It rained blood that morning.
Not from the skies—but from the way people cried in silence. The kind of silence that felt like sin.
The Saint's funeral was held at a glass chapel built atop Widowmaker soil—neutral ground. Irony, perhaps. Or madness. Either way, the invitation had been clear:
"Come honor a warlord who tried to become a god."
Celeste stood beneath a black umbrella, eyes hidden behind the Widowmaker veil—deep crimson, edged with gold thread. The veil of queens.
Beside her stood Alfreda, all black silk and silver hairpins, her eyes cold as knives.
And Nathaniel?
He wore no grief.
He wore a bulletproof vest.
Because every mourner was a liar.
—
Inside the chapel.
The coffin was closed. The press was banned. And only a select thirty were allowed entry—all survivors, all suspects, all sharks smelling each other's wounds.
Luciano Valez sat in the third pew, sipping from a flask like he wasn't responsible for half the bodies in the cathedral massacre.
Tracy—no longer just a cook—now carried twin daggers hidden in her sleeves. She guarded the doors like a lioness.
Dano's seat was empty.
Dead, maybe.
Or worse: forgotten.
—
Celeste stood at the altar.
She looked out at them—monsters in mourning clothes.
"I will not lie," she said. "The Saint was no hero. He tortured, twisted, and tried to shape us into his weapon."
A pause.
"But he also taught us how to survive."
And that… got everyone listening.
She leaned in.
"And now, with the Vault open, every family has seen what he built behind closed doors. Experiments. Alliances. Ghosts."
The air turned still.
"I didn't come to bury a man. I came to warn you," Celeste said. "Whatever you think you know—there's more. The Saint left a final legacy."
Alfreda stepped forward, holding up a scorched flash drive.
"The Saint's last recording," she said. "Time-stamped two hours before he died."
Luciano frowned. "And you waited 'til now to show this?"
Nathaniel smirked. "Dramatic effect."
—
The lights dimmed.
A projector whirred to life.
The Saint's face appeared, bloody, bruised—but smiling.
"If you're watching this… then I'm probably dead. Good."
Everyone sat straighter.
"This world needed a better villain. So I made her."
He looked directly into the camera.
"Celeste is not just my heir. She is my weaponized memory. And she's going to burn the rest of you alive unless you figure out what the hell you're actually fighting for."
The recording glitched… and then cut to black.
Silence.
Then—
BOOM.
A gunshot tore through the window.
Luciano dove.
Tracy tackled a guest.
Celeste ducked behind the coffin.
Snipers. Four of them.
Nathaniel drew his gun, but Alfreda was faster—already sprinting to the side exit.
"Get Celeste out!" she screamed.
But Celeste… didn't run.
She pulled her own gun from beneath the pulpit and opened fire.
Three shots. Three kills.
The chapel turned into a slaughterhouse again.
And just when it seemed like it was over—
A figure stepped through the smoke.
Cloaked. Bleeding. Breathing.
"Dano?" Nathaniel choked.
But the man who stepped forward wasn't Dano.
He wore Dano's face.
But the eyes… were mechanical.
His voice… distorted.
"You buried the wrong man."
And then the screen above flickered back to life—
With the Saint's voice again, eerily calm:
"Let me introduce my last experiment. The Lazarus Protocol."
—
Outside, minutes later.
Celeste stood over the burning pews, gun still hot in her hand.
The storm had passed.
But her thoughts hadn't.
"What was that?" she asked Alfreda, who was bleeding from a graze near her ribs.
Alfreda was pale.
"That wasn't Dano," she whispered. "That was… what Dano became."
"And the Lazarus Protocol?"
Nathaniel arrived beside them, panting. "We thought it was legend. An old file buried beneath the Vault's fourth layer."
"No," Celeste said. "It's real. And now it's alive."
She looked at the scorched flash drive in her hand.
"There's more on this."
And when she plugged it into the field laptop, one last file appeared:
"Find Project ZER0. Before it finds you."