A heavy silence stretched across the table. Both Kruti and Nitya snapped their attention to the sudden intruder. Sneha's lips parted into a wide, entirely unbothered smile, looking as though she were the one controlling the atmosphere in the room.
Kruti scanned her with a piercing, cold gaze. For a brief second, she was genuinely fascinated. Ordinarily, it was impossible for anyone to detect another person's hidden Authority just by looking at them. Yet, bubbling just beneath Sneha's cheerful facade, Kruti could faintly sense it—a distinct, lingering trace of a presence that belonged entirely to Sneha.
In the blink of an eye, Nitya's entire demeanor shifted. The cold, ruthless aura she had just displayed toward Kruti vanished, replaced instantly by her usual, polite, everyday persona.
"Who are you?" Nitya asked, her tone perfectly pleasant but heavily guarded. "Do we know you?"
"Hmm, didn't I just introduce myself?" Sneha replied, tilting her head playfully. "Why ask again? But yes, we do know each other. Or rather... I know you. Otherwise, why would I be sitting here?"
She gestured openly with both hands, adopting the breezy, relaxed body language of a close friend. It was a flawless act of genuine consideration, which only made her sudden presence feel all the more dangerous.
"Exactly." Kruti sliced through the conversation, completely ignoring the polite social game Nitya was trying to play. Her voice lacked even a fraction of warmth. "We are both thinking the exact same thing. Why are you here?"
"Haha... Seriously?" Sneha chuckled, her mouth parting in mock disbelief. "I mean literally, Nitya, don't you remember me?"
She leaned forward, her eyes dancing with amusement. "I'm Sneha. We go to the same university, Nitya. And Kruti, don't you remember me either? We went to the same high school. You, me, and Yug. I was there when he proposed to you in the middle of the garden at lunchtime with that massive speaker. I even spoke to you right after it happened. Yet neither of you remember me?"
Sneha had just played her trump card—and it was the absolute truth. She had always been there, lingering in the background of their lives, yet they had never once noticed her.
Now, I like those expressions, Sneha thought, laughing internally. Hehe, it's so funny watching the gears turn in their heads. Seeing them finally remember me... it's so incredibly satisfying.
She glanced at their twisted, uneasy expressions, thoroughly enjoying the chaos she was causing.
It only took a few seconds for the realization to hit the two girls. Somehow, they did know her. They had met her, seen her, and even spoken to her in the past. But they had completely, entirely forgotten her existence until she explicitly reminded them.
A chilling question instantly surfaced in both of their minds at the exact same time: Is she playing with my memory?
Kruti subtly shook her head, instantly crushing the thought.
How could anyone possibly manipulate my memory? It's impossible, Kruti reassured herself. Her own mind was an absolute fortress. No one could breach her mental defenses without her noticing. That means... I really did meet her. I just didn't care enough to remember.
Yug entered the adjacent building and stepped up to the receptionist's desk. Just a few minutes ago, he had heard the sharp crack of a gunshot over the comms from Lavanya's side. That meant he needed to finish his own task immediately.
He wasn't worried about the guards raising an alarm. He already had absolute control over the people in the room, all thanks to another one of his custom inventions: the Vokal-Spider.
Originally, the tiny, mechanical spiders were completely harmless. He had built them for his family—specifically for his sister, who caught a cold almost every month, to gently clear her throat of coughs. But later, driven by sheer frustration over his mother constantly yelling at him, he had updated the spiders' programming through TICKET. With a simple modification, the tiny machines could forcibly mute a person's vocal cords. It had worked perfectly on his mother, and now, it was working perfectly to silence his targets.
"Hello, miss. I am here to visit room 202," Yug said, his tone perfectly polite.
He was still wearing the dark, joker-styled half-mask. A chilling smile curled beneath it as the receptionist lifted her head to look at him.
Her eyes twitched the exact second she took him in. A flash of genuine fear crossed her face, her instincts screaming that something was terribly wrong.
"Sir... what is with the mask?" she stammered, her voice shaking as she desperately tried to maintain her professional composure. "It's... it's not allowed in here. Please remove it."
Yug didn't flinch. In fact, he had anticipated this exact reaction. He had two choices: eliminate her immediately and deal with the mess, or play along to observe her next move. He knew exactly what she was. She was one of the assassins on the ground floor, coiled and ready to strike.
The only reason she hadn't lunged yet was that she was still trying to confirm his identity.
"I'm sorry, but I can't do that," Yug lied smoothly, projecting a tone of polite embarrassment. "The lower half of my face was severely burned in an accident. It is quite ugly. I assure you, you wouldn't want to see it."
He paused, his gaze flicking downward for a fraction of a second. Beneath the edge of the reception desk, her knuckles were white. Her knife was already drawn. She had recognized him—though he didn't care how.
"Look down before you make your move, miss," Yug whispered.
She froze. Her grip tightened on the hilt of her blade, but when she darted her eyes down, she saw the dark muzzle of Yug's gun already pointed squarely at her stomach through the gap in the desk. She had a gun of her own, but she had opted for a silent knife kill to avoid panicking the lobby. That split-second decision had cost her everything.
"If you shoot, you will die," she hissed, her eyes narrowing with desperate defiance. "I've already sent a message to the team. You aren't—"
"Chest. Head," Yug whispered mechanically.
Thwip. Thwip.
Two bullets tore through her—one straight through the heart, the next through her skull. It was instant death. Yet, because of Yug's suppressed weapon and the heavy dampening effect of the room, there was absolutely no sound.
Before her lifeless body could slump forward and hit the desk, Yug reached across the counter, caught her by the shoulders, and gently pushed her back into her swivel chair. He adjusted her posture smoothly, perfectly posing her so it looked as though she were simply resting her head on her hand.
Around them, the lobby was full of people. A few bystanders had definitely just witnessed the lightning-fast execution. Their eyes widened in sheer, absolute horror as they processed the blood beginning to pool.
But as panic overtook them and they opened their mouths to scream, not a single sound came out.
The Vokal-Spiders had already done their job. The bystanders clutched their throats, trapped in silent, suffocating terror, a single frantic thought echoing in their paralyzed minds: What just happened?!
"AHHHHHHHH! MY EAR! MY EARRRRR!"
Absolute terror swallowed Lavanya whole. She collapsed onto the hard concrete, screaming, crying, and blubbering uncontrollably.
The Captain had taken the shot, aiming precisely to disarm her by blowing the weapon right out of her hand. But Lavanya's pathetic, hysterical reaction caught the seasoned assassin completely off guard. In a single glance, the Captain understood she had horribly miscalculated. This wasn't a professional intruder. She was a complete amateur—a civilian utterly beneath her notice.
Lavanya lay completely exposed on the ground. Her custom gun had been blown out of her grip, its shattered remnants scattered across the roof so badly that it no longer even resembled a weapon.
"My ear... my ear! Blood... I'm dying! I don't want to die!" Lavanya babbled hysterically, her mind fracturing under the crushing weight of true, unsimulated fear. "I just wanted it to be real... not a copy... not a copy... not a copy...!"
The Captain stared down in disgust at the girl's nonsensical rambling and streaming tears. She couldn't even comprehend Lavanya's broken words. Losing her patience, the Captain stepped forward and viciously kicked Lavanya in the abdomen.
Smash!
"Ugh—"
"Shut up, bitch!" the Captain snarled. "Just tell me why you are here!"
The Captain was rapidly losing her cold composure. Her meticulously laid plan was shattering right in front of her. She had treated this absolute nobody like a lethal, highly-trained professional, wasting precious time and exposing her position. And worst of all, she was now trapped in a chaotic situation without knowing where the actual mastermind was.
A tremor of genuine fear ran through the assassin's veins at her own fatal mistake.
"Who are you?!" Lavanya gasped, her hands still tightly clutching the side of her head. The deafening gunshot had left her hearing muffled, a violent ringing drowning out the Captain's demands, but she could clearly see the murderous rage twisting the woman's face.
Lavanya shamelessly begged, abandoning every last shred of her pride. "I was just... ordered! I'm just a copy... a shadow... a follower! I'm a nobody... a useless fake! I just wanted to be real... please... please spare me!"
Her pathetic, broken pleading only made the Captain's expression twist with even more disgust and fury.
Huff… Huff…
Breath barely entered Lavanya's lungs. Her throat screamed in pain. The horrifying reality of her situation hit her harder and harder with every passing second. Slowly, the physical agony began to detach from her mind, her surroundings blurring and fuzzing out as her body absorbed blow after vicious blow from the Captain's boots.
Yet, as she lay there bleeding on the concrete, Lavanya's glassy eyes drifted upward. The night sky still looked so incredibly beautiful.