The rain came sideways that night — sharp, relentless, slicing across the steel bones of Incheon's eastern docks. Cargo cranes loomed like silent beasts against the fog, and the sea beyond churned black, mirroring the storm in Han Dae-Sung's chest.
He crouched behind a container marked Hansei Shipping, eyes fixed on the flickering light above the warehouse ahead. The camera rotated every eleven seconds — he'd counted it six times already. Precision was a habit he never unlearned.
In his ear, a soft voice whispered through static.
"North gate clear. Two guards near the crane tower. They're smoking. Sloppy."
Harin. Calm, confident, dangerous.
"Copy," Dae-Sung muttered, adjusting the silencer on his pistol. "We go in sixty."
"Since when do you wait that long?"
He almost smiled. "Since someone started talking too much."
The rain thickened, washing away the scent of oil and blood that always lingered here. They moved together, silent silhouettes cutting through the mist — the hunter and the ghost.
Tonight wasn't a simple mission. Somewhere inside that warehouse were encrypted drives containing The Alliance's financial ledgers — names, payments, and something more: a file tagged E.M.H., which had frozen Dae-Sung's blood when he first saw it on the black market listing.
Those were his mother's initials — Eun-Mi Han.
The Infiltration
They slipped past the main gate, timing the patrol's rotation perfectly. Harin disabled a motion sensor with a handheld disruptor, sparks flashing like fireflies in the dark.
The sound of rain on metal masked their footsteps. Every breath felt like borrowed time.
Inside, the warehouse smelled of rust and gunpowder. Industrial lights buzzed above rows of crates. In the distance, shadows moved — guards on shift, heavily armed.
"Eight on the ground floor," Harin whispered. "Three on the catwalk. We go silent.""Silent works."
They split. Harin climbed the scaffolding, her pistol ready. Dae-Sung crept behind a stack of barrels, drawing his knife — a gift from his father's old precinct, the initials H.G.H. etched faintly on the hilt.
He moved like water — a whisper, a ghost.One guard turned, just slightly. Dae-Sung's blade slid cleanly across his throat before he could exhale. The man dropped without a sound.
Above, Harin fired a suppressed shot. Another body fell.
They were flawless. For a moment, the rain outside was the only witness to their silence.
Until a single mistake — the sound of a boot scraping against the metal railing.
The alarm blared.
The Fight
"Go loud!" Dae-Sung barked.
Gunfire erupted instantly. Bullets tore through crates, splinters flying. Dae-Sung rolled behind cover, firing two rounds — clean, controlled. One hit the shoulder, the other found a head.
From above, Harin dove, landing in a crouch beside him.
"You call that silent?" she snapped."Blame your shoes."
They fought back-to-back — a deadly rhythm carved from trust and instinct. He reloaded, she advanced. She shot, he covered. Their movements blended like choreography in chaos.
But the numbers grew.
A grenade clattered near them.
"Down!"
They dove behind a steel drum as the blast sent shockwaves through the floor. Dust and smoke clouded the air, turning the world gray.
Through the haze, Dae-Sung spotted a figure on the far end — tall, scarred, holding an old revolver. His voice came through a portable loudspeaker:
"Han Dae-Sung. You shouldn't have come here."
The voice. That calm, mocking tone.He'd heard it before — years ago, from a video message during his orphanage days. The man who had laughed as he described his parents' "accident."
"You're late," Dae-Sung called back. "Fifteen years late."
"Still alive. Still angry. Just like your father."
Dae-Sung's vision went red. He charged through the smoke, bullets following him.
He reached the man, slamming his shoulder into his chest. They crashed through a crate, splintering wood. Dae-Sung threw a punch — blocked. Another — countered. The man was strong, trained.
A knee strike cracked Dae-Sung's ribs; he spat blood, then twisted the man's wrist and jammed his knife into his thigh.
The man screamed, but laughed through the pain.
"Still got your father's rage… and your mother's eyes."
"Don't you dare say their names," Dae-Sung growled, punching him again.
The man fell back against a console — triggering a security lock. Screens flickered to life around them, flooding the warehouse with blue light.
On one monitor flashed a document header:
"CLASSIFIED — EXECUTIVE ORDER 09-PRES/CHOI."
Dae-Sung froze.
"What… is this?"
Harin turned toward the screen, eyes wide. "Wait… that's a government seal."
"Fifteen years ago…" the wounded man laughed, coughing blood. "The president signed an order to erase a threat… your parents were that threat."
"You're lying."
"Check the timestamp, boy. 2010. Codeword Eclipse. Your father found out… that's why they sent us."
A gunshot rang — Harin fired, killing him before he could say more.
"Why did you—" Dae-Sung shouted."He was reaching for his weapon," she snapped back, voice trembling.
But her eyes didn't meet his.
The Revelation
Smoke and sparks danced across the dark as the monitors flickered again. One screen displayed the document clearly now:
"Authorization for Covert Neutralization: Subject E.M.H. & H.G.H. — Potential Exposure of Project Eclipse.Signature: President Choi Min-Ho."
Dae-Sung's breath caught. His hands shook.His parents… executed under government order.
He stepped closer, trembling fingers tracing the screen. The edges burned with digital distortion — someone was remotely wiping the files.
"No, no, no…" he whispered. "Not now."
Harin tried to pull the drive out, but the server self-locked. The power cut. Everything went dark.
In the silence, only their breathing and the crackle of rain against metal remained.
"We have to go," Harin urged. "Backup's coming."
"I'm not leaving this.""Then you'll die here!"
Her words sliced through the moment.
He hesitated… then ripped the half-loaded drive free. Sparks flew; smoke curled from the port. Half the data — corrupted.
They ran.
The Escape
Sirens wailed outside — not police, but private security convoys. Armored trucks screeched across the wet docks.
Harin and Dae-Sung sprinted along the narrow walkway as bullets shattered metal railings. The air burned with gunpowder and rain.
"We can't go back to the main gate!""Then we take the water," he replied.
They reached the edge. The waves below thrashed violently, lightning splitting the sky.
"It's a fifteen-meter drop!""You trust me?""Always."
They leaped.
Cold water swallowed them whole. The sea roared like a living beast, trying to drag them under. Dae-Sung surfaced first, gasping, pulling Harin by her wrist toward the underdock shadows.
Behind them, the warehouse exploded — a deafening roar that painted the night in crimson fire.
Under the Pier
They clung to the steel supports, water lapping at their boots. Harin's arm was bleeding again, but she waved him off.
"You knew something like this could happen, didn't you?" she asked."I suspected," he said quietly. "But not this."
"Project Eclipse… What do you think it is?""Something big enough to make the president kill his own agents."
She hesitated. "Dae-Sung… what if your parents weren't just detectives?"
He looked at her, eyes dark as the water below.
"Then I'll find out what they were — and I'll finish what they started."
Lightning lit the sky again, reflecting in his pupils — cold, sharp, unrelenting.
The Final Beat
They reached the shore, drenched, exhausted. Dae-Sung clutched the corrupted drive close to his chest.
"Half the data's gone," Harin muttered. "Maybe all of it.""Maybe," he said, "but half a ghost is still a clue."
She looked at him then — not the assassin, not the orphan, but the man who carried a storm inside him.
"What if the truth destroys you?" she whispered.
"Then it'll be worth it."
The city lights flickered in the rain, neon bleeding into puddles like veins of blood. Far behind them, the smoke rose from the burning docks — twisting upward like an omen.
As they disappeared into the night, the drive in his pocket blinked once, faintly — a single light still active.
Inside that corrupted data… one frame survived.A photo.
A group of people in black suits, standing behind the president.In the middle — his father.
And behind him, barely visible, a woman's reflection in the glass — Harin's mother.