The rain hadn't stopped.
Neither had the blood.
It streaked across the hospital tiles in uneven lines, diluted by water dripping from my clothes, smeared by shoes rushing past and then stopping short. I didn't remember standing up. I didn't remember pulling away from my mother's body.
One moment her last breath was still echoing in my ears—
and the next, death was already swinging for my neck.
I rolled.
Not gracefully. Not cleanly.
Pure reflex.
A blade tore through the space where my throat had been a heartbeat earlier.
Air screamed.
Steel passed so close I felt the pressure of it against my skin, cold and sharp like a warning kiss. The sound came a fraction later—a hiss, thin and violent.
I didn't look.
I didn't need to.
An assassin stood where grief should have had more time.
I moved.
I drove my shoulder forward and slammed into him, using the narrow corridor to my advantage. Bone met concrete. The impact rattled through my body, pain flaring across my collarbone and ribs—
but my frame held.
Years in water had carved me dense. Compact. Explosive. Muscle built to endure resistance, to push through drag, to keep moving long after burning became normal.
My elbow came up and across.
It crashed into his jaw with a dull, final crack.
I felt it through my forearm.
He staggered back, choking on a sound that never became a scream.
Another shape rushed in from the side.
Too fast.
I ducked instinctively, caught his arm mid-swing, and twisted—hard, brutal, without finesse.
Resistance vanished.
A sharp, wet snap.
He screamed.
I didn't let go.
I smashed his face into the floor once.
Twice.
Again—until his body stopped fighting and went slack beneath my hands. I let go the moment I felt his breathing falter.
The sound echoed down the corridor, ugly and final.
Because my intent was not to kill — I forced myself to stop.
I just wanna save Renya.
"Where is Renya?!" I roared, my voice tearing itself apart.
"WHERE IS MY RENYA?!"
My throat burned. My chest felt too small to hold what was inside it.
More shadows spilled into the hall.
They didn't rush blindly.
They flowed.
Dark figures emerging from doorways, stairwells, behind curtains that had been hastily pulled aside. Their steps were measured. Controlled. Shoes barely squeaking against tile.
Hospital alarms began to wail somewhere far off—sharp, frantic, layered over the steady beeping of monitors and the distant shouts of staff trying to move people out of the way.
Monitors inside nearby rooms began to beep erratically.
Not alarms.
Confusion.
Heart rates spiking. Oxygen levels fluctuating without cause.
Dr. Ishida stepped out from behind a curtain, stethoscope forgotten around his neck.
"This is a hospital," he said, not loudly, not angrily. "What is happening to my—"
The rest of the sentence never arrived.
A nurse screamed.
Dr. Ishida froze, fingers loosening around his clipboard as it slid from his hand and hit the floor.
Because the wall breathed.
Not visibly.
Not like something alive.
But the surface warped subtly, the texture shifting like fabric drawn too tight. A framed evacuation map slid sideways on its mount and fell, glass shattering on the floor.
Someone whimpered.
Someone yelled for security.
---
No one came close to me.
They could feel it.
Whatever this was, it didn't belong to them.
Steel flashed.
Knives flew.
Not wild.
Not desperate.
Precise.
The first blade cut through the air beside my ear, close enough that I felt the disturbance of it, a thin pressure wave that made my skin prickle. The second scraped across my shoulder, heat and pain blooming together as fabric tore. The third slammed into the wall behind me with a crack that rang down the corridor.
I moved.
Not fast.
Correct.
My body reacted before my mind could catch up—ducking, twisting, stepping into spaces that barely existed. Years of training took over, not as technique but as instinct.
Reading motion.
Timing breath.
Measuring distance.
I stepped inside one throw, too close for another knife to be effective, and drove my knee into a ribcage. I felt cartilage collapse. Air burst from him in a choking wheeze.
Another blade came straight for my throat.
I caught it.
The impact jolted my arm, metal biting into my palm, slick with rain and blood, but my fingers locked around the hilt.
For half a second, the corridor went still.
Monitors beeped.
Rain tapped against windows.
Someone sobbed behind a closed door.
I threw the knife back.
It spun once, twice—
and buried itself squarely in an assassin's chest.
He staggered, disbelief flashing across his eyes—
then another figure stepped in front of him.
A sword flashed up.
Steel rang.
Sparks burst outward, skittering across the floor like fireflies dying too fast.
No words were exchanged.
Just eyes meeting.
Narrowing.
Calculating.
Reassessing.
He was different.
Not frantic.
Not reckless.
His stance was low, balanced. Feet angled slightly outward, weight centered. The blade in his hand wasn't raised aggressively—it was held like an extension of his arm.
Not a killer drunk on violence.
A professional.
The others fell back half a step.
The barrage stopped.
The air changed.
Pressure settled over the corridor, heavy and deliberate, like the moment before a storm breaks.
I adjusted my grip on the sword in my hand—the one I shouldn't have had. The one that had no business existing here. Its faint glow reflected in the polished floor, broken and warped by puddles of water and blood.
My heart hammered, but my breathing slowed.
Focus.
Pain existed.
Grief existed.
But neither could be allowed to steer.
The man opposite me shifted his footing.
So did I.
He moved first.
A straight thrust aimed at my centerline—clean, efficient.
I knocked it aside with the flat of my blade, stepped in, and slammed my shoulder into his chest. He absorbed it, rolling with the impact, blade already swinging back toward my neck.
I ducked, felt the edge pass over my hair, and drove the pommel into his wrist.
He hissed—not in pain, but irritation.
He kicked low.
I jumped back, barely clearing it, heel skidding through blood.
Around us, the hospital felt frozen.
Patients peered from doorways. A doctor pressed himself flat against a wall, eyes wide. Security guards hovered at the far end of the hall, hands on radios, not advancing.
They weren't trained for this.
Neither was I.
But I was still standing.
The assassin came again, faster this time, testing angles, probing defenses. Our blades met again and again, metal shrieking softly with each contact.
He was better than the others.
But he hesitated.
Just once.
His eyes flicked—not at me—but past me.
Toward the room.
Toward where Renya should have been.
That was all I needed.
I drove forward, forced him back, blade scraping sparks off the wall as he stumbled. He recovered quickly, feet finding balance—
And then the ground shifted.
Not violently.
Not suddenly.
Subtly.
The polished tiles beneath my feet lost their familiar resistance.
Not because I willed it—
because something else had already gone wrong.
The sensation was wrong—like stepping onto a surface that hadn't decided what it was yet.
My balance faltered.
Just a fraction.
Enough.
The assassin noticed.
His eyes widened—not in triumph—
but recognition.
The floor rippled.
No—
peeled.
The sterile white beneath us darkened, lines etching themselves into the surface like veins emerging under skin. The air grew heavy, pressing against my ears, my teeth, my bones.
The hospital lights flickered.
Pressure built behind my eyes, dull and aching, like my skull was being squeezed from the inside.
Once.
Twice.
And the world beneath my feet finished deciding what it was.
✦ End of Chapter 8 - When Grief Learns To Move✦