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The Shadow of Jinkai breathed in the city, millions of unique scents for each of the souls residing in it floating through their senses, brought to them by the aether floating around them—through them. They’d done the same thing when they arrived, barely twenty minutes earlier. Then, there had been a stink in the air of something coming; of something missing.

The missing were there now, the souls of the people they and their alter would seek out later having slipped back into the city while they organized themselves. Around the group, the familiar scent of boys the Shadow of Jinkai knew lingered. One of the boy’s scents following one member in particular like a bug that had dug itself under his skin and made a home for itself. Those souls weren’t for the Shadow of Jinkai to deal with—not unless needed, not within the safety of raids. All unlikely.

Still, their alter would be sticking close to those the Shadow of Jinkai could trust to keep her safe, if they had anything to say about it.

They had things to say, and even the lomin’taiyung wouldn’t dare ignore their words. Not that he knew where his precious Yujao was just now…

Head tilting, the deep red hair their alter insisted they grow long pooling across the ground despite the ponytail they’d pulled it into, the Shadow of Jinkai listened to the call of the aether. Its twining branches wove through them. Their connection to the aether was nothing compared to the experts of so many other nations—although, perhaps if they hadn’t been ripped away from their home at such a young age, they too would have found their footing within her embrace. Instead, the Shadow of Jinkai was what they were: an assassin, a safe haven for Moriana when the world became too heavy and their collective mind was cracking under the pressure, a place for the aether to put her more terrible plans and thoughts.

Currently…

Swiping a hand under their hair and working it into a too big bun at the base of their head, the Shadow of Jinkai moved. Shadows took them, slithering through the darkness of Piketown towards their targets. Tormenting Emilia’s ex and his friends might be Moriana’s goal for this trip, but the Shadow of Jinkai was staying around in the moments where their personality fell into the world for the people who were converging onto the small college town, seeking answers they had waited more than a decade to eat up. Nᴇw novel chapters are publɪshed on novel⁂fire.net

‘kursta, the lot of them. Criminals and people of other import, all falling into the city, hoping to peck up whatever scraps of information they could on someone who just wanted to live her life. The Shadow of Jinkai had never needed to hide their own identity—the aether did that for them, tugging dark obscurity around them until only those who Moriana told the truth to could ever know their identity—and they could appreciate the way so many people hoarded their anonymity, especially people like Emilia.

The aether pulled the Shadow of Jinkai along, their body in free fall as their senses stretched across the city. It was just barely too large, the university at the very edge of their awareness, the northwestern corner falling away as well. Later, they would need to set up a schedule with Moriana to make sure their collective feet touched all corners of the city, lest some malicious force hide outside the reaches of their shadows. Later, they would need to breathe in the scent of the entire rotting city.

Rotting?

What a strange way to think of it, but something in this city was mouldering, and the Shadow of Jinkai didn’t think it any known factor. Not the students the Hyrat clones had just released back into the city. Not the taste of the corruption Olivier was fighting against, festering and swelling in the slums—Alver, as he kept correcting everyone, as though so many of them hadn’t the right to call it what it was, gutter children that so many of them were, the slums of their youth still fresh in their minds and trauma. Not even the hostile parties quickly buying up property, anticipating a long stay as they sought to convince Emilia to help them with this evil or that, or booking up hotel rooms, hoping to swipe her or her friends up the moment they caught sight.

So then, what in this city was itching their senses? This city that, until less than a day ago, had remained virtually untouched by the war or its echoes.

All thoughts cut off as the Shadow of Jinkai exploded back into existence, their body falling out of the aether along with flecks of her blood and guts. The two criminals they fell into their path froze, momentarily too shocked to do more than gape at the shadow shrouded figure kneeling before them. Shadows rippled off them, floating into the world as tendrils of control before snapping out and grasping one of the two criminals, her eyes filled with the horror of recognition before her ability to speak was crunched out of reality.

The other stumbled backwards, his aetherstores fluctuating as he tried and failed to spark—the Shadow of Jinkai had already cut that escape path off. “What!” he yelped, turning and attempting to bolt.

The Shadow of Jinkai’s shadows followed, sliding over Piketown’s streets and snatching up the man’s ankles. He fell, not onto the street but onto yet more shadows, shifting into spikes to catch his body in their loving embrace.

“Did you have to make it so messy?”

The Shadow of Jinkai pushed themself up, not bothering to look back at Kyler Hyrat—the Secretary General’s personal bodyguard and messenger boy. “Shall I feed them back into the aether?” They didn’t think the aether would appreciate the meal, but they could force anything into the aether in a pinch. Usually, the aether didn’t care too much, as long as it was done in service to her needs.

“C-can that be done?” the clone asked, stepping forward to peer down at the first of the criminals, the woman laying decapitated over the ground, her mouth stuck in a scream that had only appeared after she’d realized her head was no longer attached to her body and death was swiftly coming to call.

Shrugging, the Shadow of Jinkai finally turned towards the clone. He was new to the position, they knew, having taken over after the Secretary General’s previous bodyguard was killed in an echo attack. That clone had died a hero, they believed. Kyler was young, only a few years older than Emilia and her cohort, and had once been a liaison of sorts between Division 30 and The Black Knot. That didn’t mean they knew each other well, although, perhaps Moriana did?

The Shadow of Jinkai didn’t know. The war had been stressful enough that even they had hidden away, letting their alter into the world more often than in the decades before the war began simply because they needed to rest, and for better or worse, they had trusted Emilia and her friends—most of her friends—to keep Moriana safe. Then, of course, there had been Julian and Halen, pulling Moriana into their friend group and keeping her safe from the members the Shadow of Jinkai hadn’t trusted. Most of those people were now dead, their lives cut away from the world at Alliance Ridge.

They were gone, and yet, not a day went by where the Shadow of Jinkai didn’t suck in as deep a breath of the world as they could manage, searching for some sign they weren’t. The feeling itched over their skin near constantly—this feeling that something was wrong. If their future hadn’t been ripped away from them by civil war and a youth spent running, maybe they might have been able to taste the full truth of the world.

As it was, they couldn’t. All they could do was follow the voice of the aether that did reach them. Scattered and fragmented, the aether’s broken whispers pulled them where she needed them most, trusting they would snuff out whatever lives they found there. It was all in service to the greater good, outside of the Shadow of Jinkai’s grasp as that was.

“Perhaps it can be done, perhaps not,” the Shadow of Jinkai replied, knowing they were pressing the ends of what they could speak of when it came to the reality of the aether. They had always held that more people should know the truth, but the late syna Gru had been clear: the more people who believed, the more danger everyone would be in.

“I agree there would be a time where our lives would be easier,” the syna had said, early in their acquaintance, when they had helped the Shadow of Jinkai and Moriana learn how to better utilize their flickering personalities and connection to the aether. “Then would come those who would see each of us destroyed for believing in such things.”

“Why?” Moriana had asked through the Shadow of Jinkai’s mouth. Rarely did they share their bodies and minds even now. Nearly thirty years ago, when the Shadow of Jinkai had been the one in primary control, intent to protect Moriana from the brutality of the life they had found themselves beholden to, it had only ever been with the late syna Gru that they shared.

The late syna Gru had been someone soft. Until the day they died, part way through the latter decade of war, the Shadow of Jinkai thought they had only seen them panicked or upset a handful of times. All those days they had spent together, learning to be the most effective assassin on the continent, they and Moriana both asking a thousand whys each day, Rexanti had never once lost their temper or patience with them.

Sometimes, the Shadow of Jinkai wondered whether the late syna Gru had known their future lay in brutality and blood, most synat unable to see much past their death. Then again, the late syna Gru had been one of only two synat who had ever seen the war as ending in anything other than tragedy, and they had died years before that final assault. Perhaps Rexanti had known what the Shadow of Jinkai would become—the power they would hold over the world, their visage forcing dread into every fibre of those whose lives they came to claim.

Kyler Hyrat was grumbling as he worked to clean up the scene. Something about how the people they had killed weren’t in Baalphoria legally, so that made things easier, but still telling the Shadow of Jinkai they needed to be more subtle. “Next time, they might be here legally, and that will cause issues. There’s only so much we can do to cover for you if an embassy starts searching for a missing person.”

The Shadow of Jinkai resisted pointing out that they weren’t in Baalphoria legally—nor were most of the people currently setting up a home in the building Sorvell had bought, possibly with Olivier’s pay, possibly with Emilia’s. None of them were people the Baalphorian government could touch—no Division 30 member was touchable by any government.

Virtually no one could stop their sparks, and certainly no one in Baalphoria, and even those who could stop sparks couldn’t stop the Shadow of Jinkai’s shadows, Hurinren’s blood, or half a dozen other members’ abilities.

Virtually no one would dare touch them, knowing their collective wrath would leave them to flounder if war were to ever reignite. Together, they could become a nation’s destruction or salvation.

“The only ones I will kill are those who would dare harm us,” the Shadow of Jinkai told Kyler Hyrat, before slipping back into the shadows and reemerging on the roof of the building they would be calling home for the next few months. For a breath, they sucked in more of the aether’s flavour, their mind extending down the fine web of her beauty, searching not only for more threats but for whatever was rotting.

The sour tinge was still there—a floating scent of something now gone but lingering.

Another time, perhaps they would shift their way through Baalphoria, searching for the source. Not now. Now…

Now, if they dared search, they would tip off whatever that rot was, and that would be…

Bad—world destroying, even.

Instead, they released their bun, letting their hair fall as their consciousness fell, Moriana rising to take their place. Before the sweet release of darkness took them, their alter smiled and bounced. She sucked in her own deep breath of the world, smile turning biting, before she was sparking off, and all the Shadow of Jinkai could do was send off one message using their temporary Censor, requesting that someone go with Moriana on her mission.