Kyoto lay drowned in a violet dusk, the bleeding sunset spilling over curved rooftops and ancient wooden beams. But for Sayuri, only one thing mattered: the digital clock on her wrist flashing furiously.
"Late. Again. Liora's gonna rip my liver out…" she grumbled, voice roughened by the cold air.
She didn't run along the tourist-packed sidewalks. Sayuri preferred rooftops.
With a jump fueled by inhuman strength, she hurled herself from a commercial building to the roof of a convenience store, landing with the weightless grace of a cat and the speed of a thunderbolt.
Her style clashed violently with the traditional city around her: a cropped navy-blue leather jacket plastered with rock band patches, a purposely ripped gray tank top, black combat pants tucked into heavy boots. Short, silver hair whipped in the wind, and a medical black eyepatch hid the right side of her face.
She spotted the Order's temple in the distance, its blue neon lights beginning to hum awake.
"Shortcut. I need a shortcut."
Sliding over a ceramic tile, she sprang into a narrow alley, using air-conditioning pipes to break the fall.
Her boots touched the damp asphalt,
and a rotting stench clawed up her throat.
"Oh, come on… now?"
Three shapes dragged themselves out of the shadows.
Ghouls.
Not slow corpses, but failed subterranean experiments, gray skin stretched over exposed muscle, milky eyes, mouths once sewn shut now tearing open with wet cracks.
"Fffrresh… meat…" one hissed.
Sayuri didn't slow. She just flashed a punkish, fang-filled smirk.
"Piss off, dumpster rejects."
The first Ghoul lunged.
Sayuri spun, caught its skull mid-air, and with a casual squeeze slammed its head against the brick wall. The crunch was wet and final.
The second snapped at her jawline. She slid beneath it, drove a right hook upward, so powerful it not only shattered the creature's jaw but tore its head clean off.
The third hesitated.
Sayuri tugged her jacket straight.
"Boo."
Her kick caved its chest in. The impact launched the Ghoul ten meters backward, punching it through a metal door where it collapsed in a heap of twisted bone.
"Clean-up in aisle four," she mocked, already returning to a sprint without breaking a sweat.
The Temple of the Lunar Order was no ordinary sanctuary.
From the outside, it held classical Japanese architecture. Inside, it was a sacred fusion of tradition and forbidden science. Thick data cables ran beneath reinforced glass floors. Bronze incense burners smoked beside sterile air purifiers. Ancient tapestries glowed under cold LED strips.
At the main altar, the imposing Reigan Hoo preached.
A warrior monk to the bone, wrapped in white ceremonial robes reinforced with ballistic ceramic plating. Behind him rose a colossal statue of Ulisses in his lupine form, not a demon to be feared, but a biomechanical saint crowned in holographic light.
Sayuri slipped in from the back, trying to go unnoticed, dropping onto the bench beside Hikari.
Hikari, brown hair neatly tied, uniform immaculate, breathed out in relief but whispered:
"You missed the opening prayer. Liora is fuming."
Sayuri peeked over. Liora, her adoptive sister, Captain of the Guard, stood rigid as steel, glaring at her with judgment sharp enough to slice glass.
Sayuri answered with a harmless little peace sign.
Up front, Reigan's voice rolled through the chamber, amplified by hidden microphones.
"…for the fragility of human flesh is our original sin!" he proclaimed, arms wide. "Behold Ulisses! He did not reject monstrosity, he embraced it! He fused human weakness with beastly power to defend us!"
The monks and scientists nodded fervently.
"Evolution is not a divine gift… it is a biological sacrifice!" Reigan thundered. "We must purge weakness from our veins! Become monsters to slay the demons rising from the Underworld!"
Sayuri propped her chin on a hand, yawning loudly.
"Blah, blah… 'mutations are cool.' Does he ever change the track?" she muttered.
"Shh! That's the Grandmaster—" Hikari fretted.
"He's an old blowhard." Sayuri stood, stretching. "I'm done. Getting a soda."
"Sayuri, sit down!" Hikari grabbed for her arm, but she slipped free.
"Too late, sunshine."
She took two steps toward the side exit—
Then froze.
Her right eye pulsed beneath the eyepatch, a burning needle of agony—
A warning.
The reinforced glass roof exploded.
No warning. Just a storm of glittering shards raining down over the screaming congregation.
Something red plummeted through the opening like a meteor, landing heavily on the ceremonial platform right before Reigan.
Dust and glass burst outward.
When the cloud settled, the figure rose.
A woman. Tall. Commanding.
A blood-red coat flared open over a gilded armored corset, black-trimmed crimson pants clinging to long, lethal legs. Her short, fiery red hair shook with the shockwave.
Lucy.
The Legendary Hunter.
Reigan froze mid-sermon, eyes wide.
"Yo—"
Lucy didn't speak. Her face was a mask of winter.
She drew her Seraph pistol in a blur.
BANG.
The bullet punched through Reigan's forehead, painting the sacred statue of Ulisses behind him with fresh blood.
The Grandmaster fell, dead before the floor greeted him.
Silence. One heartbeat long.
Lucy turned to the crowd. Blood speckled her cheek. She didn't bother wiping it. Her gaze swept the hall like a bored executioner.
"MASTER REIGAN!"
Liora's scream split the stillness.
She unsheathed her ceremonial blade, horror twisting her face.
"KILL HER! NOW!"
Dozens of Shinobi poured from the shadows, elite operatives in tactical black armor, energy blades humming in their hands. They surged like a tide.
Sayuri watched, frozen, hand hovering near her own holster.
Lucy barely blinked. She unsheathed the Dracallion, its crimson blade humming with lethal vibration.
The massacre began.
Lucy moved not like someone fighting…
but like someone swatting away minor inconveniences.
She skewered the first shinobi, used his corpse to block a barrage of shuriken, then spun, bisecting three attackers at the waist. Blood rained across the polished floor.
Liora shoved past bodies, reaching Reigan, sobbing.
"Medical team! Resurrection Protocol! NOW!"
The last shinobi fell to pieces at Lucy's feet. With a flick, she shook their blood off the Dracallion and walked toward the altar. Toward Liora.
Hikari panicked.
"LIORA!"
He bolted from the bench, tripping over robes, desperate to shield his sister.
"Hikari, no! Get back!" Sayuri lunged for him but missed.
He stumbled over a corpse and fell to his knees, right in Lucy's path.
The hunter stopped.
She looked down at the trembling boy, her face marked with enemy blood, eyes dead and ancient.
She lifted her blade to his face.
"Move, boy," she rasped.
Hikari couldn't breathe.
Something snapped inside Sayuri.
"GET YOUR DAMN HANDS OFF HIM!"
Sayuri shot forward like a bullet.
She sprinted, vaulted over a bench, used the back of a cowering monk as a springboard—and launched herself into the air.
"HAAAAA!"
Her dropkick slammed into Lucy's chest.
Hard.
The veteran hunter flew backward, smashing into the base of Ulisses' statue.
Sayuri landed in a feral crouch before Hikari. Protective. Defiant.
She drew her weapon, her custom White Lotus Magnum, white with rose accents and aimed at the settling dust cloud.
"Hikari! Get Liora and run!" she barked. "MOVE!"
"B-but what about—"
"GO!"
Order medics rushed in, lifting Reigan's corpse while dragging Liora away. Hikari hesitated, eyes full of fear, then ran after them.
"We'll be back with reinforcements!" Liora shouted as she vanished.
The dust cleared.
Lucy stood, brushing dirt off her golden corset. Not hurt, just mildly surprised. Her eyes scanned Sayuri, then flicked up to the statue towering behind them. A short laugh escaped her lips.
"That kick…" she said, rolling her neck. "Plenty of strength in those legs, kid."
Sayuri rose, adrenaline burning through her veins. She ripped off her eyepatch.
Her right eye was revealed.
The sclera, pitch black.
The iris, an electric, predatory blue, slashed by an old vertical scar.
Power thrummed around her, warping the air.
"You break into my temple, kill the old man, and threaten my brother…" Sayuri said, her voice dripping with punk venom while she spun the Magnum on her finger before gripping it tight. "You've got a weird way of asking for a beating, grandma."
Lucy grinned. A predator savoring a new challenge.
"And you've got a big mouth." She raised the Dracallion. "Let's see if you can back it up or if it's all attitude."
"I'm not holding back." Sayuri warned, blue energy crackling around her shoulders.
Lucy beckoned with two fingers.
"Good. I hate easy fights."
Under the stone gaze of Ulisses, the old world and the new clashed.
And the collision had only just begun.
To be continued…