Requiem System: DEATH IS MY GUIDE

A grainy black-and-white video played across the screen. The image showed a long, sterile hallway… At the end of it, a single, sealed door.

Yukira leaned in, squinting at the low-res feed. Her voice was barely audible, as though a breath caught in her throat. "Wait a minute…"

Suspicion curled around her words like smoke.

"Isn't this—?"

"The security footage from the day of the incident at the Argus Foundation," Orenji confirmed. His voice was tight, his posture stiffer than usual.

Yukira's head snapped toward him. "Wait, what?"

She stared at Orenji like he'd just confessed to a crime. And in her eyes, maybe he had.

‎She turned to him fully now. "That facility's servers are buried behind like ten layers of military-grade encryption. They've got AI watchdogs and digital landmines buried in every port. They don't just hand this stuff out on flash drives." Her voice sharpened. "How the hell did you get this?"

Orenji gave a sheepish shrug, the corner of his mouth twitching upward. "I know a guy."

She blinked. "A guy."

"Well, not a guy, exactly. More like a burnout genius with a sleep disorder and a questionable moral compass. They owe me a favor. Or ten." He caught her glare and cleared his throat. "Not important."

‎Yukira's gaze turned icy. "Right. So you just happened to get your hands on top-secret footage of one of the worst breaches in Argus history, and it just slipped your mind until now?"

"I didn't want to show you until I was sure it was relevant."

"Relevant? Relevant?!" Yukira's voice spiked, then dropped into a sharp whisper laced with fury. "You don't think everything about that day is relevant?"

"Just… watch," he said quickly, sidestepping the tension like it had teeth.

She turned to the screen again. The image still showed that eerie corridor, frozen in a moment that felt older than it should've been.

Then the feed jumped.

Movement.

On-screen, a lone figure entered the frame with a white coat and hurried steps. Dr. Stane. He paused at the door, typed in a code with trembling fingers, then vanished inside.

"That's him," Orenji muttered, pointing.

"Yeah, and—?"

The screen jolted. A violent tremor ran through the frame as something slammed against the inside of the room. Then came the breach.

A monstrous shape erupted outward like a living storm. It was fast, violent, almost a blur. The door crumpled like paper. The lights shorted. Static swallowed the screen.

Yukira jerked back. "What the hell was that?!"

"Rewind," she ordered before Orenji could speak.

He didn't argue. He hesitated, then dragged the slider back.

They played the footage again, frame by frame, slower this time. It wasn't any clearer, but something about it felt deeply wrong. The figure didn't walk, it changed. Flickering between shapes, as if caught in a loop of indecision. One moment, it appeared male. The next, female. Then something in between. Limbs lengthened and pulled back, fluid but never still. Shadows clung to its body like smoke, curling around it, moving with it, almost protecting it. Or hiding it.

And then, just before the static—

One frame held longer than the others.

In the grainy black-and-white mess, a single yellow eye gleamed out from the storm of chaos. It didn't glow. It didn't rage.

It watched.

Unblinking.

Almost… confused.

Yukira stared.

And kept staring.

She didn't blink.

"Doesn't look so tough," she muttered at last, though her voice barely rose above a breath.

A lie—and she knew it. But saying it out loud made the fear feel smaller.

‎"Oh yeah," Orenji said, his voice dry as dust. "Just your everyday boogeyman that tore apart five layers of reinforced steel walls and outran a squad of elite foundation operatives like it was late for brunch."

‎"Zoom in."

"I can try, but it'll turn into pixel soup—maybe if I run a noise filter, or—"

‎"No time," she snapped, slamming her hand against the terminal.

‎The screen flickered. Lines of code jittered, then stabilized.

‎Orenji blinked. Once. Twice. Then he leaned in, squinting, "Okay. You just brute-forced my GPU. And somehow... it worked?"

‎But Yukira didn't answer. She leaned in close, her breath caught somewhere between awe and dread.

There it was.

The shape. Clearer now. Barely.

‎Its body rippled like a shadow trying to become solid. Smoke curled from its back in slow, spiraling streams. And in its gaze—wild, unblinking, not entirely human—was something worse than hatred.

‎It looked… lost.

Not like a beast hunting.

Like something waking up in the middle of a nightmare it couldn't remember starting.

And somehow, that made it worse.

Far worse.

Yukira's hand crept up to the edge of the desk, gripping it so tightly her knuckles turned bone-white. Her breath came shallow now, sharp and rhythmic. Not out of fear.

Out of something deeper.

Recognition.

"It doesn't know what it is," she whispered, the words barely leaving her throat. The shock was clear but underneath it, something else lingered. Was it grief? Guilt?

Orenji glanced at her, his expression unreadable. "Yukira?"

But she didn't hear him.

Or maybe she did, but didn't care.

Her eyes were still locked on the thing in the video, still trying to understand why she couldn't look away.

Still trying to understand why its gaze felt so familiar.

But just as quickly, her expression hardened.

‎She noticed something else. It wasn't just what she saw that made her tense.

‎It was Orenji.

His shoulders had gone rigid. His jaw clenched tight, teeth grinding behind pursed lips. His eyes weren't on the screen anymore. They were fixed somewhere else, somewhere far away. Not out of distraction.

Out of avoidance.

Yukira narrowed her eyes.

That silence?

It was screaming now.

She turned to him slowly, her voice like a knife sliding free of its sheath.

"You're not even looking at the screen."

Orenji flinched, just slightly, yet enough to give him away.

She didn't miss it. Her tone cooled, deliberate and precise. "Hey… what aren't you telling me?"

He didn't answer right away. His fingers fidgeted near the keyboard, tapping nothing. His mouth opened like he wanted to speak, but no words came out. Only a dry swallow.

Yukira stepped between him and the monitor, cutting off the flickering image. Her green eyes locked onto him like a predator tired of circling.

Her voice barely rose above a whisper, yet it hit like thunder.

"Spill. Now."

Finally, he spoke.

‎"I didn't—It wasn't that big of a deal, I just—"

‎"Orenji."

‎He rubbed the back of his neck, his voice faltering. "I saw him. Near the old skatepark. A couple days ago."

‎Her body froze.

‎"…You what?"

‎"I didn't know for sure it was him! I just thought—it looked familiar, that's all! I wasn't even sure—"

‎"You saw him—you saw that thing—and you didn't think to tell me?!"

‎"Yukira, I was trying to confirm—"

‎"Don't!" Her hands slammed onto the desk, hard enough to rattle the screen. Dante hissed and bolted behind a stack of boxes. "Don't you dare talk your way out of this!"

‎The fire behind her eyes ignited fully now, dangerously close to spilling over. "I've been chasing ghosts, risking everything to hunt this thing, and you—you—what, you thought it'd just go away?!"

‎"I thought… if I could confirm it first, I could keep you from going off the rails. I was trying to protect you, Yukira."

‎Her laugh was hollow. There was no humor behind it. "Don't you dare say that. Don't you dare. You don't get to decide what I need protecting from."

Orenji recoiled like the words had teeth.

Her fire dimmed if only for a moment. Just enough to show the hurt beneath it.

‎"I trusted you," she snarled. "We're supposed to have each other's backs! Or did that only apply when it wasn't your secret?"

‎He tried to speak. She cut him off.

‎"Tell me everything you know. Now. No filters, no stalling, no clever little jokes."

‎Orenji swallowed. His voice came out small. "He didn't look like he was attacking anyone. He just seemed... confused. That's all. No rage. No destruction. Just... like he didn't know where he was."

"And you think that makes it better?"

"I don't know," he admitted. "But maybe it means he can be reasoned with."

‎"Oh, spare me the sympathy," Yukira hissed. "I don't care if it cried itself to sleep under a blanket fort or a jungle gym. That thing tore apart a Foundation facility, butchered a Foundation squad and it's still out there. That isn't lost. That's dangerous."

She turned away, pacing as her rage trembled just beneath the surface. Then she stopped. Her voice dropped, soft as ash but as cold as iron.

"You're lucky I still need you. Because if I didn't—"

‎She let the sentence die, unfinished.

‎Orenji looked away. ‎Yukira turned back to the frozen image on the screen. That face. Those eyes.

‎She stared it down, like she could burn it into memory with hatred alone.

‎Her voice dropped to a whisper, but it carried a quiet ferocity beneath it. "No more Foundation cameras. No more dead ends. I'm going to find it. Myself."

‎Then, slowly, a grin unfurled across her face. It wasn't a kind smile.

‎It was the smile of someone who'd already chosen war.

The next time it showed its face—

She'd be ready.

And she'd make sure it wouldn't walk away.

‎She stepped away from the screen, her green eyes glowing like embers. The kind of flame that doesn't go out. Not until it devoured what it sought.

‎Orenji just stared at her, uncertain if she was bluffing or dead serious.

She didn't blink. And in that one moment, he wasn't sure which one was more dangerous — the anomaly… or the girl set on hunting it.

< Chapter 17 > Fin.