"Let's go out through the side so they don't see us coming!" Nowak yelled over to his men.

  Nowak and his men burst through a side door—metal, dented, opening into the narrow staircase that led down toward the back of the building. The guests from the club above had already begun screaming, scattering, heels and broken bottles clattering against the tiled floor. The scent of perfume and liquor clung to the air, but beneath it now seeped the faint acrid sting of gasoline. As people began running out of the club, voices rose—shouting, frantic, but organized.

  The men were working quickly, lugging canisters, smashing glass, soaking curtains, and carpets. Every sound carried the promise of fire.

  “BURN! BURN! BURN! BURN FOR CASIMIR!” Nowak laughed maniacally.

  ***

  Hannah whimpered into Kazou’s chest, clutching his sleeve with both fists. Her gag muffled the sound, but the tremor in her body spoke louder than words. She turned her wide, wet eyes toward Kazou, silently begging him to make it stop.

  Nowak and some of his men slammed their shoes against the concrete. Running after the three.

  The blonde girl’s grip on Kazou tightened. She half-dragged, half-carried him away from the Marriott.

  Kazou staggered, his legs buckling beneath him. The pain from his ribs flared with every step, but worse than the pain was the sudden, sick realization of what Nowak was doing. His cracked voice rasped as he tried to force words through blood in his mouth.

  “He… he’ll burn them alive… innocent people… all of them.”

  The girl’s jaw clenched. She didn’t answer, couldn’t answer—her eyes fixed forward, fixed on escaping the burning district. Her pistol stayed locked in her hand, finger curled tight on the trigger. Behind them, smoke began to rise from the nearby buildings.

  "Kuroda! Look! They are burning it!" Hannah gasped, innocently pointing over Kazou's shoulder. "I'm scared! Ah!"

  "Don't worry! You'll be safe! I won't let you get hurt! Remember?! Daijoubu. Mou kowakunai... Daijoubu... Mou Kowakunai..." Kazou rasped.

  Behind them, Nowak’s stick clattered as he lurched forward, his voice unhinged, shrieking. “You think you can run from me, Jap doctor?!” Spittle flew from his lips. “You think you can hide him from me?!” he laughed, his fury so raw it curdled into a grotesque mockery of laughter.

  The men who were behind Nowak drew their guns again, fanning out in the alley, flanking like wolves.

  "Get to the side!" The blonde girl shoved Kazou hard into the side wall of the alley just as bullets flew past the middle of the alley, fragments exploding into the air.

  "Yah!" Hannah let out a yelp, clutching Kazou's arm with the impact.

  “Stay with me!” the blonde girl yelled, voice breaking, eyes wild. She fired back blindly, each muzzle flash cutting a brief strobe into the night.

  Kazou stumbled forward again, his chest heaving, his mind fogged. The thought clawed at him:

  This organization is serious. They really want to burn a whole district because of their delusions. How could Casimir have such an impact on these men?! What if they do successfully drag Casimir back into this… even if it means burning Warsaw to the ground?

  "YAH! They're coming! We gotta run!" Hannah cried, pulling at Kazou's shoulder. "Hurry! We have to go!"

  The blonde girl hastily grabbed Kazou's hand, forcing him into a run. Her teeth clenched. She wanted to scream at him to move faster, yet she wanted him to save his strength.

  Nowak’s boots banged against the cobblestone, closer now, his laugh echoing like a grotesque child at play.

  “Run, run, little doctor! Run with your savior girl! The fire will find you… The fire will always find you!”

  The three of them sprinted through the street, their footsteps slapping against the wet asphalt. The rain had left a sheen over everything; puddles scattered the road like black mirrors, reflecting shards of neon reds and sickly greens from signs above. The pavement was slick, forcing them to run harder, faster, as if momentum itself were the only thing keeping them from falling.

  The city felt wrong. Restless. Alive with noise, yet hollow in its heart. Every shadow looked deep enough to hide an enemy. Smoke curled upward behind them, thick and oily, painting the night sky a bruised gray.

  From across the square, voices began to rise.

  “Is that… a fire?” a woman whispered, clutching her husband’s arm. “Filip, look—it’s coming from the Marriott!”

  He followed her gaze, his face draining of color. In the distance, flames licked high into the air, swallowing windows whole. “Dear God… It’s spreading. If the wind shifts, this whole district could burn!”

  People began to stop, craning their necks. Murmurs spread like contagion. A crowd swelled at the corner, the collective breath of panic thickening with the smoke.

  Then a figure stumbled into them.

  It was a woman—her hair disheveled, her coat hanging open, her shoes slipping on the wet street. Her chest heaved with ragged gasps. Tears streamed down her face, streaking her cheeks red with heat and ash.

  “My daughter!” she sobbed, grasping at Filip’s sleeve with trembling hands. “Please—my daughter’s still at the Marriott! You have to help me!”

  Filip recoiled, his voice cracking. “It’s too dangerous! You can’t go back there! The fire—it’ll kill you before you even reach the doors!”

  “No, no, no!” The woman shook her head violently, her cries splitting the air. “You don’t understand, she’s only 22! She’s in there!”

  “Listen,” his wife, Amelia, tried to steady her, though her own hands trembled. “The firefighters will come. They’ll help. We have to wait.”

  “Wait?” The woman’s voice broke into something shrill, hysterical. “By the time they arrive, she’ll be ash! All of them—everyone in there—will be gone!”

  Her legs buckled, and she collapsed onto her knees, clutching her face. Her body convulsed with sobs, her words incoherent between gasps. Then, suddenly, she lunged upward, seizing Amelia by the shoulders. Her nails dug in.

  “Help me!” she shrieked. “We can go in together! If we all go in—if we all go in at once—they can’t stop us!”

  “Ma’am—!” Amelia stammered, frozen, her voice trembling under the force of the woman’s grip.

  The woman’s cries turned into a raw, guttural wail. Her knuckles whitened on Amelia’s coat. “STOP telling me to wait! STOP telling me to be calm! My daughter—my daughter—she’s all I have!”

  Unauthorized duplication: this narrative has been taken without consent. Report sightings.

  The crowd had shifted back, watching in stunned silence. Some covered their mouths, others averted their eyes, no one daring to step in. The rising wall of flame at the Marriott cast long, quivering shadows across their faces.

  ***

  “Kuroda…? What’s going on?!” she cried, her little voice trembling with panic

  Kazou couldn’t form the words, couldn’t give her the truth—his lungs rasped, his mind racing. He only held her tighter.

  The blonde girl skidded to a halt beside them, covering the street with her pistol raised. For a brief moment, her lips cracked into a smile despite the danger. “She’s adorable,” she muttered, almost to herself.

  A flicker of warmth against the storm. But then— Crack! A bullet ripped the air past them, close enough that Kazou swore he felt the heat skim his ear. The sound was deafening, sharp as lightning. He spun his head around on instinct, his heart in his throat. There—emerging from the shadows of the burning city, Nowak.

  He moved with a manic vitality, his broad frame hunched, his face twisted in unholy rage. Beside him, a knot of his men burst into the open street, weapons drawn, their boots splashing through puddles as they ran. The orange glow of fire at their backs made their silhouettes seem monstrous, black smoke billowing upward like an omen.

  “STOP THEM!” Nowak’s voice thundered, sharp and guttural. Spit flew with every syllable. His face gleamed with sweat, his thinning blond hair plastered to his skull. “Don’t let that Jap rat escape! Don’t let him take the girl!”

  "They're back!" Kazou yelped.

  His men fanned out, raising their guns, their movements practiced, like a hunt drilled into muscle memory. The girl’s eyes widened—her pistol snapping up, covering them.

  “Keep running!” she yelled. “Don’t look back!”

  Kazou staggered forward, Hannah clutching him like a lifeline, her little body pressed against his chest.

  Behind them, the street exploded with noise. The first wave of Nowak’s men opened fire, bullets chewing into brick and concrete. Shards rained down from the walls, dust filling the air. Kazou ducked low, his body curling around Hannah, shielding her as best as he could. Sparks leapt as bullets struck pipes and steel beams.

  One of Nowak’s men yelped, dropping to his knees, blood spraying across the pavement. But there were more. Too many. Nowak’s voice cut through the chaos, a hoarse bellow.

  “RUN, YOU COWARD! RUN UNTIL YOUR LEGS SNAP! THE FIRE WILL EAT YOU ALL THE SAME!” Nowak yelled.

  Hannah’s small voice pierced the gunfire, desperate. “Doctor, I’m scared! What’s happening?!”

  Kazou’s throat burned. He wanted to comfort her, to give her a gentle lie—but all he could manage was a ragged whisper. “Hold on, Hannah. Just hold on.”

  The blonde girl darted ahead, checking corners, leading them with sharp movements, every sense tuned to survival. She glanced back once, eyes catching Kazou’s. For a brief moment, their gazes locked—her resolve hard, his desperation raw. Then she turned forward again. Another shot rang out. This one is closer. The hiss of lead slicing air. Pedestrians were running now.

  Kazou risked a glance back—just enough to see Nowak raising his stick, directing his men forward, his eyes gleaming with fury and something more—a grotesque joy. He was loving this. The chase. The fear. The inevitability. And he wasn’t stopping.

  The street beyond was chaos. Smoke climbed in twisting black ribbons from windows, drifting up to swallow the neon signs above the district. Sirens hadn’t come yet—only the roar of flames and the stampede of people fleeing. A woman stumbled, clutching her child. A man carried a suitcase as if it contained his life. Shopkeepers slammed shutters only for firelight to leak through the cracks.

  Kazou’s chest heaved. His body was still broken from the accident, every breath like a blade in his ribs, but his eyes darted across the street—calculating, cataloguing, refusing to stop. He set Hannah down for a moment, letting her catch her breath. She stared wide-eyed at the burning storefronts. Her little hands tugged on his sleeve.

  “W-What’s happening? Why is it burning?”

  Kazou crouched down, forcing a calmness he didn’t feel. “It’s… a fire. We’re going to be okay. But we have to move fast.”

  The blonde girl—her hands still tight around the gun, her face flushed with adrenaline—stood beside them, scanning the rooftops. Her hair caught the glow of the flames like strands of gold.

  Her voice was sharp, commanding, like steel drawn against stone. “They’ll be on us any second. We can’t stop. We have to keep moving.”

  But Kazou shook his head. He reached for Hannah again and pressed her gently into the blonde girl’s arms. “You take her.”

  The girl’s eyes widened. “What?” Kazou forced himself to stand straight. His voice came quieter now, yet firmer, each word shaped by the weight of choice. “I have to stay. These people… they don’t know what’s coming. They’ll be trapped here if no one helps.”

  The blonde girl grabbed his arm, her grip desperate. “No! You’re insane. You can’t fight them, you’ll get killed!”

  “I’m not going to fight.” He shook his head, meeting her stare. “I need to stop for the residents.”

  The girl almost tripped over the sudden words. “WHY!?”

  "I'll blend in!" Kazou’s voice cracked, almost pleading. “All those people! These children and the elders. If they set the fires, if they—”

  Her jaw tightened, a flicker of hesitation crossing her face. Children. Fire. Even with her gun, even with her training—or whatever instincts she carried—she hadn’t prepared for this. But Kazou’s eyes cut through her doubt. He wasn’t bargaining. He wasn’t buying time. He meant it.

  Her voice cracked with anger—no, fear. “You won’t blend in! You’re not Polish. You’ll stand out. Nowak's men will find you in seconds. You’ll die here!”

  Kazou’s jaw tightened. The firelight threw harsh shadows across his face, hollowing his eyes, tracing every cut and bruise. He almost looked like a ghost already. Still, he placed his hand over hers, prying her fingers gently away from his arm.

  “Listen to me.” His tone dropped to a whisper, but it carried the weight of a vow. “Take her. Keep her safe. Meet me by the river. I’ll be there soon. Before dawn."

  The girl’s eyes brimmed with conflict. For a moment, her mask cracked.

  “You don’t understand,” she hissed. “People like you… They don’t come back from Nowak!”

  Kazou allowed himself a faint smile, bitter and fleeting. “I can’t just watch them burn. I’ve done that once before.”

  Behind them, a shopfront exploded as fire chewed through glass. Screams rose, a chaotic chorus blending with Nowak’s distant bellowing.

  His men were flooding the streets now, throwing torches into doors, their guns waving as they shouted orders in Polish.

  The blonde girl clutched Hannah close. Hannah, confused, reached for Kazou again, but the girl held her tighter, her eyes locked on him like she was memorizing his face.

  “You’d better keep your promise.” Her voice trembled despite her steel.

  Kazou exhaled, steadying his breath. He forced his body to move, stepping back into the growing smoke and crowds of panicked civilians.

  He turned once more toward her and Hannah—two figures barely illuminated by firelight—then disappeared into the press of bodies. The girl stood frozen for a heartbeat, her pulse loud in her ears. Hannah whimpered into her shoulder.

  Then another gunshot cracked across the square. Nowak’s voice rose above the chaos, guttural and enraged:

  “FIND THE SCIENTIST! BURN THEM OUT!”

  The blonde girl’s grip on Hannah tightened, and she ran toward the river.