Buildings shuddered, streets bled and the crimson eclipse loomed like a wound in the heavens. Every street corner burned with the twisted silhouettes of the Faceless. On a massive plaza, two figures danced through the storm of blood and smoke.
Haruno's feet cracked the concrete as she landed, her odachi gleaming with teal Xana. Her blade curved through the air so fast that each stroke was splitting through a dozen Faceless at once.
"How fast are you!?"
Phaser shouted over the wind as her silhouette blurred again.
Haruno turned, smirking beneath her half-mask.
"Fast enough to cut your strings if you're not careful!"
She spun, piercing through a Faceless in midair. The creature's body split apart, dripping into liquid shadow before reforming again. Haruno cursed and kicked backward as another lunged. She slashed upward, cleaving through its torso in one shimmering wave.
Phaser didn't move much. He didn't need to. From his hands, dozens of strings shimmered out into thin, glacial red filaments. They coiled like snakes around the Faceless that surrounded him, tightening until their featureless forms started to freeze. Crimson frost crawled over their skin, cracking with a hollow sound. They froze mid-lunge, shattering in grotesque silence. Phaser pulled his arm back, and the strings recoiled.
"Stay down, you little nightmares…"
Another Faceless came from above. Phaser glanced up lazily and his left hand flicked. The string snapped upward, wrapping around its neck. He tugged lightly and the creature's head popped off like a cork, spinning into the dark.
"Okay, that was satisfying. Class 3 Faceless are easy to fight."
Haruno laughed even as she ducked under a swing from another Faceless. She moved faster than the eye could track. Her blade sliced through limbs, torsos and heads again and again. One Faceless reformed behind her, its mouth splitting open on its entire face
"Behind you!"
Without turning, Haruno flipped her odachi backward and stabbed behind her straight through its face. She twisted the blade and cleaving it in two before exhaling. Hundreds of strings were moving, binding and slicing through the Faceless. Every time a Faceless lunged, a string cut its joints. When they started overwhelming hi by crawling across walls and rooftops, Phaser summoned his chokutō, forming it from thin air.
The dark blade gleamed, forged from Neveolus, his Primal Synsiline Treasure. When it appeared, the Faceless hesitated as if they could feel the killing intent radiating from it.
"Time to let go a little."
He took one breath and vanished.
The next second, blood and frost exploded around him. He carved through three Faceless in one breath, pivoting midair, using his strings to pull himself in bursts like a marionette. He moved with eerie precision. Each strike slicing perfectly through regenerating tissue, freezing it before it could reform. Haruno couldn't help but glance his way as she blocked another Faceless swipe. He was faster than her and leaving afterimages to confuse them.
"You've been holding back?"
She groaned, ducking under another Faceless arm. She unleashed a diagonal slash, cleaving through ten of them at once. The shockwave sent a gust of wind through the plaza and buildings around.
Close and far from the plaza, Officia Fluxers were struggling. Civilians screamed as more Faceless erupted from the ground, devouring soldiers, splitting bodies, and reforming in waves of gore. One Fluxer managed to cut one in half with her Combat Flux axe only for it to stand back up again. Then, with a sickening crunch, the Faceless opened its mouth, devouring her entire body.
Haruno paused, her eyes narrowing as she saw the Faceless increasing in number.
"They're not retreating anymore. Phaser—"
"I know. They're drawn to the fragment."
Above them, the Blood Sphere pulsed, absorbing the rivers of blood running through the streets. It looked like a second eclipse, swirling in the red sky, veins of energy coursing through it. Haruno glanced up nervously.
"Phaser, we're going to get spotted by the Officia if we keep this up."
"We won't. Put on your mask."
Haruno frowned. "My Faceless Identity mask? You mean—"
He smirked, pulling his own black mask from his System Inventory.
"Yeah. We're vigilantes now. If they see us, we're just Officia Fluxers doing our job."
Haruno sighed, but smiled faintly.
They both slipped on their masks. Their identities were erased in seconds. When the Officia looked up from the streets, all they saw were two masked silhouettes standing on the burning rooftops, strings and teal light slashing through the storm of monsters.
A faceless vigilante duo.
The Faceless charged again in the hundreds, crawling up walls and breaking through stone. Haruno dashed forward as she tore through them. Phaser's strings followed her movements, crossing and weaving through the battlefield like webs. He caught one mid-jump and slammed it into the street below. Another lunged. He simply sidestepped and cut through it. They fought side by side, not needing words. Her teal arcs and his red strings crossed like a dance. By the time they paused, the place was covered in frozen shards and dissolving shadows.
The city below was a warzone. The Blood Sphere was almost complete, which was the size of an airplane.
Haruno sheathed her sword, exhaling.
"You know, for someone who says he isn't a hero…"
"I'm not. I just like good timing."
"Right. Good timing to cause an international panic. That sphere is massive."
The Blood Sphere trembled in the sky. Every drop of blood from the streets, the walls and the corpses all rose upward in tendrils, swirling into the massive sphere. Its color deepened from crimson to black-red, then began pulsing faster until it finally split open with a deafening sound, forming a portal made entirely of churning blood.
"That's… actually kind of beautiful," Haruno said, though her tone was more terrified than impressed.
Phaser exhaled, cracking his neck.
"Beautiful's one word for it. And we're supposed to jump into that."
"Would you rather stay here?"
"Fair point."
They were about to move when a sharp voice rang out from below.
"STOP RIGHT THERE!"
Both turned. Down the rooftops and around the., a squad of Officia Fluxers had appeared. Their uniforms were stained with soot and blood. Their Flux weapons were glowing with Xana. They aimed their swords and rifles upward, Xana gathering in their hands.
"Identify yourselves! Are you with the Officia?!"
Phaser sighed audibly and pinched the bridge of his nose.
"Here we go…"
Another Fluxer shouted, "We saw you fighting the Faceless! Who are you—?!"
Phaser raised his hands. His strings shimmered faintly around him like a halo. He pointed to the writhing mass of Faceless below, frozen and bound in his threads.
"Listen carefully. We're not your enemies. But those are not dead. They can't die. You need to immobilize them before they wake up again."
The Officia Fluxers hesitated, glancing between the strings and the shadowed monsters wriggling beneath the frost.
"They can shapeshift too. They can copy the faces, voices, and intelligence of whoever they've eaten. If one of them starts calling for help and sounds like your partner, don't listen. Run."
One Fluxer muttered under his breath.
"How the hell do you know all that?"
Phaser didn't answer. He simply tugged his right hand, and the frozen Faceless cracked, blood and ice shattering across the plaza in grotesque beauty. His strings vanished but the Faceless began to regenerate once again. Beside him, Haruno sighed.
"They're not going to listen, are they?"
"Nope."
"Then leave it to me."
She stepped forward and slightly unsheathed her odachi. The moment the blade slightly left its sheath, a blinding teal light erupted from it filled the entire plaza. The Fluxers below cursed, throwing up their arms to shield their eyes as the teal radiance swept across the area.
"Hey! Wait! What the hell—"
But by the time the light faded, the two masked figures were gone. The blood portal that had floated before them had vanished like it had never existed. The lead Fluxer lowered his weapon slowly, scanning the rooftops.
"Where did they go?"
Another Fluxer, a woman with blood on her cheek, shook her head.
"No idea. But whatever they did, it worked. Those monsters were converging on this side of the city because of them. Now they're all stuck."
The leader looked at the frozen Faceless and clenched his jaw.
"If it wasn't for those two, this district would have been overrun. Start securing the area. Immobilize the remaining ones. Don't try to kill them. If what that man said is true, they'll just come back."
As the Fluxers moved, one of them glanced up again at the empty rooftops.
"Who were they, anyway?"
No one answered.
But later that day, whispers spread through the Officia ranks. The rumors narrated of two masked figures who fought alongside no banner, wielding power beyond normal limits. The two ghosts saved a quadrant of Rome without asking for credit or revealing their names.
They called them many things like rogues, vigilantes, outlaws, but one title stuck.
The Vigilante Rogues.