The luminite in his arm was already awake.
It sat in the cradle of his prosthetic like a small red heart, humming. Light leaked through the seams of the metal and heat crawled up his forearm in slow pulses.
This was the path he'd chosen.
Takeshi walked through the Underworks without hiding.
People moved out of his way without knowing why.
A card game went quiet. A man suddenly remembered he needed something in another corridor. Nobody looked up.
Takeshi didn't look at any of them. He knew every pipe and crack here.
This had once been his whole world.
He turned into a corridor that seemed to end in a bare brick wall.
His metal fingers found a small steel plate in the center of the wall. You'd miss if you didn't know exactly where.
A thin red line lit up around it. A keypad slid out - black glass, red symbols.
Old anger rose, sharp and clean.
He remembered a lantern, his wife's laugh. White masks in the doorway.
Same cursed memories.
Takeshi raised Marcus's pistol and shot the keypad.
Glass shattered. Sparks spat out. The red light stuttered, then died.
For a second, nothing happened.
Then a faint seam appeared in the brick. Stone sighed as the "wall" slid sideways.
Cold air hit his face as he stepped through.
The corridor inside had no bricks, no stains. Just smooth black walls, black ceiling, black floor. The only color came from thin red strips that ran along the floor and overhead, like the inside of a dark vein.
The air smelled too clean. Filtered. Not right for the Underworks.
Under his boots, something hummed.
His arm answered.
The red gem pulsed, harder now. Heat climbed up the metal, into his elbow, his shoulder. The first wave hurt - bright, sharp, like sparks under skin. He breathed through it.
The second wave hurt less.
The third settled in. The plates in his forearm shifted with soft clicks. His fingers curled. The strength in the grip wasn't human anymore.
Power never comes for free.
"Keep the world lit" he murmured.
Hid last wish.
Masks hung on the walls at intervals. Plain white. Smiling.
He did not slow down to look at them.
The corridor ran straight, then turned. Behind dark glass, other red lines flowed - numbers, sectors, names, coordinates. The Underworks transformed into scrolling data.
Someone was watching everything.
Takeshi thought of the letter on the table. Three cups. Two kids who hadn't asked for any of this. The line he'd written and almost crossed out:
Forgive me if you can. If you cannot, keep walking.
But he never wrote the rest:
Forgive me if I die and leave you alone.
The red gem throbbed again, steady now. Ready.
A door at the end of the corridor slid open before he reached it.
Something wanted him here.
Something was waiting.
Tskeshi simply stepped inside.
The room beyond was big, cold, and looked expensive.
A long black table sat in the middle, polished enough to mirror him. Chairs lined its sides in perfect order. Thin red lines traced their edges and the floor around them.
The far wall was glass, full of red text and graphs. Patrol schedules. Profit lines. Casualty numbers. Kill count.
All of it drifting past in neat columns, like the city itself had been turned into numbers.
Takeshi set his right hand on the table.
The surface was ice cold. His reflection in it was the man he'd become: one eye, one metal arm, no room left for softness.
He had never liked mirrors. He didn't start now.
A quiet shift to his left.
Not a step. Just the way the air changed when someone decided to move.
He looked up.
A figure stood in the corner. Black suit, straight posture. A white smiling mask watching him.
Another stood on the right.
A third farther back.
They'd been here the whole time. Waiting.
His arm pulsed brighter, red veins of light leaking over the metal plates.
He rolled his shoulder once, testing it. The gem shoved more strength into him, enough that he could've broken a pipe in one hand.
He took a step along the table, measuring distance and angles. Counting exits.
Estimating how many bullets he had and how many he needed before he resorted to hand-to-hand combat.
He didn't have all the numbers.
He never did. But numbers weren't always a necessity. Not for the once best assassin in the underworks.
Something moved at the far end of the room.
A man in a black suit stood up from behind the chair at the head of the table, as if he'd always been there.
His shoulders were straight, not wide. His clothes were finer than the others. Silver thread traced a small pattern at his cuffs.
Same white mask. Same smiling mouth.
It tilted a fraction.
"Welcome, Takeshi."
The voice was calm. Not deep, not distorted.
Human.
Takeshi kept his face flat.
"Took you long enough to find the door" the mask went on. "We wondered if you'd just drink yourself quiet instead."
Takeshi adjusted his stance. Right foot back. Knees soft. Center low. Killer instincts.
"What you did" he said, "It wasn't silencing me. It was murder."
The mask tilted the other way, amused.
"You're still clinging to that word? After everything you've done for the Underworks?"
"I was better. I stopped when people begged for mercy."
More shapes loosened from the walls.
Two more to his left. One behind him now. Maybe more beyond his sight, tucked into the darkness.
Seven masks he could see.
Enough.
He thought of his wife's hands.
His daughter's laugh.
Raizen's stubborn eyes.
Hikari's patience.
Louissa's voice telling him to be precise.
"This is for the house you emptied" he said quietly. "And for every door you opened that should've stayed shut."
The gem in his arm flared, bright enough that red light edged his vision.
The one at the head of the table spread his hands a little, as if presenting the glass wall and its red streams.
"This city survives because men like us make hard choices" he said. "You should've simply died. And now you come crawling back with a stolen pistol and a broken arm you stuffed a shiny rock into."
He gave a small, almost bored shrug.
"Last chance. Go home. Stay out of the dark. We'll let your… New family live their little lives."
Takeshi didn't answer.
He just breathed in once, deep and steady.
The world narrowed to the table. The masks. The weight in his arm. The line he'd chosen years ago and refused to step off.
Keep the world lit.
Not for him.
For them.
On the exhale, his hand came up.
His pistol rose, aim locking on the smiling mask at the head of the table.
The masks watched him.
One finger tightened.