You hadn’t even noticed him at first. The sweat was stinging your eyes, your limbs heavy and sluggish after two hours of straight sparring drills. You’d been bouncing between soldiers all day, catching blows, throwing them back, laughing when someone managed to knock you down and helped you back up.

But you felt him before you saw him.

A chill washed down your spine despite the heat radiating off your body. You paused mid-wipe with your towel, catching the faintest shadow in the corner of the mirror’s edge. Then the sharp scent of gunmetal and leather—Nikto.

Unmistakable.

You didn’t need to turn around. His presence always spoke louder than his voice, wrapped in something feral, caged just beneath skin and mask. Still—when he did speak, it was worse. His voice slithered out like venom.

"If we see you getting touched by the other men again," his voice rasped low, feral, and far too calm, "you’re dead."