This is it. This was likely the last time she was ever going to see her 'big sis' again. In a sense, she might even said that Ruby was her last shot at freedom to live a life she chose for herself, now gone forever. The petite girl's appearance was a tiny and insignificant ripple in the vast sea of people that was Jiu Xu, but to her, she had without a doubt triggered a desperate longing she thought she had forgotten a long time ago. Like a hook the nagging feeling would clung onto her heart regardless of how much she wanted to forget it, and only the passage of time would help diminish all the emotions and memories regardless of her will. The stark realization only made her unhappier.

So Yang Xiao Long stormed her way towards the training grounds, thinking to work off some stress by punching a few of her underlings in the guts, only to recall the duel from yesterday and the fact that she wasn'tpart of it and got pissed even harder. Abruptly the blonde skidded 180 degrees to head towards her room, deciding that this was the she would do nothing brood in solitary and silent rage as she always did until all the terrible feelings in her body eventually worked its way out of the system. Of course, that usually took days or until Da dragged her out to the grounds and smack her senseless, and honestly now that she's seventeen she would really like to avoid getting her ass spanked in public but seriously fuck. Them. All!

It was with those thoughts that she stomped through the mansion like a bull. Those terrible sentiments would last five seconds before she overheard a pair of servants whispering right around the corner before her bedroom.

"Hey Da Yin, did you hear about the news? One of our guys got killed again this morning!"

"What, again? Yao mou gao cho ar (Are you sure)? The fuck is going on with this city?"

"No bombs this time, but apparently the poor guy was shot right through the head! Luckily, everyone's already on edge since that bombing a few weeks ago so they got out real quick."

"Man that's cra –"

"Hey."

The two chatting servants turned around to see their mistress looming over them with bloody red eyes and simmering gold flickering about her hair like wild fire. Yang grabbed hold of the chatty man's collar – Fu Xing, was it? Well his stars today was anything but lucky alright – and very nearly snarled flames from her mouth,

"Where did you hear this? Tell me now!"

Yang took a peek around from beneath a manhole, saw no one and deftly climbed herself out of the stinking place. While the location of the incident wasn't so far that it warranted the use of the sewers, it was the fastest way to get there without alerting anyone within the vicinity. She just couldn't be bothered to deal with the cops and curious bystanders that must be swarming the circumference like ants right now.

The attacked hideout was one of a thousand old apartments at the Baosheng district struck by earthquake many years ago. Since then this area had been slowly rebuilt to its former glory, but since this unfortunate apartment was built away from the popular streets with its entrance facing a cesspool no less, no one could be bothered to renovate a building that had zero investment value. On the other hand, this became the perfect gathering place for delinquents, drug addicts, homeless, prostitutes, scavengers and in general the 'scum' of the society. It was a lawless criminal's heaven, until one year ago the Xiao Long clan bought the property with a dummy company and set up a hideout at the top level of the apartment. While they did not forbid the lawless from using the apartment, anyone who frequented here were mandated to follow their set of rules, and whoever broke them would suffer misfortunes ranging from broken legs to feeding germs in the shit pool. For a while time had passed peacefully, and nobody expected anything short of another earthquake to shake up their lives again.

But today, something extraordinary happened. Today someone was killed in this building on broad daylight, and not just anyone who could be missed with a careless thought. Today, a faithful, loyal retainer of the Xiao Long family was murdered for a reason yet no one could fathom, and whoever this son of a bitch who dared laid their filthy hands on her territory and her men was going to burn alive until she got some real answers out of them, and then some more. Yang carefully lidded the simmering fury in check as she glanced with furrowed eyebrows at the yellow tapings wrapped over the back entrances, before opting to slip through a smaller but open window hidden just behind a tall bush. Just in case, Yang rolled through her clips to make sure gauntlets were fully loaded and zigzagged her way towards the decrepit building. The culprit should've been long gone by now, but if they were around she did not want then to get an easy shot at her.

Yang saw no one as she ascended the first few floors of the building, though it as she'd expected. Despite the police force's incompetency their taping skills remained as sharp as ever, and no criminal in their right mind would come back to the place where a Yang clan member had been openly shot and killed unless they wanted to start a war. Although in that case at least I have a target to rip apart. The blonde gritted her teeth and decided to focus on the present. One more floor and she would arrive at the crime scene, and Yang's stomach lurched uneasily even though she knew the body would've been gone and moved to the morgue by now. The blonde woman has never been comfortable dealing with death itself, be it family or friends or strangers or even enemies. There was a reason why she chose to handcraft a customized battle gauntlet instead of something more lethal. She could do just as much stupid violence with two fists, but she would also be more sensitive to the damage she wrought and know exactly when to stop. Not to mention that she had enough of that one's lecture in the past to turn even the most psychotic murderer into a vegan priest.

However, she wasn't averse to excessive violence as long as it's non-lethal, especially against a potential maniac who had taken away many lives from her city. It was with such mix of resolve and doubt that she climbed the final fifth floor, hoping against hope that the murderer might be stupid enough to come back –

"Freeze."

Yang froze, but it was neither out of fear nor surprise. She was trying to make sense of the familiar voice when her mind finally clicked together. Slowly, the blonde woman turned with a vicious grin to face the open room at her left, and there stood an inspector she knew most intimately in an antagonistic way,

"Sir Falcon. To what do I owe the pleasure of your gun scope?"

Yang looked straight in the eyes of the young but unkempt-looking officer pointing a gun at her face. He was a man about thirty years of age, but looked young enough to be twenty. One of the reasons was because he kept a cleanly shaved chin, which Yang had made fun of countless times during many standoffs. When the taunts finally got to him, he started wearing his clothes unclean and rumpled despite his assistant's constant complaints, and hanged limply at the edge of his mouth a cigarette that he doesn't actually smoke to give the appearance of an older man. To put it nicely, it fit him as well as an F-size bra. Yang could still remember the day he showed up in his new appearance while she was roughing up a pub who refused to cough, and she had laughed so hard that she came a literal inch away from being caught by a collapsing shutter. To this day Yang still found it hard to believe that anyone would hire such an idiotic-looking man, much less promote him to an inspector.

But he was undeniably brilliant. In fact, he was probably the only competent cop in the entire city. Somehow this strange man had managed to avoid detection and sneak his way up the ranks, and ever since the Yang clan had been annoyed again and again by his constant meddling and impressive foresight. It's not as if they hadn't tried to oust him out through politics or violence too, but Falcon always managed to wiggle his way out through the smallest loopholes, not to mention his assistant was an extremely capable bodyguard. Eventually Yang was sent out to deal with him, and the game of cat and mouse has continued until this very day. It wouldn't be an exaggeration to call him her nemesis: The blonde woman honestly could not think of anyone else who would dare crack a goddamn fire extinguisher at the back of her head anyway – although she did pay him back by sending him to the hospital with two months of broken ribs. That was a story for another day.

"To start with, I could say that you're a sloppy murderer who came back to cover your tracks," Falcon said while keeping his tone cool and emotionless. Yang simply laughed at the accusation and jabbed right back,

"Well, in that case that murderer may be you as well, inspector, since you're even earlier than me. But cut the jokes, I'm not in the mood to play today, so you get out of my way and I'll get out of yours."

Yang tried walking away then, but before she knew it there was the loud bang of a gunshot, and by pure reflex she dodged down just in time to see a bullet pierced itself at the wall behind her head a millisecond ago. She couldn't believe what she was seeing. Immediately Yang ducked behind cover with her gauntlets poised before she spat out at Falcon in absolute fury and disbelief, "What the fuck do you think you're doing!? Have you gone crazy!?"

"That's my line, Yang," The inspector's gun never left the general vicinity of her torso, and she only needed to see his eyes to understand that the policeman was indeed very, very serious and would not hesitate to make a second shot, "I thought you a delinquent, a psycho and an idiot, but I did not think that you would actually murder someone; your own people no less."

Yang stared at him incredulously before throwing up her hands furiously, not even caring if the sudden movement might cost her another shot, "Seriously? For three years we've known each other, you believe me out of all people, would harm my own family?"

But Falcon ignored her outburst completely and said, "Ten minutes ago, I received an anonymous tip. It says that the suspect is coming back to the building to clear out evidences she accidentally left behind."

Yang waved her hand repeatedly over her face as if to fan out an unmistakable stink, "Right, sure, keep making excuses like you always do. You know what I think? I think you've gone crazy and want to kill me. Oh, won't anyone save me from this cruel fate?"

"Before that, I also found a peculiar bullet casing on the floor. Concentrated red Dust, orange shell, specially made to fit one and only one person in this city," Before Yang could continue her sarcastic monologue, Falcon snaked out an object from his pocket with a free left hand – gun still infuriatingly steadied dead center at the concrete she hid behind – and immediately recognized it to be her own. However, that wasn't the part that surprised her, as Falcon quickly pointed it out, "If this was just an empty casing I would've thrown it out the window already, but as you can see this is unused, and I find it highly unlikely that you would misplace this bullet. Do you think someone could've stolen this from you?"

"… Well, I guess that's a bit strange," Yang reluctantly dodged the subject. At the age of thirteen, every wannabe Huntsmen were taught how to build their own weapons from a generic selection of parts, but owing to her rich background Yang built Ember Celica – also known officially as a Dual Ranged Shot Gauntlets (DRSG) – completely out of custom parts she designed herself down to the bullets themselves. Of course she could just buy a bunch of preset 12 gauge Dust magazines and use them just fine, but when she needed a bit more oomph behind her punches she would switch to a custom set of magazines which Dust formula only she knew. That meant that no one else could've possibly dropped this fresh bullet except her, but of course she knew better than anyone that she'd never been here until today.

This meant someone must've stolen it from either her person or her house, and both notions were about as insane as flying pigs. To this date the Xiao Long family logged only one theft in its forty years of history, and despite a flash of thought whispered to her that she might've returned, the blonde quickly shook the false hope out of her head. All that's left was the possibility that someone stole a bullet from her. As far as she could remember, anyone who tried that ended up in a ditch or in a ditch, so that's out too. It's no wonder Falcon suspected her this strongly.

"Look Falcon," she cautiously exposed an arm just to show that she meant no harm, "I know this doesn't exactly reflect well on me, but you know that I'm an honest woman – okay, fine. So I fool around once in a while, but you know this kind of shady shit is not my style. I don't do things that I won't freely admit. If I'm going to kill someone, I'm going to do it in broad daylight with the fucker burned to a crisp with steamy, yellow flames. You get what I mean?"

"I'm sure you know this, but recently there has been rumors about smaller clans rising up against your family," again Falcon brushed away her words again as if he didn't hear them, and that obnoxious attitude was one of the reasons why they would never get along, "The bombing afterwards was apparently a result of that. Tell me, Yang: how fares the investigation of the matter from your side?"

Under any normal circumstances, the blonde woman would never have revealed any internal information to the authorities. However, if she does not clear her name right now Falcon was very likely going to report her as a prime suspect, and whoever came up with this terrible scheme would then get exactly what they wanted. It's really a fucking shame she had the luck to meet the one cop she could not bribe in the entire city. In the end, she decided that the circumstances called for extraordinary measures – not that she actually had any useful leads in the first place – and said,

"You probably won't believe me, but so far we couldn't find anything at all. Foreigners, spies, rebels. In fact the rumors you heard about the other families? All lies. That was the first thing we checked on our list, and if it was true you would've seen a more familiar kind of bombing already."

"I… see. And he says, when you have eliminated the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth, huh." Falcon replied in a most chilling tone, and Yang had a feeling that whatever that's going to happen next was not going to be pleasant. But then the inspector's eyes softened just a fraction, and he finally dropped his Dust pistol and put it back to the holster. Yang heaved a long sigh of relief – still slumped behind the wall just in case the inspector suddenly changed his mind – and felt unbelievably exhausted even though it was just past eleven.

"Glad you finally understand I'm not a freaking murderer. Now can I go, please?"

Falcon shook his head firmly as those black eyes suddenly hardened into steel once more, "You're still a prime suspect, Yang Xiao Long. Right now the evidence – little as it is – is set directly against you. I'm letting you go, but only because there's something I need you to check."

"My dear Falcon, you know I don't help cops. I especially detest spying against my own family," Yang replied bluntly.

But Inspector Falcon shook his head, and his expression was a mix of sarcastic laughter and sadness that she did not understand,

"I can see that you're a good person, and I actually believe that you're innocent in this particular case. But it's about time you see the truth. You're a smart woman, Yang; you must've already realized it deep down your heart."

"What are you talking about?" Yang demanded angrily.

"I'm saying that the Xiao Long clan is playing their own drama. I'm saying that this murderer is one of your people," Falcon's words sent a cold chill down her spine as she shuddered uncontrollably, "You have a traitor in the midst, Yang Xiao Long, and one that's pretty high up too, if not the highest. I suggest you find them before it's too late."

Then everything blew up in fire and pain, and the world Yang came to know collapsed into a fiery, black hell.

When Yang woke up, the first thing she saw was fire, and more fire. How long was she out? Seconds, minutes, an hour? Her head was splitting apart with intense pain and her right wrist felt either broken or dislocated. She couldn't be bothered to check in her completely disoriented state. What she did know however, was that someone out of their fucking minds had set a fucking bomb in the fucking room, and if she hadn't instinctively enveloped herself in Aura flames she might've died right there and then. In fact, the explosion had been so strong she was surprised the building hasn't collapsed yet –

Abruptly her already shaken features became drained of all color, and Yang cried out and crawled unsteadily towards the only other person in this floor. Lying just a few feet away from her was none other than the fallen inspector, "Falcon!"

He seemed to be completely unconscious, and naturally did not provide any semblance of a reply. The man was in no state to do anything even if he could as Yang took note grimly of the horrifying burns spotting all over his body. Magically the man somehow managed to hold onto to his stupid cigarette, but it was a tiny comfort dismissed immediately in the face of impending doom. Rivals or not he was a life she couldn't no leave behind, and as soon as she got close Yang immediately ripped away the burning jacket and quickly slung Falcon over her shoulders. Suddenly a sharp pain shot up from her right ankle, and as she attempted to steady herself Yang came too close to tumbling down a rippling patch of flames. It seemed she had some bruised bones down there as well, nothing too serious but would take some time for her Aura to heal it completely. Yang gritted her teeth in determination and began descending down the floors at a painfully slow one step at a time. As much as she wanted to rush things – especially when the building could potentially collapse on them any time soon – her injuries and burden were simply too much to push herself any further than the current pace.

"– Bzzcrack – explosions – backup! Help –"

Around the crackling concrete steps of the third floor, she heard the static crackling of a radio and accidentally fell a few steps down the stairs in surprise while muttering string of curses under her breath. Miraculously, the bastard's walkie-talkie seemed to be working despite having rolled through the massive explosion. Sill, Yang was grateful for the distraction, if only to temporarily forget the aches and pain of her body and the ever looming threat of death. So she listened.

"– Damn explosions – Bzz – everywhere! The fuck is going on BOOM –"

She listened.

"Crraackkk – Unit 103 r-reporting, Residential District 20 and 21 is… the… the whole fucking place is gone –"

She listened.

"What the fuck is this shit!? Who Crrraccckkkkkk – Paul? Paul! Don't you fucking die on me! Don't you BOOM BOOCrrraaaaackkkkk –"

This cannot be true. Why is she listening to this? This is such bullshit, the damn thing's so broken that it's practically spewing nonsense.

"Aaahh! Ahhh! They're shooting at us! I don't know who the hell they are but they're AGGHHHH –"

"Fuck you, fuck all of you! How dare you kill her! How dare you THUD –"

This must be a dream. That's it; her injuries must be so bad that she's hallucinating like having inhaled a potful of drugs. Hallucinating so fucking badly that even her eyes are all blurry.

"Oh god, I know that guy – of course, it could only be them, it's THUD"

"Why? Why are you doing this! Stop it BOOM"

But if this was really a dream then why was she crying? The inside of her mouth tasted like blood. Her left fist had tightened so hard it like it would break. Maybe it will, and then the pain will make it all go away. Maybe –

"Papa…? Papa? C'mon, we have to go… Papa?"

No.

"Papa, c'mon! Don't just lie there, stand up! Papa?"

No. No. She needed to turn off the radio. If she listens to any more of this, she didn't know what she would do – she might just –

"Papa… hiikk… Please... wake up… hiikuu… I won't be a bad girl anymore, I'll listen to anything you say so please… wake –"

BANG.

When Falcon came to consciousness, the first thing that registered in his brain was unbelievable pain. That was however no useful input, so he did his best to ignore it and opened his eyes. There. He saw first a blue sky, then a familiar flowing hair of gold that comforted him far more than he would ever admit to its owner. Setting his current condition aside – there really was no need to confirm what he already felt with every inch of burned skin and flesh – the inspector immediately began trying to process in his mind exactly what had happened before his memory cut away at the segment where he called out one of Yang's people to be a traitor. His face darkened instantly. Was Yang the one who tried to kill him? But he didn't see her use her Semblance –

BOOM.

The ground beneath him rumbled ominously, and his heartbeat jolted as if recoiling from an unpleasant memory. That's right, it wasn't a fire but an explosion that took him out. A bomb. It was a bomb placed somewhere between the floors that the police had missed; those useless bastards. Was the boom he heard just now another explosion like this one? The implications were terrifying to say the least. He needed more information.

"Yang." he rasped.

"You awake? Good. I was getting tired of babysitting." The blonde woman did not turn around to look at him, and for some reason it made him feel uneasy. He tried shrugging off the weird feeling and asked, "What happened while I was out?"

She did not answer him. Instead, the blonde woman continued talking as if she had never heard, "The hospital is gone, but luckily for your assistant Iris is a passable healer. I gave her a call and she should be arriving soon. You just stay put and do nothing for now."

"What? What happened to the hospital?"

But she did not answer. Her tone was flat, emotionless. It's as if her soul had flown somewhere far, far away, and Falcon found himself growing increasing nervous. It felt completely uncharacteristic of the blonde criminal he knew to be infinitely cheerful no matter what the circumstances. If she wouldn't tell him what's going on, then he'll just have to see it for himself. With immense difficulty he began extracting his limbs from the pavement, feeling every bit of his broken bones and injuries biting at the limits of his control with excruciating pain. Yang did not come to his aid. When it became obvious that he could not sit upright, Falcon chose to roll sideways instead; surely he could do at least that much. His vision swung around dangerously, but now he was finally facing towards Yang, and he saw –

The first thing he saw was the black eyes of a dead woman, her body scorched black and smoking as if burned by hell fire. He saw a row of once fine buildings wrecked and burned down into black skeletons of their former shape, with the grounds and further buildings still ablaze in roaring fire and ashes. He saw wrecked cars, wrecked lamp posts, wrecked streets and the sky choking with the biggest and blackest smoke column he has ever seen. He tried to pretend that he didn't see the dead bodies. Dead men, dead women, dead child, dead everywhere. But he couldn't. He saw Hell, and he knew.

He wasn't going to forget this for the rest of his life.

"I'm going. If what you said earlier is true, then I best go back and settle things before it gets any worse."

"Wait!" Yang began walking away, but Falcon cried out before succumbing to a round of terrible coughing. The blonde woman gave him time until his breathing finally steadied, "Where are you headed to? If a coup d'état had happened, the enemy is most likely at the central government right now –"

"You brain isn't working, Falcon. My family will only be at one place. Anyway, just leave everything to me."

Yang strode off again, and for some reason the further she went, the brighter the blonde woman seemed to be, and soon it grew so sharp Falcon had to look away. From Yang's body emerged the most gigantic column of golden fire he had ever seen, and the heat was so terrible that every piece of metal three feet away of her melted into hot vapor.

"I'll burn them all."