Aria's POV
Emiko's blade slashes toward my throat.
I throw myself backward, summoning chains instinctively. They block her strike with a sound like breaking glass. The impact sends me crashing into Kaito's bookshelf.
"Emiko, STOP!" Kaito shouts, moving to intercept.
My sister spins and kicks him in the chest with spirit-enhanced strength. Kaito flies across the room and slams into the wall hard enough to crack it.
"Don't interfere," Emiko says coldly. "This is between me and the liar."
"I'm not lying!" I scramble to my feet, dodging as she attacks again. Her movements are perfect—trained, lethal, efficient. Nothing like the gentle three-year-old from my memories. "Emiko, please! The council killed our parents! They've been using you!"
"SHUT UP!" She throws a dagger that crackles with spirit energy. I barely deflect it with my chains. "You abandoned me! Left me to die in that fire!"
"We thought YOU were dead!" I'm backing up, defensive, unable to attack my own sister. "Kaito searched for survivors for years! We never knew—"
"More lies!" Emiko's violet eyes blaze with rage and pain. "The council saved me. Raised me. Gave me purpose when my own family threw me away like GARBAGE!"
Behind her, the council enforcers spread out, blocking all exits. Azrael moves to engage them, chains erupting from his body.
"Aria, focus on your sister!" he commands. "I'll handle these fools."
But I CAN'T focus. Because fighting Emiko feels wrong. She's my baby sister. The girl I should have protected.
Emiko reads my hesitation and exploits it immediately. She closes the distance in a heartbeat and punches me in the stomach. Spirit energy explodes on impact, and pain erupts through my body.
I gasp, doubling over.
"Pathetic." Emiko grabs my hair and forces me to look at her. "The council said you'd be weak. Sentimental. They were right." She raises her blade. "Goodbye, fake sister."
"She's not fake!" Kaito tackles Emiko from the side, and they crash through the coffee table. "That's OUR sister! Our blood!"
"I have no family!" Emiko fights like a wild animal, all rage and desperation. "My family is DEAD!"
"We're right here!" Kaito pins her arms. "Emiko, I held you when you were born! I taught you to walk! Don't you remember ANYTHING?"
For just a second, something flickers in Emiko's eyes. Confusion. Recognition.
Then it's gone, buried under years of conditioning.
"Let me GO!" She headbutts Kaito, breaking his nose. While he's stunned, she twists free and kicks him away. "You're both brainwashed by that demon! The council will cleanse you!"
I stagger to my feet, one hand on my injured stomach. "If we're brainwashed, why did I show you real memories? Why could you FEEL the truth through our bond?"
Emiko freezes. "That was... a trick. An illusion—"
"You know it wasn't." I take a shaky step forward. "You felt Mom's love. Dad's pride. Kaito teaching us. You FELT it, Emiko. That's not something that can be faked through a family blood bond."
Tears well up in her eyes, but she blinks them away furiously. "No. You're lying. You have to be lying because if you're not..." Her voice cracks. "If you're not, then everything I've done... everyone I've killed for the council..."
"Was based on lies," I finish softly. "But it's not your fault. They manipulated you. Used you."
"Just like they used me," Kaito adds, slowly standing despite his broken nose. "Emiko, I searched the ruins for days after the fire. I MOURNED you. We both did."
Emiko's hands shake. Her blade wavers.
One of the council enforcers steps forward. "Agent Emiko, stop letting them manipulate you. Complete your mission."
"I..." Emiko looks between us and the enforcer. "I can't... they feel like..."
"Like family," I say. "Because we ARE."
She's breaking. I can see it. The cracks forming in her conditioning.
Then her phone buzzes.
She glances at the screen, and her face goes white. "No. No, they wouldn't—"
She turns the phone to show us. It's a live video feed of a little girl—maybe six years old—locked in a cell, crying.
"Agent Emiko." The voice comes from her phone's speaker. Cold. Authoritative. "You have thirty seconds to kill the Nakamura traitors, or the child dies. She's counting on you."
Emiko's entire body trembles. "Please. She's just a kid. She has nothing to do with—"
"Twenty seconds."
"Emiko, who is she?" I ask desperately.
"A girl from the orphanage where they kept me." Tears stream down Emiko's face. "I protected her. She's the only person who was ever kind to me." Her voice breaks. "They'll kill her. They'll kill her and it'll be my fault."
"Ten seconds."
Emiko raises her blade again, but now she's sobbing. "I'm sorry. I'm so sorry. But I can't let her die."
She attacks—but this time her movements are sloppy. Conflicted. She doesn't want to kill us, but she thinks she has no choice.
I block her strike easily. "Azrael! Can you trace that video feed?"
"Already on it!" Azrael's chains have wrapped around three enforcers, crushing them like insects. "The signal's coming from a facility ten miles north. But even if we—"
"Open a portal. NOW."
"Aria, if you leave, Emiko will—"
"She won't." I look at my sister, seeing past the trained killer to the scared little girl underneath. "Because she's coming with us. Right, Emiko?"
My sister stares at me, shocked. "You'd... you'd help me save her? After I tried to kill you?"
"You're my sister." I extend my hand. "And family protects family."
"Three... two..." the cold voice counts down.
Emiko looks at my outstretched hand. At Kaito nodding encouragement. At the phone showing the little girl crying.
She grabs my hand.
"DO IT!" she screams at Azrael.
The Demon King grins viciously and opens a massive portal. "Hold on. This is going to be rough."
We dive through together—me, Emiko, Kaito, and Azrael—leaving the council enforcers behind.
The portal spits us out in front of a concrete facility surrounded by guards. Security lights blaze. Armed contractors patrol the perimeter.
"Where's the girl?" I demand.
"Basement. Cell 7." Emiko's voice is steady now, focused. "But there are at least fifty contractors inside. We can't—"
"Watch us." Kaito cracks his knuckles, and his phoenix spirit manifests in a burst of flames. "Nobody hurts kids on my watch."
Azrael's chains spread like a dark storm. "I haven't had a good fight in centuries. This will be entertaining."
I look at Emiko. "Can you fight with us? Against the people who raised you?"
She stares at the facility where they're holding an innocent child hostage. Where they've been holding HER hostage her entire life with threats and manipulation.
"Yes." Her grip tightens on her blade. "Let's burn it down."
The four of us charge forward.
Guards shout in alarm. Contractors summon their spirits. Weapons appear.
We don't slow down.
Kaito's phoenix tears through the front line with holy fire. Azrael's chains rip through metal doors like paper. I summon my own chains, combining demonic power with Nakamura lightning.
And Emiko fights beside us—not against us—moving with deadly grace, taking down every contractor who gets in our way.
We're a storm of destruction, and nothing stops us.
We crash through the basement door. Cell 7 is at the end of a long hallway.
"There!" Emiko runs faster than I've ever seen anyone move.
But as we approach the cell, something feels wrong.
The door is already open.
The cell is empty.
"No..." Emiko stumbles inside, looking everywhere. "Where is she? WHERE IS SHE?"
A slow clap echoes down the hallway.
We all spin around.
The head council member stands there, smiling coldly. "Well done, Agent Emiko. You led them right to us."
Behind him stand a hundred contractors. And in the middle of them, held by two guards, is the little girl—alive but terrified.
"You used her as bait," Kaito snarls.
"Obviously." The council member's smile widens. "Did you really think we'd let three Nakamuras and a Demon King walk around free? You're threats to the established order. You had to be eliminated."
He gestures, and the hundred contractors move forward as one.
"This was a trap from the beginning," Azrael says grimly.
"Of course it was." The head council member's eyes gleam with malice. "And now you're exactly where we want you. Trapped. Outnumbered. About to die."
Emiko looks at me, horror and guilt written across her face. "I'm sorry. I led you into this. I—"
"You tried to save a child." I grab her hand and squeeze. "That's what family does."
I look at the army of contractors surrounding us. At the head council member who murdered our parents. At the impossible odds.
And I smile.
"Azrael? Kaito? Emiko?" I let my power flow freely now, chains erupting around me. "Let's show them what happens when you threaten a Nakamura family."
"With pleasure," Azrael's demon form manifests fully—wings spreading, chains everywhere, power that makes reality itself scream.
Kaito's phoenix roars, flames turning the hallway white-hot.
And Emiko—my broken, manipulated, brave little sister—stands beside us, ready to fight the people who tortured her for seventeen years.
"For Mom and Dad," she whispers.
"For family," I agree.
The council member's smile falters as he realizes he made a terrible mistake.
He didn't trap us.
We're the trap.
And he just walked right into it.
The battle explodes.