Senti's POV
The docks were empty long before midnight.
Fog coiled around the cranes like breath from something asleep, and the air stank of metal, salt, and Dust. Ships drifted in the harbor — silent, still. Vale's curfew lamps painted the water red.
Warehouse 36 waited at the edge of it all, lights on, door unlocked.
The Reflection's voice followed me through the quiet.
You already know how this ends.
"I'm tired of knowing," I said.
Then stop pretending you came for answers.
My Aura burned low under my skin — red threaded with gold, a heartbeat I could see. My twin blades hung at my sides, plain steel with Dust veins running down the middle. Not elegant. Not ceremonial. Just weapons that did their job.
The Fang's markings were painted over the door in fresh white. The paint was still wet. Someone wanted me to find this place.
I pushed the door open.
Inside, it was too quiet.
"Welcome back, Wolf."
The voice came from the rafters. Confident. Familiar.
He was an older Fang — tall, built like a miner. His mask had the old symbol, the one before the change. Around him, at least two dozen others waited in the dark. Some armed with rifles, others with shock pikes, clubs, pipes.
Most didn't have Aura. I could tell by the way they stood — heavy-footed, uncertain.
The Reflection murmured, calm and measured. They think numbers matter.
"They're not wrong," I whispered.
The man laughed. "You've been cutting your own people down for months. Why? You think killing us saves anything?"
"It stops you from killing others."
"That's not justice."
"No," I said, drawing both blades. "It's maintenance."
The trap went off before I finished speaking.
Dust charges hidden under the floor lit up white-blue, ripping through the concrete. The blast threw me sideways, the world erupting in smoke and heat.
My Aura flared — crimson with streaks of gold, snapping around me in thin arcs that caught most of the shrapnel. I hit a crate hard enough to dent it but stayed on my feet.
The Reflection's voice didn't rise. Now they'll see it. What you really are.
They came fast — too fast to think.
The first swung a pipe. I stepped inside the arc and slammed my blade across his chestplate. Armor split clean. He went down gasping.
The next tried to catch my flank. I reversed grip and drove the other sword through his weapon arm, then kicked him back into the dark.
Gunfire cracked from the rafters. Sparks scattered as rounds hit the floor near my feet. I slid low, Aura humming faintly red-gold as I spun through the smoke.
Steel on bone.
Dust burning in the air.
The world narrowing to rhythm.
Half the Fang broke before I reached them. The rest kept swinging. No coordination, no training — just panic and noise.
Each strike came slower. Each breath shorter.
When the last one tried to rush me, I met him head-on, locking both blades together at the hilts. The single heavy weapon came down in one arc.
Steel through armor.
Red across concrete.
And then — nothing.
I stood in the middle of the floor, chest heaving. My Aura pulsed dimly, faint threads of gold flickering at the edges. The Reflection's tone never changed.
Efficient. Precise. Necessary.
I looked around — bodies everywhere. Not soldiers. Just people.
"No," I whispered.
You spared who you could. The rest chose this.
I turned toward the catwalk. The leader was gone — or maybe he'd never been there at all. The smoke made everyone look the same now.
My hands shook when I tried to wipe the blades clean.
The Reflection said quietly, They would have killed others. You stopped it. That's what you do.
"I don't know what I do anymore."
Then I'll remind you.
The rain was falling by the time I stepped outside. It hit the blades, the coat, the ground — washing the red away into black water.
Vale's skyline shimmered in the fog. The reflection of the lights looked almost gold.
Behind my eyes, the voice whispered, Now they'll remember what the Wolf looks like.
I didn't answer. I just kept walking until the noise of the city drowned the sound of my own footsteps.