Feitan didn't understand why she kept talking.
Her voice — hoarse, tired, human — scratched the walls like a rat trapped in a cage.
Questions, always questions.
As if every word could chip away at stone.
As if he were still something reachable.
"Have you ever been afraid to die?"
No.
Never.
Not since he'd stopped being alive in the human sense.
Feitan had answered her honestly.
But not out of respect: simply because it was easier that way.
Cut her off. Shut her up. Neutralize the verbal parasite.
"Death is better than weakness."
And he spoke from experience.
There are places in the world where dying is a luxury.
Where crying is punished.
Where silence is the only way not to end up in a black bag.
He had grown up there — in a sewer of blood and misery.
Feitan remembered.
Not because he cared, but because hate keeps memories alive.
A ruined village, lawless.
The sound of knives more familiar than a lullaby.
A language learned through blows and muddy hands.
A mother? Maybe.
A woman who had left him on the street with a broken name and a chipped bowl.
A father? Never seen.
Or maybe he was one of those men who spat at his feet and kicked him when he begged for food.
Love?
An invention.
A word the weak use to mask their fear of being left behind.
And that girl — Ayumi — still dared to believe in it.
In kindness. In goodness.
In human connection.
Feitan despised her for that.
Because she didn't know what it meant to choose emptiness.
To choose no bonds.
Because every bond is a blade held to the throat.
And yet, despite his cold answers, she insisted.
One after the other.
Words, words, words.
"You had someone once."
He stared at her.
Didn't reply.
Not because he couldn't remember.
Feitan remembered exactly the moment he stopped being a child.
It was the day he heard the first scream die in the throat of a man bigger than him.
That was when he understood: pain isn't something to fear.
It's a tool.
Feitan had never wanted to be loved.
He wanted to be untouchable.
Invisible.
Invulnerable.
And he had succeeded.
Until today.
But she…
kept looking at him.
Not like a monster.
But like a lost person.
It was unbearable.
He stepped forward.
His words came out sharp as nails:
"If your mother doesn't call within three hours… I'll tear you apart. It won't be quick. It won't be clean. And it won't be personal. Just… necessary."
Because that's how the world works.
You cut away what weighs you down.
You subtract what insists on existing without purpose.
And Feitan wouldn't feel a thing.
Because nothing was left inside him.
The blade was already at her throat.
Ayumi felt the metal's cold against her skin.
Not just any cold — the cold of death.
Sharp, perfect, irreversible.
His face — or rather, the mask — was so close she could feel his breath.
Calm. Rhythmic.
As if he were performing a routine task.
As if he were a surgeon making an incision, not an executioner delivering justice.
She screamed.
Not as strategy.
Not as bravery.
But out of instinct. Out of flesh. Out of love for her mother.
"Please! No! Don't do this! I don't want to die! Please!"
Knees on the floor, back against the wall.
Her trembling hands searched for space, air, mercy.
Feitan watched her silently.
For the first time in a long time… he was satisfied.
He didn't laugh. Didn't smile.
But the sight filled him with deep calm.
Order fulfilled.
Reality restored to balance.
She begged, crawled, clawed at the wall like a wounded insect.
Perfect, he thought. She finally understands.
The katana's tip was still, angled toward her skin, ready to slice.
Just a few centimeters. A single motion.
Then—
Quick steps in the hallway.
A knock on the door.
A voice:
"Stop. She paid. The mother called. She's free."
Silence.
Total.
Feitan remained motionless.
For a few seconds more.
Then he slowly pulled the blade away.
Slid it back into the sheath without a word.
No comment. No frustration. No obedience.
Just an interrupted execution.
He turned and left, leaving her collapsed on the floor, her heart still beating only by miracle.
Ayumi didn't understand immediately.
Reality still felt distorted, unreal.
Blood pounded in her ears like a drum.
She had stopped screaming only because her voice was gone.
Then the door opened again.
Two men entered.
"You're free. Go."
They didn't look at her. Said nothing else.
They tossed her backpack at her feet.
Her hands trembled too much to support her.
It took several minutes to stand.
To pull the bag onto her shoulders.
To truly believe it was over.
Feitan left the room without looking back.
Katana sheathed, steps slow, stripped of any residual emotion.
Ayumi, still on the ground, trembled like a leaf fallen into icy water.
The door had just closed, and silence flooded the space again.
Then—she heard a sound just outside.
A soft, metallic sound. Slow.
Something — instinct or pure terror — pushed her to move.
She crawled to the gap between the door and the wall.
And that's when she saw him.
Feitan.
Standing in the hallway, back turned.
He raised his hands to his face—
And took off the mask.
Ayumi caught his profile.
That face.
The shape of his eyes.
The way he stood still, like an animal watching its prey.
Time shattered.
She recognized him.
It wasn't a hallucination.
It wasn't déjà vu.
It was him.
The boy from the abandoned house.
The one she brought cookies to.
The one who had slammed the door in her face.
Feitan.
The world collapsed in an instant.
She covered her mouth.
A sob exploded inside her so violently she had to clamp her lips shut not to scream.
It was him. It had always been him.
Her tormentor.
Her executioner.
Her neighbor.
And suddenly, everything that had happened — the words, the threats, the blade at her throat — took on a new color.
Darker.
Crueler.
More personal.
He hadn't realized he'd been seen.
Feitan, as always, never believed anyone could truly see him.
But Ayumi had seen him.
And she would never forget.
Then… she started to run.
She never looked back.
She fled the building as if evil itself might still grab her and drag her back.
Barefoot, dirty, covered in bruises and cuts — but alive.
The abandoned building vanished behind her, swallowed by emptiness.
Outside… nothing.
Dry fields. Gray sky.
Wind slapping her face like icy fingers.
But it was wind.
It was freedom. It was life.
She ran until her legs gave out.
Got back up. Kept going.
She didn't know where she was.
She didn't know if anyone was out there.
But she was fleeing him.
From those eyes.
From that voice.
From that mask.
Inside her, one single thought:
"I'm not dead. Not today. Not by his hand."
And even with her heart shattered, even with her soul stained, she kept running.
She ran toward the light.
Toward home.
Toward her mother.
---Feitan…---
He was ready.
The katana was tilted with surgical precision.
Weight on the left wrist, foot forward, breathing steady.
Feitan never trembled.
Every fiber of his body had been trained for execution.
Not murder — that's emotional, personal.
This was function.
A task.
Cut.
Clean.
Erase.
The girl — Ayumi, he now knew her name, though it meant nothing — was at his feet.
She cried. She thrashed.
Her screams came out broken, fragile, desperate.
And right there, in that emotional chaos, Feitan found peace.
She had finally stopped speaking like a human being.
No more questions.
No more hope.
No more faith in goodness.
Just flesh trying to remain flesh.
Feitan watched her with interest.
Not pity.
Not hatred.
But because fear was the only honest language he had ever known.
It was beautiful.
Efficient.
True.
He raised the blade, ready to strike.
He would start slow. Maybe the side. Maybe the neck.
Because suffering is reality's signature.
Then — a knock on the door.
A voice, flat and firm:
"Stop. Her mother paid. It's over."
Time broke.
Feitan didn't turn immediately.
Didn't lower the katana.
He stood still — suspended in an unfinished cut.
In his chest, there was no frustration.
No disappointment.
Only unresolved tension. An act that had lost form.
An interrupted order.
Feitan hated leaving things unfinished.
That alone made him lower the blade — slowly, with precision, almost with elegance.
He looked at Ayumi one last time.
Her face contorted by crying.
Her eyes wide with fear.
Her body curled up like a wounded animal.
He should have killed her.
And she knew it.
He knew it.
Yet — for once — it didn't happen.
Feitan turned away.
Left the room.
Closed the door behind him like sealing a freezer.
The hallway was silent.
He calmly removed the mask.
A light sheen of sweat on his forehead — but he wasn't tired.
He was simply… interrupted.
Like a sentence cut short.
Later, in the meeting room, he spoke to the others.
Briefly, as always.
"The girl is safe. Order carried out."
That's all he said.
Someone nodded. One laughed.
No one really cared.
But Feitan… was irritated.
Not by the girl.
By the chaos.
By a world that, once again, changed the rules at the last second.
He returned to his room.
Sat down.
Cleaned the blade with ritual precision.
Then stayed there, in the dark.
Staring at nothing.
Not thinking.
Not feeling.
He had almost forgotten what it felt like to be stopped.
And he didn't like it.
---Ayumi...---
The sunlight hurt her eyes.
The sun. The air. Real wind — the kind that didn't smell of blood and sealed walls.
Ayumi ran.
Ran without thinking, without looking back, as if the world could still close in on her.
Then… she saw it.
The house.
Small, familiar, alive.
And she saw her mother,
standing on the porch, face in her hands, crying, trembling.
When they saw each other, Ayumi screamed — but it was a scream of life.
She threw herself into her mother's arms.
They cried. Together. For a long time.
As if they could squeeze out all the fear, the stench of terror, the lost days.
She was alive.
And she was home.
But peace was only on the surface.
The days that followed were slow, heavy, unbalanced.
Ayumi didn't eat.
Didn't sleep.
Her hands trembled for no reason.
At night she woke up screaming, clutching the sheets as if someone were still dragging her away.
She saw the mask in her dreams.
Felt the blade on her neck.
His breath. His voice.
"If your mother doesn't call within three hours… I'll tear you apart."
That sentence was etched into her flesh — an invisible scar.
Her mother stayed close. In silence.
Didn't ask questions.
Made her tea. Straightened her blanket. Touched her face gently.
She tried to be there.
And that was enough.
But it wasn't the house that terrified Ayumi.
It was the villa, one block away.
His villa.
Feitan.
Ayumi watched it every day.
Spying from behind curtains, through cracks.
Waiting for movement. A shadow.
A noise.
A return.
She was afraid.
Truly afraid.
Not just for herself.
For her mother, too.
What if one day he came in?
What if he stopped following orders?
What if no one was there to stop him?
Fear became habit.
Until one day, her mother took her to a psychologist.
At first Ayumi didn't want to talk.
She sat in silence.
Stared at the floor.
But slowly she began.
She spoke of the room.
The screams.
Him.
The knife.
The crying.
The truth: it was the boy from the villa.
The doctor listened. Didn't judge.
Made space for her.
Taught her breathing exercises.
Helped her reconnect with her hands.
Asked her to feel her body again.
And, day by day, Ayumi resurfaced.
Not whole.
But stronger.
She bought a gun.
Legal. Registered.
Trained at the range.
Not because she wanted to use it.
Because she wanted to choose.
Not be chosen.
But Feitan never came back.
No sign.
No footsteps.
No car.
No return.
Gone.
And that absence…
wasn't liberation.
It was suspension.
Like thunder that never comes.
Like a door left ajar.
Like a whisper that never stops.
Ayumi began to live again.
In small steps.
With her eyes open.
And one hand always near the gun.
Because she knew:
Evil doesn't disappear.
Not forever.
It only… hides better.