The afternoon sun hung high, its light pressing down on the street and sharpening every shadow beneath the buildings. Traffic moved in a steady flow, engines humming, horns cutting in and out without urgency. Heat lingered between the concrete walls, clinging to skin, carrying the faint smell of dust, fuel, and warm metal.
People crossed the road in uneven streams—some hurried, some careless—the city moving around them without pause.
Somewhere in the city, a van moved along an empty road. Inside, a fat man dressed in white laughed at his own lame jokes.
"Ha… ha."
Beside him sat two girls, almost naked, their smiles fixed in place. The van was filled with armed bandits, their weapons resting against their knees, their laughter forced and uneven as it echoed in the cramped space.
"You know what the difference is between a wheelchair and a paralyzed person?".
The fat man said, a wide smile stretching across his face as his hands wandered over the girls' shoulders.
The girls glanced at each other, then back at him, their smiles unchanged.
"What?" they asked.
" A wheelchair can at least change its position," he said, chuckling, "but a paralyzed person can't."
The van erupted in laughter—loud, sudden, and hollow—filling the stale air as it continued down the empty road.
"What's funny about it?"
The voice cut through the laughter like a sharp blade. It felt unfamiliar. The sound inside the van faltered, dying mid-breath. One by one, everyone turned their heads toward the source.
At the back seat of the van, a person sat with his legs crossed, his face hidden behind the newspaper he was holding. The rustle of paper was the only sound left as the vehicle continued forward.
The fat man frowned, irritation and confusion twisting his expression.
"Hey, who are you? When did you enter the van?"
The person in the back seat folded the newspaper and lowered it slowly, revealing a striking face—messy black hair, sharp brown eyes, and a mischievous smile that didn't quite reach them. He wore a formal black suit beneath a long black overcoat, neat and unwrinkled despite the cramped space.
He looked around the van, calm, almost amused.
"Does that matter?" he said.
"Well, let me introduce myself in a simple manner. My name is Kio. I'm a hitman by profession, and I'm twenty-four years old."
Kio placed the newspaper beside him.
The moment the word hitman left his mouth, the bandits reacted. Guns were pulled in a rush, metal scraping, fingers tightening on triggers as panic filled the cramped space. They barely had time to aim.
Kio's hands moved in a blur. Combat daggers flashed into his grip.
Shing! Shing! Splash!
The van's windows were painted red. Screams tore through the air, sharp and short-lived, as blood sprayed across seats and steel. The smell of iron filled the vehicle. The driver lost control and the van swerved violently before flipping across the road.
The sudden chaos collapsed into silence.
Blood spilled from the shattered windows, spreading across the asphalt where moments ago the road had been empty. Inside the overturned van, everybody lay still, dead.
Kio was already walking down the road, unharmed, his pace unhurried, as if nothing had happened. The newspaper unfolded in his hands once more, pages fluttering lightly in the warm afternoon air.
The scene shifted to somewhere else in the city. Inside a grocery store, a man sat at the counter, his body leaning lazily against it. He wore a black hoodie, black cargo pants, and blue slippers. He appeared to be in his mid-twenties.
His eyes were silver, framed by black hair streaked with white, tied back into a small ponytail. A bowl of steaming soup sat before him, the aroma faint but noticeable, mingling with the store's scent of spices and polished wood.
He sipped the soup slowly, eyes flicking to the CCTV monitors on the table, scanning the feeds with a blank, unreadable expression. The store was empty. The silence felt loud.
A moment later the door of the grocery shop opened, and a man stepped inside. It was Kio, a smile tugging at the corners of his mouth. He grabbed a chocolate bar and a ready-to-eat noodle cup and headed toward the counter.
"Long time no see, Hikaru," Kio said to the man leaning lazily on the counter.
Hikaru stood, opening a drawer on the counter as he searched for something. His face remained unreadable, showing no fear.
"Why are you here?" he asked.
Kio shrugged. "Well, no big deal."
In an instant Kio produced a dagger.
Vosssh!
In a blink, Kio pressed the dagger's tip against Hikaru's throat, while Hikaru trained a Glock on Kio's forehead.
"Well, I didn't think you'd be this fast even after years of retirement," Kio said, impressed.
"Don't be silly. What's the matter?" Hikaru replied. Both men slowly lowered their weapons.
Kio's smile faded, replaced by a serious expression. "Almost forty-two percent of hitmen in S.A.O. have been killed by some unknown group. Someone is targeting the organization itself—even retired assassins are being hunted. As a friend, I'm here to warn you: even though you're retired, the danger is real for everyone."
The words hung in the air. Silence stretched, tension pressing down like a physical weight. Then, in his usual carefree tone, Kio added, "So… stay safe." He began to walk away.
Hikaru called out from behind, "Wait."
"Yes?" Kio replied.
"480 for the chocolate bar and cup noodles," Hikaru said flatly, no-nonsense in his tone.
Kio's expression shifted from cheerful to exaggeratedly comic and sad. "I thought in friendship, money doesn't exist." He went to Hikaru, paid, and then left the store.