirred.