Nikolai slipped through the dark, murky streets of Londis. His hood low, and eyes gleaming in the shadows, he was able to track the faint scent that Madoka left behind. Curious, hungry. But he didn’t know how he might feel later.
Leona...
Her warmth and affection saved him. He couldn’t forget her touch, no matter how hard he wanted to focus. Leona remained vivid in his mind’s eyes. It’s like she’s still with right now. He thought with a bitter smile across his lips.
To find Madoka might prove to be impossible.
However, he didn’t want to wait for midnight or evening. He planned to take the initiative. To defeat Madoka. A woman said to be at the top of the SSS wouldn’t be simple. Nikolai learned that from close contact with her last night.
With her on his lap... he couldn’t do anything but lust for her.
As if she were so kind of living aphrodisiac.
"Tch..."
He passed a filthy man in torn, patched clothes begging for money.
But Nikolai didn’t take any money.
"Spare a coin, brother?"
"I have no money."
Without looking back, Nikolai’s answer made the man grumble. He heard the distant complaints of the elderly man with a sour stench. If I were being arrogant, you’d know about it... Nikolai bit down the words and continued onward.
"Where am I?"
Nikolai found himself surrounded by half-finished buildings and abandoned stores with broken windows—a run-down area. Londis was dirty. But this place carried a unique stench, as if sothing were decaying.
He crept through the streets.
People peeked from windows and dark alleyways.
The sun couldn’t find this place.
"It hurts to breathe."
Nikolai covered his mouth, passing people who looked fine. He wondered if they managed to adapt to this foul aroma.
They looked fine while passing him in tracksuits and five striped trainers.
The stench thickened the deeper he went. It clung to his tongue, flooded his nose with a sour, tallic and damp sll, like breathing through rusted iron and wet dog. But the faint trace of Madoka followed this path.
He slowed when the trail bent toward the old tram yard.
Nikolai slipped through a gap he found in the rusted fence. Once inside, the tram yard opened wide into empty rows of rusted carriages, without glass, and countless pigeons and graffiti ranging from praiseworthy art to people misspelling simple words.
Madoka’s scent pooled in this area, both heavy and fresh.
"Is this a trap?" He muttered.
Oil. Ozone. Wet wood. Under it, the thin ribbon of pogranate and rose. It threaded between the cars like a hand tugging him along by the collar.
He tiptoed. Toes first. Heel last.
The itch under his ribs ticked with each breath, a trono set by her claws. He pressed a palm to the ache until his heart listened.
A white chip lay on the rail ahead. Porcelain. Cobalt paint across one edge. He crouched. Turned it with his thumb. The curve matched the mask he’d cracked last night.
Breadcrumbs.
"Where are you!?" He called out.
Clack!
A tram door shook, crooked and hanging off its hinges.
Three shallow grooves scored across the tal in a line. The exact size and depth of Nikolai’s claw wounds. "Here?" Inside, the carriage slled like damp fabric and coins. He stepped up, head tilted, ears open.
Silence.
Then the crunch of grit sowhere to his right, a little distance away.
Almost as if she was circling him.
He moved through the car, boots careful on warped boards. Old adverts peeled from the walls in long curls. Soone had slept here not long ago. The blanket still held a shape.
A brown bottle rolled an inch when he brushed it.
He let it go.
Out the back and over the coupling. Down onto the rails again. The sky above the yard was a flat sheet, the sun just a pale stain behind it. The air tasted tallic. Breathing still hurts.
He found another mark on a post—claw lines, higher this ti. She was playing with height, testing his eyes. He followed the path without looking up, just to be stubborn.
At the centre of the yard stood the maintenance shed, doors yawning open—dark inside. A generator coughed once, then caught, sowhere far back, a lazy rumble that felt like a sleeping animal.
The sll of her spiked and vanished.
Another tease.
Nikolai stopped. Closed his eyes. Stripped the world of sound down to layers. Pigeon feet. Drip from a hole in the roof. The flutter of a plastic strip at the doorway. The faintest scrape of sothing smooth on tal, two cars away.
He smiled without laughing. "There you are."
He didn’t go to her.
He went past, taking a ladder up onto the catwalk that ran the length of the shed. His hands were steady on the cold rungs.
The wolf inside lifted its head, pleased with the elevation.
From above, the tracks made a rib cage out of the earth. Every step showed dust disturbed, paw-light, then nothing, as if she’d started to run and decided not to.
Leona’s voice brushed the back of his ears, mory-soft. Don’t lose.
"I’m not losing," he said, and the words tasted true.
Halfway across the catwalk, he found a ribbon hung on a bolt. Not cloth. A lock of hair. Black. Clean. It slled like salt and smoke and her. He rolled it once between his fingers, then tucked it into his pocket, not sure if it was a trophy or a wire.
The catwalk stairs ended near a control booth with shattered glass.
He stepped inside. Dials dead. A single chair. On it, a folded sheet of newspaper was weighted by a nut and a washer. He lifted the paper.
Underneath lay a photo, edges burned. A man. A younger Ivan Volkov with a cigarette and that indifferent, dangerous look, leaning on the rail of a different arena. On the back, in neat handwriting:
Little wolf, it’s not nightfall.
The pen dug hard into the paper, as if the hand had wanted to carve deeper.
He didn’t feel surprised. He felt the pace change. This wasn’t bait anymore. It was permission.
Nikolai pocketed the photo and left the booth.
The generator’s hum had grown quieter, or his blood had grown loud. He descended to the floor and walked the centre lane, head up now, letting her see him. No skulking. No hesitation.
"Enough gas," he said to the empty yard. "You led here. I’m here."
A gust drew through the shed.
He followed the sound to the far end, where the shed opened on a service court.
A drainage channel cut it in two, water moving slowly and brown. On the near side, a fresh boot print faced him. On the far side, the impression of a bare foot with claws at the tips, sinking deeper at the toes.
He stood at the edge of the channel and bent, fingers brushing the wet. Cold. Clean enough.
"You want across," he said.
He stepped into the water. A biting chill. He crossed, climbed, and shook once, not caring that it made him look like the animal she wanted him to be. The scent beca more potent, straight and undiluted, drawing a line toward a low tunnel under the back wall.
Nikolai rolled his shoulders, set his breath, and walked into the tunnel without looking back. The light behind him thinned to a coin.
Ahead, the dark curved left, then down.
"Wow..."
The change in atmosphere made Nikolai whistle as he stepped into the air-conditioned passage and found himself at a massive steel door covered in graffiti.
Madoka’s scent lingered at the entrance thicker than ever.
Thanks to the humming air units, the disgusting and sour stench vanished from the air.
He followed the path, kicking aside the cardboard and ss until he reached the wall and found a small panel that sat embedded inside it. When he brushed his fingers over the surface, it humd. Locks clicked in a slow, deliberate rhythm.
With a low hiss, the door parted to reveal a brilliant white light, almost sterile as it hurt his eyes to look at. He stepped through, and the world shifted like magic.
He passed through a faint surface, like when visiting the Nexus, and behind him, the door already sealed shut without a noise.
Gone were the rusted bones of the tram yard.
Here, the floor glead, walls panelled with glass and steel, cables coiled overhead like the tendons of so sleeping beast.
A laboratory—polished, clinical, far too advanced to belong anywhere in Londis.
Through the glass covering the wall, a chamber spread out as far as his eyes could see, the air cool and comfortable to breathe in.
When his eyes reached the centre, he noticed a figure gracefully wielding a spear, dancing between dozens of monsters...
Not fakes.
She was killing real monsters...
Each with a single sweep, stab or blow.
Madoka bent her body like a gymnast, piercing the forehead of a mangy werewolf, wearing a black bodysuit that clung to her curves, tracing every line of her sultry fra... as the long spear spun in her hands, half a blur.
"I found you."
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