The pyre burned against the darkness, flames consuming what remained of those Michael had lost. He stood motionless as the fire claimed Alphonse, Jake, Junk, Flowers, and Moon—teacher, family, betrayer, all reduced to ash and memory. The Shimobe Blade gleamed crimson at his side, reflecting the dancing flames.
When nothing remained but embers, Michael turned away. There was work to be done.
The 500 million alphas that had been Alphonse's obsession now served a different purpose. Michael used a portion to transform the Black Feathers' base, reinforcing walls with titanium plates, installing advanced security systems, and upgrading the communications array. The abandoned warehouse became a fortress—part sanctuary, part armory.
What remained of the money, he set aside. Resources would be needed for what was to come.
The Undercity's most skilled black-market surgeon flinched when Michael approached him with his request, but the payment silenced any objections. The procedure took sixteen hours: Moon's biotech eyes carefully extracted from the old man's body and calibrated to Michael's neural pathways. When the bandages came off, Michael saw the world as Moon had—patterns of movement prediction, thermal signatures, microscopic details invisible to normal vision.
He didn't stop there. The wings harvested from Eagle's corpse, he upgraded it and made it lighter to enable him to move at very high speeds. The pain as they fused with his spine was blinding, but Michael endured silently. Pain was no longer an enemy, but a teacher.
In the quiet of Moon's abandoned dwelling, Michael discovered shelves of ancient books on swordsmanship—handwritten journals documenting techniques developed over decades. Page by page, stance by stance, Michael absorbed Moon's lifetime of knowledge. Hours bled into days, days into weeks as he trained relentlessly with the Shimobe Blade.
The katana was unlike any weapon he had encountered. It responded to his thoughts, his emotions—sometimes floating of its own accord, anticipating attacks before Michael himself was aware of them. The crimson hue never faded, only intensifying when Michael's concentration was absolute.
After a year of isolation and punishing self-discipline, Michael had mastered what might have taken another decade. The fusion of Moon's eyes, Eagle's wings, and the Shimobe Blade transformed him into something new—neither fully human nor machine, but a hybrid forged in loss and tempered by purpose.
Yet purpose required knowledge. Before acting, Michael needed to understand the Undercity in ways that even years with the Black Feathers hadn't revealed.
He donned a reinforced black cloak, fitted a sleek ninja mask over his face, and secured the Shimobe Blade to his back. Its weight had become familiar, almost comforting.
The journey to the center of the Undercity took him through territories he'd avoided even as a Black Feather. Dilapidated buildings gave way to increasingly twisted architecture—structures that defied gravity and logic, as if reality itself was breaking down.
At last, he reached the edge of what locals called the Chasm—a massive depression at the Undercity's heart. A narrow bridge stretched across the void to a large, fortified gate embedded in imposing walls. Above the entrance, a weathered sign swung in the perpetual industrial breeze: "Welcome to the Chasm."
Michael crossed the bridge slowly, aware of eyes watching from hidden vantage points. The gate opened automatically as he approached—an ominous invitation.
What lay beyond stole his breath.
The Chasm was a nightmare made manifest. Twisted creatures that had once been human shambled through crowded streets. Some resembled animals—wolves, bears, reptiles—while others defied classification entirely, their mutations seemingly random and cruel. Michael's enhanced vision detected only pockets of true humans, perhaps twenty percent of the population, huddled in defended enclaves.
But it was the tower that dominated everything—a monolithic structure rising 200 meters from the Chasm's center. Black metal and strange crystalline materials intertwined in its construction, pulsing with unnatural energy.
Michael activated Moon's eyes to their fullest capacity, scanning the tower level by level. Each of the three floors housed signature energy patterns consistent with powerful guardians or sentinels. But it was the third floor that drew his focus.
A throne room, spacious and ornate. Seated upon a chair of what appeared to be living metal was a figure Michael's scanning identified only as "Steel." Behind the throne stood a tree unlike any Michael had seen—its branches glowing with the same energy that permeated the Chasm.
As Michael zoomed in further, his enhanced vision revealed the horrifying truth: tendrils of energy from the tree reached throughout the Chasm, touching the mutated citizens. Where the energy connected, mutations worsened.
The source of the Undercity's deepest corruption wasn't corrupt officials or crime lords. It was that tree—and the being who guarded it.
Michael's hands tightened into fists. The path forward was clear: defeat the tower's guardians, eliminate Steel, destroy the tree. Save the Undercity not through small acts of vigilantism, but by cutting out the heart of its disease.
A sudden instinct made Michael dive sideways. A metallic fist crashed into the spot where he'd stood, shattering concrete.
The attacker straightened, revealing a humanoid form encased entirely in gleaming armor. Red energy coursed through veins etched into the metal, pulsing in rhythm like a mechanical heartbeat. No face was visible behind the featureless helmet—only a dark void where eyes should be.
Michael unsheathed the Shimobe Blade in one fluid motion. The katana's crimson glow intensified, sensing conflict.
They clashed with explosive force, metal meeting metal in a shower of sparks. The bot moved with unnatural speed, each strike precise and devastating. Michael parried attacks that would have shattered normal weapons, the Shimobe Blade singing as it deflected blow after blow.
The machine leapt back, its armor reconfiguring as a panel opened on its chest. Energy gathered, coalescing into a deadly beam aimed directly at Michael.
Moon's eyes predicted the attack's trajectory before it fired. Michael tilted his head slightly, feeling the heat of the beam as it passed within millimeters of his face.
Time to end this.
Michael activated Eagle's wings, the bio-mechanical augmentations extending from his back with a soft mechanical whisper. In a blur of motion, he vanished from the bot's visual sensors.
The machine whirled, scanning for its target. Its systems weren't designed to track movement at the speeds Michael now reached.
From high above, Michael plummeted like a crimson comet. The Shimobe Blade guided his descent, cutting through the air without resistance. At the speed of sound, Michael struck—a single, perfect slash that separated the bot's head from its shoulders.
The machine collapsed, red energy flickering and dying as its systems failed.
Michael sheathed the Shimobe Blade, his wings folding against his back once more. He studied the fallen enemy, memorizing its design. A scout, perhaps, or a perimeter guard. Not powerful enough to be one of the tower's main defenders.
The encounter had been instructive. Despite his year of training and enhancements, the fight had required effort. If this was merely a sentry, the tower guardians would pose a far greater challenge. And Steel, sitting on his throne before the corrupting tree...
Michael took flight, rising above the Chasm and its twisted inhabitants, returning to his fortress. Tonight had been reconnaissance, nothing more. He wasn't ready yet to challenge the tower—not directly.
But there were other battles to be fought, other enemies to face. The common criminals of the Undercity would serve as his training ground, each confrontation honing his skills further.
Michael looked back over his shoulder at the distant tower, its malevolent presence dominating the horizon.
Someday, he would return. Someday, he would ascend those three floors and face Steel. Someday, he would end the corruption at its source.
But first, he would become what the Undercity needed most—not just a vigilante, but a guardian. A protector wielding a crimson blade against the darkness.
A Crimson Angel.