The silence that followed the slaughter was heavier than the one before it. It was a vacuum, born from the raw shock of three Pale Hand enforcers being dismantled like faulty machinery. The distant wail of sirens began to cut through the rain-soaked air, but they sounded hesitant, like they were afraid of what they might find.
Ayla Kazuki remained frozen, her back pressed against the cold, grimy brick. Her mind, which had been a maelstrom of fear and adrenaline, was now a silent, white void. She stared at the human wreckage, at the impossible crater in the wall, and then at the boy who stood at the center of it all.
He looked down at his perfectly clean knuckles, then back at her. The void in his eyes had been replaced by that same, unnerving placidness. He gave a soft sigh of mild, genuine annoyance.
"...Still no idea where that ramen shop is."
The question was so absurd, so utterly disconnected from the reality of the last thirty seconds, that it shocked Ayla's brain back into motion. Her breath hitched. Words tried to form but died in her throat.
Ravi's gaze drifted from her face to the small, glowing phone lying a few feet away. Without a word, he walked over, his footsteps making soft splashing sounds in the puddles. He bent down, picked up the cracked device, and glanced at the screen.
[ UPLOADING… 23% ]
He didn't comment. He didn't ask what it was. He simply walked back to her and held it out. His expression was as neutral as if he were returning a dropped pen.
Ayla flinched as he got close, a primal fear overriding everything else. But his movements were slow, deliberate. Her trembling fingers took the phone. His skin didn't even brush against hers.
"The… the ramen shop…" she finally stammered, her voice a reedy whisper. She pointed a shaky finger down the main street, away from the alley. "It's… It's down there. Past the Pachinko parlor with the broken sign."
"Thank you," Ravi said, with the simple sincerity of a tourist who'd just been given directions.
He turned and began to walk out of the alley, leaving the carnage behind him without a second glance, as if stepping out of a room where he'd just concluded a boring meeting.
For a moment, Ayla was paralyzed by indecision. The sirens were getting closer. The police. But she knew what that meant. In Duskfall, the police were just the Pale Hand's clean-up crew. They would take her into "protective custody," and she would disappear. Her evidence, her brother's last legacy, would be buried with her.
She looked at her phone. [ 25% ]. Then she looked at the back of the boy walking away. He was a monster. A demon in a school uniform. But he was the only thing in this city that had not bowed to the Pale Hand. He was the only thing the Pale Hand seemed to fear.
Fear was a currency. And he was the richest man in the world.
Making a decision that would define the rest of her life, Ayla scrambled to her feet, ignoring the searing pain in her ankle, and hobbled after him.
"Wait!"
Miles away, in a room that was the antithesis of the grimy alley, a man adjusted his tie. The room was sterile, all chrome and smoked glass, overlooking the glittering, rain-swept expanse of Duskfall from the fiftieth floor. The man, known only as Silas, was one of the Five Fingers of the Pale Hand, the lieutenant for the entire Neon District. He was examining a report on his holographic desk display, his face a mask of bored disapproval. It concerned quarterly extortion profits.
Then, a crimson alert flashed across his screen, overriding everything.
[ CODE: ZERO DECLARED – SECTOR 4 ]
Silas's manicured fingers stilled. He hadn't seen a Code Zero declared in three years. It was a designation for an anomaly, an event so far outside the established parameters of control that it threatened the system itself.
He tapped a key. "Report."
The shaky voice of the beat cop from the alley filled the silent room. "Dispatch… we have a situation… Three enforcers, designated Knuckle-unit 7, are down. Non-responsive. Hostile entity… unknown."
Silas's eyes narrowed. "Show me the feeds."
Surveillance footage from three different angles appeared. But where the entity should have been, there was only a blur of digital static, a void in the data. The cameras couldn't properly resolve his image, as if reality itself was refusing to record him. He could see Ayla. He could see his enforcers approaching. Then, a flicker of static, and the aftermath: one man choking, one embedded in a wall, one on his knees.
Silas's face remained impassive, but a cold knot formed in his stomach. This wasn't a rival gang. This wasn't a vigilante with a gun. This was something else.
"The witness is Ayla Kazuki," he murmured, pulling up her file. "Sister of the reporter we silenced last month. The data leak originated from her device." He watched the static-blurred figure walk away, the girl hobbling after him. "He is protecting her."
He leaned forward, his voice dropping to a cold, precise whisper as he activated a secure channel.
"Dispatch Eraser Team Delta. Target location: Neon District, Sector 4. Primary objective: sanitize the scene. Secondary objective: retrieve the witness, Ayla Kazuki. Tertiary objective…" He paused, his eyes fixed on the walking silhouette of static on the screen. "Neutralize the asset codenamed 'Zero.' Use lethal force, but prioritize capture. The Oracle will want to study this anomaly."
"Understood, Finger Silas," a synthesized voice responded. "Erasers deployed."
Silas leaned back, folding his hands. "Let's see what you're made of, Zero."
Ravi heard her footsteps behind him but didn't stop. He walked with a steady, unhurried pace, his hands back in his pockets. Ayla had to practically jog to keep up, her ankle screaming in protest with every step.
"Who… Who are you?" she panted, finally drawing level with him.
"Ravi Kuro," he answered, not looking at her.
"That's not what I mean! What are you? What did you do to them?"
"I moved them out of the way," he said, his voice flat. "They were in the way."
The sheer, literal simplicity of his answer was maddening. It was like talking to an alien trying to understand basic human concepts and failing. "You didn't move them! You… you broke them! You put a man inside a wall!"
Ravi finally stopped. He turned to face her, his expression unreadable in the neon glare. He looked down at her foot. "You're limping."
The sudden change in topic threw her off. "I… I twisted my ankle when I fell."
He glanced at a metal bench by a bus stop a few feet away, its seat slick with rain. "You should sit. The upload is slow. Moving will only draw more attention."
Ayla stared at him. He was right. Her phone was still painstakingly climbing. [ 68% ]. His concern felt less like compassion and more like a cold, tactical assessment. He wasn't helping her; he was solving a problem. The problem was her slow escape. The solution was to stop and let the technology finish its work.
Hesitantly, she hobbled to the bench and sat, cradling her phone like a holy relic. Ravi remained standing beside her, a silent sentinel staring out at the traffic. For a full minute, they were an island of stillness in the city's flow.
[ 84% ]
A flicker of hope ignited in Ayla's chest. Maybe, just maybe, she could finish this.
[ 92% ]
Suddenly, Ravi's head tilted, a barely perceptible motion. His calm demeanor didn't change, but the very air around him grew dense, heavy with unspoken pressure. It was the calm of a sleeping ocean that has just sensed the distant tremor of a tsunami.
"They're here," he said simply.
Before Ayla could ask what he meant, the world answered for him.
From both ends of the street, two matte-black vans without license plates screeched to a halt, their tires smoking on the wet asphalt. They boxed in the entire block. Doors slid open with a hydraulic hiss, and figures emerged.
These were not the street thugs from before. They were men in sleek, black tactical gear, their faces obscured by ballistic masks with glowing red optical sensors. They moved with the silent, fluid efficiency of trained killers, armed with weapons that looked like they belonged in a science fiction war.
One of them raised a rifle, not at Ravi, but directly at her. A thin, red laser dot appeared on her chest.
Ayla's heart stopped.
At that exact moment, her phone vibrated, and a single line of green text flashed on the screen.
[ UPLOAD COMPLETE! ]
The leader of the tactical squad, his voice a distorted, electronic rasp from his mask's speaker, gave a single, cold command.
"Erase the witness. Secure the asset."