The wind cut across the street like a blade.
Jin-Woo adjusted the collar of the insulated suit as he walked, boots crunching through old snow layered over older ice. The suit he was wearing was government-issued, thick, sealed, threaded with heating filaments that responded to his power. Without him feeding it heat, it would barely keep a normal person alive. Without the suit, even he wouldn't last long out here anymore.
Ruined buildings lined both sides of the street, windows blown out or sealed shut by frost. A city that had once been loud now existed in muted tones of white, gray and black. Even sound felt buried.
A few people noticed him as he passed. They always did.
Someone waved from behind a barricade of scrap metal and frozen furniture. Another shouted his name, muffled through scarves and ice-stiff lips. Jin-Woo raised a hand in return and released a controlled pulse of warmth outward, subtle and practiced. The air around them shimmered just enough to ease the cold. Enough to make him welcome.
They smiled.
That was usually how it went.
He kept walking.
The mission was supposed to be simple. He had gotten reports of a rogue system user operating in this district. Several people had been found dead and filled with holes in them. A pattern that fit someone he had investigated in the past.
He turned onto a narrower street, buildings closing in, the wind dying down.
Thats when he heard it.
A scream, sharp, sudden and cut short.
Jin-Woo's steps slowed, then stopped. He listened. Nothing followed. No echo. No movement.
He exhaled and veered into an alley to his left.
It was empty.
The walls were close enough to touch with outstretched arms, brick swallowed by layers of ice and grime. Snow lay undisturbed along the ground. No footprints. No signs of a struggle.
His gaze dropped.
Ink.
It clung to the wall at ankle height, thick and black, glistening wetly despite the cold. It pulsed once, like a living thing.
Jin-Woo jumped back just as spikes erupted from the ground, jagged black spears tearing through snow and ice where he'd been standing a heartbeat earlier. They spread fast, blooming outward, sealing off the alley in a forest of sharpened shadows.
"Still jumping away," a voice said, amused. "Some habits don't die."
The ink rippled.
A figure rose from the ground as if pulled up from a pool of liquid darkness. Female. Slender. Her body half-solid, half-fluid, edges constantly shifting as ink slid down her arms and dripped back into the ground. Her eyes gleamed white against the black.
Jin-Woo straightened, heat gathering beneath his skin.
"You really thought a trick like that would work on me?" he said calmly.
She laughed, a low, bubbling sound. "I'd be a fool not to try."
The alley exploded into motion.
Ink tendrils snapped forward, lashing at him from both walls. Jin-Woo twisted aside, one passing close enough to tear a groove through the air where his head had been. He slammed his palm against the ground, releasing a focused burst of heat. Ice cracked. Steam roared upward, disrupting the tendrils' cohesion.
She dissolved, her body flattening into the ground as his attack passed through where she'd been. Ink surged behind him.
He felt it before he saw it.
Jin-Woo rolled forward as a blade of hardened ink sliced through the space his back had occupied. He came up on one knee, flicked his fingers, and sent a thin wave of heat across the alley floor.
The ground hissed. The ink screamed.
She reformed on the wall, clinging upside down like a shadow made solid. "You're getting boring," she said. "Always holding back."
"I live here," Jin-Woo replied. "You don't."
She lunged.
This time, she didn't bother with tendrils. Her arm elongated, thickened, hardened into a massive black hammer that slammed into his side. The impact sent him flying into the opposite wall. Stone cracked. His breath left him in a sharp burst as he hit, shoulder screaming.
He slid down, boots scraping.
Ink wrapped around his ankle and yanked.
Jin-Woo clenched his teeth and drove heat into the suit, spiking temperature along his leg. The ink recoiled, smoking, losing cohesion. He used the moment to push off the wall, twisting midair and driving his elbow into her torso as she surged up to meet him.
The blow landed, but her body absorbed it, rippling instead of breaking.
She smiled wide. "There it is."
She threw him again.
Jin-Woo hit the ground hard, rolled, came up already moving. He could feel the cold gnawing at the edges of his focus, the suit compensating as best it could. He forced his breathing steady.
He'd fought her before. Twice.
She liked pressure. Overwhelm. Making the battlefield hers.
So he shrank it.
Heat radiated from him in tight, controlled waves, carving out a pocket of warmth just large enough for them both. Ink reacted badly to temperature shifts, too hot and it lost structure, too cold and it slowed. He kept it right in the middle, constantly changing.
She hissed as parts of her body destabilized, limbs flickering between solid and liquid. She lashed out anyway, spikes erupting from every surface at once.
Jin-Woo moved through them.
Not fast. Not flashy. Just precise.
A step here. A turn there. Heat focused into pinpoints that weakened joints, softened attacks, redirected force instead of meeting it head-on. He closed the distance as she struggled to reform, grabbed her wrist while it was half-solid, and drove a concentrated surge of heat through it.
She screamed as the ink burned away, leaving her arm locked, useless.
He twisted, slammed her into the ground, and pressed his boot against her chest, heat flaring just enough to keep her pinned.
The alley fell silent.
Steam drifted upward, curling around broken ice and scorched ink. His breath fogged the air.
She laughed weakly, eyes still bright. "You're really something else...."
Jin-Woo didn't respond. He restrained her carefully.
When it was done, he stepped back.
The silence lingered.
Jin-Woo stood there, chest rising and falling, scanning the alley. No backup. No second ambush. No last desperate attack.
It had ended too fast.
He frowned slightly.
"That was too easy..."