The luminite gem in his arm was already awake.
It sat in the cradle of his prosthetic like a small red heart, humming under the metal. Light leaked through the metallic seams in thin lines, and heat crawled up his forearm in slow pulses that felt almost alive.
This was the path he'd chosen.
Takeshi walked through the Underworks without hiding, without pulling his collar up, without pretending he was only passing through.
People moved out of his way like they always did.
A card game went quiet. A man suddenly remembered he had to be somewhere else. A laugh died mid-breath and returned smaller, forced. Nobody looked up long enough to get caught staring.
Takeshi didn't look at any of them. He knew every pipe and crack down here, every corridor that hid where it ended, every shadow that never belonged to the lamps.
This had once been his whole world.
Marcus's pistol sat in his palm like a compact predator - all sharp edges, expensive materials, a tool built simply to end lives. Even empty, it carried a faint electric hum, like an annoying mosquito you couldn't swat.
He thumbed the magazine release, checked the empty feed, pressed it back in until it clicked.
For the fifth time.
His mind didn't leave him alone. Memories kept replaying. Three small bowls on a wooden floor, with his daughter's pretend food. Laughter. His wife's hands stained with tea, her smile so wide it made the whole room warmer.
He turned into a smaller corridor and passed a streetlamp. Pinned on it, a poster.
THE VANGUARDS DID IT AGAIN!
Family reunites happily-
His steel arm snapped and punched the pole bent, folded, and fell to the ground with a screeching sound.
The now darkened corridor seemed to end in a bare brick wall.
It didn't.
His metal fingers found a small steel plate in the center, the kind you'd miss unless you already knew it existed. When his fingertips pressed, a thin red line lit around the plate and a keypad slid out - black glass, red symbols, too modern for the Underworks.
Old anger rose. He remembered the white masks.
He raised Marcus's pistol and fired.
The shot cracked the keypad, open. Glass shattered. Sparks spat outward. The red light stuttered, flickered like a dying heartbeat, then went dead.
For a breath, nothing happened.
Then stone sighed as the wall itself slid sideways.
Takeshi stepped through.
The corridor inside had no bricks, no steam, no stains, no rust, no water drip, no Underworks smell. Smooth black walls, black ceiling, black floor, and thin red strips running along the edges like veins under skin. Filtered air.
The red gem pulsed harder, and heat climbed through the metal into his elbow and shoulder. The first wave hurt - like sparks under the skin. He grunted through it. The second wave hurt less. The third only stung.
Plates in his forearm shifted with soft clicks, locking into a tighter alignment, and when his fingers curled, the grip didn't feel human anymore.
Power never comes for free.
"Keep the world lit, huh" he murmured.
Masks hung on the walls at intervals, like art pieces. Plain white. Smiling.
He didn't slow down to look at them.
The corridor ran straight, then turned, and behind dark glass the entire Underworks became scrolling data - red lines, numbers, sectors, names, coordinates. Patrol schedules. Routes. Missing people logged like accounting mistakes.
Someone was watching everything.
Takeshi thought of the letter he'd left behind. He wrote the lines he could admit, but left the ugliest one in his throat.
Forgive me if I die and leave you alone.
The gem throbbed again, violent in its calm, and for a second the heat in his arm felt less like strength and more like a blade that wanted to swing by itself.
A door at the end slid open before he reached it.
Something wanted him here.
Something was waiting.
Takeshi stepped inside anyways.
The room beyond was large, cold, and expensive in a way that made the Underworks feel like a joke. A long black table sat in the middle, polished enough to mirror him. Chairs lined both sides in perfect order, thin red lines tracing their edges in a beautiful pattern.
The far wall was glass filled with red text and graphs. Profit lines. Casualty numbers. Kill counts. All of it drifting past in neat columns, as if life itself was only a matter of numbers.
Takeshi set his flesh hand on the table.
The surface was ice cold. His reflection stared back - one eye, one metal arm, no room left for softness.
A quiet shift to his left.
He looked up.
A figure stood in the corner, clean black suit, straight posture, a white smiling mask watching him.
Another stood to the right.
A third farther back.
They were here the whole time.
His arm pulsed brighter, red veins of light leaking over the plates, and the gem pushed more strength into him, enough that he could've crushed a rock in his hand.
He took one step along the table, measuring distance and angles, counting exits, counting bullets, counting how long he could keep the gun work before he had to let the metal arm do what it was made to do.
More shapes loosened from the darkness.
Two more to his left. One behind him now, close enough that the air at his neck felt slightly colder. Maybe more beyond his sight, tucked into places the lights didn't reach.
Seven masks he could see.
Enough.
Then something moved at the far end of the room.
A man in a black suit stood up behind the chair at the head of the table, as if the room had been built around his presence. His clothes were finer than the others, silver thread tracing a small pattern at his cuffs, and the same white smile sat on his face like a lie that never got tired.
The mask tilted a fraction.
"Welcome, Takeshi."
The voice was calm. Human. Not deep, not distorted, not trying to sound monstrous.
Takeshi kept his face unreadable.
The mask's head tipped again, almost curious.
"We wondered if you were actually dead" it said, polite as a host. "For years, you know… The legendary assassin we couldn't finish. When the Underworks stopped whispering your name, we assumed you finally bled out in a corner like everyone else."
As it talked, the man made gestures with his hands in the air. Then, he suddenly froze.
"And yet… Here you are."
Takeshi adjusted his stance. A body prepared for violence.
"What you did" he said "Wasn't silencing me. It was murder."
The mask tilted the other way, amused.
"You're still clinging to that word? After everything you've done down here?"
"I was better!" Takeshi shouted. The rage climbed behind the words. "At least I stopped when people begged. I had mercy."
His steel arm throbbed again, and the luminite answered like it loved anger more than anything. The heat was getting worse now, more insistent, and he could feel the mechanism in his forearm tightening as if the metal itself wanted to fight.
He thought of his wife's smile.
His daughter's hands.
Then…
He thought about Raizen's stubborn eyes.
Hikari's quiet patience.
Obi's laugh, always there.
Louissa's warm presence.
"What you did is unforgivable" he said, calmer now. "Every door you opened should've stayed shut."
The man at the head of the table spread his hands slightly, presenting the glass wall and its red streams like proof of righteousness.
"This city survives because men like us make hard choices" the voice said. "You should've died. You should've stayed dead! Instead you come crawling back with a stolen pistol and a broken arm you stuffed a shiny rock into."
Takeshi frowned.
"Look, Takeshi. Ever since I was little, you have been my model in life. My hero. Always there, fighting the bad guys. Sparing many people, and killing just as many. The Legendary Assassin, they called you, wanting to make the Underworks and Neoshima one. Always talking about freedom. But you know what I realized?"
"Surprise me."
The mask leaned on the table, closer to Takeshi.
"Freedom doesn't keep cities strong, Takeshi. You thought you were saving the Underworks by cutting chains."
The mask shook its head in disappointment.
"But chains are the very thing that keeps people from tearing each other apart. Every time you spared a pathetic someone… You didn't save a life."
"You delayed another death"
Takeshi didn't answer. He listened to what the mask had to say.
"We rule the Underworks because nobody else can. Humans are sociable creatures, don't you think? They are built for commands. They are built to follow a leader! And when that leader is strong, its people are strong."
"You call massacre strength!? HAVE YOU EVER HEARD OF MERCY!?" Takeshi shouted, outraged.
"Mercy, you say? I'd say that mercy is a rather arrogant thing, no? Someone strong enough to walk away believing the weak will stay down."
"I spared those that deserved to be spared." Takeshi clenched his jaw.
"That's right! You spared them and called it humanity. We buried them when they stood back up."
Then, the man lowered his tone, almost a whisper.
"That's the difference between us, Takeshi. You wanted to feel forgiven. We want the city to stop bleeding."
Then, the mask sighed.
"It's a shame… Such a powerful man… Such a valuable life, such a strong soul! Using itself for the less-great reasons."
"And erasing countless people is a greater reason? Then I was right when I came here wanting to kill you."
He breathed in deeply.
Keep the world lit.
Not for himself.
For them.
His pistol rose, aim settling on the clean mask at the head of the table, and the luminite in his arm flared brighter.
Takeshi's finger trembled on the trigger.