Chapter Text
Lara - Tomb of Himiko - Yamatai
The tomb is dying. Stone cracking, dust in frantic bursts into the air. Ceiling slabs vibrating, screaming against their own weight, then thundering down, destroying everything they struck. Lara pressed her spine to the wall, boots braced on fracturing stone. Her lungs laboured, throat raw from coughing. Vogel lays at her feet, right leg pinned under a broken column. Blood staining his trouser at the shin. The rest of him—the hands, the face—remain blank, showing no pain.
"Leave. You won”, he says bitterly.
Lara's gaze shifts from his trapped leg to the ceiling fractures spreading like veins above them. If this is winning, she’s not sure she wants it.
"This isn't about winning," she says, reaching for the small bag visible in his shirt pocket, containing Himiko's finger.
His hand snaps around her wrist with unexpected strength. Their eyes lock.
"This or you’re life," Lara says, voice steady. "Choose."
They both understood the maths: the tomb is caving, the crack over their heads widening with every impact. Seconds matter, soon they’d both be dead.
Vogel's eyes narrow, something cold and grudgingly respectful flickering across his face. His fingers uncurl from her wrist. Lara doesn't wait. She plucks the bag from his pocket and hurls it into the darkness where the tomb swallows it. She measures the weight of the fallen column with her eyes, traces the split where she could wedge the head of the climbing axe.
She lowers herself, knees protesting as she drops to a crouch over him. Vogel’s gaze slides up to her, sharp. He says nothing, offers her nothing, only that flicker—a tightening at the corners of his mouth, Permission. Or maybe a dare.
She doesn’t hesitate. With the pick axes spike aligned to crack, she drives it in with a fast, mean jab. She grips the handle with both hands, boots planted, and pries. The muscles in her arms scream. The world above her moves- another slab falls down, somewhere deeper in the tomb, sending a tremor through the floor. She presses her weight forward, teeth grinding. The column creaks and shifts a fraction. Vogel’s eyes narrow, knuckles whitening. He gives her one curt nod.
She bares down, legs and shoulders locking, sweat sticking the dust to her skin. The axe’s half bent, nearly breaking, and then the stone lurches, rolling just enough to free his leg. She snatches back before the column can settle on her own foot. Vogel drags himself clear, jaw clenched tight, breath hissing between the break of his lips. Lara grabs his collar and hauls him upright. His face is a grey mask. He doesn’t thank her.
They move. Vogel’s good arm slung over her shoulders. Lara moves them both, hunched, through the tunnel of crumbling tomb. Dust billows, dry, coating her tongue. They keep moving forward, half-running, half-falling.
At the last bend, they meet the final obstacle: a tangle of fallen beams. Lara drops first, slipping under the largest, and then bracing herself, reaching back. Vogel hesitates. She locked eyes with him, hard, as if to say: “we don’t have time for this.”
He relents, hands her his weight, and they drag through together. The ceiling sheds pebbles, then fist-sized stones. She hears the tomb rattle, feels the vibration through her teeth. Vogel’s boots scrape the floor, trailing a smear of blood. They stumble into the airless antechamber, half-collapsed, sunlight visible as a slot through the debris. Lara squints, coughs twice. Behind them, the tomb shrieks its final protest, then the passage seals itself with a roar, stones settling in a permanently.
She doesn’t look back at him until her vision clears. His face expressionless, saying nothing and everything all at once. She gets to her feet and offers him her shoulder again.
He takes it and together they limp toward the gap of freedom. No words. Only breath.
________
The world outside emerges. Sunlight blinds at Lara’s eyes.
They surface together through the shattered stone, then brace against a boulder. The jungle in all directions: leaves and vines, crawling with insects. A bird screams overhead.
Vogel leans against the rock, one arm clutching his wounded leg, the other rigid at his side. More Blood has soaked through his trousers but his hands are steady, fingers against the holster at his hip. He draws a long, slow breath and exhales, setting his jaw. Lara stands two meters off, hands splayed on her thighs, bent at the waist to steady her heartbeat. Every muscle aches, skin raw from the debris. It takes a full minute before her vision stops blurring.
Vogel’s eyes flicker to her. “Be careful who you trust, Lara” he says. His voice steady.
Lara straightens, wiping sweat from her cheek with the back of her wrist. The words prickle, but she lets them hang between them. She watches him, waiting for more, but there's nothing. The wind picks up, pushing humid air through the trees, making them sway. The sound of helicopter rotors grows louder. Vogel shifts his weight, then gestures with his chin to the side.
“Hide,” he says, monotone, “They’ll kill you if they see you.”
Lara makes for jungle line canopy, flattens herself, head low, breath shallow. She feels the vibrations in her teeth before she sees the chopper.
It clears the jungle canopy, black paint gleaming through the green jungle. A second follows, then a third, following it like a pack. They circle, engines screaming, then one peels off and hovers above the shelf of rock. Vogel rises, straightening the collar of his shirt, and wiping a streak of blood from his lip. He does not look Lara’s way. He squares his shoulders. His stance—despite the wounded leg—still has command.
The soldiers come in fast, their boots hard on the rock. Four of them—black body armour, faces behind smoked visors, rifles pointed in every direction at once. The first reaches Vogel in two strides. From what Lara can see from behind her hiding place, they speak in a code of clipped gestures. One soldier kneels and applies a tourniquet to Vogel’s leg. Another circles behind, sweeping the tree line with a shotgun. A third watches the air, index finger pressed to his helmet’s comms. The fourth unpacks a harness, strapping it around Vogel’s torso.
He doesn’t resist.
They move with speed. Within seconds, the harness line snakes from the belly of the chopper. The lead soldier snaps on and signals up. The winch starts, and Vogel’s feet leave the ground, jolting him upwards. At the apex of the lift, Vogel turns his head. Just once. His eyes sweeping the jungle line, the shadow where Lara’s hiding. He stares, the look lingering long enough to confirm a message: this isn’t over.
Then the rope yanks him skyward. The soldiers follow in two-man teams, each pair vanishing into the helicopter. Seconds later, the chopper rises, spins and moves west, trailing noise. Lara waits. Counts to thirty. Only then does she let her muscles unlock, her releasing her breath. She watches the empty sky until the sound of engines fade.
When she finally emerges, the jungle is still. The only sign of their presence: footprints in the mud, and a faint smell of fuel in the air.
Lara squints into the sun. She wipes her mouth, then she starts walking.