The Skyknife's armoury hold hissed open with a breath of sterile air and iron.

Ferron stepped inside first, one hand pressed to the biometric plate, the other resting lightly on the kusarigama slung across his back. Rows of reinforced crates lined the walls – stamped with the seal of the Grimm Institute, bolted shut with soul-locks, and humming with residual energy.

"Help yourselves," he muttered. "You won't get better."

The lights above flickered to life. Blue. Cold. Unforgiving.

Victor moved before anyone else. No hesitation. No comment. He stepped up to the nearest open crate and scanned the weapons like they were old friends. His hand closed around a modified Institute rifle – long barrel, etched runes along the stock, magazine loaded with soulbound rounds.

He checked the chamber. Clicked the safety. Shouldered it. Said nothing.

He didn't need to. The way his jaw set told them enough. He was ready to kill again.

Ying entered next. Silent. Watchful. She moved along the wall like she was back in a warzone – checking weight, balance, field-use potential. She passed over rifles and explosives. Paused.

Then pulled two matte-black pistols from their cradle. Sleek. Unmarked. Built for precision, not display. She turned one over in her hand, eyes unreadable.

Finally, she selected a single-edged blade wrapped in charcoal leather, barely more than a whisper of steel, and strapped it to her back.

No words. Just preparation.

Chloe approached a glass-sealed case and tapped it gently. Inside, her weapon – Tensō – waited in its collapsed form. The spear-blade shimmered with residual aura, the kind only she could see. She took it out carefully, checked the balance, then slung it across her back.

Alyssa rummaged through a secondary case until she found her gauntlets – titanium-weave reinforced, runic inlay across the knuckles. She slid her hands into them with a quiet hiss of pressure release.

"Let's go punch a demon in the face," she muttered. The joke hung in the air. Light, brittle.

Max didn't laugh.

Dan stood back for a long moment. Then stepped forward and took a soulthread cloak – woven from shimmering grey mesh. He wrapped it around his shoulders like it weighed more than it should. Then chose a simple combat knife from the rack. Short. Straight. Efficient.

It didn't look like enough. But he made no complaint.

Ferron returned to Max, carrying a sealed case. He opened it without ceremony.

Inside lay the chain.

Max's weapon. Reforged.

It shimmered faintly – gold and blue, heat pulsing from within. Not fire. Not anymore. Soulfire.

Max reached out. The moment his fingers touched it, the metal came alive – flexing in the air like it remembered being something hungrier. The links hissed softly. The gold hue deepened near the hilt. The centre glowed like a furnace restrained by breath.

"It's angrier than before," Ferron warned. "Try not to let it do the talking."

Max closed the case with a nod. He didn't say thank you. Just felt the weight of it settle onto his back. A familiar burn against old scars.

Then silence. Everyone armed. Everyone still.

Victor broke it.

"So… why are we all going to Japan?"

Dan answered first, quiet but firm.

"For Liz."

Victor scoffed, slinging his rifle over one shoulder. "And I'm going because you're too stupid to ask for help."

Chloe glanced at Alyssa. They didn't need to speak.

"She's our friend," Chloe said, voice steady.

Max looked at Alyssa.

She just rolled her eyes. "Don't ask dumb questions."

Max turned to Ying, last.

She didn't answer. Didn't even look back.

She walked out of the hold without a sound, pistols at her hips, blade against her spine.

The hum of the soulfield engines filled the space.

And the plane flew on, eastward into the dark.

…………………

The hum of the plane was constant. Familiar. Like a warning held just below the threshold of hearing.

Max sat alone in the rear compartment, elbows on his knees, eyes fixed on the wall. The steel was bare. Scuffed. Like it had been braced against blood before. He didn't move when the door slid open.

Ying stepped inside.

She didn't hesitate. She closed the door behind her.

"You're quiet," she said.

"I'm thinking."

"About Liz?"

He glanced up. His eyes were tired.

"No. About you."

Ying didn't flinch. She leaned against the wall across from him, arms folded, her silhouette sharp in the dim light.

"Go on then," she said. "Ask."

Max stood. He crossed the space between them.

"You shot that thing beside Verrine. Dropped it with one round. You called him General Wang," Max said flatly. "You got us out when the city was falling apart. Carried Liz through hellfire without blinking."

Ying didn't move.

"But you also launched the warhead that killed twenty million people."

The words echoed in the metal room.

Ying didn't respond at first. Her eyes were steady. But her shoulders, just slightly, rose and fell with the weight of something she hadn't said aloud yet.

"I betrayed my command," she said finally. "Went against the chain. Fired a nuclear warhead without clearance. They'll never take me back."

She met his gaze fully.

"I don't have a country anymore, Max. The only people I cared about are already dead. My unit. My sisters. My brothers."

Max stayed quiet.

"The world's going to hell," she said. "Ancient demons from myth are crawling out of the cracks. There are no more nations. No more protocols. Just people trying to survive the end."

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Her voice didn't rise. If anything, it softened.

"And you're trying to save it. Or at least... save her. That's a mission I can follow."

She stepped closer.

"You didn't ask me to come. But I'm here. And I'm not leaving you."

Max studied her. The tension in his jaw eased just slightly. Not trust but something close.

"You're serious," he said.

"I'm already dead to the world," Ying replied. "Might as well haunt the right side of it."

Max's voice was low now. Measured.

"Do I trust you?"

Ying met his gaze. "No. You don't."

"And yet you're here."

"You didn't stop me."

"Maybe I should have."

She nodded once. No offense taken. Just truth exchanged.

"I didn't come for forgiveness," she said.

"No?"

"I came because I saw what you did. I saw what you became. And I saw the girl you carried like she was the last thing worth saving."

She took a step forward.

"You didn't hesitate. Not once. You didn't ask who I was or why I came. You just fought. You just protected her."

Max's jaw clenched.

"And you," he said, "you vaporized a city."

"I cut out an infection," she said. "The one thing I was trained to do. Eliminate what can't be saved."

"And if that ever becomes her – what then?"

The words hung between them.

Ying's voice softened. "Then I hope to God you're strong enough to stop me."

Max didn't move. But something behind his eyes shifted.

"She's not going to need that," he said.

Ying looked down.

"She might."

A pause.

Then she added, quieter: "But if she doesn't... If she comes back, and if you're right – then I need to know something else."

"What?"

She looked him dead in the eyes.

"Do you trust me now?"

The silence was long.

Max finally took a step back. Raised his hand.

And without a word – he touched two fingers to her chest.

Power flickered.

Subtle. Deep. Like recognition given shape.

A thread of golden warmth rippled through her core. It didn't burn. It didn't wound.

It welcomed her.

Ying's breath caught.

She didn't speak.

But her posture changed – just a fraction. Less guarded. More grounded.

"I just did," Max said.

Ying looked at him – really looked.

And for the first time since Chengdu, she let herself believe.

Only a little.

But enough.

…………………

The hum of the engines filled the silence.

Overhead lights pulsed in a steady rhythm – too sterile to be comforting. The cabin was built for endurance, not company. Seats were spaced far apart, military-grade safety harnesses still locked to side brackets. Nobody was sleeping.

Max sat alone, his hand resting lightly on Liz's stasis pod. Her breath fogged the glass once every minute. He watched it like it was a clock.

Across the aisle, Alyssa kicked her legs against the edge of a storage bin, her gauntlets clutched in her lap. "So," she said eventually, "does anyone want to admit how completely insane this is?"

Victor looked up from cleaning his rifle. "Which part?"

Chloe leaned back against the wall. "Teenagers on a demon hunt in Japan. We should be at home. Or in therapy."

Ferron chuckled, flipping through a parchment-bound relic book. "This is therapy. Welcome to catharsis by fire."

Alyssa glanced at Max. "I get why he's going. I get Ferron. I guess I even get Dan—" she nodded toward the far seat, where Dan was quietly sharpening a blade beside his spear.

"But us?" Her voice dropped. "What the hell are we supposed to do?"

Chloe didn't answer at first. Her eyes stayed on Liz's pod.

Then softly: "She's our friend."

A beat.

"Was our friend," Alyssa muttered, looking away.

"She still is," Chloe said firmly.

Ferron's voice cut through, calm and even. "She's alive. But it won't be easy. The thing inside her… if we're lucky, it's sleeping. If we're not—"

Max looked up. "We're not lucky."

Dan finally spoke. "Then we fight."

Victor gave a tight nod. "We're not tourists. You're not kids anymore either."

Alyssa raised her hand. "Technically, I still am."

"You're wearing soulforged gauntlets," Dan said dryly. "Pretty sure the youth card expired."

Max glanced at each of them in turn. For a second, the shadows in his face lightened. Not quite a smile but a moment of clarity.

"All of you should've stayed behind."

"And miss a road trip with demons and apocalypse?" Victor said. "Not a chance."

Ferron turned a page. His tone grew colder. "Just remember why we're going. The exorcist in Kyoto is real. My people will help. But the city is… changed."

Chloe looked up. "Changed how?"

Ferron hesitated.

"There are sightings. Twisted animals. People who vanish and come back wrong. Spirits, but not dead ones. Like something is remaking them."

"Like demon influence?" Max asked.

"Worse," Ferron said. "A demon who doesn't conquer. One who creates."

Alyssa frowned. "Creates what?"

Ferron didn't answer.

Chloe swallowed. "What happens if the exorcism doesn't work?"

The air thinned.

Ferron closed the book. "Then we seal her. Forever."

Chloe flinched. So did Alyssa.

Max said nothing. But the look in his eyes was fire.

From the other side of the cabin, Ying's voice – quiet, unreadable:

"Then we make sure that never becomes the only option."

A heavy silence followed – until Chloe murmured, almost to herself, "We missed our birthday."

Victor looked up.

"In Chengdu," Chloe added, her voice distant. "We were fading away in a demon circle. It was… a Tuesday, I think."

Alyssa blinked. Then grinned. "Wait— we're seventeen?"

Chloe nodded, still a little dazed.

"Hell yeah," Alyssa whispered, nudging her. "Happy damn birthday."

Victor let out a dry laugh. "You two are the only people I've ever met who celebrated surviving an eldritch death loop by aging."

Dan stood, walked over, and pulled them both into a gentle hug. "Then happy birthday. Both of you."

Neither girl spoke. But neither pulled away.

For a moment, the cabin didn't feel like a warship.

It felt like something close to a family.

…………………

Ferron unfolded a large map across the table. The material shimmered faintly – coated in soul-laced ink that reacted to proximity, marking known demonic outbreaks with smouldering dots of red.

Kyoto burned brighter than the rest.

"The city's soulfield is wrong," Ferron said, tapping the largest blot with two fingers. "It's not just demonic presence. Something's... changing the landscape."

Max leaned in, arms crossed. "Changing how?"

"Transmutation," Ferron replied. "People aren't just dying. They're twisting. Becoming... yokai. Creatures from folklore. The reports sound like myth, but the field readings confirm it – soul warping, not soul devouring. That's different. Dangerous."

Victor whistled low. "So, they're not just killing people. They're rewriting them."

"Exactly," Ferron said. "This isn't conquest. It's alchemy. Something down there is remaking Kyoto one soul at a time. Slowly. But steadily."

Chloe frowned. "Is this why you brought us? Not just for Liz?"

Ferron hesitated. "We'll need strength. All of us. Even if the exorcist helps, we'll be walking into a demonic storm. Whatever's changing Kyoto won't want us undoing it."

Max's jaw tightened, eyes drifting to Liz's containment pod in the rear of the cabin. Her body lay still – too still – suspended in red light. He didn't speak, but everyone could read the answer on his face.

Chloe, trying to stay brave, said softly, "We'll fix her."

Ferron didn't offer false comfort. He just returned to the map.

"The exorcist's name is Hana Seineru," he continued. "Hana-sama. Her family once led the Sōhon-ke – the spiritual head of my people. They exiled themselves after the Institute cracked down on unaffiliated rites. They won't trust us. Won't trust me."

Dan looked up from sharpening his spear. "How do we find her?"

Ferron gave a slight smile. "Her bear."

Alyssa blinked. "Wait. What?"

"She keeps a guardian bear. Soul-bonded. Stalks the forests outside Kyoto's north districts. If we find the bear, we find her."

Chloe raised an eyebrow. "Does the bear talk?"

"Probably," Ferron muttered. "But it only talks to people it doesn't want to eat."

Victor grinned. "Great. We're looking for a magical murder-bear. Should be easy."

Max didn't smile.

Then Chloe's voice, quiet again: "And if she can't fix Liz?"

The table went still.

Ferron's answer was soft. But unflinching.

"Then we seal her. Permanently. Deep. And far from here."

Max's voice cracked the silence: "We're not sealing her."

Ferron didn't challenge it. He simply nodded.

And turned the map to face the cockpit.

"Pilot says thirty minutes to descent," he said. "Everyone suit up."

…………………

The sky over Japan was darker than it should have been.

Max stood at the front of the aircraft, one hand braced on the bulkhead behind the pilot. He stared through the reinforced glass as the clouds parted. Kyoto unfurled below – less a city, more a wound.

From this altitude, the landscape should have glowed with city lights. But much of the city was dark. Entire districts sat unpowered. Others flickered, pulsing as though struggling to remember electricity. Small fires burned in alleys. A train sat derailed and rusted across the Kamo River like a wound across skin. And deeper in the northern wards—

Something shimmered.

Not fire. Not light.

Something... wrong.

A forest that pulsed faintly red. Buildings that had slumped in unnatural directions. Streets where shadows twisted without a source. And something massive crawling slowly across the abandoned grounds of the Imperial Palace – an outline too large to be human, but too graceful to be machine.

Ferron appeared behind Max, eyes locked on the same twisted skyline.

"There's a presence," Ferron said. "Old. Wrong. If the legends are true... we're not facing a demon. We're entering her story."

Max didn't reply. He was focused on something else.

The air.

It felt heavier. Saturated. Like it was folding in on itself just outside the sound barrier. He could feel it in the bones of the plane. The hum of the soul-reactors struggling to compensate. The way Liz's stasis pod had begun to pulse erratically as they crossed into Kyoto airspace.

The closer they got, the louder the soulfire burned inside him.

"Something knows we're coming," he muttered.

Behind him, the team strapped in. Chloe checked her spear. Dan finished adjusting his cloak. Victor finished loading his rifle. Alyssa tied her hair back with slow, practiced hands – then smiled faintly, trying not to show the shake in her fingers.

Ying hadn't moved.

She was staring out the window too, jaw locked. Her voice came low, just audible under the cabin hum.

"Something's feeding on the city. And it doesn't care if it's demon, yokai, or human."

"Can we land?" Max asked the pilot.

The pilot – an Institute veteran with three glyphs on his throat – nodded grimly. "We'll drop in the outskirts. No-fly zone near the core. Something's been taking down drones."

The cabin lights shifted to red. Descent sirens pulsed once, low and warning.

Max stepped back into the aisle. Looked at each of them – Victor, Ferron, Dan, Chloe, Alyssa, Ying.

He didn't give a speech. No orders.

Just one sentence:

"We find her," Max said. "And we bring Liz home. No matter what's waiting down there."

Then he turned back toward the cockpit.

Below, Kyoto twisted slowly in the dark.

And the hunt for Hana began.

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