I woke up to the morning sun unceremoniously beating through the hospital room window. The air smelled of sterility and cheap detergent. A man in an impeccably white coat stood in the doorway, jotting something down on a tablet.

  "Oh, you're awake," the doctor stepped closer, adjusting his glasses. "Hello. How are you feeling?"

  "I'm fine," I stretched, feeling the young skin stretching slightly over where the recent holes had been. "Nothing hurts."

  "Amazing," the doctor looked at me intently. "You are very lucky. The bullets went right through, miraculously missing every vital organ. A statistical anomaly, nothing less."

  I smirked barely noticeably. 'Anomaly.'

  "Here are your pills," he placed the coveted bottle on the nightstand. "Take them on schedule. We'll discharge you tomorrow, the paperwork is almost ready."

  "WOOHOO!" I almost jumped on the bed. "Freedom!"

  The doctor gave a short nod and walked out, nearly colliding with Rabuki in the doorway. She looked like she hadn't slept all night: her hair was messy, there were dark circles under her eyes, but her gaze was just as sharp as ever.

  "Oh! What was your name... Rabuki!" I waved at her cheerfully. "Come to check if I took your favorite bed?"

  She froze on the threshold, looking at me as if I were a corpse risen from hell. Then again, to her, that's exactly what I was.

  "You... why are you so alive?" she squeezed out, approaching the bed.

  "What, did you already bury me?" I squinted. "Too early. The doctor said I'm a lucky guy. The bullets missed everything important."

  "But... I saw the blood! I saw a hole right where your heart should be!" she poked her finger into my chest.

  "Oh, that..." I waved it off carelessly. "Don't worry, Nihoro. I just don't have a heart. I'm a heartless husk, didn't you notice?"

  Rabuki froze for a moment, processing the joke, and then her face started turning crimson.

  "Why you... you're gonna joke your way into trouble!"

  "Oh come on, why are you so mad?" I reached lazily for the bottle of pills. "You're planning to join the Exterminator Corps yourself. The stuff there will be way worse than a couple of holes in the stomach. Get used to it."

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  Suddenly she reached out and snatched my bottle.

  "HEY! Give that back!" I protested.

  Rabuki started carefully studying the label, and her eyebrows crept upward.

  "What the..? Arkgrim, this dose is high enough to knock out a running rhino. Why do you need this?"

  "Give it back, I said!" I lunged forward abruptly and yanked the bottle out of her hands. "Didn't your parents teach you not to take other people's things without..?"

  I hid the pills in the nightstand and glared at her angrily.

  "Why you little sh-sh..." Rabuki didn't finish.

  The next second, I felt a sharp blow to my solar plexus. The air left my lungs with a whistle.

  "Ow! Kha... are you... crazy?!" I wheezed, doubling over.

  Rabuki calmly took a step back, nodding to herself in satisfaction.

  "Yeah, seems you're really alive. You've got reactions, ribs are intact."

  She turned around and headed for the exit, throwing over her shoulder:

  "Get discharged quickly, 'Squirt'."

  The door slammed shut behind her. I straightened up, rubbing my stomach.

  (Rabuki's POV)

  I sat in the back seat of the car and just stared into space. The door slammed shut with a dull thud, cutting me off from the hospital corridor, but I was still there.

  Whenever I closed my eyes, the sound of gunshots would start ringing in my ears. And then—silence. And that awful sensation of hot blood soaking into my clothes. At that moment, in the alley, when I pressed my hands to his stomach, trying to stop the bleeding, I felt absolutely, nauseatingly useless.

  I looked at my palms. The skin was clean, I had washed them under ice-cold water for about twenty minutes, but it still felt like a crimson trace remained under my nails. My hands were trembling slightly, and I gripped my knees to hide it from Rulf.

  'I was wearing a bio-suit,' I thought, biting my lips. 'The most modern, expensive gear money can buy. And I couldn't protect one ordinary boy. What am I going to do in the Exterminator Corps? How will I be able to look monsters in the eyes?'

  It was exactly this realization of my own weakness that hit the hardest. If it weren't for the Squirt's incredible luck, if those bullets had gone a little further to the left... I wouldn't be arguing with him in his hospital room right now, I'd be standing at his funeral. Because of me. Because of my overconfidence, a person could have died.

  "Lady Rabuki," Rulf called quietly, without turning around. His voice, as always, was calm and even, but support could be felt in it. "There's no need to beat yourself up over this. Self-flagellation won't turn back time. The main thing is to learn from the mistakes in this situation and correct them. You did everything you could at that moment."

  "Everything I could?" I chuckled bitterly, looking out the window at the lights of the night city. "Rulf, I looked like a frightened little girl, not a future Legion fighter. We humans are such a pathetic race... We tear at each other's throats for influence, money, some kind of politics, we build conspiracies, hunt down teenagers... And all this while creatures are crawling out of the ground who don't give a damn about our ambitions. They just want to devour us."

  I leaned back against the headrest and closed my eyes. The Squirt's face stood before my eyes. Arrogant, sarcastic, perpetually sleepy... He didn't even realize how close death had been. He was angry over some pills when he should have been thanking the heavens for every new breath.

  'This will never happen again,' I promised myself firmly.