SSS-Class Profession: The Path to Mastery
Chapter 259: Stand Down

Chapter 259: Stand Down

The fight didn’t just change.

It snapped.

Like a cable pulled too tight.

As soon as 3829 spoke, 3830’s hesitation died. Whatever restraint had lingered in her muscles vanished in an instant. Her body recoiled, twisted, and slammed her knee into his side with all the torque her frame could offer. The air shook.

3829 grunted. Not in pain. In acknowledgment.

His grip didn’t falter. He threw her.

Her body spun midair, catching herself against the edge of a tipped-over table. Metal screeched. She landed on her feet, crouched, bleeding. Her ribs ached, but her eyes burned brighter.

He advanced.

She met him halfway.

Their fists collided again and again—not as people, but as forces of pressure and purpose. He was stronger. Heavily reinforced. She could feel it in every clash. When her elbows slammed against his arms, they shuddered. But his didn’t stop. His momentum came like a tide, sweeping through.

And now that she was serious, he stopped holding back too.

The air shifted around him. Not with skill—with mass. With weight. He moved like a wall breaking free of its foundation. Every step left cracks. Every punch sent shockwaves through the floor.

He clipped her shoulder. Once.

She flew sideways, hitting a reinforced pillar. The breath left her lungs in a grunt, but she rolled off and kept moving. She couldn’t stop. If she stopped, he’d take over again. And this time, he wouldn’t underestimate her.

Another punch came. She ducked under it, slid across the floor, and tried to sweep his legs. He jumped. The floor cracked under his landing. A broken table skidded from the shock.

She sprang up—

But he was already there.

A shadow eclipsing motion. A machine already mid-swing.

His fist slammed into her gut with the force of a battering ram.

Air fled her lungs. Pain spiked white-hot through her spine. Blackness rimmed her vision, crawling inward like ink dropped in water. The world tilted. Tilted—and stayed wrong.

She staggered, coughed—and blood sprayed from her lips in a fine arc.

Her knees gave out. Bone hit tile. Her back arched reflexively, desperate for breath.

Another blow followed.

Downward. Merciless.

It struck between her shoulder blades like a steel press, slamming her to the floor. The impact cracked a tile beneath her cheek. Her ribs screamed. Her arms refused to move.

But she forced them anyway.

They shook. Buckled.

Still—she rose a fraction. Elbows trembling beneath her, like broken scaffolding trying to lift a collapsing building.

3829 said nothing.

He never did.

No taunts. No threats. No cruelty.

Just execution.

He stepped forward. Deliberate. Heavy. The weight of inevitability behind him. His shadow swallowed hers whole as he raised his arm for the final strike.

A single motion. Clean. Efficient.

The end.

She blinked blood out of one eye.

And then—she laughed.

Low. Bitter. Like a joke long forgotten had finally landed.

"You’re really proud of yourself, huh?" she rasped, voice torn at the edges.

He paused.

Something in her words—her tone, her breath, her refusal—rattled loose a shard of memory he’d buried beneath protocols.

Recognition wasn’t in his face. It was in the stillness. In the way machines sometimes hesitate, not because they doubt—but because something human is trying to surface beneath all the noise.

She rolled to her back, arms splayed like wings broken mid-flight, chest rising in sharp, ragged motions. Her fingers moved beneath her—not toward him, but toward something glinting in the wreckage.

"You think you’re machine and I’m human? Because my skills keep cutting out? Because your conditioning tells you that the government cannot fail and I’m just another loose end?"

Her tone wasn’t defiant. It was quiet. Worn thin.

Tired.

Not of him.

Of everything.

The silence that followed felt heavier than the blows.

He stood over her, unmoving.

She met his eyes—not with fear. Not even with anger.

Just truth.

"You don’t remember, do you? Years ago, back in the experimentation rooms, you asked me what my assigned job was. I told you it was pathetic."

She coughed again. More blood. She wiped it from her chin with the back of her hand.

"And it still is."

Her eyes narrowed—calm, focused.

"I’m a Secretary. C-rank. No combat skills. No stat boosts. No hidden passives. Just typing speed and memory retention."

His hand faltered.

Mid-air.

Frozen.

She smiled through bloody teeth.

"It means your precious title—the one that disables skills? It does nothing to me. Nothing at all."

A pause.

"And yet here you are, wasting energy maintaining it. Diverting attention. Burning fuel for no reason."

His fingers twitched.

She sat up a little straighter, pain flaring through her back.

"And while yes, your prosthetics make you stronger, they also make you slower. Reaction delay. Positional lag. Especially after what I’ve done to your joints."

She pointed vaguely toward his leg, then his shoulder—both showing subtle signs of malfunction. Micro-servos stuttering. Pressure regulators slightly off-sync.

"You’re carrying a fortress," she whispered, "but it’s collapsing under its own weight."

For a moment—

Just a heartbeat—

His stance loosened.

Not much. Just enough.

And that was all she needed.

Her hand flashed upward.

Not for a punch.

For the pistol she had palmed from the debris seconds ago.

She moved like lightning through glass.

The barrel pressed against his jaw before his system could even register a threat.

Click.

She was on her feet in the same breath.

Chest heaving. Legs trembling. Blood seeping through a dozen wounds. But upright. Alive.

Her hand didn’t shake.

"Stand down," she said, voice steady, gun unmoving. "You don’t have to be this."

His face was still blank—but his eyes, for once, weren’t.

A long silence. Thick with history. Memory. Ghosts.

Then—

"I have orders," he said.

His voice was rough. Slow. Like gravel poured through rusted gears.

"To capture you."

Her grip on the pistol twitched.

His head tilted.

"And I will—"

She pulled the trigger.

One shot.

Clean. Centered.

Final.

The sound cracked through the ruined cafeteria like thunder sealed in a box.

His head jerked violently to the side. The light in his eyes dimmed.

And for the first time, Subject 3829 fell.

His knees buckled. Metal scraped tile. His shoulders slumped forward, momentum gone. He collapsed face-first into the ground with a dull thud, arms spread like a marionette with its strings cut.

A wisp of smoke curled upward from the barrel of her gun.

3830 didn’t move.

Didn’t speak.

She just stood there.

Staring.

The pistol lowered slowly, the weight in her arm suddenly unbearable.

It fell from her fingers.

Clattered to the floor.

She dropped to her knees beside him.

Not out of pain.

But because her legs could no longer hold what was inside her.

She reached out with one hand—then stopped halfway.

It hovered, unsure of its purpose.

He was still warm.

That hurt more than anything.

Her face remained still. Controlled.

But her shoulders—

They began to shake.

Silent tears slipped down her cheeks. Unannounced. Unwelcome. Unstoppable.

They traced lines through the ash and blood on her skin, cutting paths only grief could carve.

She hadn’t cried in years.

Not when they branded her number.

Not when they cut her open.

Not when she watched others die behind glass.

But now—

Now she cried.

For him.

For herself.

For the children they once were, who used to whisper to each other in the dark between tests. Who dreamed of sky. Of freedom. Of escape.

For the man who never got to leave his orders behind.

For the girl who had to kill him.

And for the truth that even victory tasted like ash in a world where none of them had ever truly lived.