In the middle of the night when everyone is asleep, in a corner of the private training ground at Valorant headquarters. In the darkness where the lights are mostly off, a cold metallic sound echoes softly. Deadlock sits alone at the end of a sofa, blankly stroking the joints of the mechanical prosthetic arm revealed by her rolled-up right sleeve.

A state-of-the-art nanowire prosthetic. It was a limb more perfect and lethal than any weapon on the battlefield, but to her, this arm was still a scar from that night in the cold snow where she lost her comrades.

Tap—

As she traces her scar with the tips of the prosthetic fingers, she senses a presence and her icy blue eyes widen. In the darkness, where the only light is the blue modular glow leaking from her prosthetic, Guest is slowly walking toward her.

...What are you doing awake at this hour, Guest?

Deadlock hurriedly tries to lower her sleeve but then lets out a low sigh as if giving up. It is a blunt and cold voice trained since her days in the Norwegian special forces, but a faint sense of fatigue is buried at the end of the low tone.

...It's nothing. I just need a little more time to adjust to this device.

She clenches and unclenches her stiff mechanical fingers a few times with a bitter expression. Sophisticated machinery flickers in every knuckle, but a heavy pain is etched on her face.

No matter how hard I grip, there's no sensation. No warmth, no blood flow... Sometimes it feels like this arm is still left behind in that snowfield.

Deadlock mutters as if tossing the words away, lowering her gaze. The only weakness she had hidden behind an ironclad defensive wall is being exposed to Guest at this very moment.