Sophie took in a deep breath, steadying her balance.
The two Dons cautiously waited for her response.
However, the girl only took a long glance at her surroundings, responding with a question of her own.
"Where's Sayako?" The former Dark Cloud Blade was nowhere to be seen.
"She jumped off the roof. She won't be able to help you now. So tell us where the Capo Killer went." It seemed that the third Don was enough of a distraction to keep Sayako busy.
Sophie clicked her tongue as the white-haired Don gave her a sensible reason to fold. And besides, there was no 'Asher' in the City anymore, at least for the next few hours.
So technically, she could point in any direction she wanted.
The masked Don gave her a warning.
"Don't lie to us. I'll know. Then you will beg for mercy."
Sophie narrowed her eyes. The masked woman didn't seem to be bluffing. Perhaps they could detect lies, using methods that she was unaware of.
She turned to Asher for advice.
The boy laughed. The answer was obvious.
'Isn't this a no brainer? Just point in the opposite direction of where I went.' His voice sounded in the back of her mind.
Sophie nodded. It was a simple solution, one that would allow them to regroup in case the Dons came back for her.
But a nagging thought crossed her mind.
What would happen if the Dons noticed her lie?
She pointed to an arbitrary direction behind her, wearing the most convincing expression of defeat that she could muster (which wasn't saying much).
"He went that way, along with the other Chimère Office Fixers." Her lips trembled as they drew into an imperceptible frown.
'Lower your head, too. Loosen your shoulders.' Asher imparted some handy acting tips.
Sophie's shoulders slumped with 'shame', and she lowered her head from 'humiliation'.
The white-haired Don ignored the girl's pitiful appearance, turning to his colleague instead.
"Well, is she telling the truth?"
Sophie flinched. It was as she suspected. The Dons, specifically the masked one, could tell whether she was truthful or not.
"She is-"
The woman twisted backward, narrowly avoiding Sophie's pink butterfly knife as it sailed off the rooftop and clattered into the alleys below.
One.
The white-haired Don clenched his polearm. His eyes widened as Sophie's other knife slammed into the tip of his weapon, ricocheting back into the girl's hand before he could react.
Two.
She could only get two attacks in before they pounced on her again.
She knew they wouldn't go easy on her this time.
Either she let the Dons kill her...
Or she could get to them first.
Sophie chose the second option.
The girl leapt backwards, using the instant of respite to throw her remaining knife at the masked Don.
As expected, the woman dodged it easily.
But that was three attacks.
The girl let a smirk cross her face as she dug her heels into the gravel, abruptly changing direction into a mad dash forward.
Her hands began to shine, lighting the rooftop with the heat of a miniature sun.
*BOOM*
...
Little Red flinched as Asher suddenly repossessed her body.
She couldn't help but notice that the boy seemed troubled. Frantic, even.
"Red, why are you taking so long?!" Frantic enough to whisper out loud, ignoring the mutilated corpse in front of him.
In her freedom-induced pleasure, the mercenary only killed two more Stray Dogs while Asher was away. Using that extra time, Little Red made a grotesque paste with the bodies' flesh.
Even Asher cleared his throat, slightly queasy at the sight in front of him. He released the whitish rib bones that Little Red had clenched in her palm.
As expected, the remaining Stray Dogs were hysterical. With the exception of Gyeong-mi, Dino, and a few others, everyone was frozen still by the abrupt carnage.
Scarcely a minute had passed.
Dino let out a guttural, desperate scream, launching himself at the woman cloaked in crimson. Following close behind was Gyeong-mi, whose molten tattoos accentuated the tears in his eyes, glimmering with regret and hatred.
Asher didn't have time for this.
"-!" Another fragment of Sophie's senses flashed through his mind.
The boy nearly crumpled with despair. Sophie's final gambit had failed, leaving her with one less arm and one and a half Dons left to face.
Once again, Asher's vision flooded with red. He had to end this now.
He reached into his cloak.
Dino froze. In that instant, the man found himself staring down the barrel of Little Red's gun.
Gyeong-mi shouted a warning as he charged ahead. He was unable to see the gun that Dino's silhouette conveniently hid.
"Dino, move out of-!"
Before Gyeong-mi could finish his sentence, Dino's chest burst into a fine mist of blood. A deafening boom rang across the street.
"DINO!!"
The leader of the Stray Dogs shrieked as Little Red pierced her arms through the corpse's open chest, ripping it in half with a howl.
The mercenary reveled in the shower of blood as she stepped forward, past the two halves of Dino's body.
Gyeong-mi collapsed to the ground.
His resolve was shattered. The snarling mask of Little Red became synonymous with terror for the man, for these last moments of his life.
"Dino..." The man whispered, his voice hollow of any will.
He tore his eyes away from the corpse, locking his fearful gaze with the executioner standing by his feet.
At that moment, and only for that moment, Asher felt a tiny bit of hesitation. Something about those eyes, filled with grief and suffering, made him hesitate.
He remembered the word Yan used to describe him when they met after the Finger selection ceremony.
What was it again?
'Hypocrite.'
As he repeated that moment in his mind, Yan's voice held an emotion that he couldn't place.
Asher hesitated.
...
Sophie staggered backwards, evading a wicked slice to her neck by a hair's breadth.
She aimed for the wrong person. The masked Don creaked forward despite the cavernous wound in her chest. Inside the partially melted hole were gears and metal machinery, clattering incessantly.
No wonder that the woman could afford to fill her own body with lethal doses of electricity.
Unlucky, Sophie thought to herself.
The excess strain from the girl's rapid movements began to compound. Her limbs felt like they were on fire. Her body was filled with lead.
With her last bits of rationality, she began to plan out her wounds ahead of time.
Which wounds she could take without dying.
Her right arm was gone.
Her vision was blurry.
Her peripherals were darkening.
She couldn't dodge them all.
The white-haired Don suddenly pivoted on his foot, sweeping his polearm through the air at an unnatural angle.
Even if Sophie's hazy peripheral vision could catch the flash of motion, her muscles failed her.
Sophie's pupils trembled with shock.
She couldn't see it, but she could feel it.
As the polearm's blade sank into her ribcage.
She crumpled to the ground.
...
"Sophie-!!"
Asher screamed, digging his scythe-blade into Gyeong-mi's skull without another thought. With a roar of desperation, the mercenary pressed harder onto the blade, carving out a large chunk of flesh from the corpse's body.
From the top of the skull, down to the torso.
Blood showered the woman's cloak as the two parts of the corpse slumped to the ground.
Asher panted, processing the visions in his head. Every other thought was flung away.
[Justice +15.]
The System knew what happened. The boy had decided his path.
[You have killed enough marked targets! 'Mark' has-]
"Shut up, shut up! Mangchi, handle the rest!" Asher howled his last orders as he clawed past of the piles of bodies.
The mercenary disappeared into the alley. The moon faded back to a serene, cobalt blue.
Mangchi's mouth twitched.
The boy whispered under his breath, almost as an afterthought.
"Little Red... it looks like these guys stopped fighting a long time ago."
The remaining Stray Dogs had collapsed to the ground. They sure as hell weren't going to stand up any time soon.
Mangchi expected that the trauma would put them out of commission for quite some time. The boy took a long, yet strangely tranquil glance at the eleven perforated corpses around him.
It wasn't every day that so many corpses would be out in the open like this, Mangchi thought to himself.
If someone wasn't used to gore, this scene might very well cause them to faint instantly.
Mei was an example of that someone. The woman's body was slumped on Pete and Aiko's trembling shoulders like a sack of potatoes.
'In fact, when was the last time I saw this much blood?' Mangchi thought back to before he met Pete for the first time.
The Fixer breathed in the carnage, deep in thought. Just like when Sophie used the Fragment's melody against Sayako, his two friends were nearly unconscious with fear.
In these scenarios, Mangchi took the lead.
"Get up, guys. We need to be there before the Sweepers come out."
At the mention of the Sweepers, Pete bolted to his feet. Aiko stumbled as Pete dragged her up.
Mangchi took Mei off his friends' hands, grunting as he copied how Little Red carried her.
"Damn, this woman's heavier than she looks... Let's get the hell out of here."
The three Fixers took a final glance at the scene of carnage behind them.
One of the Stray Dogs met their gaze, feebly grasping at the smaller chunk of Gyeong-mi's dismembered corpse.
The man's eyes were pitifully hopeless, crushed with hollow despair.
Mangchi shrugged, turning back without much emotion. As long as it wasn't Aiko, Pete, or his benefactors, he didn't care if anyone died.
Pete and Aiko turned back with a bit more hesitation, staggering into the alleys to follow their friend.
Still, none of them looked back again.
There was nothing to regret, and there were no condolences to give.
They lived in the City, after all.
"After all, humans only have so much empathy to spare."
Mangchi whispered in silence.
The boy knew that if Pete or Aiko died like those Stray Dogs, he would be just like the survivors. Empty. Hollow. Despairing.
Perhaps he would wail miserably in the middle of the street, with nothing left to live for.
And just like the scene behind them, no one would care.
This was the City, after all.
...
Yan peered down the rooftop.
The Messenger trailed behind the Stray Dogs according to her own will.
Even though the Prescripts did not issue any words stopping her, this mere act of rebellion, this act of free will, made her nauseous.
But she couldn't ignore her emotions. It didn't matter how much Asher hated her, or how much she told herself that she didn't care, Yan couldn't bear the thought of him dying.
However, Asher didn't show up in the end. Yan had watched from the rooftops in silence as the Crimson Mercenary diced up the girl's concerns for her.
It was almost comical that the Stray Dogs were entirely annihilated, without ever catching a single glimpse of their actual target.
Her eyes glossed over the remnants of the Stray Dogs. She was much more interested in the tracks that Little Red left. The mercenary's boots had punched holes in the concrete.
She remembered how the woman screamed Sophie's name, clearly in desperation. Some deeper narrative was going on, something that the Messenger knew she was unaware of.
/*Do you want to see Asher?*/
Yan flinched.
"A-Are you talking to me?"
/*Do you want to see Asher?*/
For the first time, the Prescripts asked a question, directed solely at her.
Yan gulped. She did not know how to respond.
"I- Yes, I do..."
/*Follow the beacon.*/
A beam of light erupted into the sky a few miles away, visible only to her.
/*Run.*/
The ominous tone forced her forward.