Without hesitation, Rin grabbed my wrist and bolted.
My feet followed before my thoughts did, instincts taking over as the hall blurred past us.
Behind, I caught the barest glimpse—Lucien Vale, calmly standing in the corridor like a devil dressed in quiet. His hand made a simple, elegant motion. A gesture.
Go.
And they obeyed.
Kara and Leira shot forward like shadows peeled from the wall, sprinting after us in perfect sync. My breath hitched—not from exhaustion, but from the realization:
Lucien wasn't coming.
He didn't have to.
Because he already believed this was over.
"Why the hell is he not chasing us himself?" I hissed under my breath, barely dodging a knocked-over stool in the corridor.
"He doesn't need to," Rin shouted. "Didn't you see? He smiled right after Iris ran—like he planned that too."
The world spun as we turned the corner and raced up the staircase. My thoughts were spiraling, but one sharp realization cut through the storm:
It was still afternoon.
Still daylight.
And yet Iris almost died.
"Rin," I said through panting breaths, "how can Lucien make a move now? It's not even night yet. How is he breaking the game's rules?"
Rin looked back at me, panic tightening her expression. "It's a passive… Frenzy. A passive that occurs when the mafia team has only 2 people left. "
Of course.
Of course the final Mafia card would have that kind of mechanic.
The one passive that could bend rules. Move in daylight. Kill outside the system.
I clenched my teeth as we turned another corner, my hand reaching inside my pocket, feeling the cold press of the Proxy card. I closed my eyes for just a split second.
Shadow Insight?
Now useless.
I already knew everyone's roles. All the pieces were on the board.
Judge? Still usable—but only when the system allowed it.
Survive Clause? The only thing I could truly count on now.
That passive that granted me an extra vote immunity or escape from death once every two nights.
But that wouldn't stop Kara.
And it wouldn't stop Leira.
We burst through the door of the meeting room and slammed it behind us.
I spun, grabbed a chair, and propped it beneath the handle. Not perfect. But maybe it would buy us seconds.
Rin stumbled to the center of the room, both of us panting, sweaty, backs against the walls like rats in a sinking ship.
And then—
Bang.
The door shook.
Once.
Twice.
It creaked open—just enough to let in the slivered silhouette of Kara.
Her steps were slow. Unfeeling. Focused.
And beside her—
Leira's lips twisted in that unsettling smirk, like a child who just found a dead bird and wanted to show it off.
"You cornered yourselves," Leira said softly, dragging her fingers across the wall like a brush on canvas. "Makes it easier."
Kara stepped closer. Silent. Detached. The Assassin card was hers now—and her eyes showed it.
No guilt.
No fear.
Only precision.
Rin's hand brushed mine. I glanced at her. She was trying to be brave, but I saw it in the way her shoulders trembled.
She didn't want to die here.
Neither did I.
But if this was our checkmate…
Then I was going to flip the whole damn board before I let them take the king.
I stepped forward, placing myself between them and Rin.
Kara paused. Leira tilted her head. "The great thinker stands in the way," she giggled. "Even gods bleed, you know."
I didn't answer.
I stared directly at Kara.
Her hand twitched toward the knife at her hip.
"Do it," I said coldly.
Rin gasped. "What—?"
"If you're going to kill me, Kara," I said, voice sharp like a blade, "do it. Prove to me that you're nothing more than the card you picked up. That all that time I trusted you meant nothing."
Kara didn't answer.
Her eyes locked with mine for a brief second, and I thought—maybe, just maybe—she was still in there. Somewhere beneath the role, beneath the obedience.
But I was wrong.
Because in the next breath, she lunged.
Steel flashed.
I barely twisted my body in time, her blade grazing my arm. Pain flared. She moved fast—too fast for someone who'd once flinched at blood. But the Assassin card had transformed her.
There was no hesitation now.
I blocked her next strike with the chair I'd propped earlier, the wood cracking as her blade bit into it. I dropped it and rolled to the side, just narrowly avoiding another deadly arc. My thoughts raced—her style was direct, precise, meant to kill in as few moves as possible.
She wasn't trying to scare me.
She was trying to end me.
Behind us—another scream.
Leira was already leaping at Rin, giggling like a maniac as she swung wildly with a pair of scissors she must've picked up from somewhere. Rin dodged, grabbed a glass mug from the table, and smashed it against the wall, gripping the broken end like a makeshift dagger.
"Back the fuck off!" Rin snarled, parrying the next wild swing.
Their fight turned into a flurry of slashes and jabs, Rin dancing back while Leira chased with that crooked grin, shrieking with delight every time their weapons met.
I focused back on Kara. She came at me again, silent, merciless.
But I wasn't just dodging anymore.
I was learning.
Every step she took, every shift in her stance—I was watching, calculating. My mind was adapting to the rhythm of her movement.
She went for a low sweep—I jumped. A high stab—I ducked and used her momentum to push her into the table behind us.
The table cracked, but she was up in seconds, already lunging again.
"Kara!" I shouted, trying one last time to reach her.
She didn't stop.
Didn't blink.
Didn't even flinch.
And as we clashed again—steel against reflex, instinct against control.
And then I shouted over the clash of steel and breathless impact.
"So all of it? Your story? Our moments—those nights we talked, those moments we shared—were they nothing to you?"
She didn't answer.
We circled each other, the ruined meeting room echoing with distant crashes from Rin and Leira's duel. Chairs overturned. The flickering light above cast strange shadows across Kara's face. But her silence said more than words.
Still—I kept pushing.
"Was it really just your role that made you stay close to me? Just some twisted convenience?"
My voice cracked.
And then—finally—she stopped moving.
Not in weakness. Not to bait me. But because something inside her cracked too.
Her blade trembled in her grip. Her eyes welled up, not with pity, but with something raw. Something broken.
"YES!" she screamed.
She lunged again—wild, emotional—but I dodged it just in time. She staggered forward, and when she looked at me, she wasn't the assassin anymore.
She was Kara.
"Yes," she said again, softer this time. "It was all a lie. You think I ever had a choice? My whole life—I've been a fucking parasite."
She dropped her guard for a second, blade down at her side, breath ragged. I didn't strike. I couldn't.
"I never had anything," she said, voice shaking. "No love. No future. No purpose. So when I got this card—the Fiend—I finally understood what I was. Something that doesn't have a self. I get to become someone else by stealing from the dead. That's what I do. That's all I know how to do."
Her hands trembled as she gripped the handle of her weapon tighter.
"I stick to people… pretend I belong… and then I survive off them. That's how I've lived. That's how I made it through every round of this hell. But you… you made me forget that. You made me think I could be someone else."
Her voice cracked completely.
"I should've just kept my distance. Should've never gotten close. But I did. And now look at me—I'm nothing again. I chose survival. I always will."
She lunged once more, this time without hesitation, and this time—I caught her wrist mid-swing.
Our eyes locked. The tension between us wasn't just blades anymore.
It was grief. Regret. Rage.
"You're not a parasite," I said coldly. "You're just afraid. Just like the rest of us."
Her expression twisted, and for a split second, I didn't know if she was about to cry or stab me again.
Maybe both.
"You don't get to say that," she whispered.
"But it's true," I said. "And if you really wanted to kill me, Kara—you would've done it already."
Her grip loosened. Just a little.
And for that fragile moment, the fight paused—not because it ended, but because pain was louder.