THEY EMERGED from the kitchen together, stepping into the glowing ruin of what once was a café. Gray stumbled slightly, smoke licking at his skin, the floor littered with chairs, splinters, and glass. Firelight flickered across the walls, casting the shadows of the wounded like ghosts clawing for breath. Bodies writhed across the floor, some moaning, some still. The scent of blood clung to the air, heavy as stormwater.
But he barely moved. He barely breathed. Because she was already moving.
When a person comes out of a dream, what do you do? You freeze. You doubt. You blink once and wonder if your brain's just playing catch-up with your eyes. But Gray didn't do any of those things.
He stared.
Like an idiot.
The girl with the face from his dreams—no, he corrected himself now, from his nightmares and prophecies alike—walked past him with quiet purpose. Her kris blades were drawn, both of them curved, serpentine, unlike anything he'd ever seen in the books or his grandfather's old stories. The steel shimmered as if it breathed. As if the blades themselves remembered war. And she danced. Not in the way performers danced, but in the way death sometimes moved.
Her first step was a blur. Her foot pivoted, and her arms crossed low, the kris catching a claw mid-swipe. The second step turned her whole body, one blade parrying a strike while the other curved behind her like a scorpion's tail, then buried itself into the aswang's ribcage. She didn't roar. Didn't grunt. Didn't cry out.
She exhaled.
Her next motion sent her leaping forward. One blade locked with an aswang's forearm, forcing it wide. Her knee shot up to its jaw. Then, with frightening ease, she spun midair, slicing both blades downward. One along the neck, the other dragging a crimson arc across its chest. It fell, twitching. Gray had seen Trisha fight. He had seen Ishmael chant his runes into flame and Lieutenant Montenegro direct a battlefield with nothing but a word. But this was different.
She was not trying to survive. She was calm. Cold. Precise. Like she'd done this before.
Ishmael's eyes widened from across the room. Even as he parried a snarling beast with a shield of runes, he paused, stunned, not just by her presence, but by recognition. He knew her. Not just in passing.
There was history in that look. A shadow of something shared. But Gray had no time to linger on it. Because that's when he saw Trisha lying on the ground. Motionless. A patch of blood was forming around her side, and her kris had slipped from her hand. She looked small in that moment. Human. And very, very breakable. Something snapped in Gray.
Not like a scream. But like a switch.
Gray crouched behind the overturned counter, the heat of the room pulsing against his skin, sweat stinging his eyes. Smoke twisted like ghosts above the chaos. But he didn't move yet.
He analyzed.
Three aswangs remained. Though their bloodied state made it hard to call them whole. One of them limped on a twisted ankle, blood soaking its thigh from an earlier wound, yet its eyes burned with defiance. Another crawled on shattered elbows, jaw grotesquely dislocated, its face a mess of fangs and bubbling blood. The third, the largest, prowled near Trisha's unconscious body. Shoulders tense, nostrils flaring, muscles coiled. It watched everyone at once: Montenegro, Ishmael, the girl, and the prey at its feet. It was waiting for weakness.
Gray's fingers tightened around the edge of the counter. He had no sword. No strength. But he had the room. And he had the timing.
His eyes mapped the surroundings in seconds, like laying out a battlefield in his head. There was a broken leg of a chair near the fire, blackened but still sturdy. A drawer of silver spoons, half-jammed open. A pot of boiled coffee, still steaming. A burlap pouch of dried garlic that had spilled from the fallen spice rack. It rested near the embers, pungent and half-charred.
That was it. That was his opening.
Gray slid low across the floor, silent on bare feet. He scooped a fistful of garlic and jammed it into a length of torn cloth. Tied it quick. Improvised weapon: garlic-smoke bomb. His hands moved with purpose now, a rhythm born of instinct and desperation. He tossed a ceramic plate across the room. Clang!
The limping aswang jerked toward the sound. A trap.
Gray rose in a single motion and hurled the burnt chair leg like a spear, the seared point spinning through the air. It struck the aswang in the neck. Hard. Not enough to kill, but it staggered backward, clutching its throat, mouth wide in a voiceless scream.
Now.
Gray grabbed the garlic-wrapped cloth, jogged it over the fire's edge, and tossed it toward the crawling aswang. It landed on its back and rolled off, but not before the smoke and direct contact began to sear its skin. The creature shrieked as its flesh bubbled, clawing blindly at its own back. That second of agony, just one second, was all Lieutenant Montenegro needed.
Steel flashed. The lieutenant's bolo cleaved downward into the creature's collarbone. The aswang twitched once and went still. Two down.
Only the brute remained.
The largest aswang growled deep, eyes flaring, and lunged toward Trisha's prone form. Gray was already sprinting. His boots hit the floor like thunder. No hesitation. He slammed into the creature full-force, tackling it sideways before it could reach her. They crashed through a table, wood and bone splintering in unison. The monster roared, its claws slicing through air.
Gray rolled. Found the coffee pot. Still hot. Still full. He grabbed the handle and smashed it into the aswang's face. Glass shattered. Scalding liquid flooded its mouth and eyes. It screamed. A high, inhuman screech, steam hissing from its blistered tongue.
And then, the girl with the twin kris blades moved like a whisper. She slid into view just behind the beast, one leg extended in a low sweep. Her body pivoted mid-slide, and both blades came up in a mirrored arc. One across the ribs, the other across the throat. The aswang froze. A moment of suspended breath. Then it collapsed like a marionette with cut strings, dark blood pooling beneath it.
Gray staggered forward, chest heaving. He dropped to his knees beside Trisha and tapped her cheek, voice hoarse. "Hey. Come on. No sleeping." She groaned, barely, but it was there. Relief thudded through him like a second heartbeat.
He looked up and saw the girl. She stood over the last body, her weapons still dripping. Her face unreadable, as always. But then... her eyes flicked to him. A breath's pause. A look. A small, quiet thing. But in that instant, he saw it: recognition. Not praise. Not warmth. Just... acknowledgment. Like a soldier to another. Like two people who understood something had passed between them. Something wordless. She turned away without saying anything, already preparing for whatever came next.
"This is the part where you ask me what her name is."
Gray turned.
Ishmael stood behind him, a crooked grin on his face and blood trailing from a shallow cut on his brow. He was walking, albeit slowly, as if he'd only just remembered his bones existed. Then, with a soft grunt, he dropped to one knee beside Trisha and began inspecting her wounds. Hands quick but gentle, his movements practiced.
Gray lifted a brow at him. The silence between them wasn't awkward. just edged with the weight of things unsaid. Ishmael didn't look at him. He simply flicked his eyes toward the girl in the distance, using only a slight jerk of his mouth. Gray followed the gesture, saw her across the room, wiping her blade with surgical precision. Still silent. Still unreadable. Her face was half-lit by the dying fires, casting one side in gold, the other in shadow.
Gray scoffed under his breath. A sort of pfft-are-you-serious sound. But his smirk faltered quickly. His lips tightened. And when he turned back, his expression had shifted—slightly embarrassed. Even guilty. He hadn't thanked her. Not properly.
Ishmael rose slowly, joints creaking. He exhaled through his nose, glancing at the girl once more like a proud but distant mentor. "One of the best students I ever handled," he said. "Sharp mind. Sharper edge. Give it two years and she'll be a Bayani."
Gray blinked. The word again. "I keep hearing that word. Bayani. What is that, some sort of title?"
Ishmael opened his mouth. "In our world, bayanis are the soldiers. Warriors. Heroes. They're the real deal. Sent out to missions. Sometimes deal with simple halimaws and troublemaker anitos. But sometimes, frontlines during tribal wars."
"Are you?"
"Was." Ishmael glanced towards Lieutenant Montenegro, then back to Gray. "Were. Now, we're aninos. We deal with any disturbances in the Sangkatauhan caused by Sangkanituhan people. Not bad for a retirement plan, right—"
Bang!
Gray's breath caught. For a moment, he couldn't place where the sound had come from. Until he turned his head and saw Ishmael. He collapsed backward, not flat, but slow, almost dazed, his body landing in a heap with his back against the edge of an overturned table. His limbs splayed awkwardly, eyes wide with something between shock and warning. There was no blood visible. But his staff slipped from his hand. The sigils around the room faded instantly, as if afraid.
Gray's stomach turned cold. He whipped his gaze upward. That's when he saw him.
Just walking through the broken glass, half-veiled in smoke and shadows, stood the gunner. But he wasn't quite... human. Not entirely.
The skin was too pale. Not corpse pale, but too smooth, too uniform, like something grown in darkness. His face was long, almost horse-like, and his white hair flowed straight down like river reeds, touching past his collarbone. His build was lean, stretched out like a scarecrow, and his cheekbones cast long shadows over his jaw. He might have been handsome once, but now his features sat in an uncanny valley between human and something else. There were no fangs. No bestial snarl. Just a low, unreadable calm.
His face was eerily dull, the way a snake's face is dull. Too intelligent, too empty. And his finger was still on the trigger. They hadn't seen him. No one had. Not with all the chaos and flame. The others tensed. Gray felt the air shift. The readiness of warriors whose hands instinctively reached for blades. But they didn't get the chance.
"Raise your hands," the man said. His voice echoed oddly, like it didn't quite belong in the room. It was flat, casual, but unwavering. "All of you."
One by one, they obeyed. Trisha stirred and blinked awake, her breathing shallow, but even she, disoriented and bloodied, slowly lifted her hands. The girl beside Gray didn't move at first, but after a breath, her blades clattered to the floor.
Lieutenant Montenegro was the only one who didn't flinch. He looked up at the stranger and squared his jaw. "Who are you?" His voice was like gravel dragged across stone.
The figure tilted his head slightly, almost amused. "How brave for someone to ask questions while I'm holding your lives between my fingers."
Montenegro spat. "Guns? Are you stupid?"
A flicker of annoyance crossed the gunner's face, but it disappeared as fast as it came. A pause followed. The smoke whispered. Gray could hear the faint crackle of something still burning behind the counter.
"You all talk too much," he murmured.
And then Gray heard it. Muttering. Soft, low, barely audible above the chaos. He turned toward the sound and found Ishmael. He was slumped against the table like a dead man, but his lips were moving. And under the edge of his robe, Gray could see his fingers twitching in slow, calculated strokes. The rhythm of ancient spells.
He was casting. But the gunner couldn't see him from that angle. Only Gray, Trisha, and the others could. And suddenly, the whole room became a countdown. Lieutenant Montenegro was inching his foot backward, slowly, stretching toward his fallen kalasag with the measured tension of a coiled spring. Trisha shifted, eyes darting to the table behind her. The girl beside Gray hadn't moved, but he could feel her presence. Steady. Tensed.
Something was coming. Then Gray glanced over his shoulder.
Lola Basyang was sitting now, propped against the wall, a cushion wedged behind her back. Her eyes were closed, but she was conscious. Breathing. Her face was tight with pain, but calm. She didn't look at Gray. She didn't need to. He felt her in his bones.
That's when it happened.
The floor beneath him groaned. Cracks spread beneath his feet like spiderwebs of darkness, crawling outward from a single black sigil burned into the tiles. They widened, deepened, until a crevice split open in the ground itself, gaping like a mouth. Gray peered into it. It wasn't flame, or hell, or magic light. It was just earth. Stone. Blackness. A tunnel of ancient dirt carved by something unseen. A path into somewhere else.
The gunner noticed. Too late. Lieutenant Montenegro lunged for the kalasag and hurled it up just as the gunfire began again.
The shield flared with light, absorbing every bullet with a ringing clang like a bell tolling in the deep. The lieutenant didn't wait.
"Go! Now!" he roared. "You—girl! You know the path! Take him with you!"
The girl's head snapped toward him. Her brows knitted. "Me?" she snapped, frustrated. "But I—!"
"No time!" Montenegro shouted.
Gray didn't move. He turned. Ran towards Lola Basyang. She opened her eyes. "I'm not leaving you," he whispered.
"You must," she said, voice brittle but firm. "I can't go with you, apo. I'll only slow you down. And besides... it's you they want. Not me."
"I can carry you," he said, but the words felt hollow.
She shook her head, smiled faintly. She lifted a hand, weak, trembling, and cupped his face briefly. "As much as I wish you never had to walk this path... it's the only one left."
He didn't cry. Gray never did. But something carved itself deep into his chest in that moment. A hollow. A sharpness. He nodded. Silent. Resolute. Then turned back. The girl met his eyes. They didn't speak. She grabbed his hand.
And together, they jumped into the dark.