By midnight, the world outside the Obsidian was a mess of neon and rain, a city-wide hallucination bleeding through Nueva Arcadia's Crystal District. Here, pleasure was both weapon and currency. Power drank itself sick, then woke the next morning to rule again.
The entrance to the club was nothing: a matte black door, no sign, no bouncer, only a soft pressure at the threshold, like a velvet paw on your throat. Shiori wore no jewelry, carried nothing but a clutch with her ID and a custom-engraved cred stick. Her uniform—swapped for a simple graphite dress and a cream shawl—fit perfectly. She hated that it made her look older, hated even more how easily she passed for a young executive, the kind they bred in tanks above the thirty-fifth floor.
The pressure at the door stilled her, just for a heartbeat. She felt the scan of her retinas, the cold brush of a magical glyph tickling the base of her skull. The door opened, and the club's foyer swallowed her.
Inside, every surface was polished black or a soft, synthetic velvet. The air was heavy with the perfume of engineered pheromones, subtle and shifting—first flowers, then ozone, then something that reminded her, with surgical accuracy, of her mother's breath on the back of her neck.
She moved through the entry like she owned it. She'd watched her father do the same at board meetings and funerals: let the space bend around you, never the other way. On the main floor, bodies crowded together in constellations of dances and boredom, augmented with horns, tails, eyes like wolf's gold. Mana flashed in delicate glasses, mixed into drinks that cost more than most rent. Drones, feather-light and impossible to notice unless you already knew they existed, orbited the floor with silent menace.
Shiori ignored them. She'd been here once, years ago, back when her father needed to remind the underworld who held its leash. Tonight, she came for her own leash.
Security was three layers deep. The first was a hulking Feran, bear-type, whose arms were covered in old military tattoos. He blocked the VIP elevator with an arm the size of a bough.
"Not on the list," he rumbled, voice like a downshifted engine.
Shiori smiled, small and razor-sharp. "Check again. Priority access, per arrangement." She passed her cred stick, and he looked at it, then at her, with growing suspicion.
He scanned the stick, then her face. The little red light on his collar flicked from "ignore" to "escort." He grunted and stepped aside.
The elevator was real obsidian, inside and out, with no buttons—only a touchpad and a thin slot for genetic verification. Shiori pressed her palm to the reader. A faint heat pulsed against her skin, then receded. The elevator dropped, silent as a sarcophagus.
At the bottom: a corridor lined with living obsidian, veins of raw mana pulsing under the surface. The air was colder, quieter, but every step triggered a new surveillance measure. Shiori counted four cameras, three biometric sniffers, and a final invisible line of defense—a pressure wave that tested her for concealed spells. She passed, but only barely; she felt the warning, a prick of static behind her eyes, and tamped down the small fire of her own magic.
At the end of the hallway, a single door waited. It slid open at her approach, exposing the sanctum.
Aika sat behind a desk grown from living wood, its branches writhing softly in the shadows. She was Feran—fox, beast type, the ears tall and tufted, the fur a molten red that shimmered even in low light. Her hands were small, precise, folded over a notebook made of something like leather, but thicker, less forgiving.
She didn't stand when Shiori entered. She didn't smile, either.
"Shiori Taira," Aika said, voice as flat as a judge's gavel. "You're early."
"Timing is everything, isn't it?" Shiori replied, stepping forward. She stood until Aika gestured—minimal, but absolute—and only then did she sit. The chair was soft, but left her a centimeter above the desk, a calculated imbalance. She liked that. It meant Aika didn't want her too comfortable.
"Drink?" Aika asked.
"No, thank you."
"Good." Aika made a small mark in her notebook, then closed it. "You know why you're here?"
Shiori glanced at the obsidian walls, the lack of recording devices. "I want to activate a contract. Off-record. I want UMBRA."
Aika's left eyebrow twitched. "Expensive. Also dangerous. Why?"
Shiori inhaled, let it out slow. She'd rehearsed the speech, but now that it was time, it tasted bitter.
"Because there's something in the port. Because my father's people are lying about it. Because someone needs to fix what happened last night, and it won't be the police."
Aika waited, expressionless. "You're not telling me the real reason. Yet."
Shiori's jaw clenched. She looked at her own hands, the way the fingers curled into her palm.
"Because they won't just erase the evidence," she said. "They'll erase the people who saw it. And I'm done letting them." She looked up, met Aika's gaze dead-on. "Some debts can only be paid in blood."
Aika's ears flicked once. The ghost of a smile.
"That's more like it. Your family has enemies. Some of them sit in this very building. You understand what happens if I say yes?"
Shiori nodded. "I do."
"There's no recall. No forgiveness. If UMBRA takes the job, you live with the outcome. All of it."
A pause, long enough to let Shiori think of her brother, her mother, the city she hated and loved.
"I accept."
Aika's smile was there, now—small, but undeniable. She slid a palm-sized contract across the desk. It shimmered, the surface a holographic blur of letters and runes.
"Blood or mana," Aika said. "Pick your poison."
Shiori drew her thumb across the edge of the contract. It bit her, just a pinprick, and the paper drank her blood, sigils blooming red along the edge.
The deal was made.
Aika stood, all slow grace, and extended a hand. Shiori took it, feeling the static crackle between their palms.
"Congratulations, Shiori. You've just set the city on fire."
The moment held, then broke. Aika stepped back, and the room's lighting changed from shadow to blinding white, resetting the world to its default.
"Go home," Aika said, already turning away. "We'll handle the rest."
Shiori walked back through the corridor, up the elevator, past the bear-man who didn't even blink as she exited. The city's rain had stopped, and for the first time in years, she felt the air on her skin. Not inside a cage, not behind glass, but real.
She pulled her phone, found Mouse's number still saved in her contacts—never once used—and hesitated.
Then she typed a single line: Be careful.
She sent it, erased the message, and melted into the night.
Above her, the world kept turning, silent and unafraid.
But Shiori knew: by morning, nothing would be the same.