Chương 40: Prey

Earth - Downtown Restaurant District Himari untied her apron with exhausted hands, the lunch rush was finally over after five grueling hours of taking orders, serving food, and cleaning tables. The small family-owned ramen shop was always packed during the day, and her manager had been particularly demanding about perfect service for every customer.

"Good work today, Himari-chan," called out Mrs. Tanaka, the elderly owner.

"Same time tomorrow?"

"Yes, ma'am," Himari replied with a tired but genuine smile, folding her apron neatly and placing it in her small locker.

"See you then." She stepped out into the afternoon sunlight, her legs aching from being on her feet all day. This was her third job this week—convenience store mornings, restaurant afternoons, and sometimes evening shifts at a small grocery store when they needed extra help. The money barely covered her tiny studio apartment and basic necessities. As she walked toward the train station, Himari reflected on just how completely insane this past week had been.

Not long ago, she'd been just another struggling young woman trying to make ends meet. Her biggest concerns had been whether she could afford groceries after paying rent and if her landlord would notice that her heater was broken. Then came the meteor shower. At first, she'd thought the vivid double vision of being someone else was her overworked brain finally breaking. Working three jobs while barely sleeping would make anyone's mind play tricks, right? It was quickly evident she wasn't dreaming though.

In her other body she was Kira Shade—a master assassin capable of killing people with her strength and techniques that defied physics.

"Still can't believe it's real," she muttered under her breath, dodging around a group of businessmen heading to a late lunch. The contrast between her two lives was staggering. As Himari, she scraped together coins to buy instant ramen and worried about making rent. As Kira, she earned more in a single night than most people made in a year. The disconnect was so extreme it felt like living in two completely different planets. Well i guess thats exactly the case she thought.

When her mind was in Kira's body, Himari found herself thinking in terms of vulnerabilities, escape routes, and optimal strike points. It was like having a completely different personality overlay her consciousness.

"Two people, same soul," she whispered, shaking her head as she descended into the subway station. The train ride gave her time to think about Tim and Riku, and the more she observed them, the more convinced she became that she wasn't the only one dealing with dual existence. Himari noticed there were their moments of distraction. Both of them would occasionally zone out completely, their eyes unfocused as if their attention was somewhere else entirely.

At first, she'd assumed they were just daydreaming, but the pattern was too consistent, too synchronized. Most telling were their unconscious reactions. The way Riku would blush or get flustered when nothing obvious had happened in their immediate vicinity. How Tim would suddenly tense up or smile for no apparent reason. It was like they were responding to stimuli that existed outside their current environment.

"They're somewhere else too," Himari concluded as her train pulled into her station.

"It must be the cultivation world" she thought. The biggest clue had come during their first night at the dojo, when Tim had accidentally used cultivation terminology.

"Sect members take care of each other," he'd said, and both he and Riku had looked panicked for a moment. Their cover story about reading cultivation novels was plausible but seemed fake. Himari climbed the stairs from the subway platform, her mind working through the implications. If Tim and Riku were also dealing with split existence, it would explain so much about their behavior.

The intense chemistry between them despite the teacher-student taboo, the way they seemed to communicate without words, their accelerated progress in martial arts—it all pointed to something far more complex..

"The question is," she said to herself as she unlocked her small apartment door, "do I tell them I know?" As Kira, she could simply observe and gather information without revealing anything. Assassins were experts at maintaining cover identities and extracting secrets from targets. But as Himari, she genuinely cared about Tim and Riku as friends. If they were struggling with the same bizarre situation she was dealing with, maybe they could help each other.

She set her purse down and started getting ready for the evening's dojo training, changing into workout clothes while considering her options. The smart move would be to wait, watch, and learn more before revealing anything. But the kind move would be to offer support to people who might be as confused and overwhelmed as she was. Himari looked at herself in the small bathroom mirror, seeing the tired face of a young woman who worked too hard for too little money.

In a few hours, she'd be at the dojo with her friends, laughing and training and pretending everything was normal. Cultivation World - Shade Sect Hidden Facility Kira materialized from the shadows in one of Azure Sky City's most unremarkable buildings—a mid-level office complex that housed accounting firms and small businesses. To any observer, she was just another professional heading home after a long day. But the elevator she entered had buttons for floors that didn't officially exist.

She pressed her palm against what appeared to be a maintenance panel, and the elevator descended far below the building's foundation into the Shade Sect's urban headquarters. The facility was a masterwork of concealment and efficiency.

Carved directly into the bedrock beneath the city, it contained everything an assassin might need—weapons caches, information networks, training facilities, and most importantly for Kira's current needs, an extensive digital library with access to cultivation techniques from across the galaxy.

"Status report, Shade," came a bored voice from behind the reception desk. The clerk didn't look up from his holographic displays, his tone suggesting he'd processed hundreds of similar check-ins.

"Target eliminated. Clean termination, no complications," Kira replied, settling into one of the facility's research terminals.

"Requesting access to the archives. I need information on long-distance cultivation techniques." The clerk finally looked up, his eyebrows raised.

"Long-distance cultivation? That's some pretty restricted stuff. Going to cost you." Kira checked her status credits—the Shade Sect's internal currency earned through successful contracts. Three recent assassinations had left her with a substantial balance, but what she was looking for would be expensive.

"How expensive?" she asked.

"Depends on what you're after. Basic techniques start at fifty thousand credits. The really advanced stuff..." He pulled up a holographic price list that made Kira wince.

"Hundred thousand and up." She began her search through the vast digital archives, her enhanced consciousness sorting through thousands of cultivation manuals and theoretical treatises. Most of the long-distance techniques were designed for entirely different purposes—maintaining contact with distant disciples, coordinating attacks across star systems, or sharing qi between Dao paired cultivators. Then she found it, buried deep in a section marked "Theoretical Applications - Nascent Soul."

Cross-Dimensional Qi Cultivation: Shadow Channel Methods Originally developed for Nascent Soul cultivators capable of creating soul clones across vast distances. This technique allows the primary consciousness to channel qi directly to a secondary body through shadow realm connections. WARNING: Requires level 4 mastery of Shadow Dao and Golden Core level 1 minimum cultivation. Distance penalties apply - efficiency decreases exponentially with range.

The manual's description made Kira's heart race with possibility:"The fundamental principle relies on the shadow cast by one's dantian—an ethereal reflection that exists partially in the shadow realm. By achieving sufficient understanding of Shadow Dao, a cultivator can perceive this shadow dantian and establish a connection with its paired reflection in a secondary body. Qi channeled through this connection allows qi transfer over vast distances."

"Critical requirements: Both dantians must belong to the same soul essence. The secondary body must be capable of receiving and processing qi (intact dantian). Distance reduces efficiency - local connections maintain 90% efficiency, cross-star cluster drops to 60%, and galactic sector to sector connections may fall to as low as 1% efficiency." The price tag made her grimace: 150, 000 status credits. It would completely drain her accumulated earnings from several months of high-profile contracts.

"Fuck it," she muttered, authorizing the purchase. The story has been taken without consent; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident. The technique downloaded directly into her consciousness—not just text and diagrams, but the actual understanding burned into her mind through the sect's advanced neural interface technology. The knowledge felt alien and complex, requiring her to perceive her own dantian from an entirely new perspective.

According to the manual, the first step was achieving what it called "Shadow Sight"—the ability to perceive the shadow realm overlay that existed alongside normal reality. Luckily Kira's Dao of shadow was at that level. Kira moved to one of the facility's private cultivation chambers, a room specifically designed for advanced techniques. The walls were inscribed with formations that would contain any spiritual energy fluctuations and prevent detection from outside observers.

She settled into a meditation position and began the complex visualization required for Shadow Sight. Her dantian existed as a swirling core of golden qi just below her navel, but according to the technique, it also cast a "shadow" into the parallel dimension called the shadow realm. Hours passed as she struggled to perceive this shadow dantian. The manual warned that most Golden Core cultivators required weeks or months to achieve their first glimpse of the shadow rdantian.

But Kira's extensive experience with shadow-based techniques and the Dao of shadow gave her an advantage. Finally, after what felt like an eternity of focused meditation, she caught a glimpse of it—a dark reflection of her dantian that seemed to exist beyond. The shadow dantian pulsed with the same rhythm as her physical one, but it seemed more ethereal.

"Phase one complete," she breathed, exhaustion weighing on her despite her Golden Core stamina. The next step would be attempting to establish a connection with Himari's dantian across the intergalactic gap. According to the manual, this required her to project a tendril of shadow qi through the shadow realm toward the location where her other self existed, then anchor it to Himari's shadow Dantian. The manual warned that the first attempt had a high failure rate and could be dangerous if done incorrectly.

Channeling qi through shadow realm connections created strain on both the soul and the dantian that could result in permanent damage of the sender. But looking at the technique's potential benefits—the ability to cultivate as Himari using qi was worth it.

"Interdimensional qi transfer," she murmured, beginning the next phase of the technique.

"This better work." As Kira prepared for the dangerous qi transfer technique, fragments of memories flooded through her consciousness—not her own memories, but those belonging to the body she now inhabited. The knowledge came in painful flashes, each one hitting Himari's awareness like physical blows. A ten-year-old girl chained to a bed, her small body broken and bruised... The sound of heavy footsteps approaching her cell... Blood on silk sheets and the taste of fear...

Himari gasped in Kira's body, her hands shaking as the assassin's childhood memories merged with her own traumatic past. The parallels were devastating and undeniable. She remembered her own nightmare as Himari—the orphanage director who had seen her as more than just another abandoned child. The way he'd looked at her when she turned fourteen. The locked room where she'd learned that some monsters wore kind faces during the day.

Running away at sixteen with nothing but the clothes on her back, choosing the streets over that hell. But Kira's childhood had been worse. So much worse. The memories of Kira painted a picture of systematic brutality that made Himari's stomach churn. Kira had been sold into slavery at age eight, passed between various owners like property. By age twelve, she had learned to dissociate completely during the abuse, her mind floating somewhere far above her broken body while men used her however they pleased.

Then came the night that changed everything. Master Chen was particularly violent that evening, his hands around her throat as he— The lights went out. When they came back on, Master Chen was dead on the floor, his neck twisted at an impossible angle. Standing over his corpse was a woman in black leather, her face hidden behind a mask that seemed to absorb light itself.

"You have potential," the woman had said, her voice like silk over steel.

"Would you like to learn how to kill the monsters instead of being killed by them?" Himari felt tears streaming down Kira's face as the memories continued. The assassin who had saved twelve-year-old Kira was Master Lydia Vex, one of the Shade Sect's most legendary killers. She had taken the broken girl and forged her into a weapon of vengeance. The training had been brutal but purposeful. Every technique designed to turn trauma into power, pain into precision.

Kira learned to move through shadows, to kill without sound, to make predators fear the darkness they thought they owned.

"Your past is not your weakness," Master Vex had taught her.

"It is your greatest strength. You understand evil because you have survived it. You can destroy monsters because you know how they think." For sixteen years, Kira had been the perfect weapon. She hunted down slavers, predators, and those who trafficked in human misery when she wasn't killing for the sect. Each kill was cathartic, a small piece of justice in an unjust universe. Until just over a week ago. The memory of her final mission came flooding back with crystal clarity.

An assassination contract on a corrupt politician who ran trafficking rings under the cover of charity work. It wasn't a contract from a helping soul but by a company displeased with the politician. It should have been routine—slip in, eliminate the target, disappear. But it had been a trap. The target had somehow detected her approach, flooding the room with soul-destroying techniques that tore her consciousness apart. Kira's last memory was her soul being shredded into fragments. She should have died completely.

Should have ceased to exist. As the memories finished flooding through her consciousness, Himari sat in Kira's body, tears streaming down the assassin's pretty face. The weight of two broken childhoods pressed against her chest like a physical force—her own trauma at the orphanage and Kira's systematic brutalization that made her own suffering seem almost merciful by comparison. But beneath the shared pain, something else began to crystallize. A burning sense of purpose that belonged to both identities.

"You didn't die," Himari whispered to the empty cultivation chamber, her voice carrying Kira's deadly precision.

"You found me. Found us." The fragments of Kira's soul had scattered. But her body and purpose had been left to someone with compatible trauma, someone who understood what it meant to be prey. The meteor that had torn her soul in two had also provided a bridge between worlds—a chance for justice to continue where it had been cut short. Himari closed her eyes and felt the full weight of Kira's mission settling into her bones.

Sixteen years of hunting monsters, of making predators pay for their crimes, of turning trauma into a weapon that protected the innocent. It was more than just assassination contracts—it was a calling.

"Two worlds," she said aloud, her voice growing stronger.

"Twice as many monsters to hunt." She thought about Earth—her Earth—where predators like her orphanage director operated with impunity. Where traffickers moved children like cargo, where the powerful preyed on the weak, where justice was often just another commodity to be bought and sold. As Himari, she'd been powerless against such evil. A broke young woman working minimum-wage jobs, struggling just to survive.

She'd learned to make herself invisible, to avoid drawing attention, to accept that monsters would always win because they held all the power. But as Kira? As a Golden Core assassin with techniques that could phase through walls and kill without leaving traces? The powerful wouldn't be safe anymore. Not in either world.

"Kira," Himari said, addressing the memory of the body she now possessed.

"I promise you—your work won't end with your death. I'll carry it forward. In both worlds." As the weight of her renewed purpose settled into her bones, Himari turned her attention back to the Channeling technique. The manual's complex diagrams floated in her enhanced consciousness, showing the intricate pathways needed to project qi across the shadow realm.

She could feel Kira's muscle memory guiding her movements as she began the delicate process of extending qi into the shadow realm and taking a shortcut toward Earth. The technique required her to perceive both her current dantian and its shadow realm reflection simultaneously—a mental exercise that made her head throb with effort.

"Focus," she whispered, channeling Master Vex's training methodology.

"Pain is just information. Use it." The shadow realm overlay became clearer as she pushed deeper into the technique. She could see the dark reflection of her golden dantian, pulsing with cooler energy that seemed to exist in a realm of countless shadows. From this shadow core, she began to extend a thin tendril of qi, projecting it across the vast interdimensional gap toward Earth. The distance was staggering.

Even with her Golden Core cultivation, maintaining the connection across different parts of the galaxy created enormous strain. The manual had warned that intergalactic transfers could drop to as low as 1% efficiency, and she was feeling every bit of that loss. But after what felt like hours of painstaking effort, she felt it contact with Himari's developing dantian on Earth. The connection was fragile, barely more substantial than a silk thread, but it was real.

Earth - Himari's Apartment Himari had just finished changing into her workout clothes for the dojo and was sitting meditating when she suddenly gasped, doubling over as an unfamiliar sensation flooded through her body. It felt like liquid fire was slowly trickling into her chest, warming her from the inside out in ways she'd never experienced.

"Yes i did it?" she breathed, pressing her hand against her sternum where the sensation was strongest. The feeling was alien but not unpleasant. It like having warm honey poured directly into her core. She could sense something new inside her, a tiny wisp of qi that definitely hadn't been there moments before. It was minuscule compared to what she felt in Kira's body, barely a drop compared to an ocean, but it was unmistakably real.

Cultivation World - Shade Sect Facility"It's working," Kira whispered in amazement, though sweat beaded on her forehead from the enormous effort required to maintain the connection. The qi transfer was incredibly inefficient, she was pushing massive amounts of energy through the shadow realm channel, only to have a tiny fraction actually reach Himari's dantian. But even that small amount was enough to begin the cultivation process on Earth.

With practice and stronger Shadow Dao comprehension, she could gradually increase the efficiency of the transfers. But the strain was enormous. Even her Golden Core reserves were being rapidly depleted by maintaining the interdimensional link. She could only sustain this for a few more minutes before risking permanent damage to her cultivation base. Earth - Walking to the Dojo Himari made her way through the evening streets in a daze, the strange new energy in her chest pulsing with each heartbeat.

She'd tried to ignore it, to convince herself it was just stress or fatigue, but the sensation was growing stronger rather than fading. By the time she reached the dojo, she could actually feel the energy moving through her body in patterns that reminded her of the breathing exercises Master Kurokawa had taught them. It was as if her body was automatically beginning to circulate qi, even though such a thing should have been impossible on Earth.

"This is insane," she muttered, pushing open the dojo door.

"First soul-splitting, now actual cultivation. What's next?" She paused in the entryway, watching Tim and Riku already warming up on the mats. They were both moving with increased grace and power that confirmed her suspicions about their own dual existence. The bubbly, cheerful Himari personality reasserted itself as she bounced into the training area, but underneath her bright smile lay the cold purpose of an assassin who had just been given the tools she needed to hunt monsters in both worlds.

"Hey guys!" she called out with her usual enthusiasm.

"Ready for another fun night of Enforcement Elder Yui's torture session?" Tim and Riku looked up with answering grins, completely unaware that their friend had just taken the first step toward becoming one of the most dangerous beings on Earth. As they began their warm-up routine, Himari felt the tiny trickle of qi respond to the breathing exercises, circulating through pathways that should be bone dry in a qi-dead world.

The energy was minuscule—probably equivalent to a level 1 Qi Refining cultivator's first day of training—but it was growing.

"Soon," she thought with Kira's cold satisfaction while maintaining Himari's bright smile.

"Soon I'll be strong enough to start making things right." The monsters of Earth had no idea what was coming for them. But they would learn, one perfectly executed assassination at a time, that some prey eventually became predators.