“Something tells me we’ve found our target,” John muttered, eyes fixed on the rising plume of smoke curling into the pale sky like a black claw. His voice was low, grim. He didn’t look back. “Ready?”

  Ziraya didn’t answer—she didn’t need to. Her tail tightened around John’s waist, her arms locking like a brace across his ribs. She gave a single, silent nod.

  The motorcycle’s engine snarled to life like a beast tasting blood. Gravel shot out behind them as they lunged forward, tearing across the broken mountain road, straight toward the smoke-choked valley ahead.

  “She’s really not meant for this kind of road!” John growled, yanking the handlebars hard to dodge a jagged outcrop. The bike skimmed past it by inches, low chassis screaming in protest. A thunderous explosion cracked the air, rattling the rocks and nearly tossing them both off the path. “What the hell is going on up there?!” he shouted.

  Ziraya jerked upright, spine rigid, eyes widening as invisible forces clawed at her senses. Mana. Not flowing—howling. Chaotic currents surged through the air like riptides in a drowning sea. Then came the explosions—closer now, raw and thunderous. “Something’s wrong!” she shouted, slamming her palm against John’s shoulder.

  He didn’t hesitate. Brakes screeched. The bike skidded sideways over loose stone, balance teetering on the edge of collapse before John shifted his weight and forced it still. “What is it?” he asked, panting.

  Ziraya stared into nothing, her eyes dilated. “The mana… it’s distorted. It feels… wrong. Like it’s trying to exist where it shouldn’t.”

  Another shockwave cracked the sky—deep, resonant, like a bell rung through bone. She shivered.

  John’s jaw clenched. “Think someone else is after the Crown?”

  Ziraya’s brows knit. Her tail twitched. “Maybe. The timing’s too perfect. The Ash Vigil said they needed to expose the Crown to ambient mana for the ritual. That’s probably how the Wolfhearts tracked it in the first place.”

  “Then we’ve got company.” His voice sharpened. “And they’re not subtle.”

  “If you’re right, this’ll get messy fast.” Ziraya hissed. “I’d say pull back, but—”

  “Yeah. We don’t get that luxury.” John gave a grim smile, then twisted the throttle. “Hold on!”

  The engine’s roar vanished beneath the relentless cacophony of explosions as they surged down the incline, dodging shattered rock and sudden drops. The bike bounced violently. John swore, white-knuckled on the grips.

  “BRACE!” he shouted. The world tilted. For one breathless moment, the wheels left the ground entirely—and then slammed back down with bone-jarring force. Metal shrieked. The suspension nearly snapped.

  The blasts were deafening now. Each detonation sent waves of heat across the valley, gusts that smelled of scorched stone and burnt copper. And beneath it all, the mana twisted and snapped like coiled wire under tension.

  Ziraya could feel it writhing around her, pressing in. Alien. Wrong. Like a parasite gnawing at the threads of reality.

  Ahead, a fireball erupted into the sky, then burst like a blooming flower of flame, sending charred debris raining down in a sick mockery of petals.

  They crested a ridge—and stopped cold. The ground dipped sharply into what must once have been a fortified sanctuary: a stronghold half-buried in the mountainside. Now, it was hell incarnate. Ash blanketed the ruins like snow. Stone towers had collapsed inward. Once-beautiful marble statues stood decapitated, blood-slicked and cracked. Flames licked through shattered walls. Crimson mist rose from smoldering craters where buildings had stood only minutes before.

  And the bodies.

  John’s stomach turned. Dozens—no, hundreds—of corpses lay scattered across the valley floor. Torn white robes. Smashed limbs. Heads twisted at impossible angles. Some were still twitching. Others screamed from beneath rubble, voices hoarse and desperate as they clawed at the stones crushing them. A dragon-blooded acolyte tried to crawl across the blood-slick stones, his entrails trailing behind him like a mockery of a royal banner. He reached for something—someone—and then went still.

  John’s throat locked. “This is a massacre.”

  Ziraya didn’t speak. Couldn’t. Her eyes had locked on one particular body: a boy, maybe sixteen, face frozen mid-scream, throat half-sliced open by a blade far too sharp and cruel to belong to this world.

  The sight gutted her. She’d prepared for war. She hadn’t prepared for this.

  Her fists trembled. Her gaze swept the carnage—and froze.

  A headless corpse knelt in the dirt, still upright, as if caught mid-prayer. Its skin was a deep, unnatural red.

  “Imps,” Ziraya whispered, her voice flat.

  John followed her gaze. His hand moved to his P50.

  A blur exploded from a pile of rubble. Two figures clashed mid-air, colliding with a sound like the sky splitting open. One was a dragon-blooded warrior, his sword laced with white-hot energy. The other—a nightmare in crimson flesh, jagged horns twisting from its skull—moved like it bent the laws of inertia.

  John couldn’t keep up. Every strike between them tore the air apart. Blades of air, dense enough to shimmer visibly, howled from the warrior’s swings. One slammed into the imp and sent it tumbling—

  —but it was behind him an instant later.

  The imp’s arm jerked back—and a spiral of jagged, red-black energy surged from its palm. It struck the dragon-blooded in the side. Reality itself seemed to unravel at the impact. His leg was simply gone—not burned, not cut, just erased. He collapsed, howling in agony. The imp didn’t pause. It stepped forward, calm as a machine, and drove a clawed foot straight through his ribcage. Bones cracked. Blood splattered in wide arcs. The man’s scream choked into a wet rattle—and then silence.

  John flinched, his heart racing. The imp stood tall above its kill, surrounded by carnage, its eyes glowing like coals buried deep in the abyss. “They did this,” he said, almost breathless. Fury curled inside his chest like a brand.

  Ziraya didn’t answer. She couldn’t tear her eyes away. A ring of young Ash Vigil defenders circled another wounded imp, sweat streaking their soot-smudged faces. Fireballs roared from their palms, jets of ice hissed through the air, a flurry of elemental chaos hurled at the staggering beast.

  But the imp merely raised its hand.

  John’s heart stuttered. He flinched and closed his eyes.

  The silence after was louder than any explosion.

  When he dared to look again, the street was stained red. Only four of the ten teenagers remained, standing dumbfounded in a field of carnage. Bloodied shoes and half-melted robes marked where their comrades had stood seconds ago.

  “No...” John breathed, his throat tight.

  A boy screamed in feral grief. A sonic boom cracked the air as he launched forward, his sword raised. A spiral of magic whipped past his face, singeing hair—but it didn’t matter. He crashed into the imp like a meteor, steel plunging deep. He roared as he tore, slashed, clawed—turning the imp into a twitching, unrecognizable mess of meat.

  John’s fingers curled around the hilt of his gun. “They’re strong,” he muttered, jaw clenched, “but not invincible.”

  Beside him, Ziraya hadn’t moved. Her eyes locked on the massacre, unblinking. Something glassy and faraway clouded her usually sharp gaze.

  “Ziraya?” he said, softer this time, reaching out. His hand landed on her shoulder.

  She twitched violently, as if slapped, then hissed through clenched teeth. “The Crown...” Her voice cracked with hatred, with want. “It’s... over there.” She pointed toward the rear of the fortress—a short, obsidian-colored pyramid rising above shattered rooftops, its flat top gleaming faintly in the smoke-dimmed sun. “I can feel it,” she growled, her nostrils flaring. “Like it’s calling me.”

  “You’re in shock.” John said. “Just—just wait here. I’ll grab it. I’ll be back before—”

  “DON’T. YOU. DARE.” Her voice lashed like a whip, and her hand clamped around his wrist like iron. Her claws dug in, drawing blood. John looked up—and froze. Her pupils were narrow slits, her tail tight, and her body trembled with fury. Her face was inches from his own. She looked like she might bite him. “We stay together,” she snarled, pulling him closer. “Always. Forever.”

  “I’m not letting you die here,” John whispered, his voice cracking under the weight of everything.

  She pressed her forehead to his. “Then don’t make me fight you too.”

  He didn’t answer. He just nodded. The motorcycle’s engine screamed to life beneath them as they shot toward the heart of the battlefield, weaving between bursts of fire, collapsing stone, and the stench of charred flesh. The ground trembled as another spell erupted nearby. They landed hard in a plaza scorched beyond recognition. Ash hung in the air like snowfall. Something crunched wetly beneath the tires, and John refused to look down. He couldn’t. Not now.

  Then movement—rubble shifted. A woman stumbled out, dragging a ruined saber and gripping her bleeding shoulder. Her eyes met his. Then Ziraya’s. Then the pyramid. Her lip curled. She knew.

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  “No,” John said, raising his gun, “don’t—don’t do this.”

  She roared and charged. Each step was agony for her, a limp against broken bone, but she kept coming.

  John’s hand shook. “Please,” he begged, “just go.”

  She didn’t stop.

  He fired.

  Once. Twice. A third time.

  The sword slipped from her hands and clattered against stone. Her body folded to the ground.

  “Fuck...” John whispered. “I’m sorry. I didn’t want to...” He couldn’t look at her. Couldn’t face the silence her death left behind. The bike surged forward again, gravel spitting behind them. “The Crown’s near,” he said, voice hollow. “Almost there—just a little more—”

  The world exploded.

  A pulse of warped mana slammed into them from the side. Their magical shielding evaporated like mist, and John felt himself break. The blast tore through the air like a thunderclap from hell. The bike spun. Screamed. They flew. John hit something hard—bricks—and didn’t stop until the darkness nearly took him. His skull split open on impact. His body convulsed. One leg twisted beneath him at a wrong angle.

  His vision doubled. Then tripled. He blinked—and couldn’t see the left half of the world.

  Something wet and heavy thudded against his waist.

  He reached down.

  Scales.

  “No. No, no—” His voice shattered as he touched the severed tail, still warm.

  His remaining eye scanned the rubble, frantic. Ziraya lay sprawled in the dirt, twisted, unmoving. Her mouth slightly open. Her amber eyes stared blankly into nothing.

  “No§” The scream didn’t make it past his throat. “No, no, no—Ziraya, please—!” He crawled, dragging himself with one arm. Blood poured from his mouth, his nose, his ruined face.

  His fingers reached for hers.

  Inch by inch.

  “Don’t leave me here, please!” he begged, weeping now, not caring who heard. “Please don’t leave me—!”

  His hand dropped just short of hers.

  An inch away.

  And he couldn’t move anymore.

  Light punched through the darkness. John’s lungs seized. He choked on air, eyes wide, pupils shrinking against the assault of too much, too fast. Cold stone scraped his spine. Warmth—living warmth—pressed against his front. Soft and scorching and impossibly real.

  Ziraya.

  Her eyes, inches from his, were blown wide with shock. Her breath came in shuddering bursts. Something still lingered on his lips—salt and heat, like lightning caught in a kiss.

  And then came the images—

  Her body, crumpled.

  Her tail, severed and twitching.

  The blood—hers—so much of it.

  The silence.

  John's breath broke. A keening noise clawed its way up his throat, but he swallowed it down, tasting acid and despair.

  He had killed her.

  Not with a blade, but with choice. With failure.

  He reached for her—not gently, but with shaking, clawing hands. They locked around her waist like he was drowning and she was the only surface left.

  She didn’t vanish. She didn’t dissolve into memory.

  She was here.

  Alive.

  One shot left.

  John’s lips crashed against hers—not for pleasure, not even for love, but for proof. His tongue found hers in a desperate, uncoordinated tangle. He kissed her like he needed her to anchor him to this reality, like her breath was the only thread holding his psyche together. He didn’t just want her. He needed her. The feel of her. The heat. The pressure. The grounding weight of her tail coiling around his waist again, like it hadn’t been cut off.

  But it had. He had seen it. Held it.

  He pulled back, breath ragged, throat raw. “Ziraya—”

  But she didn’t let him finish. She surged forward, all claws and hunger, and crashed into him with the fury of something feral. Her mouth found his again—this time less a kiss, and more a claim. Her forked tongue invaded, her tail tightened, possessed him.

  Her claws dug into his back. Hard enough to sting. Hard enough to bleed.

  He welcomed it.

  Pain meant real.

  Pain meant alive.

  Pain meant her.

  “I—” Her voice caught in her throat. Her eyes were wide, glassy, wild. “You’re mine.” It wasn’t a declaration. It was a discovery. A sudden, terrifying truth that snapped into focus in her head like a puzzle piece slamming into place.

  John.

  Belonged.

  To her.

  He looked up at her with bloodshot eyes, voice hollow and hoarse. “I am.”

  Ziraya trembled. Not from fear—but from too much. Too much need. Too much certainty. Her breath hitched, her claws clenched—ripping skin this time. His ribs creaked under the crushing grip of her tail.

  He didn’t flinch.

  He only looked at her like he deserved it.

  Like he wanted the punishment.

  At this moment, something broke in her. Snapped. All restraints were gone as her emotions mixed with her raging Authority. She kissed him again—no, devoured him. Her tail squeezed so tight his breath cut out entirely. Her hand grabbed his jaw like she was afraid he’d vanish.

  John let it happen.

  He was still seeing it—her body, broken. Her eyes glassy. Her mouth slack.

  Not again.

  Never again.

  She pulled back only when her lungs demanded it.

  John seized the moment to pull away—not to escape her, but to function. He fumbled for his Terminal, breathing like he’d just clawed his way out of a grave. “Don’t ask where I found it, but—”

  He paused. Thought. What did she know in this version? What had she seen? He lied anyway. He had to.

  Even if it felt like knives in his gut.

  “Not like I have a choice,” he muttered under his breath, fingers trembling as he typed nonsense into the Terminal. Then he jerked his head up, eyes wide, pretending to be startled. “A secret site on the HiddenNet. I found something. The Ash Vigil is worse than we thought.”

  Ziraya’s eyes weren’t on the Terminal.

  They were on him.

  On his mouth, red and kissed raw.

  On the faint red lines blooming through his shirt where her claws had dug in.

  Her tail coiled tighter. A signal. A warning. A brand.

  She didn’t answer. She didn’t need to.

  John already knew.

  He was hers.

  John’s voice was steady, but it took everything in him to keep it that way. “There’s a couple dozen of them,” he said, tapping the screen before him with a mechanical calm. “And they’re not weak. They’ve started some kind of ‘ritual’—something ancient, something powerful.” He lifted his hands, making air quotes like punctuation marks over a silent scream. “I’d bet it’s the Crown.”

  Ziraya tilted her head, her amber pupils gleaming with interest. “You found this on the HiddenNet?”

  “You wouldn’t believe the things people upload,” John muttered with a bitter smile. But it faded as quickly as it came. “Anyway, the ritual requires a stable pool of ambient mana. That means they’ve probably dropped their strongest wards.”

  “To avoid interference,” Ziraya nodded, tapping a claw against her knee. “But the alarms are still probably live.”

  “Exactly.” John leaned forward, pretending he’d considered that from the start. “So infiltration’s a no-go.”

  “And charging in would be suicide,” Ziraya hissed through her teeth. “How reliable is this information anyway? Where did you even—”

  John reached over and pinched the tip of her tail.

  Ziraya froze. Her entire body jolted as if lightning had shot through her spine. Her breathing hitched, her thighs tensed. Her eyes darted away.

  A second of silence passed.

  He hated himself.

  He loathed what he’d just done.

  She trusted him—trusted him enough to let him close. And he had used that trust, twisted it to yank her away from the question she should have asked. His stomach turned with the taste of guilt so thick it felt like poison. But if she kept asking... if she kept pressing...

  He couldn’t tell her the truth.

  “We can’t sneak in,” he said quietly, slipping the leash back on his guilt. “And we can’t fight our way through. So—what do we know about the Crown? What does it even look like?”

  Ziraya blinked, flustered and still slightly breathless. “No one really knows,” she said, clearing her throat.

  John raised an eyebrow. “Come on. There has to be some record. If it’s such a cornerstone of your people’s history—”

  She gave a tired shrug. “The Ash Vigil took everything when they vanished centuries ago. What little knowledge survived stayed within... certain bloodlines.” She paused, visibly biting back a name. “Anyway, so many frauds have claimed to find it that most people think the Crown was just a myth.”

  “Then why the hell does Alice Wolfheart want it so badly?” John asked, voice low with suspicion.

  “Because the Stonecrusher Auction House doesn’t sell myths,” Ziraya spat. “If they list something, it has to be real. And this is how she keeps us in line. Her little leash.”

  “I hate her,” John growled. “More than you know.”

  Ziraya had died because of Alice.

  Twice.

  He clenched his jaw. His hands trembled.

  Unacceptable.

  Then, like a crack of light in an endless abyss, an idea burst into John’s mind. His fingers fumbled in his pocket, heart pounding faster. He pulled out a dull, metallic cylinder—one of the spell cartridge he’d crafted using the Ship’s Mana Emulator.

  Ziraya stiffened the instant she saw it. Her tail coiled tighter around his waist, muscles tensed with alarm. “What is that?” she whispered, narrowing her eyes.

  John grinned—because it was working. “Doesn’t matter,” he said. “You feel it too, right? That wrongness?”

  Ziraya leaned closer, sniffing the air like a predator testing poison. “It’s like it distorts the air around it. Reality bends.”

  “Exactly what I was hoping you’d say,” John said, eyes gleaming now. “Now imagine... an ancient artifact—long lost, shrouded in legend, with no confirmed appearance. Wouldn’t it feel just like this?”

  Ziraya’s pupils widened, then narrowed to slits. “You can’t be serious.”

  “I am.” His smile vanished, replaced by something sharper, darker. “If no one knows what the Crown looks like... then we show them.”

  Ziraya’s tail snapped around him like a vice. Her breath was hot against his skin as she growled, “That’s insane.”

  “And yet... you’re listening.” He met her eyes with a steady intensity.

  She lunged.

  The kiss that followed was not tender. It was war—claws gripping his shoulders, her tongue invading like she meant to take something back from him. When she pulled away, cheeks flushed and breath ragged, John was too stunned to speak.

  But the fire inside him only burned hotter.

  “I think you see where I’m going with this,” he said once he’d caught his breath. “Even you don’t know what the real Crown looks like. That means Alice doesn’t either.”

  “A forgery,” Ziraya said, as if tasting the word for the first time. “You really think that’ll work?”

  “I’ll make it feel like this—” he held up the cartridge, “—and add a fancy enchantment, something flashy. Maybe a glow. Something mysterious. Just enough to fool their senses.”

  “The Stonecrushers will try to verify it,” Ziraya warned. “Alice won’t let it go unchecked.”

  “And how will they verify something that no one’s seen?” John asked. “They’ll rely on instinct, presence, vibe. If it feels ancient and wrong, that’ll be enough.”

  Ziraya opened her mouth to argue—then closed it. Her tail gave him another warning squeeze.

  “This is madness,” she muttered. “Even if the forgery works... won’t Alice confirm whether the Ash Vigil’s been wiped out? If they’re still alive—”

  A flicker of a memory hit John like a hammer: blood. Fire. Ziraya’s twitching tail. His broken body.

  He couldn’t breathe for a moment.

  “We won’t need to worry about that,” he said softly.

  Ziraya stared. “Why not?”

  “I—” His mind scrambled for something—anything—that wasn’t the truth. “The fake Crown will take time to make. By the time we present it, the Vigil’s ritual will be done, and they’ll have restored their wards. Alice won’t be able to sense a damn thing.”

  Ziraya blinked. “That... that would explain how she found it in the first place. The wards were down. If they’re up again, she won’t be able to check.”

  “Exactly.”

  A slow, wicked grin crept across her lips. “Scamming Alice Wolfheart,” she whispered. She licked her lips as if savoring the idea. “That’s... delicious.”

  Then she looked at John—not as a lover, not as prey—but as a partner in crime.

  “That’s perfect.”

  John let out a wry smile as he looked away.

  He was saving her. He had to keep telling himself that.

  Even if it meant becoming something she could never forgive.