Dazzling Days of Us

CHAPTER 1: Blood Money

The rift didn't open—it tore.

One moment, the sky over Sector 7 was its usual gray-brown smog, thick enough to taste. The next, reality split like wet paper, revealing something that shouldn't exist: a void pulsing with colors that had no names, hues that made the eyes water and the mind recoil.

Kael stood at the edge of the rooftop, watching the tear widen with the appreciation of someone who'd seen it a hundred times before. The familiar hum vibrated through the soles of his boots—dimensional frequency, they called it in the textbooks. He called it Tuesday's headache.

"You know," he said, checking the charge on his plasma blade, "I really hate Tuesdays."

"It's Thursday," Fate replied, already moving toward the fire escape with practiced efficiency.

"See? Even worse." Kael grinned, that reckless smile that made the air around him crackle with the same chaotic energy he carried in his bones.

She didn't smile back. She never did on hunts. That was fine—Kael smiled enough for both of them.

Behind him, Fate stood in her usual position: three steps back, eyes scanning not just the rift but the perimeter, the rooftops, the shadows between buildings. Her black tactical cloak fluttered in the wind that shouldn't exist—the kind of breeze that came from nowhere, from the spaces between spaces. Her posture was rigid, controlled, every muscle ready to respond to threats Kael hadn't even noticed yet.

He'd been hunting with her for three years. In that time, he'd learned two things: she was the best partner he'd ever had, and she was incapable of relaxing.

"Focus, Kael," she said, her voice cutting through his thoughts like one of her precisely aimed blades. "We're not here for fun."

"Ah, you always kill the vibe." He leaned over the edge of the rooftop, peering into the swirling abyss below. The rift had opened in what used to be a parking structure, now abandoned like most of the lower sector's infrastructure. "Look at it like a portal to another world. How can you not enjoy this?"

His eyes sparkled with genuine curiosity—or insanity. With Kael, it was hard to tell the difference.

Fate stepped up beside him, her hand brushing his shoulder as she pulled out a sleek silver blade from the sheath at her hip. The weapon hummed faintly, charged with the same frequency that disrupted Kaizu cellular structure. "We're hunting Kaizu, not chasing thrills."

"Says the woman who can't resist a good fight." Kael's grin widened. "Admit it, you love the chaos too. You just hide it behind that ice-cold stare."

Fate didn't respond. She never did when he tried to tease her about her emotional walls. Instead, she activated her communicator with a tap to her collar. "Vorn, we're in. Cover us."

Static crackled, then Vorn's steady voice came through. "Copy that. But don't get too cocky out there, Kael. Last time you almost got yourself killed."

Kael touched his own comm unit, mockery dripping from every word. "Who, me? Nah, I'm too good to die. It's you guys who need to worry."

Vorn's laughter echoed in their ears—a brief moment of warmth in the cold mechanical exchange. But the moment shattered as a guttural growl resonated from within the rift, a sound that vibrated in the chest cavity and made the teeth ache.

Something was coming.

The rift expanded suddenly, petals of broken reality folding outward. From the black vortex emerged a creature that defied easy description—twisted limbs that bent at wrong angles, half-human musculature grafted onto something decidedly beast-like, eyes that glowed with unnatural light. Bioluminescent veins pulsed beneath translucent skin.

A Kaizu. A Stalker-class, by the look of it.

Kael's grin widened until it was almost manic. Fate readied her blade, shifting her weight to the balls of her feet.

"Alright," Kael said, cracking his knuckles with theatrical flair, "let's dance."

The Kaizu lunged with inhuman speed, claws extended. Kael moved faster—years of training and something else, something he couldn't quite name, guiding his body through the motions. He dodged left, spun right, and landed a powerful kick to the creature's center mass. The Kaizu crashed into the rift's edge, momentarily disoriented.

"Ah, a little fun never hurt anyone," Kael quipped, breathing hard. "I've got a way with most creatures."

But Fate was already moving, silent and deadly. Her strike was surgical—a single thrust to the Kaizu's neural cluster, the weak point that years of study had taught her to identify instantly. The creature convulsed once, then collapsed, glitching back into formless static before dissolving entirely.

Vorn's voice crackled back over the comms. "Well done, you two. Get out before more come through. And Kael... stop making things harder than they need to be."

"You'd be bored without me, Vorn. Admit it." Kael was already heading toward the exit, but his hand lingered near where the Kaizu had fallen. Something about this one felt different. Wrong.

Fate noticed. She noticed everything. "Move."

They extracted without incident, but the feeling stayed with Kael all the way back to base.

Back at their underground safe house—a converted subway station that the Corp had forgotten about—Kael lounged on a salvaged couch that had seen better decades. The cushions were torn, stuffing exposed, but it beat sleeping on concrete. Fate sat across from him, methodically checking her gear with the focus of someone performing a religious ritual.

"So, when are we gonna get a real mission, huh?" Kael tossed a Kaizu tooth he'd kept as a trophy between his hands. "Chasing Kaizu rifts with nothing more than some cash to show for it. We're basically pest control."

Fate didn't look up from her equipment check. "You've been avoiding something."

The tooth stopped mid-toss. "What?"

"Every rift we've closed in the past month. You never think about the consequences. Where they're coming from. Why the frequency is increasing." She finally met his eyes, and there was something in her gaze that made him uncomfortable. "It's like you don't want to know."

Kael forced the grin back onto his face. "Consequences? Nah, I leave that stuff to you. You handle the boring stuff, I handle the fun."

"One day, Kael, that fun will catch up to you."

The words hung in the air like a prophecy. Before Kael could formulate a dismissive response, a soft chime interrupted them—an incoming message on the secured channel. That alone was unusual. Nobody messaged them on the secured channel except Vorn, and Vorn was off-shift.

Fate pulled up the holo-display. The message was short, formal, and carried an encryption signature that made her frown.

FROM: AT Kaizu Corporation

TO: Hunters Fate & Kael

SUBJECT: Opportunity

PRIORITY: Urgent

Kael leaned over her shoulder to read:

We've been watching you. Your skills are precisely what we need for our expanding operations. Join us for a chance at real stability, real safety, and compensation that reflects your abilities. The world's about to change. Your place is with us.

Orientation scheduled for tomorrow, 0900 hours, Tower 13, Sector Core.

This invitation expires in 24 hours.

Kael raised an eyebrow. "Well, that's new. And creepy. Mostly creepy."

Fate stared at the message, her tactical mind already processing angles and risks. "This is... unexpected."

"Unexpected? It's a corporate headhunt from the biggest Kaizu operation on the continent. They probably want us to sign away our souls for dental benefits." But even as Kael joked, something in his gut twisted. The Corp didn't just send invitations. They sent contracts, orders, ultimatums.

Invitations meant they wanted something specific.

"You know," Kael said slowly, the humor draining from his voice, "I think this might actually be worth checking out."

Fate finally tore her eyes from the screen to look at him. "Why?"

"Because we're running out of safe houses, out of credits, and out of options." He gestured at their surroundings—the crumbling concrete, the salvaged furniture, the persistent smell of mildew and rift residue. "And because they're watching us anyway. Might as well walk in the front door instead of waiting for them to kick down ours."

It was the most honest thing he'd said all day.

Fate considered this for a long moment. Then she nodded once, a slight incline of her head. "Tomorrow, then. But Kael?"

"Yeah?"

"If this is a trap, I'm blaming you."

"Fair enough." He grinned, but it didn't quite reach his eyes this time.

Neither of them slept well that night. The rift's hum still echoed in Kael's ears, and Fate's dreams were full of doors she couldn't quite open, voices she couldn't quite hear, and a figure in a suit who watched from the shadows with eyes that glitched like a broken screen.