POV: Kenji Katsuragi
The midday sun hung dull and low, veiled by drifting ash that had not been here the last time they passed these roads. Giggleburg—once noisy, cramped, and chaotic—now felt hollowed out. The voices were quieter. The air held tension instead of bustle. Troops sat in the shade, armor undone, confidence settled into their posture like they believed no threat could possibly reach them.
Kenji observed the rhythm of the gate from beneath his cloak, head lowered, back relaxed in the posture of a wandering hunter. Nothing about him looked ready. Nothing about him looked dangerous.
But his eyes never stopped reading.
Three Dargath guards sat at the gate—one checking passers, two watching the roads. Their grips were lazy. Their gazes wandered. Overconfidence. No sense that death was approaching them in soft footsteps.
Mikage walked ahead, shoulders slouched just enough to look exhausted rather than alert. His clothes were dusted with real road dirt, not staged. He played the part well: a man worn thin by travel, by hunger, by the long quiet of the frontier.
Seikaku took a position on a slanted rooftop across the road. His steps were silent as always. He didn't need instructions. He already knew his place.
Mireina and Fukugen stayed farther back, heads down, looking like two people who belonged among the refugees, laborers, merchants—anyone but soldiers.
Anzuyi was simply gone. A blink of motion earlier, then swallowed by an alley. Shadows welcomed her.
Kenji exhaled once.
The moment was right.
He lifted his bow, slow enough not to draw attention, smooth enough not to rustle cloth. Seikaku mirrored the movement, barely visible from the ledge high above.
Wind direction: steady.
Angle: clean.
Distance: trivial.
Kenji and Seikaku drew at the same heartbeat.
The sound of strings releasing was softer than the flap of a crow's wings.
The two guards to the left and right jerked sharply—steel helmets ringing with the force of impact. No cry. No alarm. They toppled like sacks with strings cut.
The middle guard blinked, confused—but only for half a breath.
Mikage was already in front of him.
The dagger entered under the jaw, upward—clean, clinical. Mikage caught the body by the chest and lowered it slowly to the ground, preventing even the sound of armor striking dirt.
No corpse thud. No call for help.
Only silence.
Kenji stepped forward, bows slung, expression unchanged. He checked the bodies briefly—no insignia suggesting officers or couriers. Simple gate guards. Forgettable.
Perfect.
He gestured once with two fingers.
Anzuyi materialized from between two wagons like mist reshaping into a woman. Her footsteps did not disturb dust. Her eyes were already ahead, searching for shadows to claim.
"Proceed," Kenji murmured, voice barely above breath.
The team flowed into the city.
No alarm. No ripple in the air. Just quiet.
---
Inside Giggleburg, the streets winded like veins beneath stone and wood. People walked slowly, keeping to themselves. Doors were partly shut. Curtains twitched. The presence of Dargath troops was heavy—but unfocused. Their formation was sloppy. Patrols walked in wide arcs, not tight routes.
Weak discipline.
Something had made them confident.
Dangerously so.
Fukugen moved beside Mireina, hand always touching the shaft of his spear, but never gripping it. The way he guarded her was instinctive—loyalty, not duty.
Seikaku scaled higher, climbing beams and broken brick until the city stretched under his view like an open map.
"Three patrol groups. One officer patrol. Main force clustered near the center hall," Seikaku whispered through the thin communication line of hand signs and clipped signals. The team moved without needing words.
Anzuyi slipped down an alley ahead of them, removing a guard who stood too close to a doorway. The kill was silent. Even the body seemed to fold politely.
Kenji watched her melt back into shadow.
Every strike was a whisper of inevitability.
Giggleburg didn't even know it was already dying.
---
They reached the first crossroad, where an abandoned herb stall leaned sideways, wood splintering. Kenji raised a hand. The group halted instantly.
He inhaled, listening—not to sound, but to rhythm.
Steps. Voices. Steel.
Patrol. Too close.
Kenji tapped two fingers on the hilt of his dagger. One subtle signal.
Anzuyi vanished again.
Seconds later, three wet, soft sounds came from the alleyway.
The patrol never appeared.
Kenji didn't smile. There was no victory in killing. Only the necessity of removing obstacles.
He whispered, barely audible:
"Remember our rule. No traces of us—only results."
Mikage nodded once.
Mireina's grip tightened on her satchel of glass vials.
Fukugen steadied his breathing.
Seikaku adjusted his aimline from above.
The path deeper into the city opened.
Kenji raised his hood and continued forward, voice low but certain:
"The real work begins now."
They entered Giggleburg not as soldiers, but as fate. Their steps were the quiet before a storm that would break without warning, leave fire where footsteps once were, and vanish without explanation.
Not ghosts.
Not heroes.
Just the blade no one saw being drawn.