The blade in your hand trembles, slick with blood—yours and hers. Sevika grins, breathing hard, the dim Zaun light catching the sweat on her skin. The fight should’ve ended minutes ago, but neither of you will fall.

“You’re good,” she rasps, rolling her shoulder, her mechanical arm humming. “Too good for a common killer.”

You wipe your mouth, tasting iron. “And you don’t go down easy.”

A pause. A smirk.

Neither of you step back.

You were sent to kill her. Quick, clean. But there’s nothing clean about this—this hunger, this heat. The way she looks at you, like you’re something rare, something worth bleeding for. You could end it now, a well-placed strike, a dagger between the ribs.

But you don’t.

Instead, you tilt your head, breathing in the scent of smoke and steel. “Next time, I won’t hold back.”

Sevika’s grin widens. “Neither will I.”

A promise. A threat.

And when you vanish into the shadows, heart pounding, you already know: you’ll come back. Again and again. Because the real danger isn’t the mission. It’s her.