The ninth district of Skyhaven bathed beneath the moon's indifferent gaze.
Rain hammered against the streets and paths as each droplet splaterred furiously onto the ground.
In a narrow alley between a small little brothel and a noodle shop, a figure lay sprawled in a growing and almost endless pool of crimson.
Blood spilled from the wound in his stomach, flowing onto the ground mixing with rainwater and waste.
The gash was deeply brutal.
His intestines were visible through his torn flesh, glistening pink and gray in the dim light. His breathing came in wet and ragged gasps.
Footsteps echoed in the alleyways.
A man approached.
He was unhurried, hands gripping a handle. A white umbrella shielded him from the downpour, casting his features in the moonlight illumination. A deer mask covered his face—white porcelain with empty eye sockets and antlers that stretched to the sky.His black trench coat hung loose—flying at his back, one hand tucked casually into his pocket.
He stopped beside the dying figure and crouched down, tilting the umbrella just enough to keep the rain off both of them.
"Is this it?" The voice behind the mask was soft, almost curious. "Is this all you could do? This all you are?"
The wounded man tried to respond. You could see it. His bloodied jaw moved, lips parting. But nothing came out
Nothing but a wet gurgle. His vocal cords were ruined, torn or crushed. Almost impossible to tell which anymore.
"The so-called strongest assassin." The masked figure tilted his head, studying the man like one might study an insect. "Prime."
He let the word land.
Prime. The slaughterer of men. The worlds most reliable assasin.
"The most powerful killer in the world. And here you are, choking on your own blood in a Skyhaven gutter."
Prime's hand twitched. He wanted to speak, to curse, to do something to this bastard. But nothing came out. Instead more blood bubbled up his throat instead, making him spit out more.
The masked figure, tucked his hands inside his coat and produced a gun from within. The glock 45 shone in the moonlight, highlighting all its features.
"Goodbye, Prime."
And the shot rang.
The shot was quiet, almost polite. A whisper compared to the storm.
Prime felt the impact more than heard it. His vision blurred, consciousness fragmenting like shattered glass as it dimmed in each growing second.
Images flickered through his mind like a film tape. Images of a small house with paper walls, his mother's face, his younger brother's laughter.
They all converged like a tidal wave ready to swallow him whole.
He'd never been sentimental.
Not even when he watched his father die.
Emotions were tools, useful when necessary, discarded when not. Fear, regret and sorrow—he understood them all intellectually, could even display them when a contract required it. But genuine attachment? That had been banished long ago.
Still, as the darkness closed in, and he continued reaching ever closer to death he felt something. Not quite sadness. Perhaps... acknowledgment. Of what had been. Of what wouldn't be. Of what it could have been if he had knew his limits.
'So this is how it ends.' He thought.
This is how the prime dies. In a run down alleyway in Skyhaven most infamous district.
Just the thought of it almost made him laugh.
Sigh. If only I was able to choose the way I die.
With the darkness closing in and him already on the verge of deat, impossibly, words materialized in his fading vision.
[SYSTEM GENERATED]
[INITIALIZING...]
[INITIALIZING...]
What the hell?
Everything went black.
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
The room was converged with the smell of incense and blood as paper walls filtered moonlight into soft squares across tatami mats.
A woman lay on a bed, soaked with sweat and fluid, her traditional robes disheveled with her face pale but somehow peaceful. In her trembling arms, she held onto a newborn, cradling him in her pale yet warm embrace.
The child was small, wrinkled, impossibly fragile.
Her husband watched from the doorway. He was a large man—most likely 6ft4 with broad-shoulders and a thick black mustache that curved over his upper lip. Scars marked his knuckles and forearms in earnest—the hands of someone who'd worked hard his entire life.
His expression was unreadable, but his greg eyes... his eyes held something he had rarely in his life allowed himself to feel.
The woman looked up at him, heemr eyes exhausted but glistening. She smiled as ahe whispered. "Our son,"
He stepped forward, his bare feet slamming on the ground, his footsteps careful but deliberate. When he knelt beside them both, his calloused hand reached out to touch the child's tiny fist.
"The first child of the fukuhara clan," he said quietly.
The baby's fingers curled around his thumb.
Meanwhile inside the child something bloomed.
Not a soul..
Not quite.
It was different. Something other..