THE ASSASSINES.
A government-forged legion of monsters.
Not soldiers. Not agents.But creatures sculpted from infancy — bone, nerve, and fear molded beneath knives and ideology.
Some were taken as newborns. Others "recruited" through vanishing orphanages, erased birth certificates, reshaped identities.
By adulthood, they weren't people.They were weapons wearing the costume of humanity.
They existed off the record, off the grid, off the conscience of the world.No civilian knew their names.No politician dared speak of them.Even generals flinched when whispers of them slipped through classified halls.
They were the silent spine of global dominance — the invisible empire behind every coup, every vanishing, every anomaly too clean to be natural.
But even these perfect monsters lacked something.
Something they had hunted for years.A missing piece — elusive, infuriating, maddening.
Until now.
Across continents, a rumor had begun.A spark — then a whisper — then a legend too terrifying to ignore.
The Vigilante.
A phenomenon immune to logic.A ghost immune to capture.An executioner whose motives were a mystery even to those he spared.
He moved through shadows like they answered to him.A cold-blooded phantom who left bodies that governments denied and citizens feared to acknowledge.
People stopped trying to understand him.
Stopped trying to categorize the miracles or the horrors.Stopped trying to reason with something that did not follow the rules of the living.
Instead… they prayed.
They prayed that he would never choose them.That he would never step onto their street.That he would never decide their sins were worth correcting.
No one wanted to gamble with a myth.
A quiet night — unremarkable, ordinary — became the night everything shifted.
Rain tapped lazily at Yuri's window, a soft rhythm against the glass.His room glowed with the faint, cold blue of the streetlights outside.A thin fog crept along the edges of the floor.
He sat on the carpeted ground, back resting against his bed frame, shoulders heavy with exhaustion that sleep couldn't even touch.
And before him…
The Mask.
The one the world feared.
The one he feared even more.
It lay on the floor like an artifact cursed by the universe itself — a hollow, pitiless thing that watched him without eyes.
It felt alive.As if something inside it breathed.As if it knew him better than he knew himself.
Anger.Fear.Guilt.Regret.
He couldn't tell which one was clawing at him — or if it was all of them combined, eating away at his sanity.
He reached out, fingertips brushing the mask—
Knock.Knock.
Yuri froze.
The sound wasn't loud… just impossibly ill-timed.
His breath stilled.His pulse sharpened.Every instinct screamed.
"This late…?"
He hadn't heard footsteps.Hadn't sensed breath.Not even the faint shift of weight on the floorboards outside the door.
Had he been too distracted? Too vulnerable?A dangerous thought.
He rose slowly. A controlled, precise movement — the kind drilled into his bones.
No hostility seeped from the other side of the door.No killing intent.No malicious aura.
Which somehow made it worse.
Yuri curled his fist, triggered every instinct he'd ever been taught, and swung the door open—
—and his expression broke.
Standing there… was Duke.
A shadow of a man.A phantom even among phantoms.Someone he had seen once — only once — in all the years of blood and missions and silence.
His presence felt like a glitch in reality.
Yuri inhaled sharply. "Y–You're—"
Duke didn't let him finish.
"Let's skip the BS," he said flatly. "You've got minutes. Grab what you need… and run. As far as you can. Right now."
The words struck like bullets made of ice.
"What—?" Yuri's voice cracked, but Duke was already stepping out onto the balcony.
He didn't hesitate.Didn't look back.Didn't blink.
The balcony railing creaked as he stood on it, rain misting across his silhouette. His coat rustled in the wind — the only sound in a world suddenly suffocated by tension.
Under his breath, so soft Yuri almost doubted he heard it:
"You're not allowed to die yet."
Then he stepped off.
He didn't fall.He didn't land.He simply vanished into the rain-darkened skyline.
Yuri lunged forward, gripping the rail—
Nothing.
Not a drop of disturbed rain.Not a flash of movement.Not a shadow on the streets below.
Just a tremor running down Yuri's spine.
He grabbed the Mask.
He didn't think — he moved.
Out the door. Down the hall. Across rooftops slick with rain.Searching for Duke. For answers. For anything that wasn't madness.
He ran through alleyways drowned in fog.
Across metal fire escapes vibrating beneath stormwind.
Past rooftops smeared with dim neon.
But Duke was nowhere.
Not a whisper of him.Not a footprint.Not even the echo of his presence.
Only the cold.
And the growing certainty something far worse was coming.
Yuri stopped atop a skyscraper, rain pouring like sheets of frozen knives.He braced his palms on his knees, breath fogging violently.
"What is happening…?"
A voice slipped through the storm behind him.
"Excuse me."
Soft.Cold.Too calm.
Yuri spun—
—but a warm hand had already settled on his shoulder.
His blood iced over.
"How…"It was all he could manage.
He turned—
BOOM!!!
Something hit him so hard the world went white.
He shot downward like a meteor, crashing into the empty highway below.Concrete erupted beneath him.Dust plumed upward.His ears rang.
He rolled, metal scraping his skin, until he slammed against a bent road barrier.
He pushed himself up, coughing blood, vision shaking—
And then he saw him.
A figure emerging through the haze:
Dark curls tossed by the wind.Eyes glowing white, almost holy.A pristine white jacket over a dark shirt.A scythe spinning playfully between fingers.A grin sharp enough to gut a man.
"Damn," the man chuckled. "Almost went overboard. Bet this is the first time you've ever been scratched."
The mockery in his voice sparked something violent inside Yuri.
Yuri lunged — vanishing mid-step — reappearing above with a downward strike.
The man blocked it effortlessly, scythe shaft bracing the blow, wind exploding outward.
Yuri attacked again — and again — a storm of fists, elbows, knees.
But the man moved like he'd been born to counter him.
Then he caught Yuri's wrist.Pulled him forward—
CRACK.
A knee smashed into Yuri's jaw.
The world blurred.
Then the scythe slammed sideways—SMACK!
Yuri flew into a parked car, folding the metal around his body.
The man laughed wildly.
"This is the Weapon? Pathetic!"
He took a step—
BAWWW!!!
A car smashed into him mid-sentence, thrown by Yuri's rising fury.
The man flew into a row of street pillars.
Yuri tried to reposition — retreating, recalculating—
VWUP!
A hand clamped his ankle.
Yuri was yanked and flung like a ragdoll, skidding across asphalt, sparks dancing around him.
He stopped himself just before hitting a divider—
But the sky split—
CRASH!!!
The man came down from above, scythe slamming into Yuri, carving a new crater into the road.
The man paused.
His grin faded slightly.
Yuri had caught the scythe.Held it in place with raw force.
And before the man could blink—
BAM!!
A punch to the gut launched him through the side of a building — windows shattering like screams.
Rain fell.Dust settled.
Both men panted.
CRACK.
A thin fracture cut across the surface of Yuri's mask.
And the sound… echoed through him.Like something ancient inside him had been struck.Pain flared sharp in his chest.
Then—
Laughter.
Wild. Echoing.Sharp enough to slice the night open.
The man stepped from the ruined building, clapping slowly.
"Well, well, well," he said. "Guess I underestimated you, lil bro. HOW FUN WAS THAT?!"
Yuri stared back — silent, hollow, cold.
Something in him had shifted.Something irreversible.
The man lifted his scythe, pointing lazily at Yuri.
"Hear me now, oh great Weapon. Next time we meet… you and I will be completely different people."
His voice dropped — cold, commanding.
"That is my order. My final judgment."
Then he smirked.
"Don't you dare forget this name, lil bro."
He leaned forward, eyes glowing brighter.
"YUTA."
And then he vanished.
Not a footstep.Not a breath.Not a ripple in the puddles at his feet.
Only rain… destruction…
And Yuri standing alone in the ruins of another night.
Alone again.Always again.