Mayumi Kurokawa's Arc

Chapter 3 of 3

Mayumi stood on the rooftop when her phone buzzed with alerts from three different zones. Three distinct signals, three separate creatures, all converging on the waterfront at the same moment. She checked the timestamps twice. Not staggered arrivals. Simultaneous. She moved fast, cutting through the industrial sector toward the waterfront. The cement beneath her feet showed fresh marks—massive gouges carved deep into the surface, all angled in the same direction. Three sets of claw marks, three different sizes, all pointing toward the water. She crouched beside the deepest set and traced the edge with her finger. The concrete was still warm. These creatures had moved together, coordinated. They weren't hunting alone anymore. The warehouse sat at the convergence point, its metal roof split into three jagged sections like something had torn it apart from above. Wooden crates lay scattered across the rubble in a pattern that made her pause. Not random destruction. The crates formed a rough circle around the building's center, each one positioned at equal distances. She stepped inside and found the floor unmarked. Whatever had happened here, the monsters hadn't been fighting. They'd been meeting. Mayumi pulled out her phone and photographed the arrangement, then added new markers to her map—not hunting zones this time, but gathering points. If monsters were organizing, she'd need to track their assembly patterns the same way she tracked their feeding routes. One more system to build. One more way to map the threat.