Rain.
Again.
Tōriku City always wept before a storm.
Hiroshi stood at the edge of the city's lower district rooftops, the wind brushing against his coat like the breath of a predator just behind him. Beside him, WRAITH crouched low, visor active, scanning the flickering heat signatures on the ground below.
"They're here," she said. "One of them."
"How sure?" Hiroshi asked without looking.
"I've seen this kind of stillness before," she whispered. "It's not human. No heartbeat. Just... a presence. Like it doesn't breathe. Like a ghost waiting to kill."
Hiroshi's grip tightened on the reinforced chopsticks hidden in his sleeve.
"A SHADE."
The city below looked normal—neon lights, honking cars, chattering citizens. But the death was already moving. They were taught to blend, to erase even the thought of their existence.
Only one flaw: Hiroshi wasn't looking for a person.
He was listening for silence.
And in a city this loud, true silence was always the loudest thing.
"There," he said.
Across the street, a woman in a pink business suit stood motionless. Not blinking. Not shifting weight. Just existing. Too still.
Too perfect.
"Visual distortion," WRAITH muttered. "She's wrapped in a refractive field."
"Break it."
She pulled a small emitter from her belt, aimed, and clicked.
A shimmer flickered. Then the illusion shattered.
The woman's face twisted like static. Her skin turned black as onyx, veins glowing faintly red like embers. Eyes like polished knives. She wasn't beautiful or monstrous.
She was nothing.
A perfect assassin.
The SHADE turned her head toward them slowly.
And vanished.
---
"MOVE!" Hiroshi barked.
A second later, the rooftop behind them exploded in silence—concrete vaporized by a needle-thin beam of condensed heat.
They leapt.
Hiroshi landed on a fire escape, sliding down with practiced precision. WRAITH followed, already shifting her posture for close-quarters.
"She's faster than predicted," WRAITH hissed, "and stronger."
"Good," Hiroshi said. "I need to test something."
---
The chase led them into an abandoned rail tunnel beneath the city.
Hiroshi entered first, the darkness swallowing him whole. The air was still, but colder now. No dripping pipes. No rats.
The SHADE was here.
He slowed his breath. Closed his eyes.
Listened.
A whisper behind him—too late.
He turned just in time to see the SHADE emerging from the wall itself, like smoke taking shape. Her arm, now bladed, came down in a silent arc.
CLANG!
Chopsticks blocked it. Steel met synthetic flesh.
The SHADE tilted her head, confused.
"You shouldn't be able to stop that."
"I shouldn't be alive either," Hiroshi said. "Yet here we are."
He countered. Fast.
Chopsticks struck joints, targeting ligaments and sensory nodes. Normal humans would collapse. The SHADE didn't even flinch. She spun, catching WRAITH mid-leap and slamming her into the wall.
"You are efficient," she said to Hiroshi, her voice monotone. "But inefficiently emotional."
"You're not the first to say that," Hiroshi replied, blood trickling down his lip.
He activated his palm detonator.
BOOM!
The ground between them erupted, sending the SHADE backward—but not down.
She landed on all fours like a machine resetting itself.
"I see now," she said. "You're not a target."
"What?"
"You're a test."
And then she smiled.
"Phase Two begins."
She exploded forward, but just as Hiroshi prepared to counter—BANG.
A sniper round tore through the SHADE's neck.
A second bullet severed her arm. A third—directly into her skull.
She fell.
WRAITH, gasping against the tunnel wall, looked up in shock.
"Who—?"
A figure emerged from the shadows above the tunnel archway, lowering a precision rifle.
He wore a worn combat coat, half of his face burned, the other scarred by old war shrapnel. A glowing blue eye tracked them calmly.
"Target neutralized," he said.
"Who the hell are you?" Hiroshi asked.
The man dropped down and walked forward.
"Name's ASH," he said. "Ex-Black Ops. You don't know me, but I knew your father. He saved my life once."
ASH looked at the smoldering SHADE body.
"So I'm returning the favor."
---
Back at the SPECTER hideout, ASH debriefed with the team. His voice was low, but every word was heavy.
"There are seven SHADEs. Each designed to kill a different kind of target—tacticians, hackers, illusionists, close-quarters specialists. That one?" He nodded to the screen. "Infiltrator-Class. The weakest."
SPARK swallowed. "That was the weakest?"
"Yeah," ASH said grimly. "You've got six more coming."
Hiroshi leaned against the console, arms crossed.
"Then let's be ready."
ASH looked at him. "You're serious about fighting the Syndicate."
"I'm not fighting them," Hiroshi said. "I'm erasing them."