Night settled over the bridge like a thick, gray blanket. The river murmured beneath them, carrying the occasional shimmer of moonlight. The fire crackled softly, the only real sound aside from their measured breathing.
24 sat across from Lu, long blade across his lap, eyes scanning the darkness beyond the firelight.
"They'll most likely move when we sleep," he said quietly, almost conversational, "if they want to test us."
Lu's masked face tilted toward him. "And what do I do?"
He leaned back on his elbows, expression unreadable. "You leave. Quietly. Your job is to take out the three you spotted today — without a sound, without leaving a trace."
"And if I succeed?"
"We stay. Keep training. If you fail…" He let the words hang, low and sharp. "…we move to the next destination immediately."
Lu's pulse quickened, but she nodded. She'd trained for this. She knew the stakes.
The hours crawled past, the fire dwindling to glowing embers. Finally, she slipped from the shadows, moving with careful, measured steps, every sense focused on the patrol she had marked earlier.
The first two went down almost without a whisper. Lu's hands were steady, her breath controlled. Every motion precise, every strike lethal.
By the time she reached the third, the patrolman's shifting weight betrayed him. He saw her at the last instant. The clash was brief, brutal — a flinch, a grunt, a struggle. But she didn't falter. The third man collapsed in silence, and the night swallowed his body as she melted back into the darkness.
24 was waiting.
From his vantage point, he had already eliminated the other two — the ones Lu hadn't spotted. Their bodies lay still, hidden among the shadows, no movement, no sound.
When Lu returned, the riverbank looked untouched, firelight flickering against her tense silhouette.
"You did it," 24 said, voice even but carrying a faint note of approval. "The other two wouldn't have lasted long anyway."
Lu exhaled sharply, leaning against the embankment. "I… I almost got caught."
"You did get caught," he said calmly. "And you still finished the job."
She let the words sink in, the weight of the night pressing against her shoulders. "We stay?"
"We stay," 24 confirmed. "And we train again tomorrow."
For a moment, they simply watched the river, listening to the soft rush of water and the distant hum of the night.
Lu realized she was shaking slightly, exhaustion and adrenaline mixing, but she wasn't afraid. She wasn't terrified. Not while he was there.
"You make it look… easier than it is," she said quietly.
"I don't," he replied, voice flat. "You just haven't learned the consequences of failure yet."
She glanced at him through the mask. "I think I'm ready to learn."
"Then tomorrow, we start again," he said.
The fire died down further. Shadows stretched long beneath the bridge. And for the first time, Lu felt the weight of the lesson she had just survived — and understood that 24's teaching was never about glory. It was about survival.