Chapter Text
Under the blurred crescent moon, a tall figure walked down a narrow dirt lane. His steps were unhurried—graceful, almost lazy—but there was intent in the way he moved, the way shadows seemed to bend around him. Ahead, a girl knelt by the roadside, shoulders shaking with quiet sobs.
Few souls ever wandered this path at such an hour. To find a young and petite girl here alone was strange. To find one crying was stranger still.
He stopped before her. “Why are you crying here in the middle of nowhere?” His voice was smooth, deep, touched with amusement.
The girl lifted her face, streaked with tears and pale starlight. “I’m running away,” she said between sobs. “Demons attacked my village. I don’t know if my parents made it out… they told me to run first and wait for them here.” Her voice cracked, and she buried her face in her hands again.
“Which village?” he asked.
“Hangain. The one with the protection seal from the Hunter Association.”
His brows lifted slightly, a glint of interest in his eyes. “Ah. That one.”
“Yes,” she stammered. “But the monsters—they found a way in. They’re hunting everyone.”
He studied her for a long moment, then smiled faintly. “Take me there. I can help.”
Her eyes widened. “You’ll fight them?”
“I’m with the Hunter Association,” he said, voice steady as steel. “Show me the way.”
Hope flared across her face as she stood, wiping her tears. “This way.”
They moved through the quiet fields, the moon painting their shadows long and thin across the path. When they reached the edge of the village, the man stopped. The quiet was wrong—too complete, like the air itself was holding its breath. The seal above the gate’s arch glimmered faintly, etched symbols pulsing in and out of sight beneath the moonlight. It was still active. Still unbroken.
“Are you sure the demons are here?”
“Yes. Near the hall, I think.”
They passed darkened windows, houses that should have been filled with sleeping families. Inside, he could feel the faint pulse of life — slow, steady breaths, hearts beating in fragile rhythm. The villagers were still deep in their dreams, blissfully unaware that death had already stepped across their threshold.
The man’s steps slowed. The faint curl of a smile touched his lips—wrong, sharp, predatory.
“Thank you,” he murmured.
She turned, confused. “For what?”
“For inviting me in.”
His nails lengthened into glinting blades, catching the moonlight like polished glass.
The sound — a wet, metallic crack — split the night open.
His face began to twist. The elegant lines that once made him look almost divine warped and broke like melting wax. That serene, sculpted beauty curdled into something demonic — cheekbones too sharp, skin rippling with veins of shadow. His smile stretched unnaturally wide, splitting at the corners to reveal rows of jagged, predatory teeth. The charm was gone. In its place stood hunger — pure, ancient, and inhuman.
Then he moved.
Faster than a breath.
The air itself seemed to recoil as he lunged, claws flashing toward the girl—
—only for her to dissolve.
She burst into purple smoke, the mist curling upward like something alive, whispering in tongues. For a heartbeat, the demon’s claws slashed through nothing. The vapor brushed his skin, icy, clinging, and the faint smell of burnt jasmine filled his nose.
The demon froze.
Eyes wide.
“What—”
A laugh broke the silence — sudden, bright, and wrong. It rang too clearly in the still night, cheerful as a children’s rhyme and twice as cruel.
“Thanks for walking straight into my trap.”
He spun—too late.
A flash of silver cut through the night, the hiss of a blade slicing air like silk. The strike came hard, clean, aimed at the spine. He twisted just in time; sparks flew as her sword scraped his claws.
The crying girl was gone. In her place stood a woman cloaked in black and crimson, eyes bright with cold fire. Her blade gleamed with runes that pulsed like stars.
“You’re a demon hunter,” he hissed.
“The real one,” she replied, smiling with all her teeth.
He slashed again—quick, precise—but she was already gone, a blur of motion that bent the air. Her sword moved like flowing water—liquid, effortless—and struck like lightning. Every swing came from a different angle, unpredictable and seamless, the rhythm shifting between dance and death.
“I’ve waited months for you, Jade Face,” she said, spinning away from his counterstrike, boots kicking up dust that shimmered faintly in the pale light.
He snarled, parrying with his claws. “You lied about the village.”
Her smile curved, lazy and dangerous. “If I hadn’t, how else would I get you past the seal?”
His eyes narrowed, voice low and mocking. “You risked every soul here just to lure me in?”
“Please,” she said, feigning boredom. “You’re not nearly important enough to kill a village for.” Her sword angled slightly toward him, light skating along the sharp steel. “But you might know something I need.”
He hesitated. “What?”
“Shadow Rift.” Her blade hovered between them, catching the moonlight. “You were one of the last demons to face him thirteen years ago—weren’t you?”
For a flicker of a second, genuine surprise crossed his face. “I never saw him again. Not since the Great War—twenty-seven years ago.”
Disappointment ghosted across her eyes before her smirk returned. “Then you’re even more useless than I thought.”
She surged forward. Their blades collided again — steel and talon, spark against spark. The clash rang through the empty village, echoing off the silent houses.
She ducked under his swing, twisted her wrist, and the blade arced upward in a clean, perfect curve the demon staggered back, a neat gash opening across his shoulder as black blood oozed down in slow, smoking trails.
“Fucking bitch,” he snarled.
The huntress levelled her sword, eyes glinting. “Language,” she said, the corner of her mouth curling. “I’ve barely warmed up.”
He lunged again, wild now. She pivoted, spun, and drove her knee into his gut before slicing upward, her movements a blur of elegance and fury. The moon caught on her blade as she turned, cutting through his illusions, unshaken.
Her sword became an extension of breath and will. No wasted motion—only precision and hunger. Step, strike, vanish, reappear. The demon couldn’t breathe between her blows. For thirty relentless minutes the night belonged to her: a storm of steel and light, every stroke answering the last like music played on a blade.
Jade Face faltered. Every clash drove the truth deeper into him—this huntress was far more dangerous than her slender frame suggested. An A-class demon who had survived two centuries of carnage did not lose ground easily. Yet here he was, retreating, forced onto the defensive by someone who fought with both grace and fury. Her strikes were precise, merciless—each one born of discipline sharpened into instinct. This wasn’t luck. This was mastery.
What the hell was happening?
Jade Face’s thoughts scattered between each clash of steel and claw. Every strike she made forced him back, her sword slicing through the dark with impossible speed. Sparks burst and died between them like falling stars.
He’d been circling Hangain Village for months, hunting for a weakness. The place was locked under the strongest seal the Hunter Association ever made — a spell so airtight even his gang hadn’t found a crack.
Until tonight.
His underling had brought the message hours ago: a tunnel beneath the village, a way through the barrier. They would disable the inner charm from below, and once the signal came, he could enter freely. It was perfect. Hangain was full of mortals with strong, healthy flesh — the kind that deepened a demon’s power for decades.
So when the girl appeared on the road, crying and lost, he hadn’t hesitated. A godsend, he’d thought. A way in.
Now, ducking under another vicious slash, he realized the truth.
The tunnel. The message. The girl. All of it had been bait.
A web strung with precision and patience, designed to lure him into the trap she’d laid.
The bitch played me.
To invite an A-class demon into a sealed village — no hunter would dare. Most of them were cautious, bound by rules, afraid of putting civilians at risk. But this one… this one had teeth. Reckless, ruthless, clever. A hunter willing to gamble the whole village just to draw him out.
Another strike flashed toward his chest. He twisted aside just in time, but her blade still caught him—ripping through his sleeve and grazing his arm, leaving a shallow, burning cut.
The pain made him furious. How long had it been since any mortal had even bruised him? Yet this slip of a woman was carving him open, his flesh on display while he couldn’t so much as graze a single hair on her head.
She pressed forward. The cold gleam from above caught the curve of her blade, the runes along it shimmered with cool menace. Her movements were unbroken, fluid, terrifyingly precise — each one a sentence in the language of death.
Jade Face’s breath quickened. He caught the ghost of her smile — sharp, delighted. She wasn’t just hunting him. She was enjoying it.
And for the first time in two hundred years, the predator understood what it felt like to be prey.
He needed to think, to adapt, to run—because clearly she wasn’t stopping until he was carved into ash.
He blocked another downward strike; steel screamed against claw. His skin split open, and black ichor hissed as it hit the dirt, steaming like acid. The smell of scorched blood filled the air.
“If you know my name,” he spat, leaping back to put distance between them “then you know my gang waits nearby. Seventy two C- and B-class demons. No matter how strong you are, you’ll drown in numbers.”`
She didn’t slow. A spark of amusement — almost glee — lit her eyes. “What part of ‘I’ve been waiting months for you, Jade Face’ did you miss?” Her grin was a blade itself.
He tried menace again. “We’ll tear you apart, huntress. We’ll chew your bones—”
“Exactly my thought.” She tightened her grip. Runes along her forearm flared violet, skin brightening like veins of starlight. “I need your gang to come here fast.”
A ripple of power rolled off her — not loud but enormous, a pressure that pressed on his chest like a hand. Sweat tracked cold down his spine.
He tried to sound monstrous. “I’ve met hunters like you before—too arrogant with their power. They died crying, begging, while we tore them limb from limb and passed them around for a snack.”
The huntress tilted her head, unfazed. “Okay, gross. You tear your food apart with your claws? How very… feral of you.” Her nose wrinkled. “And here I was, thinking demons had evolved past chewing with their mouths open.”
The demon’s grin faltered.
“Even if you kill me, my gang will be here before the moon sets,” he hissed. “You’ll be cut down like a dog.”
“Good,” she said sweetly, rolling her wrist so the runes along her arm flared brighter. “I was worried I’d have to hunt them down one by one. You just saved me a trip.”
She nicked her finger with the flat of her blade — a practiced cut, not careless — and let two drops skim into the dirt. She did not flinch. Instead she began the seal, voice slow and low at first, then rising in a cadence like wind through reeds. Symbols traced themselves in the steam around her sword, neon-purple glyphs that crawled along metal and skin.
Jade Face stepped back. The runes threaded up her arms, the glow pulsing faster, and the air hummed. The pressure became a physical thing: the village shutters rattled, embers on the hearth stuttered, and the demon felt, with a primate’s animal clarity, the walls of his world constricting.
“What—what are you doing?” he rasped, horror finally cracking his speech.
To make them come sooner.” Her voice was calm, almost amused — the kind of calm that made the air feel wrong. She kept chanting, each word measured and precise, each breath turning like a blade in the silence. Her whole body thrummed with Oblivara’s thread — not raw hunger, but something colder, sharpened, deliberate. The blade in her hand began to glow, light swelling until it seared like a captured star.
Dark runes uncoiled along her arm, alive and pulsing, crawling up her skin like veins of lightning until they reached her bicep. There, the mark — a cat’s head crowned with an infinity loop above it — flared to life in violet fire, burning through the night like a sigil of doom.
Recognition drained the color from his face. His voice cracked into a whisper, half curse, half horror.
“The purple glow… faster than lightning… the mark— the cat and infinity… you’re— you’re Eclipse Huntress. Lila Gill.”
“You finally realized.” She took a single step forward; the glow on her arms flared brighter, feeding the sword until it seemed to drink moonlight. Jade Face’s composure fractured. He had expected hunters — skilled, proud — but not this: a walking storm of will that smelled faintly of metal and vengeance.
For a heartbeat, the world seemed to shrink around him.
Lila Gill.
The name alone crawled through every dark corner of his mind, dragging terror in its wake. Among demons, she wasn’t a hunter — she was a calamity. An S-class slayer at twenty-seven, one of the Zodiac Vanguard — twelve most powerful demon slayers in all realms. Her reputation wasn’t just earned; it was carved into the bones of those who’d met her steel.
He had heard stories amongst his kind: of traps spun from lies and laughter, of demons lured by mercy before being cut in half mid-plea. She fought without hesitation, without remorse, and without rule. Every rumour said the same thing — if Lila Gill had marked your name, your life was already over. You just hadn’t noticed the knife yet.
And now, that knife was standing in front of him — breathing, alive, smiling.
He should have seen it from the start. No ordinary hunter could weave a trap like this. Only the Eclipse Huntress would.
Jade Face’s breath hitched. Every instinct in his body screamed to run, but his legs refused to move. Her power radiated like gravity, violet light licking up her arms in threads that pulsed with Oblivara’s heartbeat.
“Spare me,” he whimpered, backing away until the village hall loomed behind him. His voice shook. “I’ll return to the Neither Pit and never crawl out again. Please—”
“Too late.” Her tone had the gentleness of execution. “Say that to the thousands of souls you and your gang took.”
She levelled the sword. The rune-light choked the air with violet heat. He had one last breath, one weak plea, and then she moved — not with wrath but with the quiet certainty of a verdict.
Her blade dropped. It was a clean, absolute cut that split shadow to bone. Jade Face’s body parted with a sound like breaking night. Black smoke poured from the wound, a living stain that shrieked as it bled into air.
Lila did not blink. From the rim of her cloak she drew a small gemstone charm — a circlet of glass with a sigil at its heart — and, with the same calm control, wove another seal. Her chanting shifted: the rune-work on the gem glowed, the mouth of the charm opened like a small black sun, and the roiling, desperate smoke was drawn in, dragged into the circle until the scream turned into a single, hollow wail and then fell mute.
When she snapped the final lock, the gem went cold in her palm. A silence deeper than the previous one settled across the ruined lane. The only sound was the distant, thin creak of a shutter and Lila’s steady breathing.
A faint wind stirred through the empty houses. Paper curtains rippled. Wooden mannequins — their faces painted with faint smiles — rocked gently where they sat at dining tables and cribs, their hollow eyes glinting in the moonlight. Not a single breath among them.
Jade Face had never realized: the village he thought he’d breached was nothing but a stage — a hollow shell dressed in illusion, a graveyard of decoys. Every heartbeat he’d sensed earlier, every flicker of life behind those walls, had been puppets powered by Lila’s seals. The real villagers were already hidden in a mountain bunker miles away.
Now, with his corpse sealed inside her charm, the silence broke.
A bead of sweat slid down Lila’s cheek and fell into the dirt, hissing as it met the heat of her aura. The air thickened. Then — a ripple. Black smoke bled from the ground, curling around her boots, rising in coils that stank of iron and rot. Shapes began to form within it — twisted, grotesque, crawling on too many limbs, wings of bone rasping in the dark. One by one, the demons emerged, snarling and slick with hunger until seventy two of them surrounded her in a loose, tightening ring.
The stench hit first — decay, sulfur, old blood. The sound followed — claws dragging against stone, teeth grinding, wings twitching.
But Lila only smiled.
“Finally,” she said, brushing the back of her hand across her cheek, smearing the soot. “Took you long enough. I was starting to think you’d gotten lost.”
The demons hesitated, their eyes narrowing, confusion threading through the growls.
“Where’s Jade Face?” one rasped.
“He was supposed to be here,” hissed another.
“I still smell him. His energy— it’s close.”
Lila tilted her head, lips curling into a wicked smirk. Then she laughed — a full, unrestrained laugh that echoed off the empty houses.
“Oh, he’s close,” she said, voice dripping amusement. “Closer than you think. I killed him to call you here.”
The words hit them like a shockwave.
“Jade Face— dead?”
“No fucking way.”
“She’s lying!”
Their disbelief teetered on panic. Lila’s grin only widened. Her hand went to her sword, drawing it with a hiss that sliced clean through their murmuring.
“Please,” she said, her tone almost playful. “You really think I’d lie to you?”
The violet glow of her runes flared again, throwing ghost-light across her face — beautiful, terrible, godlike. Her sword pointed toward the horde as the ground trembled beneath her feet.
“I don’t have all night,” she said softly, almost kindly. “So — shall we start?”
Lila vaulted off a low branch, twisting midair as a forked tongue lashed toward her legs. Her blade flashed once — clean, merciless — and the tongue fell in two twitching halves. The demon’s shriek split the forest night, echoing through the trees like metal scraping bone.
She landed lightly on a fallen trunk, pivoted, and swung again. Another demon lunged — jaws wide — and met nothing but air as she slipped beneath its bite and drove her sword through its chest. Black ichor sprayed across the leaves, sizzling where it hit.
They weren’t strong — not like Jade Face — but there were so many. She’d already felled fifteen, maybe more, her kills scattering the horde among the trees. Her sword hummed with heat, runes flaring each time she struck, but her breath came shorter now. Strength was waning. She swapped her blade for her bow in a seamless motion, unleashing two arrows that flared neon lavender before turning two bat-winged fiends into ash and pinning a third to a tree.
If she couldn’t finish this soon, she’d have to retreat — though the thought alone made her scowl. Because if she did, someone was going to give her an earful about “team coordination” and “reckless solo missions.”
A sudden pulse of power surged behind her. Three heads hit the ground in unison, rolling to a stop at her feet.
“Oh, for fuck’s sake,” she muttered under her breath. “Of course.”
The forest air shifted. A familiar pulse of controlled violence entered the clearing — heavy, precise, impossible to mistake.
“What did I tell you about patience, Lila?” Five’s voice cut through the chaos, sharp and cold.
“Patience?” she shot back, piercing an arrow into a demon’s chest and watching it combust. “You mean that thing that gets people killed while they wait?”
He was already in motion beside her, sword flashing like lightning in the dark. A demon lunged; he sidestepped, drove his blade through its chest, and with a single brutal twist, shredded it into ribbons. His technique was nothing like hers — brutal, efficient, terrifyingly precise.
“You were supposed to wait for me,” he bit out. “We planned this for months.”
“Oh, right,” she snapped, parrying a blow and kicking a snarling beast square in the jaw. “Forgive me for not waiting around while you were busy having another migraine. You know damn well if we missed tonight, we’d be chasing them for months again!”
“So what?” he growled, his blade carving clean through a demon mid-leap. “Waiting is better than scraping what’s left of you off the ground.”
“Stop being such a drama queen,” she shot back, retrieving her arrow free from another corpse with a quick spell. “I’m alive, aren’t I? And by the way—” she ducked low, spun, and fire an arrow straight through a demon’s sternum—the one about to claw his back “—you’re welcome.”
He turned on her, eyes flashing crimson in the dark. “You think this is a game? You walked into a nest alone.”
She loosed an arrow that split into two midair, both finding their marks with a satisfying hiss. “Relax, I handled it. Besides, what kind of partner would I be if I didn’t leave you something to brood about?”
He blocked an incoming strike with a brutal parry, slicing through the demon’s arm. “You call this handled? If I hadn’t shown up, you’d be dead in fifteen minutes.”
She smirked, darting past him to drive her blade clean through another fiend’s throat. “Yeah, showing up fashionably late after I’ve done all the hard work is so you.”
“Oh, really?” His tone dripped mockery as he performed a quick incantation. Lightning flared, branching into jagged spikes that vaporized five orc-like demons in one crackling burst. “Want to compare body counts?”
“You’re so on.” Lila vaulted into the air, loosing three arrows that sliced through the cold night, detonating a cluster of monsters in a flash of lavender flame.
“Not bad,” he said, smirking. “But nothing like this.”
He tossed his sword skyward, murmured a spell. The blade spun midair — a halo of steel — then carved through seven necks in a perfect arc.
“Show-off,” she muttered, lips pursing — but her voice held no venom, only grudging amusement.
Together they found increasingly creative ways to kill, each one upping the other’s chaos. It wasn’t really a competition; it was a clumsy disguise for how seamlessly they worked together.
Their movements intertwined — his precision countering her unpredictability, her agility flowing around his brute force. Every strike he didn’t finish, she did; every demon that lunged at her met his blade instead.
“Twenty-five,” he hissed between swings. “And twenty-six.”
“Twenty-nine sounds better,” she shot back, breathless but grinning.
“Thirty sounds perfect.” He grinned as his next spell blew apart four demons in a single blast.
The last of Jade Face’s gang scattered across the battlefield—only to crash into the shimmering seals that boxed them in. The runes flared to life, weaving a cage of light and smoke. Their frantic attempts to flee ended in a chorus of snarls.
With every escape route cut off, the remaining demons regrouped for one final, doomed charge — a last flicker of defiance before the inevitable.
But their fate was sealed the moment Five entered the fray.
Two hunters—terrifyingly powerful, infuriatingly in sync even when they refused to admit it—were not opponents anyone could hope to survive.
He swung again, and she ducked under his arm, their backs brushing for a single, charged heartbeat before they both turned, blades flashing. In perfect synchrony, they cut down the final two demons — a mirrored strike that carved the night open in one clean, merciless motion.
“Thirty-six,” they said in unison — then shot each other a sidelong glance, equal parts contempt and amusement.
Neither spoke. The battlefield was quiet now — only the rasp of their breathing and the drip of cooling blood. Then, wordlessly, they lifted their hands and began to chant.
A wave of purple and blue fire surged outward, devouring the clearing in a low, hungry roar. The flames swept over every severed limb and shattered skull, reducing them to ash until only the stench of scorched ichor lingered. Smoke coiled upward into the dark, thick and acrid, clinging to their skin and hair as the night fell quiet once more.
Lila exhaled hard, chest heaving. Sweat slicked the curve of her throat, dirt and blood streaking her face. She dragged the back of her wrist across her forehead and turned — only to meet the full weight of Five’s glare.
“Oh, come on,” she panted, flashing him a crooked grin. “You’re gonna stand there scowling all night? We won. They’re dead. Mission accomplished. You can drop the angry act now.”
“This isn’t an act, Lila.” His voice was low, controlled — too controlled. That was when she knew he was furious. “We’re supposed to be a team. How many times have I told you that?”
“You know I can’t just wait around,” she shot back, her tone sharp but breathless. “If we missed tonight, it would’ve taken months to hunt down Jade Face’s gang again. The setup was perfect, I had to move.”
“I’d rather wait than find you dead.” His words snapped like a whip.
“Oh, please.” She laughed dryly, stepping closer. “You don’t even believe that. Look at me — not even a scratch.”
He moved before she finished. His hand shot out, catching her forearm, turning it sharply upward. His eyes dropped to the open gash running along her skin, then lifted to hers — twin storms of jade and fury.
“What’s this then?”
“It’s nothing.” Her lips curved, defiant even through her panting. “A tree branch. Barely grazed me.”
His gaze didn’t waver. “And that?” He pointed to the bruise blooming across her shoulder — dark and ugly beneath the dim celestial light.
She snorted. “A rock hit me.”
“Lila.” His tone deepened, a warning.
“Five, just let it go. We’re both fine.”
His jaw tightened. “You know how I feel when you get hurt.”
The anger in his tone had softened, cracking into something rougher — worry. It hit her harder than she expected. For a moment, she looked away. Then she stepped closer, fingers brushing his jaw.
“Stop worrying so much,” she murmured.
“Then stop giving me reasons to.”
A small, reckless smile ghosted across her lips. “You’re adorable when you’re pissed off.”
Before he could retort, she caught his face between her hands and kissed him — slow but deep, the kind that stole the air right out of his lungs. His anger shattered into heat; His hand came up instinctively, gripping her waist, dragging her closer until her body pressed flush to his — chest against chest, heartbeat against heartbeat.
She parted his mouth with hers, her tongue tracing the line of his teeth. He groaned into the kiss, breath ragged, his self-control breaking apart in her hands. Her legs brushed his thigh, her body arching up against his.
He tore his mouth from hers, panting. “Stop using this against me.”
She smiled — that maddening, infuriating, glorious smile — and whispered against his lips, “I won’t stop. Because it always works.”
His jaw clenched, but his resolve didn’t last. He caught her mouth again, the kiss deeper this time — molten, consuming.
The forest was quiet now, save for the soft crackle of the campfire. Its light flickered over their faces — gold, orange, and faint traces of blue from the fading runes on their vests. Smoke curled lazily upward, and the smell of charred wood mixed with iron and rain.
Lila sat cross-legged beside the flames while Five worked a slow healing spell over the cut on her arm. His hands were steady, though faint tremors pulsed beneath his fingertips — the echo of battle and that headache that never quite let him go.
When he was done, he leaned back beside her. For a while, neither of them spoke. Only the fire moved — hissing, spitting, throwing shadows that wavered across their faces.
Finally, Five broke the silence.
“You found anything about him?”
Lila’s eyes didn’t leave the fire. “No. Jade Face didn’t know anything. Another dead end.” The flames danced in her gaze — gold against amber — like they were burning through her patience.
“Eventually, we’ll find something.” His tone softened, firm but quiet, a promise shaped in smoke. “Someone like Shadow Rift doesn’t just vanish.”
She exhaled, shoulders lowering as he wrapped an arm around her back and drew her in. She leaned against him, her head finding its place on his shoulder. The scent of smoke clung to his collar, and she could feel his pulse slow beneath her cheek. The warmth of his body felt steadier than the fire.
“I know,” she murmured. “It’s just… it’s been so long. Sometimes I wonder if he’s even alive.”
Five’s jaw tightened. “He’s alive. Somewhere. You know S-class hunters don’t die easy.”
She huffed a small laugh that didn’t quite reach her eyes. “Neither do we.”
He didn’t answer right away. The wind picked up, carrying the faint scent of pine and ash. Then she spoke again, voice gentler.
“How’s your headache?”
“Bad.” His tone was clipped, and she could almost hear the self-disgust behind it.
“Still nothing?”
“Broken images,” he admitted, rubbing the bridge of his nose. “Fragments. Nothing useful.”
Lila turned slightly to study him. The firelight made the angles of his face sharper, more tired than he would ever admit.
“I guess some things can’t be rushed,” she said softly.
“Yes,” he replied dryly, a flicker of his old sarcasm returning. “Exactly my point. You might even say I was right.”
“Never,” she countered instantly, but her voice was lazy now, affectionate.
He smiled faintly. The kind that never quite reached his lips, but warmed his eyes instead.
He brushed his thumb over her arm in slow circles — soothing, absent-minded. “Don’t worry, Lila. One day we’ll find him — and the one who did that to your parents. And when we do… we’ll make it pay.”
Her throat tightened, the words catching somewhere between grief and gratitude. She looked up at him — the firelight catching on his lashes, turning his eyes to molten green glass.
“You always make it sound so certain,” she whispered.
“That’s because it is.”
She leaned in, pressing her forehead against his jaw. His skin was warm, roughened by battle and smoke. “I just hope this all ends one day… so we can actually do what we want.”
He tilted his head slightly, his breath brushing through her hair. “What do you want, then? If we’re not hunters?”
Her lips curved — slow, tired, and a little wistful. “Maybe live like my parents did. Somewhere quiet. Peaceful. We could hunt for food, not demons. Grow strawberries.”
That earned a faint, incredulous snort from him. “You? Grow strawberries? You’d destroy the whole crop the moment they didn’t bloom in three months.”
She swatted him lightly in the chest, her nose wrinkling in mock offense. “Well, if you’re so proud of being patient, you can take care of the strawberries. I’ll do the hunting.”
He chuckled — low, rough, entirely human. “Deal. I’ll be the stay-at-home husband, then.”
Her laugh came softer this time, a small, genuine sound that melted the air between them. He pulled her in closer until her head rested against his chest, his heartbeat steady beneath her ear. The fire burned low, shadows dancing lazily along their faces while the forest whispered around them — a quiet hum of life beyond blood and vengeance.
For a little while, everything else faded: the demons, the mission, even the ache behind his temples. There was only the heat of the fire, the rhythm of his heart, and the rare, fragile warmth of peace they allowed themselves to share.
The silence stretched, long enough for him to think she’d finally fallen asleep. Then—
“Thirty-seven.”
He blinked. “What now?”
“Including Jade Face. That’s my kill count. I win.”
He groaned under his breath. “You really know how to ruin a moment”
“Mm-hm. And you love it.”