The sword was heavier than it looked.
Nana's arms trembled as she held it in the basic guard position Mina had shown her—blade angled at forty-five degrees, weight balanced on her back foot, core engaged. Her hunter training had covered hand-to-hand combat, firearms, and tactical movement, but sword fighting? That was something from historical dramas, not real life.
Except in Avalon, it was very, very real.
"Again," Mina called from across the basement's makeshift training area. "You're dropping your elbow. Keep it tight."
Nana gritted her teeth and raised the blade once more, executing the downward slash Mina had demonstrated. The motion felt clumsy, inefficient. Nothing like the fluid precision of firing her gun.
Her gun, which only had half a clip left. No way to reload. No way to get more ammunition in this forsaken place.
"Better!" Mina stepped forward, adjusting Nana's grip. "See? You're getting it. Your hunter reflexes are actually helping—you read movement well, you know how to dodge. We just need to teach your body a new weapon."
"I feel useless," Nana muttered, lowering the sword. Her shoulders burned from the repetitive motions. "Back home, I'm the strongest hunter in the association. Here, I can barely lift this thing without my arms giving out."
"That's because you're comparing yourself to who you were, not who you're becoming." Mina took the sword and demonstrated a complex sequence—parry, riposte, spinning slash—that made it look weightless in her hands. "A month ago, I was a college student who did yoga twice a week. Now I can take down hybrids solo. You'll adapt. Everyone does, or they don't survive."
The casual way she said it—*or they don't survive*—sent chills down Nana's spine.
It had been three days since she'd arrived in Avalon. Three days of learning that everything she'd known about survival meant almost nothing here.
Mina had taught her the basics: how to identify different creatures by sound, how to move through the broken city without attracting attention, which districts were relatively safer during daylight hours. She'd shown Nana how to craft makeshift weapons from salvaged materials—how a car's leaf spring could become a blade, how electrical wire could be twisted into garrotes, how broken glass could be deadly in the right hands.
But most importantly, Mina had taught her that in Avalon, guns were a last resort. Noise attracted *everything*.
"Your aether core is an advantage," Mina had explained on the first night, watching the blue energy flicker around Nana's hands. "Most of us here are just regular humans with whatever skills we brought from our world. But you? You have power. Once you learn to conserve it, to use it strategically, you'll be formidable."
*If I survive long enough to learn*, Nana thought grimly.
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By the end of the week, Nana's body was a canvas of bruises and blisters. Her hands, soft from years of primarily using firearms, had split open from sword training and been wrapped in torn cloth bandages. Her muscles ached in places she didn't know she had muscles.
But she was getting stronger.
"Come on," Mina said one afternoon, tossing Nana a worn backpack. "It's supply run day. We need food, and the old supermarket three blocks east hasn't been fully raided yet."
Nana's heart rate immediately spiked. "Outside? Now? In daylight?"
"Daylight is when we move. Most of the really dangerous things hunt at night." Mina checked her massive sword, secured throwing knives to her belt, and handed Nana a smaller blade—more like a long dagger. "Stay close, stay quiet, and if I say run, you *run*. No heroics. Got it?"
"Got it."
They emerged from the basement into the perpetual gray afternoon of Avalon. The air tasted like ash and rust. Nana followed Mina through the broken streets, moving from shadow to shadow, her new blade gripped tight in her hand.
The city looked different now that she'd been here almost a week. Less shocking. More... familiar. The way certain buildings leaned. The particular pattern of broken glass on Fifth Avenue. The distant sounds that meant *stay away from that district*.
Mina led them through a collapsed parking garage, across a plaza where fountain sculptures stood like silent sentinels, past the burned-out husk of what might have once been a theater.
And there—the supermarket. Its windows were long since shattered, its automatic doors frozen half-open, but the structure seemed mostly intact.
"Remember," Mina whispered as they approached. "Canned goods, dried food, bottled water if we're lucky. Don't take anything that's already opened. And watch for—"
She froze mid-sentence.
Nana felt it too—that wrongness in the air, that sensation like ice water down her spine. Her hunter instincts screamed *danger*.
Two figures emerged from inside the supermarket.
At first glance, they looked human. Young men, maybe in their twenties, wearing tattered clothes. But their skin had an ashen quality, and when they smiled, their teeth were just slightly too sharp. Their eyes—completely black, no whites at all—fixed on Nana and Mina with predatory focus.
"Demons," Mina hissed. "Two of them. Shit."
"What do we—"
The demons *launched* themselves forward with inhuman speed.
Mina moved first, years of Avalon survival translating into instant action. She met the first demon mid-charge, her boot connecting with its chest in a devastating kick that sent it stumbling backward. Before it could recover, her sword came down, severing its head from its body in one clean stroke.
The demon dissolved into black mist, its dying shriek echoing off the broken buildings.
The second demon went for Nana.
*Move*, her training screamed. *Just like Mina showed you.*
Nana jumped, aether core flaring around her leg as she aimed a powered kick at the demon's head—the same technique that had taken down countless Wanderers back home.
But the demon was *faster*.
Its hand shot out, catching her ankle mid-kick. Cold fingers wrapped around her leg like iron bands, and then it was *twisting*, using her own momentum against her.
Nana felt her ribs compress as the demon's other arm coiled around her torso like a constricting snake. The air was crushed from her lungs. Stars burst across her vision. Her blade fell from nerveless fingers.
*Can't breathe—*
Mina's sword cleaved through the demon from shoulder to hip.
The creature's grip released instantly as it split apart, dissolving into mist. Nana collapsed forward, gasping, her chest screaming in agony. Every breath felt like knives in her ribs.
"Nana!" Mina caught her before she hit the ground, carefully lowering her to sit against a broken wall. "Breathe slowly. Small breaths. Don't try to talk yet."
Tears streamed down Nana's face—from pain, from frustration, from the overwhelming realization of how *weak* she was here. Back in Linkon City, she could have taken down a Class B Wanderer solo. Here, she couldn't even handle one demon without nearly dying.
"I'm sorry," she choked out. "I'm so sorry, I thought I could—"
"Hey." Mina crouched in front of her, her expression fierce but kind. "You did everything right. You moved exactly how I taught you. That demon was just faster—they're always faster than you expect the first time you fight them." She helped Nana to her feet, supporting her weight. "And you know what? You survived. That's what matters."
"I almost got us both killed."
"You almost got *yourself* killed. Big difference." Mina retrieved Nana's fallen blade and pressed it back into her hand. "I had your back. That's how we survive here—together. You think I didn't fuck up my first demon encounter? I got bit." She pulled up her sleeve, showing a jagged scar on her forearm. "Nearly turned into one of them. A guy named Chen had to cut it out of me before the corruption spread."
Nana stared at the scar, then at Mina. "You never told me that."
"Because it doesn't matter now. I survived, learned from it, got stronger." Mina smiled—that same warm, encouraging smile that had kept Nana going all week. "You're doing so well, Nana. Seriously. It's only been a few days and you're already holding your own in training. Most people take weeks to get where you are."
"It doesn't feel like enough."
"It never does. But every day you're here, every fight you survive, you're getting closer to being able to find your friend." Mina shouldered her sword. "Come on. Let's get those supplies and head back. Slow and steady wins the race in Avalon."
They raided the supermarket quickly—three cans of beans, two bottles of water, a box of crackers that were probably stale but edible. Not much, but enough to feed the base for another day.
As they made their way back through the broken streets, Nana's ribs throbbing with every step, she found herself looking at the gray sky.
Mina was right—it was still beautiful, in its own haunting way. The way the light filtered through the ever-present clouds, casting everything in shades of silver and shadow. Like the world was holding its breath.
"You okay?" Mina asked, noticing her gaze.
"Just thinking." Nana touched her injured ribs gingerly. "About how different everything is here. How much I've had to change just to survive."
"That's Avalon for you. It breaks you down and rebuilds you into something that can exist here." Mina paused. "But don't let it break your hope, Nana. That's the one thing you can't afford to lose."
"Hope that I'll find Zayne?"
"Hope that you'll both get out of here." Mina's expression was serious now. "Because I've seen what happens to people who give up hope in this place. They stop fighting. Stop surviving. And then..." She didn't need to finish.
Nana clenched her fist around her blade's handle, feeling the rough leather grip press into her blistered palm.
*Zayne, wherever you are... please be alive. Please be surviving too. Because I'm not giving up. I'll find you. And we'll get out of this nightmare together.*
"I promise."
That night, as Nana lay on her makeshift bed in the base, her body aching and her hands still bleeding through their bandages, she pulled out the one thing she'd managed to keep from her old life—her hunter badge.
The metal was scratched and dented from the fall, but the engraving was still clear: *Hunter Association - Angelina Wang - Class S*.
Class S in Linkon City.
Nothing in Avalon.
But she was learning. Growing. Adapting.
"Just you wait, Zayne", she said closing her fingers around the badge. "I'm coming for you."
Outside, something howled in the eternal twilight.
And Nana closed her eyes, ready to survive another day.
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To be continued.