"My lady, wake up," Pisanio's voice was a low, insistent murmur. "The third wave of the Sweepers has passed. We should start moving."
Imogen, curled into a ball on the rented apartment's sofa, let out a sleepy groan. "Give... me... ten more minutes to sleep."
"My lady, this is the best time to start moving without anyone noticing. The Great Kamina's office is waiting at the door."
Imogen's eyes fluttered open. She blinked, reached for her phone, and squinted at the screen. The time read 4:34 A.M. She let out a long, theatrical yawn. "Wahhhhhhhhhhh… I'm so tired from all this running."
"My lady, you chose to run away from that marriage," Pisanio said, a hint of a gentle reprimand in his tone.
Imogen sighed, the air escaping her lungs in a defeated puff. She sat up, her shoulders slumped in defeat. "Alright, fine. Now dress me up."
"Of course, my lady."
Pisanio, with practiced ease, began to brush Imogen's hair. The strands, a stark white with tips that bled into a fiery red, were soft against the bristles.
"My lady, your hair reminds me of your late mother. She was beautiful."
"And strong."
"Yes," Pisanio agreed, the memory of her mother, the late Queen, a vivid, painful thing in his mind. "The strongest woman I have ever met in my life."
"She told me she was a fixer before she married father."
Pisanio paused, the brush still in his hand. "My lady, life is strange when a thief can marry a King."
He watched her finish dressing, then returned to her hair, meticulously arranging the strands, a knight's devotion to his Queen, even though she was just a child.
Imogen opened the apartment door to find Kamina and Shmuel waiting outside.
"What took you so long?" Kamina demanded.
"Woman's personal time," Imogen retorted. "This is why guys like you are hardly favored by women."
"This brat!" Kamina said, giving her a tap on the head.
"Ouch!" she yelped.
"My lady, we should burn the contract."
Shmuel, with a resigned sigh, looked at his tablet. "I've mapped out where to go to get to District 13. From there, we'll hire a guide to venture through District 13 to get to District 24."
Imogen, Pisanio, Kamina, and Shmuel descended the stairs. As they reached the seventh floor, a figure in full plate armor, almost identical to Pisanio's, stood on the landing.
"Hand over the princess now, traitor," the knight demanded, his voice a low, rumbling challenge.
Imogen immediately hid behind Pisanio, her small frame disappearing behind his armored one.
Pisanio's hand went to the hilt of his sword. "Do not run your mouth with such vicious words toward my lady. I have given up my title for her sake."
"Do not speak to me of your sacrifices, Pisanio," the knight said, his voice cold and filled with contempt. "You have broken the oath you swore to her father, our King. You swore an oath of honor to protect the Crown, but you have chosen to serve a runaway child instead." He unsheathed his sword, the sound of steel against steel echoing in the stairwell. "You have lost your way. And for that, you must be punished. I am not here for an argument, I am here for the princess."
Pisanio, now with his sword out of its sheath, pointed it at the knight. "Do not speak of a knight's honor. This is not about honor or loyalty. This is about family and blood. The King's blood."
The sound of creaking armor got louder with every passing second, and so did the footsteps–dozens of them, a rhythmic, metallic shuffling that echoed up the stairwell.
Shmuel, his eyes wide with a cold sweat. "Do you remember the first rest stop?"
"Yeah, so?" Kamina asked, his hand still on the hilt of his katana.
Then, Shmuel yelled out the next best option. "Then grab Imogen and jump!"
Without a second thought, Kamina scooped up Imogen, who let out a startled yelp, and leaped out of the seventh-story window. They landed with a soft, impossible thump on the pavement below, Kamina's legs acting as shock absorbers. He didn't wait for a moment; he started running, weaving through the alleyways and crowded streets.
"Watch your hands!" Imogen said, annoyed. Kamina had been holding her like a sack of potatoes, with no thought to her own personal space.
Pisanio and Shmuel, meanwhile, couldn't do what Kamina had just done. They turned and ran in the opposite direction.
"Jump over the building right next to the apartment complex!" Shmuel shouted, his voice hoarse from running. "It will give us more leeway to run away from them!"
Pisanio, his sword now out of its sheath, blocked a volley of arrows flying toward them. "I do not trust that savage with my lady, but it's the safest option available."
"You don't need to trust him," Shmuel said, his tone filled with a weary certainty. "He will protect Imogen just fine."
Kamina, with Imogen in hand, sprinted through corners and tight alleyways. "Do you even remember where to go?" Imogen asked.
"I only need to remember where my favorite restaurant and diner are."
"What?" Imogen said, her voice a squeak of disbelief.
"It's important for a man to know what he will eat and where he will eat!"
"That makes no sense, unless you're some hungry hobo!" she said. Kamina, annoyed, gave her a tap on the head.
"Ouch!"
Kamina, still carrying Imogen like a sack of potatoes, continued to run, his path a chaotic but effective zigzag through the City's endless sprawl. He moved through narrow alleyways, up fire escapes, and across rooftops, dropping down into the darkness of the streets below. The sounds of creaking armor and angry voices faded into the distance behind them as they plunged deeper into the labyrinth of the City.
After a few minutes of this frantic dash, Kamina came to a stop, landing with a soft thud on top of a familiar figure.
"Oh, a familiar face," Kamina said, dropping Imogen. "I kinda forgot your name."
"It's Kurt Kotler, you du-" Kurt began, his voice a low growl of annoyance.
Kamina's hand, still on the hilt of his sword, was now close to Kurt's neck. "You seem to be alone now. Looks like we can use your title for a bit. Captain of Niza or something, or else today is the last day you can feel your legs."
"It's Izan," Kurt corrected, a nervous edge to his voice.
Just then, a bunch of knights appeared, their armor glinting in the dim light. They had lost track of Kamina and the others and were now searching the area.
Kurt, seeing his chance, stood up and yelled, "This is Izan's turf! What do you think you're doing here?! I'm Kurt Kotler, one of the 12 captains of Izan, and I'm not gonna let some punks touch our turf!"
The knights discussed among themselves for a moment, then decided that a fight with Izan was not worth the trouble. They turned and left.
After the knights were gone, Kurt let out a huge sigh of relief.
"Phew..." he said, his body going limp with relief.
"Nice acting."
"Don't talk to me like you didn't mess up my business a while back," Kurt grumbled. "Lucky for you, I was too busy to prepare a raid on your puny little office. Now get out of here!"
"Yeah, yeah, whatever," Kamina said, grabbing Imogen. He then dashed off, leaving a fuming Kurt Kotler standing alone in the alleyway.
Imogen seemed to be deep in thought as Kamina continued to run, his pace unwavering. After a few minutes, she asked, "How did they find out where we were hiding? How did they manage to ambush us so early, right after the Sweeper's night ended?"
"Don't ask me, brat," Kamina said, his voice a low grunt of effort.
"But it makes no sense!" she insisted.
"I don't have the brain to do all the work needed to come up with a theory," he replied. "You'll need to ask that to Shmuel when we get back."
Suddenly, Imogen's pupils began to shift, turning from their natural white to a fiery red. Blood, a thin, dark line, started to trickle from her eyes, and she began to cough up blood. Kamina, noticing her change, stopped running and gently put her down.
"What's wrong, brat?" he asked, a flicker of genuine concern in his voice.
Imogen, her hand trembling, took out her phone. It was exactly 5:00 A.M. "It's a normal occurrence," she said, her voice thin and raspy.
"Seriously, what's wrong?" he demanded.
"There are things you shouldn't ask," she whispered, her eyes meeting his. "Something too private."
"Alright," he said, his voice softening. "But answer me this: Are you okay?"
"Yes," she said, a small, weary smile on her face.
"Then don't die from blood loss," Kamina said, his voice a low, fierce command. He scooped her up again and began to run, the rising sun a silent witness to their frantic flight.
Kamina's concern for Imogen intensified, a frantic, unspoken alarm ringing in his head. The blood, at first a mere trickle, had become a steady, crimson flow. She was no longer just coughing; she was convulsing, her small body wracked with a terrible, guttural hacking that sprayed a fine mist of blood onto the pavement. Her pupils, already a terrifying red, now seemed to burn with an inner fire, and the veins on her temples and neck pulsed with a sickening, golden-red light beneath her skin, like molten metal.
He stopped, his momentum carrying him forward a few more steps before he came to a dead halt. He looked at her, his usual bluster replaced by a cold, hard focus. He put her down gently, and she crumpled, her body a limp, broken doll, the blood now a small puddle beneath her. Her breaths were shallow, rattling in her chest, and her hands, which had been clenched in fists, were now splayed open, the palms bleeding from a thousand tiny, unseen lacerations.
Her body was failing her, consumed from within. The curse, or whatever this horror was, was not just a symptom; it was a slow, agonizing transformation. Her bones seemed to shift, her joints making a soft, terrible clicking sound as they moved, her skin tightening and pulling as if something beneath it was trying to stretch and tear it apart. It was a silent, internal war, a fight she was losing with every passing second.
Kamina scooped her up again, not like a sack of rice this time, but as gently as a mother holding a child, and changed his course. He no longer cared about a meeting point or a plan; he only cared about finding a medical technician, a place where this nightmare could be stopped. He began to run, faster than he ever had before.
Kamina, with a desperation he rarely showed, didn't bother with the door handle. He crashed through the entrance of the tattoo shop, the old bell above the door jangling wildly as the wooden frame splintered under his force. The place smelled of antiseptic, ink, and something clean and sterile. The shop owner, a man in his fifties with a weathered face and hands covered in intricate, faded tattoos, looked up from his newspaper, his eyes widening as he saw the scene before him.
Imogen was a grotesque tableau of silent agony. Blood, no longer a mere trickle, was now a steady, pouring stream from her eyes and nose, staining her white hair a dreadful crimson. Her skin was a sickly, translucent white, and the veins beneath, once just a faint tracery, pulsed with a violent, glowing red light. She was a human hourglass, her life draining out of her with every beat of her heart.
The owner, a man who had seen his share of the City's horrors, didn't flinch. He just took one look at Imogen and shouted, his voice a low, commanding rumble. "Place her on the tattoo bed over there!"
Kamina, for once, didn't argue. He carefully laid Imogen down on the black leather of the bed, the material immediately soaking up the blood. The shop owner, a whirlwind of calm efficiency, pulled out a syringe and a small glass bottle filled with a clear liquid. He injected a dose of the pain relief stimulant into her neck, and Imogen's convulsions, which had been a constant, terrible thing, began to subside.
The owner then pulled his mobile tattoo desk toward the bed, its wheels a soft, purring sound in the silent room. He began to pull out tools—not tattoo needles, but a variety of surgical-looking instruments, all polished and gleaming.
"How long has this been going on?" the owner asked, his hands moving with an unnerving grace.
Kamina, still catching his breath, answered. "Since we left the apartment... a while ago."
"What's the usual duration?"
"I don't know, she said it was a 'normal occurrence,' something that happened every day at 5 A.M."
The owner's eyes, a steely blue, looked up at Kamina. "Every day? And she's still alive? This isn't a normal occurrence. This is a manifestation, a symptom of something deeper. Did she eat something? Was she in a fight? What kind of wounds does she have?"
"She didn't eat anything," Kamina said, "and no... she's not hurt. It's... it's just happening to her."
The owner, his brow furrowed in concentration, shook his head.
The owner, with the practiced precision of a seasoned artist, began his inspection. His tools were not for drawing, but for a delicate, intimate form of surgery. He started with Imogen's eyes, their surface a gleaming white, not with flesh but with some form of synthetic, bone-like material. He carefully pulled them out, the optical strings still attached, revealing a complex web of wires, gears, and circuitry beneath her temples.
"What are you doing?" Kamina asked, a hint of unease in his voice.
"I'm just inspecting, do not worry," the owner said, his voice a low, reassuring hum.
He saw the source of her agony. It was not in her bleeding or her convulsions, but in the small, almost-invisible fractures on the surface of her artificial eyes. He traced them with a precise tool, a quiet gasp escaping his lips as he found more and more. The pain, he realized, was not in her body, but in the very things that were keeping her alive.
He announced his discovery to Kamina, his voice filled with a mixture of professional detachment and genuine awe. "Her eyes are what's keeping her alive, while they are also what is killing her. Her body is too weak to live without the eyes, but it cannot bear the burden of them. I have expertise in mechanical body parts, but this is far beyond what a normal body enhancement tattoo artist can do."
He then began to put everything back together, his movements a blur of practiced precision. He gave her another dose of the pain relief stimulant, and she was silent, the terrible glow in her veins fading into a dull, ethereal light.
"How much is it?" Kamina asked.
"Only a few shots of pain relief dose I can do, so it will be 64,330 Ahn," the owner said. "I'll take cash. And another thing, she won't live long to see past 18 unless you pour money for the best specs for her body or rely on Corps that could restore the body or prolong it, like H Corp's bolus or K Corp's HP shots,... or a miracle happens. Also, the blood she spilled is quite a lot and would be a pain in the ass to mop up, so I had to add 10% to the payment."
Kamina, without a second thought, pulled the wad of money from his pocket and handed it to the owner, who counted it quickly.
"You got a phone here?" Kamina asked.
"Yes," the owner replied, gesturing to a phone on a desk. "Feel free to use it."
Kamina grabbed the phone and dialed.
"Kamina, don't go to the first stop. It's been ambushed. Pisanio and I will take another route."
"Damn..." Kamina said, then looked at the phone. "Could you get Pisanio on the phone?"
"Sure, Pisanio, Kamina wants to talk with you," Shmuel said.
Pisanio took the phone. "Is my lady alright?"
"I'd say it's the worst she's having right now," Kamina said.
"It happens after 5:00 A.M., right?"
"Yeah. You should have warned me about this."
"No time for arguing," Pisanio said. "She just needs some rest before moving again. Let's meet somewhere else and talk more."
"Cool." Kamina said, and he hung up the phone.