Not finding him among the living or the dead was the first piece of good news they had gotten all day.
The relief faded quickly. Homelander had been back in New York for eight hours. To him, the job here was finished.
They moved to the other marked locations. Every sign pointed toward finding the exact same wreckage.
Kimiko walked through the ruins, checking faces. She recognized a few. Most were strangers. All of them lay sprawled across the debris.
Their features were locked in twisted shapes, teeth bared, jaws slack, and eyes wide. Spent casings and mangled rounds littered the dirt between the bodies. The stiffness in their limbs showed how hard they had fought before the end.
None of it mattered. Homelander had moved through at full speed. These men barely had time to react before it was over.
Evil finds its own exterminators, eventually, Jude thought. He didn't dwell on it.
"Come on," he called to Kimiko and Frenchie. He kept moving. "Next camp."
He looked at the bodies of men who had wiped out entire villages and killed whole families. He felt nothing. A small part of him wanted to clap.
The next site looked identical. Ruined buildings, ashes, dead bodies. This one had more shredded ordnance and cratered earth. Someone here had tried to take their attacker down with them.
"Going out in a fireball like that probably just gave Homelander a laugh," Jude said. He shook his head. He had seen Homelander take three Doom-shrooms to the face and survive. "Kimiko. Your brother's face. Is it here?"
She gave a short, sharp shake of her head.
Not finding him meant he wasn't dead. But every empty camp snapped another thread connecting her to an answer. This was her last lead. There was no one left to ask. Her throat tightened. She took in short, shallow breaths.
Jude didn't speak. He kept them moving for two hours, going from camp to camp. By the end, there was no doubt left. The Shining Light Liberation Army no longer existed.
Homelander left no survivors. Every member was dead. Every building leveled. Every scrap of paper tying this to Vought burned to ash. Total erasure.
They did not find Kimiko's brother among the dead.
"He's not here," Jude said. "Which means he's not dead. We can still find him."
Kimiko dropped to her knees. She buried her face in her hands, her shoulders shaking as she drew in ragged, uneven breaths.
Jude didn't waste a trip. Before they left, he circled back and documented the camps. He took photos and videos of the damage.
He pocketed his phone and unrolled a sheet of wallpaper flat across the dirt.
"What's this for?" Frenchie asked.
"I figured I would have to work him over a while longer before he cooperated." Jude smoothed the paper out with his palm. "Looks like that problem just solved itself."
A door opened in the wallpaper. It led into a space with a floor pitched ninety degrees relative to the ground outside. Jude gave a small wave. Yomogi shoved Aquino's unconscious body through the opening.
Frenchie and Kimiko watched Yomogi push the dead weight easily. Their attention snapped to Aquino. His frame was gaunt and rigid. His jaw hung slack. His skin was pale and clammy. He had not slipped into unconsciousness naturally.
Torture, they realized.
Aquino rolled from the shove. His center of gravity lurched as he hit the ground outside the door, cracking his head against the dirt. His eyes snapped open. The first thing that swam into view was Jude's face. Aquino scrambled backward, his chest heaving.
He stopped, blinking at the blue sky. White clouds.
He was out of the room. He scrambled to his feet and sprinted.
The smoke and the smell of blood hit him, catching in the back of his throat. He looked ahead. The wreckage stretched in front of him, filled with corpses and open flame.
A crackle. A pop. Rendered fat sizzled in the ashes.
He stopped less than ten steps away. He looked at the layout of the debris. He knew this ground. He had known it for years.
This was Shining Light.
The remnants of the two-headed snake banner burned in the dirt.
He dropped into a crouch. He turned bodies over with shaking hands, checking faces. The ropes binding his wrists had come loose, but he didn't notice.
He kept moving until he reached a collapsed building near the center of the camp. Under the rubble lay a body with almost nothing left above the neck. Their leader.
Aquino had called these people brother and sister. Kimiko would have stamped them into the dirt. They were fanatics who slaughtered entire villages. They had traded away their humanity. They were not owed a gentle ending.
Standing in the middle of it, Aquino stared at the charred remains. His breath hitched.
A guttural, ragged sound tore out of his throat, his voice cracking on the scream. The torture Jude put him through the day before did not compare to this.
"Screaming won't help," Jude said. "Every stronghold Shining Light had is gone. You're the last one standing."
"I didn't do this," Jude continued. "Everyone here was dead before we arrived. Though, if I am being honest, my own hands would have done it eventually. You all deserved exactly this."
Aquino lunged at him. Jude knocked him straight back down into the blood-soaked mud.
"Two pieces of good news," Jude said, watching Aquino thrash in the mud. "First. As of today, your organization is finished. Completely."
"Second. We already know who did this to them, and we're planning on dealing with your enemies too."
"Which leaves you exactly one option. Cooperate." He paused. "So. Yes, or no?"
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