All I Am

Braith’s breath caught.

“W-what?”

Sunata didn’t slow, only flicked two fingers at them to follow as more gunshots cracked through the air below. They were on the third floor. The mall rose to seven.

“A cell of true purists just launched a coordinated attack,” Sunata said grimly. “Their objective is to eliminate as many Mahoros as possible. We intercepted their communications three minutes ago, far too late.”

Braith crouched instinctively, letting Yumie climb onto his back before sprinting after him. Sunata continued without looking back.

“This situation has escalated beyond initial projections. JSDF units are en route.”

He took a sharp right. Braith nearly stumbled under Yumie’s weight but caught himself and pushed on. Only then did he realize something was wrong.

They weren’t heading down toward the chaos.

They were running up.

“Where are we going?” Braith shouted between breaths.

“The roof,” Sunata snapped. “You’re being evacuated.”

Braith’s chest tightened.

“But… people are being killed down there!”

Sunata shot him a hard look over his shoulder.

“Do you want to join them?”

The words hit like a slap.

“N-no…”

“Then keep running.”

Braith clenched his jaw as they passed clusters of frozen shoppers - people standing still, paralyzed by the sounds of gunfire echoing up through the mall.

“Can’t we take anyone with us?” he tried again.

Sunata shook his head sharply.

“This is a government extraction. You’re a priority asset. That means you and Yumie only. No more questions.”

Braith swallowed hard. There would be time later to hate that answer. Right now, survival came first.

Yumie’s voice trembled against his ear.

“It’s me…”

He barely heard her over the pounding of his feet.

“It’s because of me…”

Another floor passed beneath them.

“I’m not a person,” she whispered, the words breaking apart as they left her lips. “They don’t see me as a person…”

Her grip tightened.

“I’m a weapon…”

The gunfire below didn’t stop. Neither did the screaming.

“I’m a weapon… I’m a weapon… that’s all I am…”

They reached the sixth floor when everything went wrong.

A sudden flood of people poured down the escalator ahead of them - panicked, screaming, shoving past one another in blind desperation. Braith barely kept his footing.

“What’s happening-?” he started.

Gunfire erupted from above.

Understanding slammed into him all at once.

They’d taken the lifts.

They’d sealed the trap.

Braith grit his teeth.

“Yumie, we’re cut off. We’ll have to shoot.”

She didn’t hesitate.

She raised her arm over his shoulder, fingers splayed, ready.

The crowd scattered as Sunata charged up the still-moving escalator, weapon drawn. Somehow, no one fell. Somehow, they made it through.

The seventh floor was silent.

Too silent.

Bodies lay scattered across the tiles, blood pooling beneath them, but no shooters were in sight. Braith padded forward cautiously, every muscle screaming.

Then he heard it.

A steady, rhythmic thudding.

Sunata spun.

“That’s the helicopter. The purists are on the roof. Move, now. Before it gets hit.”

They ran again as sharp cracks split the air overhead.

Braith’s thoughts raced. Civilian transport. Light armor - if any. One well-placed shot to the engine or cockpit would be enough.

A heavy bang thundered above them.

Glass shattered.

Someone screamed.

Sunata swore under his breath as the stairwell loomed ahead.

“The heli’s firing back,” he growled. “We’re out of time!”

Shards of glass suddenly rained down from above, clattering against the stairwell as a dull crump echoed through the building.

Before any of them could react, a figure appeared at the top of the stairs.

His mask was stark white. His assault rifle was rusted but steady.

Five more followed him, identical in gear and posture.

For one frozen second, nothing happened.

Glass settled with soft tinkling sounds. The helicopter’s blades thundered closer - thwop, thwop, thwop - beating against Braith’s ribs.

Then the masked men began to raise their weapons.

Braith moved first.

He twisted his shoulder, nudging Yumie’s arm up with the crook of his neck, aligning her hand with the cluster above. His thoughts snapped into brutal clarity.

Shoot.

This time, he imagined something different.

Not a single discharge.

A sustained pull.

Yumie’s arm erupted in smoke as a rapid staccato of cracks tore through the stairwell. The burst was harsh, mechanical - nothing like the spells he’d used before.

The attackers dropped in a heap, their advance ended in less than a second.

Braith released the pressure, chest heaving.

Yumie’s voice trembled beside his ear.

“How many-”

“Move!” Sunata barked.

They didn’t stop to count.

They took the stairs two at a time, adrenaline driving Braith forward despite Yumie’s weight. The daylight exploded into view as they burst through the rooftop door, the roar of the helicopter instantly overwhelming everything else.

It hovered just above the concrete, rotors churning the air into chaos. One side door yawned open, a soldier braced behind a mounted grenade launcher, visor reflecting the sun.

For a split second, Braith feared the man might fire.

He didn’t.

Instead, the UH-2 descended - a military transport, unmistakably so - settling onto the roof in a storm of wind and noise. The gunner waved frantically.

“HURRY!”

They sprinted as if something monstrous were snapping at their heels. Sunata reached the helicopter first but spun around, weapon raised, covering them as the soldier grabbed Braith’s arm and hauled them inside.

Sunata jumped in after them.

The rotors thundered louder as the helicopter lifted away from the roof.

Braith set Yumie down on one of the benches lining the cabin wall and collapsed beside her. She slipped her gloves back on with shaking fingers and clung to his arm.

She was trembling.

As the helicopter banked away, she whispered - barely audible over the engines.

“How… how did you know how to use a different spell?”

He gently freed his arm.

Her head snapped up, fear flashing across her face - until he wrapped it around her again. She melted into him, relief palpable, arms tightening around his waist.

“I don’t know,” he admitted quietly. “It just… happened.”

She let out a small, shaky laugh.

“That’s our connection,” she murmured. “I was thinking about the new sounds I’ve been hearing…”

He chuckled weakly, rubbing her shoulder.

“I’m just glad you didn’t think about the grenade launcher,” he said. “Otherwise we’d be dead.”

She mumbled something unintelligible and buried her face against his chest as the helicopter banked over the mall’s carpark.

Braith looked down.

His breath left him.

The JSDF had already secured the area. Infantry crouched behind cars, rifles trained toward the shattered entrance. Glass, twisted metal, and bodies littered the ground.

They’d walked through those doors less than an hour ago.

But what truly stole his breath were the tanks.

A Type 10 and a Type 90 forced their way through the rows of cars - carefully, deliberately - steel monsters with long cannons tracking unseen targets.

One of them halted.

Its turret rotated.

Braith reached for Yumie’s ears.

Too late.

The tank vanished from view as the shot thundered through the air, the sound hitting with bone-rattling force. Braith pulled Yumie into him, burying her face against his chest as she clutched him back.

His tears fell silently into her hair.

Despite everything - despite how tightly she held him - he felt it slipping.

Like she was becoming something vast. Something terrible.

Something he couldn’t reconcile with the girl trembling in his arms.

Like she was being forged into the very thing she feared most.

The other passengers barely noticed them as the helicopter thwopped onward, banking toward a distant carpark where it would set them down.