The mask arrived in a velvet-lined box.
No note. No blood. No theatrics.
Just the object — smooth, bone-white porcelain, shaped like a human face but blank where eyes should be. No mouth. No expression. Just emptiness.
Ash turned it over in her hands, tracing the clean edges. It was cold. Too cold. Like it had been frozen.
Haru stood across the room, jaw tight, his eyes never leaving her.
She placed the mask on the table and said, "He's not hiding anymore."
"Hollow?"
She nodded once. "That was his fighting mask. From before the labs. Before DaeCorp made him forget who he was."
Haru stepped closer. "What does it mean, him sending it now?"
"It means he remembers me."
They burned the box, but not the mask.
Ash refused.
"He wants me to be afraid," she told Haru. "I won't give him that. Not yet."
But later that night, she didn't sleep.
She sat in the dark with the mask beside her, staring at it like it might speak. Like it might explain how someone who used to fight beside her — someone who used to scream in the same cages — could become the thing they'd once sworn to escape.
Haru watched her from the mattress, his voice low.
"Is it possible… he still thinks you're on his side?"
"No," she said. "He doesn't think at all. Not the way we do. He feels. Obsession isn't loyalty. It's possession with prettier words."
"And you think you're his obsession?"
"I know I am."
The next day, Phoenix scrambled.
Security protocols went red across three districts. Communications between safehouses dropped to minimal bandwidth. Every operative was given a reassignment envelope — unopened until called.
Ash wasn't given one.
She wasn't surprised.
Arlen pulled her into a private debrief. His tone was clipped. His eyes didn't meet hers.
"We've picked up Hollow's signal near the west canal corridor. We believe he's hunting low-level Phoenix scouts. Pattern's erratic, but he's closing in."
"You want me to be bait again," she said.
Arlen blinked. "This time… yes."
She laughed. Quietly. Without humor.
"You're not even pretending anymore."
"It's a strategic opportunity."
"It's a death sentence."
"For who?" Arlen asked, voice thin.
Ash stood. "That's the problem. You think anyone who bleeds for this cause is replaceable."
She stepped closer. "But I'm not one of your agents. And I'm not dying on your terms."
"Then what are your terms?"
She paused.
And smiled — slow, sharp, unsettling.
"Mine."
That night, Ash disappeared.
No warning. No note. Just gone.
Haru was the first to notice. Her bed untouched. Her weapons drawer missing two blades. Her comms line dead.
He knew immediately.
She was going to face Hollow alone.
She found him in the ruins of a condemned cathedral, where light filtered through shattered stained glass and painted the cracked floor in distorted halos.
He stood in the center of the old altar, wearing the mask.
Not the one he sent her — a new one.
Wider.
Smiling.
He tilted his head when she stepped forward.
"Ash," he said. His voice echoed too smoothly. Not mechanical. Not human. Programmed.
"You remember me?" she asked, circling slowly.
"I remember your scream."
She didn't flinch.
"Why now?"
"Because you belong to me," he replied. "You always did."
"I belong to no one."
"You say that with someone else's name on your lips."
He removed the mask.
Beneath it was a face too smooth. Surgically altered. Expressionless. Only the eyes remained — the one thing they couldn't erase.
And she knew them.
He had once held her hand in the dark between matches. Once whispered that they'd find a way out.
Now, he was the executioner.
"You died in that place," she said. "Whatever's left — it's not him."
"It is," he said. "And I want you to join me. In the silence."
She took a step back.
He didn't move.
"You came alone," he said. "Like I knew you would."
"No," she whispered. "I didn't."
A click echoed behind him.
Then a voice.
"She doesn't belong to you."
Haru.
Gun raised. Steady. Fury controlled by discipline.
Hollow turned his head.
"Ah. The son."
"You're not taking her."
"I already did," Hollow said. "Years ago."
And then he vanished.
One moment there — the next, smoke and shadow.
Back at the safehouse, Ash didn't speak for hours.
She sat in the shower, fully clothed, letting cold water soak through every layer. Haru waited outside, back against the door, listening to nothing but the steady drop of water and the silence of her grief.
When she finally emerged, she looked like herself — only quieter.
She walked to him and sat down.
Didn't speak.
Didn't explain.
But reached for his hand and rested her head against his shoulder.
"You shouldn't have followed me," she said.
"I didn't."
She blinked.
"I tracked the ghost you left behind," he said. "Your scent. Your rhythm. Your rage. That's what I follow. Not you."
She exhaled.
"I'm afraid of what I'll become," she said.
"I'm not," he replied.
"You should be."
He didn't answer.
Instead, he kissed her forehead — soft, lingering.
Not because she needed comfort.
But because she let him.