The first shot wiped a smile off the room.
The bullet punched through the nearest mask between the eyes. White cracked, and the body fell with a sick thud.
Nobody flinched.
Eight other masks turned toward Takeshi in the same silent motion.
Hands rose.
And with them, knives.
Not ordinary steel. Small, shiny blades - each one seated around a purple Luminite core that breathed a low violet pulse. They slid out from sleeves and cuffs, then stopped being held at all.
They hovered.
Takeshi's stomach tightened.
So that was the Moirai.
Fingers twitched.
The first wave came quickly.
Three knives snapped forward for his chest, two dropped low for his knees, one drifted widely - patient, waiting for where his body would try to dodge.
Takeshi's left arm came up.
The red gem flared, and plates spun across his forearm with soft clicks, overlapping into a blunt shield.
The first blade struck but skated off with a harsh scrape.
The second bit deeper, half-burying itself between plates. The third slipped past the edge and cut his ribs instead. A thin red line opened under Takeshi's shirt.
As an answer, Marcus's pistol cracked twice.
A second mask snapped back, porcelain bursting in a sound louder than the gunshot itself.
Two Moirai on his left spread their fingers wide. Now, violet luminite fragments lifted into the air - tiny shards, razor-sharp.
On his right, the suit with silver lining made a small circle of shards, spinning behind his shoulder, waiting.
The weaker ones had one knife each.
The stronger ones had luminite fragments - higher accuracy, deeper wounds.
Takeshi dropped behind a chair.
It bought him less than a second of time.
The violet edges bit through wood and frame like it was paper. Splinters exploded. Metal screeched.
Tskeshi rolled out, barely dodging, and fired low under the table, into a leg
The knee bent in the wrong direction.
One set of shards stuttered in the air for a breath, losing their order.
Then the man at the head of the table finally moved.
He didn't hurry. He just lifted his hand, fingers closing a fraction.
Every loose shard in the room shuddered and rotated toward him.
They rose and formed a ring over his shoulders - dozens of violet points, perfectly spaced, perfectly still.
"You're still as stubborn as I remember you..." the voice said, calm and almost disappointed. "That's why you lost everything."
Takeshi didn't answer.
The leader's fingers twitched. A storm of fragments launched forward.
Five shards for the heart. A tight cluster for the throat. Others for hips, joints, femoral, spine - not random, not wasted. Every angle had killing intent behind it.
The red gem in Takeshi's arm answered.
Seams glowed hot. Red light erupted from the plates and reshaped itself into a hard shimmering wall in front of him.
The storm hit.
The fragments slammed into the red Eon wall in a continuous roar. Sparks burst like shattered glass. Some fragments snapped outright. Some dug into the barrier and hesitated before dropping dead to the floor.
But three got through.
One stabbed into his thigh.
One scratched his side and kept going, burning another line under his ribs.
One sliced across his shoulder.
Takeshi's jaw clenched.
His iron hand caught the edge of the massive table. The red gem flared again.
With all his strength, Tskeshi heaved.
The long black table ripped free of its floor bolts with a screech and flipped up like a wall.
The leader's hand snapped.
A shard cluster shoved outward, trying to protect him.
The table slammed, but not exactly where Takeshi wanted.
It hurt the leader's shoulder instead of crushing him, slamming into the glass behind with a thunderous crack. The glass took a spiderweb parter. Data flickered and died mid-scroll.
The leader slid a step, coat wrinkling, but mask still smiling.
Barely dodged.
"That was clever" the leader grunted softly.
But Takeshi was far from stopping.
His metal hand tore a jagged chunk from a chair - wood, frame and a few splinters - and he swung it like a club.
A Moirai lunged in close, trying to slip a knife under the shield.
Takeshi caught the wrist, twisted hard, and the hovering blade wobbled.
His elbow rose, fully shattering the mask.
Two more suits stepped forward, trying to box him in with shards.
Takeshi shot one.
The other tried to pull the knife towards the bullet trajectory.
Too slow. Another body fell.
The room thinned. Fewer remained, but that wasn't enough. The leader - or whoever was pretending to be their leader - was still there.
And Tskeshi gave him enough time to recover slightly.
Clusters drew together and hardened into shapes - a shield plate that hovered at chest height, a spear that formed and dissolved and re-formed as needed, and a few other fragments in case something went too wrong.
The leader wasn't throwing knives - he was building weapons midair.
Takeshi's thigh screamed every time he put weight on it.
His pistol was on its last bullet, but he fired anyway.
The leader's shard shield snapped up and deflected, violet splintering and reforming a second later.
Tskeshi was now seriously mad. His metal fingers flexed.
Red light gathered along his palm, compressing, thinning, sharpening.
A blade formed in his grip. A knife that looked like it was made from red light itself, yet still solid and sharp. Takeshi used Eon to create his own weapon.
Even the leader paused.
Just a fraction.
Just enough.
Takeshi threw.
The red knife cut straight across the room.
Violet shards snapped up to meet it, but they didn't matter.
The red edge tore through the shard wall and kept going.
The leader shifted, barely tilting his head in time.
The blade missed his mask by a hair, and hit a suit behind him instead.
Another body fell.
"So it seems I have underestimated you... again." the leader said quietly.
Takeshi didn't let him finish whatever that meant.
Another red knife grew in his palm, the heat biting deeper into his forearm socket as it formed. It hurt like hell now, but he didn't care.
He stepped in, closing distance. The leader's spear snapped out, and Takeshi turned straight into it.
His metal forearm took the hit, redirecting the point, sparks flying everywhere.
The leader slid back, shards swirling up as a shield between them.
Takeshi's red blade slashed, cutting the violet storm open.
The leader's ring of shards tightened, spinning faster, a dangerous halo that would slice anything foolish enough to step in.
Takeshi stepped in anyway.
The red knife met the first shard. It broke upon impact.
Second shard. It broke, too.
Third shard.
Guess what! It broke.
Takeshi finally got behind him - close enough to grab.
His metal hand caught the leader by the collar and drove him into the wall.
Porcelain cracked.
He shoved the mask into the wall again. Twice. Three times.
On the fourth hit, the mask shattered clean down the middle and fell in white pieces.
The violet shards in the air faltered.
The leader's bare face didn't show panic. He had a long, black, braided hair.
He looked at Takeshi's red-lit arm, at the trembling heat under the plates.
"That stone is not yours" he said, almost gently. "It hates you. That's why I know it burns."
Takeshi's answer was a quick, shallow cut at the back of his head, a cut meant to cut the nerve.
Quick. Clean. Painless.
The last violet shards dropped to the floor like dead hail.
Silence crashed down.
No humming.
No floating knives.
Just broken glass, white fragments, and bodies in black suits becoming cold on a floor that didn't deserve blood.
Takeshi stood there, chest heaving.
The red knife in his hand flickered and dissolved out into air.
The gem in his arm dimmed, but the heat didn't leave - it stayed, trapped under the plates, like a warning.
Something inside him took the place of revenge.
Not joy.
Not peace.
Just emptiness - the shape rage leaves behind when it finally dies.
He took a half of a step.
Then another.
His leg buckled slightly.
And then -
A hand moved near the floor.
The leader, dying, not dead yet.
Takeshi's eyes snapped down, but it was too late.
The man's fingers held a small steel knife, plain steel and silvery.
The leader's lips twitched.
"One last lesson..." he whispered, as he slowly threw the blade low under Takeshi's ribs.
"When you defeat someone..."
The cut wasn't deep enough to drop him. But it was deep enough to do its job.
"Make sure they're dead." He whispered.
Takeshi's whole body clenched around the point. Heat exploded in his gut, then turned cold in the same moment.
He ripped the knife out and threw it back without thinking.
The leader went completely still now.
Finally.
Takeshi stayed hunched, palm pressed to his side.
Blood leaked between his fingers.
Too dark.
Almost violet.
Thicker than it should be.
The edges of the wound didn't burn like a normal wound.
His tongue went numb. His throat tightened. His vision blurred a bit.
Takeshi blinked hard once, and finally understood.
The Moirai were dead...
But their poison wasn't.