Underground cities weren't made for comfort. They were made to be forgotten.
Hidden beneath the collapsing Zone-9, beneath rusted trains and broken metro tunnels, lived the unwanted ex-hunters, deserters, blacklisted mages, rogue healers, information dealers. People who'd either escaped the system… or were discarded by it. And now? Reika Aizora had joined them.
Her coat was new darker, heavier. Her old gear was gone, traded for something more adaptable. Her face was partially hidden under a cracked tactical mask. Only her eyes showed sharp, tired, unreadable. Kuro walked beside her silently, blending into the flickering shadows of the tunnel walls. Enkai remained behind her, his armored footsteps silent despite his size. His flames now barely visible but the heat around him was always present, pulsing.
A few stray rebels stared as she passed sensing something… unnatural. They didn't speak. They didn't stop her. They moved aside.
Her contact sat in the back of a bloodstained clinic a crooked building patched together from fallen railcar walls and drug crates. It smelled of herbs, iron, and burnt bandages. He was younger than expected.
Maybe twenty. Pale. Long hair tied back carelessly. Sleeves rolled up. One eye blind completely glazed over. The other? Sharp enough to dissect a soul. "You Reika?" he asked, not looking up from the unconscious man he was stitching together.
"I am."
"Name's Kael," he muttered. "Not a fan of the law. Not a fan of you either. But I like what you're doing. So we're even." She stepped closer, voice calm. "I was told you could help me stay off-grid." "I can," Kael nodded. "For a price."
"Gold?"
"No."
He finished stitching, wiped blood on his sleeve, then finally looked up. "I want in. On whatever you're building." Reika studied him. "Why?"
He looked away. "They burned my sister for healing without license. Said she was tampering with soul-links. But she wasn't. She just saw things differently. Like you." A long silence. Then Reika said, "Fine. But I don't trust easily." Kael smirked faintly. "Then we're already friends."
That night, as Kael cleaned Reika's wounds in silence, something strange happened. He paused. Then frowned. "There's… something under your skin." Reika tensed. "Where?" "Left forearm. It's not infection. More like."
A sudden pulse surged through her body. A deep hum. Her skin lit faintly under Kael's touch not with shadow or flame. But red.
Blood red. Enkai stepped forward instantly, blade drawn. "Something's wrong." But Kuro held him back. "No. Not wrong." Kael stepped back slowly. "What the hell are you carrying?" Reika gritted her teeth. "Another one." Kuro whispered low. "It's waking. The Third."
Pain hit like a blade. Reika collapsed to her knees, hand over her heart. Something clawed inside her veins not with hunger, but with anger. With grief. Her mind flooded with memories she didn't recognize.
A child's scream. Chains. A man's voice low and cruel: "Blood is not power. Blood is obedience."Then A roar. So loud it shattered her thoughts. And from her shadow, something began to rise. Not like Kuro's silent emergence. Not like Enkai's flaming rebirth. This one… tore its way out. Blood soaked the floor. But it wasn't hers. It was memory-blood. Echoed pain.
Kael stumbled back as a new figure rose from her shadow. Leaner. Shorter.
A twisted figure with sharp blade-arms and one glowing red eye the other eye stitched shut. His mouth sealed by cursed bindings, chest etched with runes like battle scars.
But he wasn't wild. He kneeled. Reika, panting, looked up eye to eye with the creature. "Who are you?"
A whisper entered her thoughts more fragile than the others. "I am what they bled from you. Your silence. Your sacrifice."
Kuro stepped forward. "He's the Third. Born from everything you never said." Reika blinked slowly. Then whispered:"Akai."
The summon bowed lower. Kael, still shocked, asked: "What… what even are you?" Reika stood slowly, her breath steadying. And said softly,
"Not a hunter anymore."
She looked out the cracked window of the clinic. "Something worse."
The bounty went live at midnight. A private server. Locked behind 7 firewalls. Only accessed by contract killers and rogue mercenaries.
Target: Reika Aizora
Reward: 500,000 credits.
Condition: Alive, if possible. Dead, if needed.
Tag: "Blacklisted Eclipse Asset."
Within 10 minutes, five different bounty groups accepted the offer. By morning, one of them was already on the move.
Reika stood outside the underground clinic, watching the market below stir to life — smuggled mana stones, hacked gear, mutated potions traded under broken neon lights. No sunlight reached here. Only fake illumination, powered by old dungeon cores.
Kael joined her, sipping from a battered coffee flask. "You've made it big," he said, voice dry. "Top five on the Red Board." She didn't flinch. "Expected." "Half a million on your head. That's guild-level bounty. What'd you do?" Reika's voice was flat.
"I survived."
Kael glanced sideways. "They must really hate that." She turned to look behind her. Inside the clinic, Kuro was sharpening his blade in silence. Enkai meditated beside a furnace, flames coiled gently around his gauntlets. Akai… sat in the corner. Still.
Bent forward. Almost like he was whispering to the blood-stained floor.
The bounty hunters arrived fast. Three of them a "triad strike cell," specialized in fast capture. One tank-type. One support-nullifier. One speed assassin. All of them ex-guild. All of them killers. They didn't knock.
They blew the clinic's front wall open with a mana grenade. Kael dove behind the counter with a curse. "YUP. They're not fans!"
Reika rose through the dust, eyes cold. The tank stepped forward a beast of a man with iron-plated arms and a hex-shield. He grinned. "Reika Aizora?" She didn't answer. He nodded. "Good." Then charged.
Reika moved not backward, but sideways. Smooth. Calculated. Kuro clashed with the tank first, blade meeting shield in a burst of sparks. Enkai surged past her, flames igniting across the clinic, forcing the nullifier to dodge. But the assassin fast and thin like smoke bypassed them all and went straight for Reika. One blink. And he was behind her dagger aimed at her neck. Too fast. But not unseen. Because Akai moved.
It wasn't like a normal summon. There was no explosion. No burst. Just a shift. Akai's eye glowed the stitched one began to pulse faintly beneath its thread. And then… he bled.
Blood poured from his chest matching the exact angle the assassin had sliced at Reika. But Reika wasn't touched. The assassin staggered, coughing. He looked down. A gash opened across his own ribs the exact same cut.
He tried to move. Akai whispered. And his arm twisted backwards. Snapping like a twig. The assassin screamed. Reika's eyes narrowed. She whispered, "You reflect pain." Akai's voice entered her thoughts again. "Pain is memory. I am made of yours."
Outside, the tank roared and slammed Kuro into the ground but before he could crush him, Enkai's flames flared to full strength. The air turned blue-hot. Enkai hurled a flame spike, and it pierced the tank's armor molten shard sticking through his chest like a flag of war. The support-nullifier tried to suppress him, but a sudden shadow whip pulled her feet out.
Reika walked through the dust toward the last hunter standing the support. She didn't lift her blade. Didn't summon anyone.
She simply said: "This is your only chance. Run."
The woman hesitated. Then turned. And didn't look back.
Minutes later, silence returned. The clinic was half-destroyed. But Reika stood tall three bounty hunters broken, bloodied, unconscious. Kael emerged, brushing dust off his coat. "Remind me not to piss you off."
Reika looked down at Akai, who was kneeling beside the fallen assassin, silently healing the wound he himself had created. Kael whispered, "He feels the pain too, doesn't he?" Reika nodded."…But chooses to carry it."
They came three days later. No explosions. No warning. Just a knock. Not soft. Not threatening. Precise. Kael looked up from his notes. "We expecting company?"
Reika rose slowly, hand resting on her blade. Kuro materialized behind her like a ghost. Enkai's fire stirred faintly. Akai opened one eye. Just one. Reika opened the door. A man stood alone. No squad. No weapon visible. But the pressure that poured off him made even the walls crack. He wore a dark guild cloak not of any current faction. An old symbol stitched on the chest:
🔱 Legacy Unit: Eclipse Breakers (Decommissioned) His face was weathered. Early 40s. Clean beard. Eyes that had seen too many deaths and remembered every one of them.
He didn't smile. Didn't blink.
He simply said: "My name is Ragan Kurogane. Former Guild Commander.
I'm here to make you a deal."
Inside, the air was tense. Ragan sat calmly, sipping old tea from a cracked cup. Kael leaned against the wall, visibly anxious. Reika stood. She never sat for wolves. "You're not official," she said. "No," he replied. "I left the system three years ago. After they tried to erase us."
"Why come now?"
Ragan looked up. "Because you've shaken the system, Reika. The hunters, the guilds, the buried ones… they're watching. And some of us don't want to stop you." Kuro's voice was low. "And the rest?" "They want her erased before she breaks the cycle."
Enkai's fingers sparked. Kael crossed his arms. "What do you want from her?" Ragan leaned forward.
"There's a faction hidden. Dead hunters. Exiled mages. Forgotten soldiers. We've stayed silent too long. But now… we want to fight back. Against the guild syndicates. The shadow-engine experiments. The corrupted dungeons."
Reika's eyes narrowed. "You want me to join?"
"No."
He paused.
"I want you to lead." The silence was heavy. Then Reika asked, "Why me?"
"You're not from bloodlines. Not chosen. Not trained."
Ragan's gaze sharpened. "You survived by accident. You evolved by trauma. You summoned beings that weren't supposed to exist. You are what they fear most an anomaly that can think." She didn't respond. But something inside her twisted not in fear, but in realization. She wasn't just running anymore.
She was becoming something they couldn't control. And now someone was asking her to own it.
Before she could speak, Akai whispered. Not aloud. But in her thoughts."Another shadow stirs. Not mine. Not yours. But old… and chained to him." Reika turned to Ragan.
"There's something inside you." He didn't deny it. "I carry a fragment. A broken summon… bound to a mistake I made in the war. It hears your name in my blood now. It wants to follow you. Even through me."
His hand trembled slightly. A faint mark pulsed on his palm three concentric rings, broken and bleeding light.
Reika stared at it. "A summon that survived you?" Ragan whispered, "It shouldn't have. But it did. And it remembers your fire."
Outside, the bounty signals grew louder. More groups. More contracts. And soon not just bounty hunters. But guild knights.
Reika stood.
"I'll decide. But if I join you"
"You won't be safe," Ragan finished. "But you'll be dangerous."
She looked at her three summons Kuro, Enkai, Akai. Each one born from her silence, her survival, her pain. And then… she nodded once.
"Then let's start a war."