We are not here to save lives.

Jin found him in the dirt. Through her night-vision, his blood was the same crimson as the rest of his body, but the gaping hole in his stomach remained a black void. Her heartbeat drummed in her ear like thunder. Even knowing the organs were synthetic, she couldn’t help herself. Even though she hated him, she couldn’t help herself.

“Séquard!” The word was barely audible over her heartbeat. Her hand clenched around the pommel of her sword.

The dark shape that huddled atop Séquard perked up. He was a thin, ghoulish thing, wrapped by darkness like a cape. Starvation had strained his skin tight over his face, leaving his cheekbones bulging out like a swollen bee sting. Combined with its spindly limbs, Jin was certain she would’ve mistaken him for a homunculus without Faust’s help.

Was he modified to look like one? No, she had just never realised how similar their species appeared. Without the two jaws and ivory-white skin, the average homunculus held a striking similarity to their creators.

Large blue eyes stared back at her. He was just a boy, a few years shy of manhood, but hunger had robbed him of his youth. His lips and chest were smeared crimson, dripping with bits of half-eaten flesh. Séquard’s.

In a flash, she closed the gap between them. Her hand flew out, drawing her sword from its sheath and angling it at the boy. Azure light streaked behind the steel like the tail of a comet.

The boy met her blade with his own. It sprang out from the cobalt plates of his arm, colliding with a sharp metallic clang. He couldn’t anticipate her strength though, and the force of her slash pushed his blade back, inch by inch until it dug into his shoulder. She almost expected the wound to bleed white.

The boy screamed, thrusting her away with newfound panic. He backed away, hissing, then lunged up a nearby tree. Jin fired a few pistol shots after him until he disappeared up the foliage. From there, she kept her gaze up, her eyes following every rustling of the leaves.

The Princep’s voice came through on her interface. “Jin!”

“Séquard’s injured,” said Jin, never taking her eyes off the trees. “Condition likely critical, requesting medical and back up.”

“And the assailant? Is he as you predicted?”

“Human, yes. Male, maybe around seventeen. Blue eyes, long brown hair. He is armed and dangerous.”

Jin pivoted around. The rustling was starting to fade. There was no use; she couldn’t track him, even with her night-vision. But she couldn’t just let him escape and hurt someone else either.

You know how you find a needle in a haystack? She remembered his words. You burn the fucking haystack.

Jin raised two fingers skywards and breathed deeply, freeing the rumblings of her heart. She saw the world through the red and black of her night-vision, then its natural brown and green. When her heart began to strike her ribcage with all the force of a jackhammer, the world turned grey.

Grey like ash.

“No.” The Princep’s voice alone made her freeze up. “Runner Jin Yurinhalt, you have no authorisation to use your Axiom.”

“I can’t let him get away!”

“Lethal force of any kind is not authorised. I repeat, lethal force is not authorised. This message goes out to all troops and Runners. Axioms are strictly off-limit. The boy is to be apprehended, but not harmed.”

“Séquard might be dead because of him!”

“Jin, what is your profession?”

Jin clenched her teeth.

“What is your profession?”

“I am a Runner, ma’am,” she relented, deactivating her Axiom.

“You are a Runner, Jin Yurinhalt,” said the Princep. “Our job is to kill homunculi. Nothing more, nothing less. We are not here to save lives or execute criminals. We are pest control.”

A breaking branch stole her focus back. She pivoted around just in time to block a downward stab. Metal screamed on metal, and the boy’s blade came inches from her forehead.

Something struck her in her stomach. She glanced down to find a second blade, sprouted from his other arm, thrust through her abdomen. The pain hit her a moment later, clawing and screeching. Just pain. She could deal with just pain.

Jin wrapped her fingers around his second blade, clenching so tightly that her palm bled. Then, she spun hard. Her hand kept him anchored as their combined momentum thrust him to the dirt. Before he could get up, she stomped hard on his chest. He gasped for air.

Jin climbed on top of him, pinning him tight with her forearm across his neck. She raised her other arm, and drove it down hard. Her elbow crushed his jaw with a satisfying snap. Now she couldn’t tell if the blood around his mouth was Séquard’s or his.

She clubbed him again, on the forehead this time. The boy flailed hopelessly against her weight, shrieking and bawling. He had never sounded human to begin with, but with his missing teeth, someone else could’ve mistaken him for a pig.

The boy dug out a handful of dirt and smushed it into her face, his nails chipping her eyelid in the process. Blinded and caught off-guard, Jin fell back. It was just enough for the boy to squeeze out from under her and once free, he broke into a mad dash.

“Come back here!” Jin shouted, rubbing out the dirt.

The boy ran on all fours, faster than any animal she had ever seen. He leapt over every bush, ducked under every branch. The layout of the forest was second nature to him. It was his home, his domain. Even with her augmented legs, she was struggling to keep up.

“Chang!” Jin called out through the interface. She spoke between pants. “I’m losing him!”

His voice was cluttered with static. “Losing who?”

“The kid who fucking got Séquard!”

“A kid? You don’t say…”

A lumbering limb struck out from the darkness, less an arm than a heap of raw iron. The boy crashed into it head first, and the limb swept him across the air. When he fell, he didn’t get back up.

The Triton drew its arm back. “What’s he look like?” said Chang.