Her voice, though a re whisper, resonated with a chilling finality within her digital sanctuary. She rerouted the network waves, forcing the signals to bend to her will, siphoning the fastest internet speeds in the hemisphere. It was the only tether she had left to a world that thought she was a ghost.
Clack. Clack. Clack.
The frantic percussion of the keys filled the room.
"I will destroy the Blac family.... I will destroy you, Cruxius.... I... sob... snf... y-you killed ..."
It was a mantra. A curse. A prayer for vengeance spat out by a girl who was shattered and betrayed. Her heart pulsed now only for the sake of the hunt, not for the joy of being alive.
"You left ... to die... You watched die!"
A sob tore from her chest, her entire body recoiling from the screen, yet her fingers never stopped their rhythmic assault.
’Execute Trace 31-B. Breach protocol initialized. Line override. I will destroy them. I will make him bleed.’
Her body was shaking uncontrollably now. She curled inward, her knees pulled to her chest, trying to collapse into herself as if she could hide from the phantom pains of the past. But the mories were like acid, spilling across her mind just as her code spilled across the screen.
She rembered it too vividly—the end.
It was the day the servers of the villain syndicate zones were crushed, the digital infrastructure of the underworld turning into a graveyard. Links were severed, buyers were exposed, and the shadows were suddenly flooded with a blinding, lethal light.
She had believed him—the man who claid to love her. A supervillain without a single power, yet possessed of a mind cold enough to dominate Zone 1. She had watched him dismantle organizations from the inside, a master gardener pruning the buds of the syndicate until only he remained.
Despite her genius, she had known the risks. She rembered sitting in her chair, the weight of his hand on her shoulder as they planned the hit on the Royals.
"Infiltrating them would be dangerous," she’d warned, her voice small, her fingers hovering over the keys even then. "I don’t understand their technology... the Royals might be able to track within minutes..."
He hadn’t hesitated. He hadn’t even blinked.
"It’s fine," he had said, that calm, lodic tone of his acting like a sedative. "Do it. I want them to be here... I will save you... Lulu."
And like a fool, she had leaned into his warmth and nodded.
She had gone in alone, touching scripts that felt alien, a technology far beyond the world she knew. Her ability—her very soul—had hit its limit. And then ca the White Ghost.
"Sob.... you left alone.... even... hic... you knew... I fear... death... hic..."
She used the long, salt-stained sleeve of her hoodie to scrub at her eyes, but the image wouldn’t leave. The terror of the White Ghost—the royal demon. She could still feel the phantom sensation of her own ribs being parted, the agonizing heat of her heart being pulled from her chest. She had seen it, purple and pulsing in the demon’s grip, before it was crushed into a wet spray of gore.
Yet, that horror had been eclipsed by a second revelation. As the heat of a pre-planted bomb began to radiate from the server room walls, she had seen the expression on the demon’s face.
It wasn’t just a trap for the Royals. It was a trap for her, too. Cruxius hadn’t just failed to save her; he had used her as the ultimate lure, a piece of at to catch a predator.
"...n-no... not yet," she hissed through clenched teeth.
She forced the trauma down, molding the raw pain into a cold, sharp blade. She wasn’t that girl anymore. She wasn’t the girl whose heart could be crushed—literally or figuratively.
She was Nano. The ghost in the machine.
"I loved you," she spat, her voice suddenly rising into a shrill, unhinged cackle that echoed off the tal walls. Her fingers slamd the keys so hard they began to ache, the tips turning a bruised red. "I loved you, Cruxius!"
A fresh wave of tears blurred the lines of code. She gritted her teeth until her jaw ached, her small fra vibrating with a power that had nothing to do with her ability.
’This ti, you will be the one to cry, Cruxius. I’ll peel back everything you value until you’re as hollow as I am.’
One last breach. One last infection. She would turn the Blac family’s empire into a digital pyre, and she would watch him burn from the safety of the dark.
---
Hero City
A fleet of luxurious cars tore through the highway like a high-speed procession, engines roaring, paint glinting under the city lights.
At the center of the convoy sat a sleek black Rolls-Royce, flanked by two armored Range Rovers — each carrying the insignia of Blac Corporations on their flanks like a brand.
Inside, Cruxius leaned back, phone in hand, exhaling long through his nose.
’Your master is starving and you can’t even reply?’
He’d placed the order that morning — from that specific curry shop, the one he still rembered clearly even after traveling back. Not just because the food had done sothing no other dish ever managed. But because of who made it.
Lira. The pink-haired, cotton-candy-soft maid whose cooking had reached sowhere in him that nothing else had.
And she hadn’t replied. Hadn’t even opened the ssage.
"Master, where are we headed?" Darithi asked, eyes narrowing at the skyline passing beyond the window.
This city. The heart of the Hero Association. Ho of Hero Ryken, residence of more licensed heroes than any other sector in the country. Tension coiled silently in her chest. Ytrisia had already told her — one of the heroes had made a move on Cruxius, directly after the press conference. The situation had confused her at first. Why would the Association act so recklessly? But then Ytrisia ntioned the hospital dean, the villain connection, the twisted narrative being spun against Cruxius — and Darithi understood. It was all part of her master’s hand.
Ytrisia had been fed what he wanted her to believe.
Darithi had no intention of correcting her.
Still — Cruxius had made so cutting remarks about the Hero Association. And being here, right now, in the middle of Hero City, was walking straight into the lion’s mouth.
"Nothing urgent," Cruxius said coolly, ice pack pressed to his neck. "Just hunting down a cook. Soone who might finally fix my broken taste buds."
’’!’’
Darithi’s breath caught. Her fingers stilled on the ice pack. Taken aback — pleasantly, painfully so.
’Was it really possible? Soone had made food he could actually taste?’
The doubt followed a half-second later.
’Should I stop my cooking lessons?’
She glanced down at her lap. Every dish Cruxius had eaten inside the Blac family mansion — she had made them all. He never knew. And every ti she served him, he responded the sa: nothing registering, nothing reaching him. She had tried endlessly, failed endlessly, improved and tried again — quietly hoping that one day she’d be the one to reach him.
Maybe soone already had.
"Oh, he found soone like that?" Ytrisia, seated in the front with her hands folded neatly, glanced between both of them. She’d known about his condition for so ti. The faint relief in her voice was genuine.
"By the way, master. What’s the na of the cook?" Darithi asked, her voice neutral, one hand still pressing ice against his wounds, the other steadying his collar.
"Her na is Lira," Cruxius said, almost to the window, sothing almost like a chuckle softening his tone.
’’.....’’
In the faint reflection of the glass, he caught it — Darithi’s lips pressing into a flat, unreadable line. Eyes impassive. Like his words had touched sothing she wasn’t prepared to show.
"...A woman," she said quietly. A slow nod. "So that’s what you ant by ’taste buds.’"
"Shut up, Darithi."
The car moved steady toward Sector 9 — Linton Street.
After a beat, almost to himself, he muttered,
"Do you think I’m the kind of man whose brain is filled with perverted things?"
No one answered. Not a single word from either of them.
’...Not one.’
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