The catacombs began with a narrow crevice behind a half-abandoned quarry in the village of Ilinka, outside Odessa. A rusted metal hatch opened into darkness. No sound except the echo of one's own footsteps, breath, and the occasional drip of water. The air was heavy — thick with limestone and mold.
Harada Akio moved slowly, silently. He no longer wore his kimono — just a plain gray European suit — but the grace in his movements remained. In his hand — a lantern. On his belt — a lacquered sheathed knife and a Smith & Wesson revolver.
Behind him, the hatch slammed shut. Only forward now.
Rabbi Zusya had sent him. Not by order — but with a request. And in that request, there was duty. Years ago, in the port of Nagasaki, Japanese officials had taken in Jewish refugees. Rabbi Zusya remembered.
“My grandfather once said: If one day a Japanese man reaches out to a Jew — hold that hand like a rope over the abyss,” Zusya had said. “Now we reach for yours.”
Harada didn’t ask questions. He already knew who might be ahead.
Sunhui.
They had crossed paths before. In another country. In another shadow. And once again, both hunted something best left untouched.
The catacombs narrowed. The stone swallowed sound.
The air changed. It smelled of iron. And something ancient.
He stopped. The beam from his lantern slipped ahead — someone was there.
Sunhui stood by an old portal built into the wall. Beside him — an opened metal capsule.
“You're late,” said the Chinese man, without hostility. “But I'm still here.” “I’m not here for the schematics,” Harada replied.
Support the creativity of authors by visiting the original site for this novel and more.
They fell silent. Somewhere deeper in the catacombs, something groaned — a heavy, metallic echo.
Then came the screech.
Something crawled from the dark. Hissing. Covered in plates. Made of metal and flesh. Veins of light ran beneath its skin. Not beast. Not machine. A malfunction. A memory. A weapon.
Harada shifted his stance, coat parting.
Sunhui drew his blade.
The thing leapt.
The flash of Harada’s revolver lit the corridor white. The echo slammed into their chests. The lantern flew from his hand.
For seconds, the muzzle flashes were the only light.
Sunhui’s blade carved into the creature’s joint — sparks flew. Harada ducked under a strike, slashed its throat — a stream of bubbling black fluid hissed against the wall.
The thing shrieked, its claws tearing into stone. Debris rained down.
Two men, two enemies, moved as one. Steel. Fire. Precision. Like the gears of a single, desperate machine.
Then — silence.
The beast collapsed, its weight cracking the floor.
Somewhere below — a deeper groan. The ceiling trembled. A part of the catacomb gave way, burying the capsule and the portal.
Dust exploded through the chamber, hurling them apart.
When the debris settled, all that remained was dim light, rubble, and breath.
Their eyes met.
“Next time,” said Sunhui. “Maybe,” Harada replied.
No threats. No rage. Just understanding. They had seen too much.
Harada didn’t surface immediately. The walls closed in. The air pressed. The stone remembered.
And then — a memory.
The cockpit of a micro-submarine.
Dark. The hum of steel. The stench of ozone and overheated circuitry.
Operation Shadow of the Emperor.
A suicide mission against the Chinese hydrocarrier Noble Emperor — a beast that lowered its ornithopters into the sea by crane and rained destruction from beyond the horizon.
They had to destroy it.
They went in small submersibles — steel coffins with throttles, forty minutes of air, and no return plan. Eight crews. Two survivors.
Harada was one.
He remembered the turbine stalling. The hiss of seawater rushing in. His body tangled in cables. The desperate push through twisted steel.
And then — the explosion.
The sky over the eastern sea bloomed white and gold. The carrier vanished in a wall of light.
The Chinese never knew where the strike came from. But Harada did.
And he knew, from that moment, he would never be the same.
Since then, he trusted no command. Only instinct.
And duty.
