David swayed where he stood, the world tipping sideways. He caught the bench before his knees gave out and dragged himself onto it, his moment of pride bursting like a bubble.

  “So now you’re in a mood to give out your secrets?” Diana tilted her head, mask glinting in the lamplight. “It would have been much more impressive, weren’t you on the verge of collapsing now.” she said, voice hovering between amusement and concern.

  “Too late for that. I did prove my point.”

  “I guess.” She folded her arms. “If that artifact of yours is useful, I’ll take it. If not—consider it credit toward something else in the future.”

  David managed a faint smile. “That works.”

  “Try not to burn the academy down in the meantime.”

  Her robes brushed against the floor as she turned for the door and just like that, the room was quiet again.

  David sat there until the silence pressed too heavily on his chest. Then he forced himself up and started toward the laboratory. Every step sent dull sparks of pain up his legs, his vision pulsing at the edges.

  Weak. The accusation echoed in his head.

  If he’d managed that fight better—if he hadn’t hesitated—maybe he wouldn’t be staggering now, half-useless and barely standing. He clenched his jaw and kept walking, the corridor stretching endlessly ahead, lit by the faint, cold shimmer of mana lamps.

  David unlocked the door and pushed it open with his shoulder. Aura was there, sitting at the workbench with two cups of tea and a stack of notes. When she saw him, her hand jerked and one of the cups nearly slipped.

  “Marco—what happened?” She was next to him in seconds. “You look like you’re barely standing!”

  She locked the door behind him, then gently, but firmly, forced him to sit down. “It’s not that bad. I was attacked on the way to the academy, but I handled it.”

  “You… handled it?” Aura’s voice grew more concerned with every word. “What did you do?”

  “I got surrounded by thugs, but I used all my mana to attempt an impossible spell and–-”

  “No.” Her eyes went wide. She rolled his sleeve up, her hand trembling as she saw the mana overload bruises. “This is bad. We need a soothing potion.”

  “It’s alright, I already got–”

  The handle on the door rattled.

  Both of them froze.

  Metal scraped, then a jolt strong enough to make the hinges click.

  Another attack? But here… There’s no witnesses.

  Aura’s eyes met his, wide and disbelieving. The next hit forced the door open an inch.

  David jumped up from his seat, taking a position in front of her.

  In seconds, the doors flew open, but the man who burst in didn’t stand a chance. The moment David noticed the knife in his hand, his claws were already fully out and heading for the throat.

  The knife flashed, then dropped and the man collapsed in a bloody puddle.

  More. MORE.

  Predator’s thoughts howled through his head, forcing his attention to the other attacker, now hesitating outside.

  The man turned to run. He had seen David’s claws. He had to be stopped. Everything turned to a blur as David let the predator guide his body, struggling to contain the bloodlust.

  HUNT.

  HUNT.

  HUNT.

  The world blurred around him as he dashed through the corridor, proving that it was not David’s body that was weak, but his spirit.

  With a single strike, his claws pierced through the running man’s back, straight through the heart and out the other side.

  As blood trickled down his arm he felt mana coursing through him, a wave of reinvigoration spreading through his body.

  He immediately focused on taking the mana out of the claws. Barely retracting them, before the monster could take over him.

  When David turned around, Aura was already running to him. But he had no eyes for her. Not right now.

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

  Further down the corridor, a short girl was peeking out of her laboratory. Frozen in fear. Their eyes met and she silently retreated inside.

  “Marco!” Aura caught up to him, her hands checking all over him for wounds. “Are you hurt? Who was that?”

  “I don’t know!” His voice broke as tears flowed from his eyes. “If anyone sees this—”

  He stopped, trying to collect himself.

  “You’re right.” Aura’s tone shifted in a heartbeat, as her face turned grim. She let go of him, pulled out a thin vial from her pouch, then poured it out onto the corpse.

  The dark green liquid sizzled and burned as it ate through the man’s body.

  Acid?

  “What are you—”

  “I won’t let them take you, but I need you to be strong now.” She forced another vial into his hands. “Take care of the other one. I have to get Sophie.”

  And then she was gone, the smell of dissolving flesh and a cold vial in his hands the only proof it was not a hallucination of his tired mind.

  David sat on a stool just outside the laboratory, elbows on his knees, eyes fixed on the stone floor. The acid had already done its work, melting both corpses into unrecognizable shapes.

  The corridor was quiet now, filled with a putrid stench. His thoughts wouldn’t leave the girl from the other lab.

  How much had she seen?

  But more importantly, what should he do about that? She was just an unfortunate onlooker. She had done him nothing wrong, and yet, he couldn’t just let her leave and out him as a monster to the city guard.

  Hurried steps and overlapping voices took him out of the stupor.

  Aura came into view first, her breathing ragged from running. Sophie and Hito followed, his heavy boots clanking against the floor.

  They stopped at the sight of David sitting there, alone in the corridor.

  “By the goddess,” Hito muttered as he covered his nose. “This is worse than I imagined.”

  Sophie moved closer. Her eyes caught the dark stains on David’s hands. She didn’t say a word. Instead, she stepped between him and Hito, as if it were the most natural thing in the world, leaning lightly against the man’s armored side.

  “Dear,” she said, her tone soft, almost playful. “You’re not going to let my family be troubled, right?”

  He hesitated, but her smile settled it.

  “Were there any witnesses?”

  All three turned to David. His throat was dry. For a moment, he saw the girl again, vanishing behind the door.

  He shook his head.

  “Then this is what we will say, little flower.” Hito removed a gauntlet, and while caressing Sophie’s back, spoke with calm confidence. “We were visiting your younger brother when those rebels attacked you, hoping to destabilize the integration efforts. Using your mother’s alchemical implements, we managed to deal with them.”

  Sophie’s mouth opened slightly, guilt flickering across her face. But she said nothing, only nodded and squeezed his arm once.

  After that, everything blurred again. Called by Hito, the academy guards arrived, flanked by two marble golems. Questions were asked, apologies issued. The bodies—or what was left of them—were taken away. David and Aura cleaned in silence, scrubbing until the blood vanished and only the smell remained.

  From outside, he heard an academy official nearly tripping over his own words as he assured Hito that the culprits had only got access to the academy as part of a delivery, and that the responsible supplier would be dealt with immediately.

  Aura squeezed David’s wrist tight. She must have been listening too. She leaned close to him, whispering. “I’m proud of you. I’m scared to think what would’ve happened if you weren’t here.”

  He stared at the clean floor. If I weren’t here, there wouldn’t have been an attack at all.

  “We should go home,” Aura continued. “I can barely stand after all this. You must be even more exhausted.”

  David shook his head. “What if there’s another attack coming? The academy is on high alert, there’s no safer place than here. I’ll stay and rest in the lab.”

  She protested, but David refused to budge, finding argument after argument, until he convinced her.

  There was still a loose end he couldn't let go.

  The corridor was silent again, only his faint footsteps echoing as he approached the other laboratory.

  He knocked once.

  No answer.

  “There was a fight earlier, but it’s safe now,” he said, trying to make it heard through to the other side. “I really need to talk with you.”

  Nothing.

  He waited a few seconds, hand resting against the frame. He didn’t want to scare her… but what choice did he have now?

  “If you don’t open the door,” he said, lowering his voice, “things might get… complicated.”

  A faint shuffle. Then the sound of the door's lock receeding.

  The door opened a crack. The girl stood there, pale as chalk, eyes wide like a cornered animal. Behind her, the room was a neatly organized trove of alchemical implements and schematics.

  Something tugged at his mind, but he ignored it.

  “Are you alright? I just need to know… what you saw.”

  She didn’t answer. Her lips moved, but no sound came out. Then her knees gave way. She dropped to the floor, trembling.

  “I didn’t want to—” she whispered. “Please. I didn’t want to do it. I’ll disappear. Just don’t tell him. He’ll kill us all.”

  David blinked. “What?”

  He stepped forward, but the motion made her flinch violently. She fell back, scrambling away until her shoulders hit the table leg. Bottles clattered.

  She pressed her hands over her head, sobbing, her words spilling between gasps. “Please don’t hurt us. Don’t hurt my people. We didn’t know—I didn’t—”

  The words barely reached him, drowned out by increasingly insane mutterings of the predator, pulsing in the back of his skull.

  The girl’s gasps turned to sobs as her movement slowed.

  David stopped where he stood, not wanting to disturb her further. “I don’t understand,” he muttered.

  She looked up at him then, eyes wet and unfocused, voice shaking. “Please… we didn’t mean to cross your kind. We’ll stay away, like we always did.”

  Your kind.

  Something was wrong with her. Deeply wrong.

  As he fought away the predator’s whispers, he focused his mana sight. The girl’s mana was almost completely concentrated in her head, as if the rest of her body didn’t matter.

  “Who–What are you?”