The rain was relentless tonight.
Each drop fell like a tiny blade, cutting through the darkness that shrouded the capital.
The ancient city sprawled beneath the storm like a dying beast....bloated, corrupt, gasping its last breaths while pretending it still had teeth.
Somewhere in the distance, thunder rumbled, a low and hungry growl that shook the very bones of the crumbling infrastructure.
Kage stood motionless atop a weathered rooftop, his figure a silhouette carved from the night itself.
The wind tore at his tattered cloak, the fabric snapping and whipping around him like restless shadows.
His gray eyes...sharp, cold, scanned the sprawling estate below with the precision of a predator sizing up its prey.
Lord Hoshigami's manor.
The name alone left a bitter taste in his mouth.
It wasn't just a building.
It was a monument to greed, built on the backs of the broken and the bloodied.
Every stone in its walls had been paid for with stolen coin.
Every torch that burned in its halls had been lit with the hopes of families crushed beneath the aristocracy's heel.
Tonight, that monument would fall.
Kage's fingers flexed beneath his worn gloves, feeling the familiar hum of power coursing through his veins.
"Veil of the Abyss". His Teigu.
An ancient relic forged in a time when gods still walked among mortals...or so the stories claimed.
He didn't care much for legends.
All that mattered was what the weapon could do.
And what it could do was make him invisible.
Not in the literal sense.
The shadows didn't bend reality; they bent perception.
Light fractured and twisted around him, bending away as though repelled by some unseen force.
To the naked eye, he became little more than a flicker, a trick of the mind, a whisper of movement that vanished before it could be confirmed.
Perfect for an assassin.
He crouched low, muscles coiling like springs as he prepared to move.
The rain soaked through his clothes, cold and biting, but he didn't flinch.
He'd grown used to discomfort. Pain was an old companion, one that had walked beside him ever since that night...the night his world had burned.
He pushed the memory down before it could surface.
There was no room for sentimentality. Not here. Not now.
Below, the manor's outer courtyard was a hive of activity despite the late hour.
Guards patrolled in pairs, their boots splashing through puddles as they made their rounds.
Torches flickered stubbornly against the rain, casting weak pools of light that barely reached the walls.
The men looked bored. They didn't expect trouble.
Why would they? Lord Hoshigami was untouchable. Protected by wealth, by influence, by the Empire itself.
They had no idea how fragile that illusion really was.
Kage's lips curled into something that might have been a smile, though it held no warmth.
He moved.
The transition from stillness to motion was seamless, fluid as water.
One moment he was perched on the rooftop, the next he was descending through the air like a falling shadow.
His boots touched down on the cobblestones without a sound, the impact absorbed by years of training and instinct honed to a razor's edge.
Veil of the Abyss flared to life around him, the shadows deepening, wrapping him in their embrace.
The world grew quieter.
Colors faded.
Time itself seemed to slow as he slipped between the cracks of reality, moving through the courtyard like smoke.
The first guard never saw him coming.
The man had just turned his head, eyes scanning the darkness out of habit more than vigilance.
His hand rested lazily on the hilt of his sword, fingers drumming an idle rhythm. He was thinking about his shift ending.
About the warm meal waiting for him back at the barracks. About the woman he planned to visit tomorrow.
He would never make it to tomorrow.
Kage's blade was a whisper of steel, cold and precise.
It slid between the guard's ribs with practiced ease, angled upward to pierce the heart.
The man's eyes went wide, mouth opening in a silent gasp as his body seized.
Kage caught him before he could fall, lowering him gently to the ground. No noise.
Just another shadow swallowed by the night.
He moved on.
The second guard was more alert, his eyes darting nervously as he paced near the side entrance.
Something had spooked him...a feeling maybe, some primal instinct whispering that danger was near.
His hand tightened on his weapon, knuckles white.
But instinct wasn't enough.
Kage emerged from the darkness like a phantom, his blade flashing in a single, brutal arc.
The guard's throat opened, blood spraying in a dark mist that the rain quickly washed away.
The body crumpled, lifeless, another sacrifice on the altar of justice.
Or revenge.
The line between the two had blurred long ago.
Kage didn't linger.
He slipped through the side entrance, the heavy wooden door groaning softly as it swung open.
Inside, the air was warmer, thick with the scent of polished wood, expensive perfumes, and something else...something rotten beneath the surface.
The stench of corruption.
The hallways were opulent, lined with portraits of sneering ancestors and tapestries depicting battles that had never been fought.
Wealth dripped from every surface, ostentatious and obscene. Kage felt his jaw tighten, anger simmering beneath the surface.
How many had died so this bastard could live in luxury?
How many villages had been razed, how many families torn apart, how many children left orphaned and starving in the streets while men like Hoshigami drank wine that cost more than a year's wages?
The memories came unbidden now, slipping through the cracks in his armor.
Fire.
Screams.
The acrid smell of burning flesh.
His mother's voice, hoarse and desperate, begging for mercy that would never come.
His father's broken body, sprawled in the dirt like discarded trash.
And the soldiers.
Oh, the soldiers.
Their laughter had been the worst part.
Casual, indifferent.
They'd killed his family like it was nothing.
Like they were insects to be crushed beneath their boots.
One of those soldiers had served under Lord Hoshigami.
Kage's grip on his blade tightened until his knuckles ached.
He navigated the manor with ease, avoiding patrols, slipping past servants, like a ghost moving through a house of the damned.
His destination was clear...the private study on the third floor.
That's where Hoshigami would be. The man kept late hours, conducting his business under the cover of darkness. How fitting.
The study door was massive, carved from dark oak and reinforced with iron. A symbol of power. Of invulnerability.
Kage tested the handle. Locked.
He almost laughed. As if a lock could stop him.
"Veil of the Abyss "pulsed, shadows coiling around the cloak .
THRUMMMM!!!
Metal groaned.
Then the door swung open without resistance.
Inside, Lord Hoshigami sat behind an ornate desk, his fat frame draped in robes.
He looked up, irritation flashing across his face before it shifted to confusion, then terror.
"Wh—"
Kage crossed the distance between them in three strides.
Hoshigami tried to stand, to scream, to reach for the dagger hidden in his desk drawer.
He managed none of it.
The blade found his throat.
Blood sprayed across parchment and gold, staining everything it touched.
The lord's eyes bulged, hands clawing at his neck as though he could somehow hold his life inside.
But life was slippery. It poured between his fingers, pooling on the expensive carpet, soaking into the wood.
Kage watched him die with cold detachment. There was no satisfaction in it....
"This is for them," he whispered, voice barely audible over the rain hammering against the windows. "For all of them."
Hoshigami gurgled, body twitching, and then went still.
Silence.
Kage stood there for a long moment, breathing slowly, letting the adrenaline fade. His hands were steady. They always were.
But as he turned to leave, something caught his eye. A flicker of movement outside the window. A silhouette on a distant rooftop, barely visible through the rain.
Someone was watching.
Kage's instincts screamed.
His hand moved to his blade, body tensing, ready for a fight.
But the figure didn't attack. Didn't move. Just… watched.
And then, as quickly as it had appeared, it was gone.
Kage's eyes narrowed. 'A witness? An enemy? Or something else entirely?'
He didn't have time to find out. Alarms would sound soon. The body would be discovered. He needed to be far away before that happened.
Slipping back into the shadows, Kage melted into the night, the rain washing away the blood on his hands but not the weight on his soul.
Another name crossed off the list.
But the list was long. And the Empire's sins were many.
This was only the beginning...