Kaede didn’t remember grabbing the vest.

  She only remembered the weight of it suddenly on her shoulders, fluorescent and stupidly bright, like it thought visibility was the same thing as safety.

  The city alarm wailed again—longer this time—cutting through the air like a saw. Somewhere behind the barricades, people screamed. Somewhere above the rooftops, something roared.

  And somewhere in the middle of all of it, Kaede had a clipboard.

  A clipboard.

  She glanced down at it like it might start laughing at her.

  The street shook.

  A pressure wave slammed against the building fronts and rattled the window glass in a way that made her teeth hurt. She flinched hard, then tried to pretend she hadn’t.

  Hifumi was beside her, vest crooked, hair pulled back just enough to keep it out of her eyes. She didn’t look calm. She looked… stuck. Like her body was trying to decide between bolting and freezing and couldn’t agree on which would be less humiliating.

  Kaede’s voice came out too fast. “Okay. Okay. We just— we just do what we’re told. We guide civilians to the trucks. No hero stuff. No stupid stuff.”

  Hifumi nodded once, a delayed nod, like the signal had to travel through her whole body before it reached her neck. “…Yes.”

  The evacuation trucks idled at the curb, doors open, engines growling. Civilians were pouring in—families, office workers, a delivery guy still holding a bag with someone’s lunch order, a girl clutching her little brother so tightly he was turning red.

  Kaede waved them forward like her arms were traffic signs. “This way! Don’t stop! Keep moving!”

  A man stumbled and looked behind him, eyes wide. “What is that?!”

  Kaede didn’t look. She didn’t want to see the centaur again. The last time she looked, she’d laughed for half a second—

  Pink tutu.

  Then it spun.

  And the spin had turned into wind pressure so violent it had flipped a parked car like a toy.

  Kaede’s laugh had died in her throat.

  “It’s a high-level dungeon breach!” she snapped at the man, a little harsher than she meant. “Just move!”

  He moved.

  Hifumi stepped in quietly beside an elderly woman whose hands were shaking too badly to grip the truck handle. “Here,” she said, voice soft and awkward, like she wasn’t used to offering help out loud. “I… I’ve got you.”

  The woman blinked at her, then let herself be guided up.

  Kaede swallowed hard and forced her attention back onto the flow. Keep them moving. Don’t let people freeze. If they freeze, they die. If they die, Kaede—

  She tried not to finish that thought.

  Hunters sprinted past the barricade, boots cracking against asphalt. They looked unreal, like something from a different genre. Green bursts flared around them in quick pulses—buffs, skills, level-up flashes, Kaede didn’t know and couldn’t see the details anyway. To her it was just light and motion and impact.

  The centaur roared again, and the air shuddered.

  Kaede’s stomach tightened.

  She didn’t belong here.

  Neither did Hifumi.

  They were staff.

  Support.

  Background.

  The kind of people who existed in dungeon stories only to hand a protagonist a clipboard and say, “The guild master will see you now.”

  And yet here they were, directing civilians while a giant tutu-wearing nightmare fought their chain-smoking boss in the street.

  Kaede lifted her clipboard and yelled, “NEXT! NEXT! KEEP MOVING!”

  Something skittered.

  It was faint at first—lost in the chaos. A scratching sound over concrete.

  Kaede didn’t notice it until Hifumi’s head turned sharply.

  Hifumi stared low to the ground, eyes wide in a way Kaede had never seen on her before. Not her usual awkward stiffness. Not her quiet fear. This was… immediate.

  “…Kaede,” Hifumi said.

  Kaede didn’t like the way her name sounded like that.

  “What?” she barked, still waving civilians forward.

  Hifumi didn’t answer right away. Her mouth opened once, closed, then opened again. “…It’s going for the trucks.”

  Kaede’s blood went cold.

  She turned.

  At first she saw nothing.

  Then she saw it.

  A demon bug.

  Not huge. Not cinematic. Not the kind of monster hunters screamed about.

  It was small enough to be missed.

  Fast enough to matter.

  Its body was segmented and glossy, like wet armor. Too many legs. Too many joints. Its mandibles clicked as it skittered between the legs of two hunters who were fully focused on the centaur above them.

  It slipped under the line like it belonged there.

  Like it had been waiting for the moment nobody could spare attention.

  It headed straight for the evacuation trucks.

  Kaede’s throat went dry.

  The trucks were full.

  Children.

  Old people.

  People who couldn’t outrun anything.

  Kaede stared at it like her brain had stopped processing language.

  “Oh no,” she whispered.

  Then louder.

  “Oh no no no no—”

  A hunter finally noticed it—but too late. He raised his weapon, but a shockwave from the centaur’s spin knocked him sideways, and his attention snapped back to the main fight.

  Unauthorized duplication: this tale has been taken without consent. Report sightings.

  The bug kept going.

  Hifumi’s voice came again, quieter. “They don’t see it.”

  Kaede’s heart hammered so hard it made her ears ring.

  “They’re going to die,” Kaede said.

  It wasn’t dramatic.

  It was a fact.

  Hifumi’s fingers clenched at her sides. She looked like she wanted to move, but her body was still arguing with itself.

  Kaede grabbed her sleeve.

  “Hifumi.”

  Hifumi looked at her.

  Kaede didn’t know why she said what she said next.

  She just did.

  “…We run.”

  Hifumi blinked. “…What?”

  “We run,” Kaede repeated, voice shaking. “Away from the trucks. It’ll chase us instead.”

  “That’s not guaranteed,” Hifumi said, and the way she said it was painfully practical for someone about to volunteer as bug bait.

  “It’s a bug,” Kaede hissed. “Bugs chase movement. Bugs chase noise. Bugs chase—”

  “That’s not scientific,” Hifumi whispered.

  “We don’t have time for scientific!” Kaede snapped.

  The bug climbed a tire.

  It was about to reach the open truck door.

  Kaede’s lungs squeezed.

  She could already see it in her head: mandibles, screams, blood—

  Hifumi inhaled sharply.

  That inhale sounded like a decision.

  “…Okay,” she said, voice too soft for how insane this was. “…Okay.”

  Kaede’s mouth opened, and for a second she couldn’t believe Hifumi agreed.

  Then she yelled without thinking, “HEY! YOU HIDEOUS SIX-LEGGED SHIT!”

  The bug’s head snapped toward them.

  It screeched—high, metallic, wrong.

  And it turned.

  It came for them.

  Hifumi stared at it for half a second. “…Why did that work?”

  “DON’T QUESTION IT!” Kaede screamed.

  They ran.

  Kaede ran like she always did when she was terrified—fast and ugly and efficient. Her body knew how to flee. It didn’t matter that she had never trained. It didn’t matter that she wasn’t a hunter.

  Fear made her a runner.

  She vaulted a fallen barricade without thinking. Her heel clipped the top, but she didn’t fall. She hit the sidewalk hard and kept going.

  Hifumi followed, not as fast, but stubborn. Her steps were tight, awkward, like her legs didn’t trust the world’s physics. But she kept pace through sheer refusal to stop.

  Behind them, the bug skittered.

  Fast.

  Too fast.

  Kaede’s lungs burned.

  “This is so stupid!” she screamed as she ran. “This is so unbelievably stupid!”

  Hifumi’s voice was clipped, breathy. “Left! Left—!”

  “I KNOW LEFT!” Kaede shouted, turning hard around a corner.

  They shot into a narrow side street lined with vending machines and parked scooters.

  The bug slammed through a trash can behind them, scattering garbage across the road. A soda can flew past Kaede’s shoulder.

  She screamed and ran faster.

  Car alarms started going off—one after another—like the city was panicking with her.

  A glass bus stop stood ahead.

  Kaede’s brain flashed: glass.

  The bug leaped.

  It smashed through the bus stop like it was paper.

  Shards exploded into the air.

  Kaede ducked on instinct, arms up, and sprinted through the glittering mess. Something cut her sleeve.

  Hifumi yelped behind her—an awkward, strangled sound like she was trying not to scream.

  Kaede didn’t look back.

  If she looked back, she would die.

  The street ended in a split.

  Kaede picked right without thinking.

  The bug followed.

  Its skittering sound got closer.

  Too close.

  Kaede’s foot caught on something—an uneven crack in the pavement.

  “SHIT—!”

  She went down.

  Her back slammed hard against concrete.

  Pain flashed up her spine.

  Her vision blurred.

  The bug lunged—

  And overshot her.

  It flew past, slamming into a metal scaffold that had been left unsecured beside a building renovation.

  The scaffold shook.

  A sign hanging above it snapped loose and swung down, cracking the bug across its armored back.

  It shrieked.

  Kaede stared, dazed.

  Hifumi grabbed her arm, grip surprisingly strong. “Up!”

  Kaede coughed. “I KNOW, I’M TRYING!”

  She scrambled up, legs shaking, and ran again.

  They darted through another corner, then another.

  Kaede’s thoughts were nothing but panic and math.

  Distance from civilians. Distance from trucks. Distance from bug.

  Keep it away.

  Keep it away.

  Keep it away.

  The bug started climbing.

  Kaede saw it out of the corner of her eye—its legs gripping a wall, its body skittering sideways along brick like gravity was a suggestion.

  Kaede almost tripped from shock.

  “WHY IS IT GETTING SMARTER?!” she screamed.

  Hifumi wheezed beside her, breath broken. “I don’t think that’s how evolution works!”

  “IT JUST RAN ON A WALL, HIFUMI!”

  They reached a commercial block—tight alleyways, delivery doors, dumpsters.

  Kaede’s chest tightened.

  This was a bad place to run.

  Too many corners.

  Too many dead ends.

  The bug clicked behind them.

  Its mandibles sounded closer now.

  Kaede turned hard—too hard—and skidded into an alley.

  The alley narrowed.

  Her brain screamed before her eyes confirmed it.

  Dead end.

  Kaede stopped so suddenly her knees nearly buckled.

  “…Oh for fuck’s sake,” she whispered.

  She spun back.

  The bug blocked the alley entrance.

  It filled it.

  Not physically.

  But psychologically.

  It was a wall of death made of legs and armor.

  Kaede’s breath came out in ragged bursts.

  “This was stupid,” she said, voice cracking. “This was so stupid. I hate this. I hate everything.”

  Hifumi stepped in front of her.

  Not dramatically.

  Not like a hero.

  Like someone whose body had picked a position and refused to move from it.

  Kaede stared at the back of Hifumi’s head.

  Her hands were shaking.

  Not a fighter’s shake.

  A person’s shake.

  The bug reared back.

  Kaede’s vision tunneled.

  She closed her eyes.

  She didn’t want her last memory to be mandibles.

  Impact.

  A shockwave hit the alley entrance so hard the brick caved inward.

  Kaede’s eyes flew open.

  Liora.

  She had slammed into the alley like a missile.

  No warning.

  No buildup.

  One moment the bug was lunging.

  The next moment Liora’s hand was around its body, mid-air, crushing it like it weighed nothing.

  She drove it into the wall.

  Brick exploded outward.

  Dust filled the alley.

  Green ichor sprayed across the ground.

  The bug screeched once.

  Then didn’t.

  Liora crushed it with a final, casual motion that made Kaede nauseous.

  Silence.

  Kaede coughed on dust.

  Hifumi didn’t move.

  She was staring at Liora the way Kaede imagined prey stared at a predator that happened to be on its side.

  Liora stood, cigarette between her fingers like she hadn’t just destroyed something with her bare hand.

  She looked at them.

  Her gaze was flat.

  Calm.

  Controlled.

  “You two,” she said.

  Kaede’s mouth opened.

  Then words spilled out too fast.

  “It was going to the trucks! We saw it and nobody else did and it was going to kill people and we couldn’t just—”

  “I know,” Liora said.

  That shut Kaede up immediately.

  “You don’t chase monsters,” Liora continued evenly.

  Kaede swallowed. “We… didn’t chase. It chased us.”

  Liora stared at her.

  Kaede felt herself shrinking.

  “You run from monsters,” Liora said.

  Kaede gestured weakly. “We did run.”

  Liora’s eyes narrowed just a fraction.

  “…Not away.”

  Kaede’s face burned.

  For a second she thought Liora would start yelling.

  But Liora didn’t yell.

  She took a drag of her cigarette instead.

  Exhaled.

  Then said, almost like it annoyed her to admit it:

  “…Still. Good call.”

  Kaede blinked.

  “Wait,” she said stupidly. “…Really?”

  “Don’t let it go to your head,” Liora replied, turning away. “And don’t do it again.”

  Kaede nodded so hard her neck hurt. “Yes ma’am.”

  Hifumi bowed slightly, voice small. “…Sorry.”

  Liora paused.

  Not long.

  Just enough to make Kaede’s heart skip again.

  “…You pulled it away from civilians,” Liora said without looking back. “That matters.”

  Then she walked out of the alley.

  Kaede exhaled shakily.

  Her legs finally realized they were allowed to stop working.

  She stumbled out after Liora, and the moment they reached the curb back on the main street, she dropped onto it like a puppet whose strings had been cut.

  “…I hate this job,” she whispered.

  Hifumi sat beside her, a second later than Kaede, hands trembling openly now that nobody was chasing them.

  “…You don’t,” Hifumi replied.

  Kaede barked a weak laugh. “I know.”

  Sirens wailed in the distance, then faded. Hunters regrouped. Civilians were being driven away. The centaur’s roars were gone now—replaced by the distant rumble of cleanup.

  Kaede pressed her palms against her eyes.

  Her breathing finally started to slow.

  She was alive.

  That thought felt both relieving and insulting.

  Beside her, Hifumi stared at her own hands.

  They were shaking too.

  Hifumi swallowed, and her voice came out quiet, hesitant—like she was afraid the words might be too much.

  “…If I can still feel fear…”

  Kaede groaned. “Don’t start being poetic.”

  Hifumi blinked at her, expression awkward. “…Sorry.”

  Kaede peeked at her through her fingers.

  Hifumi continued anyway, softer.

  “…Then I’m alive.”

  Kaede dropped her hands.

  She looked at Hifumi for a long moment.

  Then nodded once.

  “…Yeah,” she said.

  They sat like that for a few seconds, breathing.

  Trying to become normal again.

  Kaede stood first, legs wobbling. “We should go back. Before someone notices we’re missing and assumes we died.”

  Hifumi stood too, a beat later.

  As they walked back toward the evacuation zone, Kaede’s mind finally began to catch up.

  The bug.

  The alley.

  Liora’s voice.

  That matters.

  Kaede swallowed.

  Maybe they would get yelled at later.

  They deserved it.

  But—

  She glanced sideways at Hifumi.

  Hifumi’s gaze drifted upward.

  Kaede followed it instinctively.

  A cracked streetlamp stood near the intersection, its glass casing fractured from shockwaves.

  On the metal arm of the lamp sat something small.

  Black wings.

  Still.

  Unmoving.

  A butterfly.

  Hifumi stopped.

  Mid-step.

  Rigid upright.

  Like someone had pressed pause on her.

  Kaede turned fully. “…Hifumi?”

  No response.

  Hifumi didn’t blink.

  She didn’t even shift her eyes.

  Kaede’s skin prickled.

  “Hifumi,” she said again, slower.

  The butterfly lifted into the air.

  Drifted away on the wind like it had all the time in the world.

  Hifumi’s breath snapped back into her lungs.

  She blinked once.

  Twice.

  “…I’m fine,” she said, too quickly.

  Kaede stared at her.

  “…You sure?”

  Hifumi’s mouth opened.

  Closed.

  Then she nodded.

  “…Yeah.”

  Kaede didn’t believe her.

  But she didn’t push.

  Not right now.

  Not while the city still smelled like dust and smoke.

  They kept walking.

  Behind them, the cracked streetlamp swayed slightly in the breeze.

  Like it had been touched.

  Or like something had just left.