The solution to the Oni Lee problem turned out to be surprisingly simple. In theory, anyway.
In practice, it still involved Taylor walking into ABB territory carrying a containment foam canister and hoping she survived long enough to use it.
Still, compared to some of the alternatives she had imagined, it was almost reasonable.
Apparently Oni Lee's teleportation depended on line of sight.
Once Armsmaster explained it, that felt annoyingly obvious. Take away his ability to see where he was going, and suddenly the teleporting murder ninja became a lot less mobile. Simple, or it should have been. Bakuda was a Tinker, and Oni Lee had worked alongside her for months at least. The possibility that his mask included protection against bright lights, smoke, or other obvious counters had come up almost immediately. So they had gone with a different option.
Containment foam. Specifically, a compact canister that Armsmaster had handed over personally.
Taylor turned the canister over in her hands while Armsmaster explained its operation.
It was smaller than she expected, though apparently powerful enough that she was beginning to wonder why they trusted her with it.
"The objective is to obstruct his vision," Armsmaster said.
Taylor looked down at the canister, then back at Armsmaster. Right.
She was not an expert on containment foam, but she was fairly certain that if she threw this thing directly at Oni Lee's face, and it detonated properly, there was a very real possibility that he would stop having several other important functions, too. But Taylor wisely kept that observation to herself.
She still had to bite the inside of her cheek to keep from laughing. After all, the PRT had spent the entire morning pretending nobody was discussing what happened after Oni Lee went down. Now Armsmaster was handing her something that could easily turn a head into a foam sculpture.
Taylor wasn't sure what conclusion she was supposed to draw from that.
"Do you understand the plan?" Armsmaster asked.
"Blind Oni Lee and deal with Lung."
"Temporarily incapacitate Oni Lee."
Taylor nodded. "Right. Blind him."
Armsmaster's eye twitched slightly behind his visor, and Miss Militia looked away. Taylor suspected she was hiding a smile.
The briefing wrapped up shortly afterward. There was no dramatic speech or last-minute encouragement, just final instructions and reminders she had already heard twice.
Eventually there was nothing left to discuss.
Taylor slipped the containment foam canister into her pocket and stood. Armsmaster gave a single nod, Miss Militia wished her luck, while Director Piggot looked like she was reconsidering every decision that had led to this moment. Ignoring that, Taylor turned toward her dad.
He looked paler than he had that morning.
She stepped forward and hugged him, and he hugged her back immediately, holding on a little longer than usual.
"I'll be fine," Taylor said when they pulled apart.
Her dad made a face that suggested he wasn't convinced, but neither of them said anything else. There wasn't much point.
With that, Taylor waved toward the assembled PRT personnel, adjusted the canister hidden on her person, and headed for the exit.
ABB territory was waiting for her again.
Oni Lee was unpredictable.
Taylor had accepted that several dozen deaths ago.
Trying to predict him was a waste of time. Every time she thought she understood how he operated, he found some new and inventive way to kill her.
Fortunately, she didn't need to predict him. She only needed to know where he'd be, and that part had become surprisingly easy.
After enough loops, certain patterns became impossible to ignore. Lung slept in the same building, and Oni Lee stayed nearby. More specifically, he spent most of his time on the roof, watching over the area with the sort of vigilance that raised more questions than answers.
Was it loyalty, professional obligation, or friendship? Taylor had no idea, nor did she particularly care. What mattered was that Lung had become a weakness.
The realization had come to her after several failed attempts to sneak into the building, even late at night when everybody was indoors. For all of Oni Lee's paranoia, he reacted far more aggressively to potential threats against Lung than threats against himself.
Which gave her an idea.
Standing across the street from the building, Taylor bent down and picked up a stone.
She weighed it briefly before drawing her arm back and throwing it. The stone shot upward, arcing toward one of the upper-floor windows.
Taylor began counting, and before she could reach four, Oni Lee appeared..
One moment the rooftop was empty. The next he stood between the stone and its destination, knocking it aside with a casual swat of his hand before vanishing again.
Then he was in front of her.
Taylor had enough time to register the knife. After that, there was only pain and blessed darkness.
Taylor awoke with a sharp inhale.
Three seconds.
Three seconds from the moment the stone left her hand to the moment Oni Lee appeared.
Taylor smiled. "Got you."
The next loop went much faster.
She already knew where to stand, where to aim, and how long she had.
Taylor pulled the activation pin, took a breath, and threw it. The canister followed almost the same arc as the stone, climbing toward Lung's window.
Taylor began counting, and on the third count, Oni Lee appeared. But the moment his hand moved to intercept the incoming object, the canister detonated, and containment foam erupted outward.
There was no time for him to react as his head and upper torso disappeared beneath a rapidly expanding mass of hardened foam.
For the first time since Taylor had met him, Oni Lee looked genuinely powerless. And with no way to teleport, he could do nothing but fall.
The impact when he hit the pavement below was loud enough to make Taylor wince.
"Huh," she said.
That had worked considerably better than expected.
Still, she made her way over cautiously. The corpse remained very dead, and after a moment's hesitation, she crouched beside it and removed one of the knives strapped to his gear.
She slid it into her pocket, then she turned toward the building.
Without Oni Lee, nobody stopped her.
The stairwell was quiet. The hallways were quiet. As a matter of fact, the entire building felt strangely empty after how much trouble it had caused her. Eventually she reached the apartment she was looking for.
The door opened without resistance.
Inside, Lung slept.
Taylor stood in the doorway for several seconds, staring at him.
After everything. After the deaths, the fire, and Oni Lee, it felt almost ridiculous.
Slowly, she stepped forward, knife in hand.
For a moment she found herself waiting for something. Hesitation, doubt, anything. But nothing came.
She brought the knife down.
Lung never woke up. And when it was over, the feared leader of the ABB looked far less like a monster and far more like a man.
In a way, his death had been almost anticlimactic.