Morning came with a heaviness that no amount of sleep could wash away. The alarm chime rang through the base, cold and sterile, pulling me from a dream where the plaza still burned. I dragged myself to Katara's office, the knot in my stomach tightening with every step down the polished hall.
When I entered, she was already waiting. Papers lined her desk in perfect stacks, her hands folded neatly on top. Her eyes lifted to mine — calm, sharp, calculating.
"You'll have a break," she said without preamble. "No missions until next week."
For a moment, I almost sighed in relief. A week of quiet. A week to breathe.
But her voice cut again, smooth and deliberate. "However, I'll brief you today on the assignment you'll take once the week is over."
I froze. My heart stumbled, then raced. Katara's lips curved into a faint smile, as though my reaction amused her.
"You might be wondering why," she continued, standing now, circling me like a mentor who already owned every step I would take. "As I told you last night, you proved you can be trusted. So I will give you responsibility. This mission will be yours. You will have two guards to accompany you, and one admin to oversee the operation and keep you informed."
Her words fell heavy. Trusted. Responsibility. To her, they were rewards. To me, they felt like chains disguised as ribbons. Still, I nodded — because nodding was the only safe response.
When she finished laying out the instructions, I bowed my head, left the office, and tried not to let the weight show in my steps.
Back in my room, I collapsed onto the bed, staring at the ceiling's white paneling as if the answer to everything might be hidden in the cracks. My chest felt hollow. My mind replayed the plaza — the faces, the screams, the fire. And now I was tasked with something worse: finding the traitor who had betrayed the Association. Capture or kill. Alive or dead.
I wasn't ready. I could feel it in my bones, in the way my breath shortened when I thought about stepping into the field again. My panic attacks had been creeping closer together, sharp bursts that caught me off guard like knives pressed to my throat. Yet Katara's words echoed: You proved you can be trusted. I couldn't slide that trust away. I had to hold it, even if it burned.
So I forced myself up.
The week became a cycle of training, research, and planning. My assigned partners were introduced to me in the training hall. Both were men, older than me, their presence heavy in different ways.
The first was Roland, quiet, sharp-eyed. He had a detection ability — the kind of power that made him dangerous without even lifting a hand. He could sense movement, track signals, read the faintest vibration in the air. His gaze alone felt like he could peel back my skin and catalog what lay beneath.
The second was Arman — all hard angles and quiet authority, the kind of man who looks like he was born to lead. His gift wasn't brute force at all but something slipperier: manipulation. Or, more precisely, strings. Thin as spider silk and colder, his fingers could weave them into the air and attach them to anything living or dead. Not to elements, but to people — to minds.
A tug here, a whisper of doubt there; a sudden flare of anger, a pang of guilt. He didn't need to shout orders. He planted feelings like seeds and watched them grow into actions.
My stomach clenched when Katara told me. Manipulation was my weakest place. I had no defense for it — no armor, no counterspell. Suddenly everything fell into a terrible alignment: Roland guiding the mission, steady and obvious; Arman watching me, patient and invisible.
Every day blurred into drills. Knife strikes until my wrists ache. Target practice until my vision swam. Combat simulations where Roland caught every misstep and Arman laughed when my frustration slipped. I studied maps of the city, traced every possible route, built plans for ambush and retreat.
And every night, the panic returned. Sometimes it was just a tremor in my chest, sometimes it was the full weight of the plaza collapsing on me again. The crying child. The dying man. The smell of smoke that wouldn't wash off no matter how many times I scrubbed my hands.
Still, I forced myself forward. If this mission was the chain Katara locked on me, it was also my chance. A mission in the city meant space, contact, maybe even a path to find the heroes. Maybe even a chance to free my parents.
By the end of the week, the plan was finalized. I met with the admin assigned to guide me — a sharp-dressed woman with thin glasses who spoke with the precision of a machine. She laid out the intel flow, the safehouses, the codes we'd use. Her presence made it clear: every move I made would be watched.
The night before the mission, I sat on my bed with my weapons laid out before me — the knife, the gun, the suit folded in its case. I ran my fingers along the edge of the blade, then closed the case with a snap. My chest was tight, my throat dry, but my hands did not shake.
I whispered to myself: Be ready for the worst.
Because the worst was coming. And this time, I would meet it head-on.
Sunlight pried at the edges of my curtain and finally pulled me out of sleep. I dressed in something casual—plain shirt, worn jeans—and tucked the knife into my boot like a quiet promise. Roland drove. Arman sat up front; I rode in the back with the admin's voice steady in my ear through the earpiece, the line of instructions a thin rope I could cling to.
Our target was Edward Dane: a man who'd been feeding the Hero Association scraps of intel for years, and who had almost exposed our base. If he talked, everything could unravel. If he lived, my parents might die. If he died, my parents might still die. Either way, failure meant a slow, private unmaking.
We rolled through the city and my mind looped through a thousand small catastrophes—what if I slipped, what if I panicked, what if my mouth opened and the wrong thing came out? Katara had given me the mission because she trusted me, or because she wanted me tested. Either truth tasted the same: like a cliff edge.
"Here," Arman said flatly. We got out and spread into position.
The meet would be at a coffee shop: neutral ground, public, and full of witnesses—perfect cover for a handoff. Roland melted into the crowd at the curb. Arman climbed to a vantage point on the roof. I pushed the door open and stepped into the warm, coffee-sweet air of the shop, scanning faces.
The admin murmured through the earpiece: He's late. Give it three minutes.
I ordered a coffee and took a table near the window, casual as everyone else. The shop thrummed: milk steaming, keys clacking, people talking about nothing. Then someone powerful breezed in, the kind of presence that pulls the room's attention without trying. A girl—familiar in a cold, wrong way: a hero. The memory of our last violent meeting flared hot in my chest; the accident where I'd lost control still tasted like metal. She is with the Top 1 team.
I sat, pretending not to notice, and the cashier handed me my cup. she texted with one hand, keeping the other tucked close to her injured arm, a bandage peeking through her sleeve. Arman's voice hissed in my ear: Don't stare. Act normal. Don't draw attention.
A man came in and sat across from her. Edward. He smiled with the practiced ease of a man who'd never had to answer for anything important. When he spoke, Rachel's voice tightened. I listened, careful not to breathe too loud.
"She should not have been there," Edward said. "I told them—"
Rachel cut him off. "It wasn't your fault. It was Interitus." Her jaw worked. "But you knew something. Tell me what you know about the new member."
Roland's shadow bristled on the curb outside; his mic whispered dry updates. Arman's voice, low in my ear, counted possibilities. I kept sipping my coffee because that's what people do when they wait for a transaction to unfold.
Edward faltered. "I— I don't have much," he admitted. "I only hear—"
"Say it," Rachel snapped. Her hand flexed; I saw the ghost of gun-metal form around her fingers, a small, lethal flourish of raw power. "Say it now."
He stammered, looked from the crowd and said that "Member is a freaking time bomb, it is not safe to keep it here, with one flick of its finger The whole country will be destroyed" as he said that he paused looked at the crowd like he noticed something unusual and pushed back from the table. The gesture was panic disguised as composure. I rose with the crowd but kept near the exit. Outside, Arman and Roland signaled: He's moving. Follow—no contact—tail only.
Edward broke into a run. My muscles tightened. I moved after him. Arman's voice: We're on him—north alley. Roland's behind. The city narrowed to concrete and breath and the thunder of footsteps.
We cut him off at a dead end. He whirled, eyes darting, lips forming a name as if calling for a saving god. "Interitus" he spat.
I felt the mask weigh against my skin. I lifted the suitcase where my suit waited like a swallowed shadow. He laughed, nervous and brittle. "I will never surrender," he said, and for a heartbeat he looked almost proud.
The Hero appeared at the mouth of the alley—cool, smiling, the wound at her arm a raw line of color. She'd followed him from the café. Her smile was the smile of someone who found a good fight.
Arman and Roland tensed. I moved fast. "Roland—take him to the rendezvous," I hissed. He nodded and slid behind Edward, a quick, practiced move. Edward's knees buckled and Roland's hand found the right pressure; the man crumpled into unconsciousness, eyes rolling back.
For a second the job was done—Roland securing Edward, dragging him toward the designated extraction. But the air still hummed. The girl gaze cut to me with something like recognition and a tilt of curiosity that made the back of my neck cold. Her hand shaped a pistol in midair—her guns were born from her hands, bare and clean and lethal.
Arman cracked his knuckles and grinned at me, a predator's grin. "Ready?" he asked.
I clicked my suitcase open and the suit slipped into my hands like a promise. Everything tightened: the hum of the city, the distance to the door, the possibility of everything going wrong.
"Ready," I said. The word shouldn't have been so small. But it was all I had.