The parking garage was a cathedral of damp concrete and rotting rubber.
Alok's boots scraped against the oil-slicked floor, a sound that felt like sandpaper on his raw nerves. His left leg wasn't just "injured"—it was a heavy, throbbing anchor. Every time he shifted his weight, his teeth ground together so hard he could feel the enamel clicking in his jaw.
He followed Haru, but his eyes weren't on the back of her white combat suit. They were darting toward the jagged, broken silhouette of the skyscraper they had just escaped.
Something is off.
It wasn't a "System Warning." It was a primal, animalistic instinct. The fine hairs on the back of his neck stood up, a phantom electric current crawling over his skin. The air suddenly felt thin, as if the oxygen had been sucked out of the garage by a massive, invisible lung.
Alok glanced back at the 41st-floor window across the gap.
A tiny, microscopic glint of glass caught a stray spark of purple lightning. It was too steady to be a reflection. It was a lens. A glass eye watching them.
Alok's heart didn't just speed up; it slammed against his ribs like a trapped bird trying to break out of a cage. His breath hitched, turning into a silent, jagged gasp. He didn't have the air to scream. He didn't have the time to warn her.
He lunged.
He ignored the white-hot scream of his fractured ribs. He threw his entire weight into Haru's shoulder, his fingers digging into the slick, cold fabric of her suit as they both pitched forward into the grease and grit.
CRACK.
The sound wasn't a gunshot; it was a thunderclap that ripped the silence of the garage in half.
A high-velocity round tore through the space where Haru's head had been a heartbeat before. It slammed into a concrete pillar behind them, spraying stone shards like shrapnel. A piece of the pillar sliced across Alok's cheek, a hot, stinging line that immediately began to drip thick, dark blood onto his collar. The smell of ozone and pulverized stone filled his lungs.
They tumbled into the oil-stained shadows behind a rusted, abandoned SUV.
Haru was on him in an instant. She pinned his chest with her knee, her weight crushing the air out of him. The edge of her katana pressed into the soft, pulsing skin beneath his jaw, the cold steel vibrating with a faint, lethal hum. Her eyes weren't silver anymore; they were wide, the pupils blown out with a mixture of shock and predatory intent. Her breath came in sharp, hot bursts against his face, smelling faintly of mint and adrenaline.
"What... are you... doing?" she hissed, her voice trembling with a deadly, jagged edge.
Alok couldn't speak. He just pointed a shaking, blood-stained finger toward the window across the abyss.
Another CRACK.
The rear window of the SUV exploded, raining glass onto Alok's hair like frozen spit. The vibration of the impact travelled through the metal and into his spine.
Haru froze. She looked at the glittering shards on the ground, then back at Alok. The pressure on his chest loosened, just a fraction. She saw the glint in the scope now.
"The man... in the tracksuit," Alok managed to wheeze, his voice a dry, papery whisper. "The one... I saved on the roof."
Haru's lips curled back, not into a smile, but a snarl of pure, visceral disgust. "That's the 'humanity' you brought into my game, Ghost. A coward with a long-range rifle and a debt he doesn't want to pay."
Alok looked at his hands. They weren't just shaking; they were slick with a cold, greasy sweat. He had almost died for a girl he didn't know, shot by a man he had risked his life to protect. The irony was a bitter pill that tasted like copper in the back of his throat.
Then, the "Half-Immortal" warmth in his chest flared—not as a healing glow, but as a localized, stinging heat that made his vision go white for a second.
[SYSTEM SYNCHRONIZATION: 1%]
[HIDDEN TRAIT REVEALED: THE COLD TRUTH]
[EFFECT: EMOTIONAL DAMPENING — ACTIVE]
Suddenly, the trembling stopped. It wasn't because Alok had found his courage. It was as if a thick, heavy curtain had fallen between his mind and his body. The fear was still there, but it was distant, like a fire burning in a house across the street. He could see it, but he couldn't feel the heat.
His pulse slowed. His breathing leveled out into a rhythmic, mechanical hum. The world became a series of angles and probabilities.
He looked at Haru. "He has five rounds left in that mag," Alok said. His voice was flat, devoid of any human tremor. "The wind is gusting between the buildings at twelve knots. He has to lead the shot. If we move in a straight line, he wins. If we break his rhythm, he panics."
Haru stared at him, her eyes narrowing as she noticed the sudden, eerie stillness in his expression. "How do you know the mag size, Ghost?"
"I don't," Alok said, pushing her knee off his chest and sitting up amidst the broken glass. "But that's a Type-88 civilian conversion. The recoil is pulling his barrel up and to the right after every shot. He's an amateur trying to act like a reaper."
He reached into the debris of the SUV and pulled out a jagged, broken side-mirror. He didn't look at his own reflection. He tilted it, catching the red laser dot of the sniper.
"I'll draw the fire," Alok said, his voice cold and steady. "You finish the debt."
Haru looked at the mirror, then at the man whose Luck was zero. A grim, sharp smile touched her lips—the look of a wolf recognizing another predator. "I take it back, Ghost. You're not a hole in the ledger. You're the red ink."
She gripped her katana, her body tensing like a wire under high tension. "Go. On the third shot."
Alok didn't nod. He didn't blink. He just waited for the red dot to find his chest.
Alok stepped out from behind the SUV, his hands open and empty. He wasn't running. He was walking—slowly, deliberately—right into the sniper's sights. In the 41st-floor window, the man in the tracksuit blinked in confusion, his finger trembling on the trigger. He didn't understand. Why wasn't the Ghost afraid?
As the man squeezed the trigger for the third time, Alok didn't dodge. He tripped—perfectly, intentionally—just as the supersonic bullet hummed past his ear, and Haru vanished into the darkness of the garage like a streak of white lightning.