Into the Breach
Ruyi stood near the perimeter, her amethyst eyes calculating every movement along the flashing blue-and-red barricades.
The chaotic scene was a wall of noise: sirens wailing, panicked parents shouting over police loudspeakers, and medical personnel wheeling stretchers back and forth. Past the heavy steel barriers lay the entrance to the Botanical Gardens—now shrouded in a sickly, purple-tinted mist leaking from the unstable gate above the treeline.
Ruyi considered using her newly discovered spatial jump to bypass the guards entirely. But she quickly dismissed the thought. Too risky. The void required a precise, familiar mental anchor. If she jumped blindly into an unknown sector of the massive garden complex, she could easily drop herself straight into a nest of beasts—or miles away from where the students were actually hiding.
She needed intelligence first.
Scanning the crowd of personnel, Ruyi’s eyes locked onto a familiar figure standing near an armored transport vehicle. It was the tired responder from her first ordeal—the one who had handed her a bottle of water and told the guild investigator to let her breathe. His name badge read Darren.
Moving silently through the press of frantically shouting civilians, Ruyi approached him from his blind side. She reached out and tapped his shoulder.
"Remember me?" she asked, her voice low and remarkably steady amidst the chaos. "I need some inside information. My brother is inside."
Darren flinched, turning around with a look of high-stress annoyance that instantly morphed into confusion. He blinked, staring at her face for three full seconds as his memory caught up.
"Your brother?" Darren muttered, his eyebrows drawing together as recognition finally dawned. "Last time it was you, now it's your brother?"
Ruyi didn't bother addressing the dark irony. "His school class was on a field trip here today. The botanical gardens were on their schedule. Where are the students?"
Darren’s expression softened into a look of genuine pity, clearly thinking this was the most cursed family in City CC. He glanced over his shoulder toward the command tent, lowering his voice. "Look... the gate opened over the eastern glasshouses. The strike team is currently pushing through the main promenade, but it's a mess. Responders are doing their best to hold a defensive line and secure any survivors."
Ruyi’s jaw tightened slightly at the word survivors. It was a tactical, polished word meant to sound hopeful, but to her, it carried the heavy weight of casualties. High school students trapped in a Class-2 zone didn't have much time.
She stood there, her gaze locking onto Darren in a unblinking, deliberate stare. She was evaluating him—calculating whether she could squeeze a path past the line out of him, or if she would have to knock him out and steal his security pass.
Darren shifted uncomfortably under her intense, unwavering purple eyes. ".. W-What? What is it?"
"Darren! What the hell are you doing over there?!" a sharp voice barked from the side.
Ruyi turned to see another familiar face stepping out from behind the transport truck. It was Mark—the strict responder who had driven the vehicle and interrogated her about her lack of training. Unlike Darren, who had taken a moment to recognize her, Mark’s eyes widened in instant, sharp recognition the moment he saw her face.
"It’s you," Mark said, his voice dropping into disbelief as he walked over, his hand resting on his sidearm holster. "What happened now?"
"Her brother is apparently inside," Darren explained quickly, raising a hand to diffuse the tension. "He's part of the school group trapped in the eastern sector."
Mark looked at Ruyi, his expression hardening into a familiar, stern grimace. He had seen hundreds of desperate family members try to push past barricades over his years on the job. "You want to come in?" he asked, his tone laced with cold cynicism. "Want to die?"
"Mark!" Darren snapped, shocked by his partner's bluntness.
Mark ignored Darren completely, keeping his eyes glued to Ruyi, trying to read the unreadable woman who had somehow walked away from a slaughtered Class-3 beast without a scratch. "Civilians aren't allowed past the line. Period."
"I survived once," Ruyi said, stepping closer to him, her voice entirely devoid of panic, pleading, or hesitation. "I can survive again. And I'm not moving until I get through that gate."
Mark stared at her, assessing her rigid posture, the absolute lack of fear in her eyes, and the quiet, dangerous aura radiating from her. He knew the type—she wasn't going to cry, go home, or wait for an official update. The moment their backs were turned, she would find a way over the fence and get herself killed.
"Can’t take civilians," Mark said flatly, though his mind was clearly working through the protocol loop. "Weaponless ones even more so."
"Then give me a weapon," Ruyi replied instantly. "Or turn your back for ten seconds."
Mark let out a harsh, dry laugh, rubbing the back of his neck in frustration. He glanced back toward the chaotic command tent, then down at the perimeter fence, weighing the paperwork of a civilian breach against the quiet, undeniable threat standing in front of him.
He didn't know how she had killed that boar-wolf last week, but he knew one thing for certain: Ruyi was not a normal civilian.
"Ten seconds," Mark muttered, stepping sideways to block the view of the primary security camera mounted on the transport truck. He reached into the back of the transport and pulled out a heavy, standard-issue tactical spear used by entry-level guild guards, thrusting it into her hands. "If anyone asks, you stole it. If you die out there, I never saw you."
Ruyi gripped the cold steel shaft of the spear, her fingers settling naturally around the grip.
"Eastern glasshouses," Darren whispered hastily, pointing toward a obscured maintenance trail that bypassed the main gate guard post. "The school groups were split between the glasshouse and the central amphitheater. Go through the maintenance fence—the latch is broken."
Ruyi didn't waste breath on empty thank-yous. She gave both men a single, sharp nod, spun on her heel, and melted into the dense shadow of the perimeter tree line before the next shift of guards could even look her way.