Rain pours outside the church where John Wick walked into freedom. Michael doesn't follow. He stands alone.
Michael (quietly, to himself): "Go, John. You earned peace. Mine… was never written."
He turns his back on the church and disappears into the shadows of NEW YORK.
The rain hadn't stopped for hours. It beat against the rusted cranes and empty containers of the South Street Seaport, drowning everything in a steady, relentless rhythm. Michael stood there, soaked to the bone, blood mixing with rainwater as it streamed down his face. His hands shook—not from fear, but from exhaustion. Too many nights of fighting, too many wounds that hadn't healed.
From the shadows, they came. A dozen, then more. Men in black suits, katanas at their sides, suppressed rifles in their hands. Assassins handpicked by the Upper Table.
One of them called out, voice steady:
"Michael, John may have gotten his freedom, but we still have your bounty to claim yet. So, your story ends tonight."
Michael laughed once—a hollow, broken sound.
"My story ended a long time ago."
They came at him in waves. Bullets shattered the steel containers behind him as he dove for cover, returning fire in sharp, desperate bursts. Two men dropped. A third screamed as Michael slammed his head against a railing until it split. But each kill left him slower, weaker. Blood poured from a deep cut along his thigh. His ribs cracked when a baton struck his chest.
Still, he kept fighting.
One assassin lunged with a katana, slicing across his cheek. Michael caught the man's wrist, turned the blade, and drove it straight through his throat. The spray of blood hit his face, mixing with rain, dripping into his eyes. When he looked up again, his eyes were wild, bloodshot, glinting red under the glow of broken dock lights.
That image stuck.
To the men facing him, he no longer looked human. He looked like a demon tearing through their ranks with nothing left to lose.
"God… his eyes…!" one whispered, fear breaking his voice.
Michael didn't stop. He broke bones with fists, crushed throats with boots, stabbed with broken steel. The ground turned slick beneath him—blood and rainwater pooling into one. His coat, his hands, his face—everything was stained.
But the assassins kept coming.
At last, they overwhelmed him. A blade carved deep across his stomach. A bullet punched through his shoulder. Another slammed into his ribs. Michael staggered, dropped his gun, and fell to one knee. His breath came in wet gasps, pain dragging him down.
He forced himself up again—one last time. He grabbed a fallen rifle, firing until the chamber clicked empty. Then he swung it like a club, bashing in skulls until the wood shattered in his hands.
When the last assassin fell, Michael stood alone in the rain, chest heaving, body trembling, blood dripping from a hundred wounds. His eyes, red from blood and rage, stared out at the survivors who dared not get closer.
And then—
A sniper round tore through his side. Another grazed his temple. Michael staggered, breath ripped from his chest, and stumbled back toward the edge of the pier.
The world tilted. The cold sea opened behind him.
He looked at them one last time—at the killers who had come to erase him. A faint, bitter smile touched his lips.
"You'll never forget me."
And then he fell.
His body hit the black water with a heavy splash, ripples swallowed by the storm.
The assassins waited for him to surface. Minutes passed. Nothing. The ocean had claimed him.
They spread the word:
Michael was dead.
But the ones who had seen his eyes that night, who had watched him fight like a man possessed, whispered a different name.
The Red Demon.
The one who wouldn't die even when death itself came for him.
------
The chamber of the Upper Table was cloaked in silence. A long black table stretched across the candlelit hall, shadows dancing along the carved walls. The air was heavy with incense and the faint sound of rain outside.
One of the messengers—a man trembling under his soaked coat—was brought in by two guards. He bowed deeply as he delivered the report:
"It is done. Michael… has fallen."
The words hung in the air like smoke.
For a moment, there was no reaction. No applause, no relief. Just the stillness of men and women who had seen empires rise and fall.
Then a voice spoke:
"Finally. The dog has been put to rest."
But another member, older and sharper-eyed, tapped his cane against the floor. His tone was colder:"His body?"
The messenger hesitated. "He… fell into the sea. His wounds were fatal. None could have survived."
A low murmur spread around the table. Some nodded in satisfaction. Others exchanged wary glances.
The Elder—one of the oldest among them—spoke at last:"Men like him do not simply die. If his body is not found, then his shadow still lingers. And shadows… have a way of returning."
Then another elder scoffed, waving a dismissive hand."Superstition. The world will believe what we tell them. He is gone. The chapter closed."
Yet even as he said it, unease remained in the room. A silence deeper than before.
Because those who had read the reports, who had heard of the rain-soaked massacre at the Osaka docks, whispered a different truth among themselves:
The man who fought like a beast, whose eyes burned red in the storm, had not died a man.
He had become something else.
And though the Upper Table declared him dead that night, none of them truly slept well afterward.
------
Outside the gilded chambers of the Upper Table, the underworld did not move with the same silence. News traveled fast, carried on whispers in alleyways, smoke-filled bars, and blood-soaked backrooms.
Michael is dead, they said.Killed at the South Street Seaport. Shot, stabbed, or drowned in the storm.
But the story never stayed the same.
Some claimed he took down an entire platoon of assassins before falling into the sea. Others swore his body had been riddled with bullets, yet he still rose again, swinging a broken rifle like a sword until no one was left standing.
And then there was the detail none could ignore.The eyes.
"Red," one survivor whispered to his crew, voice shaking over his drink. "Not just bloodshot—burning red, like a demon from hell itself."
The tale spread, passed from mercenary to hitman, from bartender to crime boss. By the time it reached the streets of Kyoto and Seoul, it was no longer a death story. It was a warning.
They called him the Red Demon.
A man too broken to die, too furious to fall.A man who fought like death itself and vanished into the sea, leaving only blood and fear behind.
The Upper Table tried to keep the narrative clean—Michael was dead, finished, erased. But the more they insisted, the stronger the myth became.
Because killers, gangsters, mercenaries—they all knew one truth:Legends don't die.
And somewhere, deep in the underworld, men began to shiver when rainstorms came. Because rain meant Michael.
Rain meant the Red Demon.
The underground chapel in Seoul smelled of old incense and candle wax. The crucifix above the altar gleamed faintly, lit by flickering lanterns. Father Gabriel sat in silence, rosary beads slipping slowly through his scarred fingers, when the heavy oak door creaked open.
A young messenger stepped in, his face pale with dread. He bowed low before speaking, his voice barely above a whisper."Father… news has come from New York ."
Gabriel opened his eyes, sharp and weary. "Speak."
The messenger hesitated, then forced the words out."Michael. He… he fell at the South Street Seaport. Assassins cornered him. He fought to the last, but… his body was never recovered. The sea claimed him. The Upper Table declared him dead."
The beads stilled in Gabriel's hand. For a long time, he said nothing. His jaw tightened, his breath shallow, as though each word of the report had driven a knife deeper into his chest.
"…Leave us," he finally said.
The messenger bowed again and fled, leaving the chapel door creaking shut behind him.
When Gabriel turned, Peter and the other brothers were already there, waiting. Their faces were restless, tense—they had sensed the weight in the Father's silence.
"What happened?" Peter demanded, stepping forward. His eyes burned with impatience. "What's this about
Gabriel's voice came low, steady, but edged with grief."It is about Michael."
The room fell still.
Peter frowned, his fists clenching at his sides. "What about him?"
Gabriel looked at them all—the killers he had raised, his, without a regret in his voice, he said."He is gone. They say he died fighting at the docks. His body was never found. The Table believes he drowned in the black water."
Silence spread like a sickness.
One of the brothers exhaled sharply, shaking his head. "That's impossible… I trained him, I know how powerful mouth!" Peter roared, slamming his fist against the wooden pew. His voice cracked, rage splitting into grief. "Michael doesn't die like this! He doesn't vanish in the dark like some nameless thug!"
He turned on Gabriel, eyes wet, desperate. "Father—tell me they're wrong. Tell me this isn't true."
Gabriel closed his eyes, his rosary beads slipping from his hands onto the stone floor with a faint clatter. His silence was its own answer.
Peter staggered back, his chest heaving. He dragged his hands through his hair, pacing, trembling, unable to stand still. Finally, he roared again—this time not in anger, but in denial that tore from the deepest part of him.
"He's not dead! If the world thinks he drowned, then the world is a fool. Michael will come back. He has to!"
The chapel went quiet, only the sound of rain dripping through a crack in the roof breaking the stillness.
Gabriel finally spoke, his voice like an old prayer spoken at a funeral:"Peter… men like Michael do not return unchanged. If he lives, he walks in shadows now. And if he has truly fallen...."
No one replied.
The brothers stood in silence, and in that silence, the underworld gained a new ghost.
----
The penthouse in Gangnam towered over the city, its glass walls glowing faintly against the midnight skyline. Charles Choi sat in his leather chair, papers spread across his desk, a half-empty glass of whiskey in his hand. He was reading, calculating, as always.
The phone buzzed.
His assistant's voice came through, careful, measured."Sir… Osaka just reported. Michael is dead."
Charles didn't move at first. He simply swirled the whiskey in his glass, watching the liquid catch the light. Only after a long pause did he answer."…Dead?"
"Yes. The Table sent their best. He fought until the end, but he was cut down. His body fell into the sea. They've confirmed."
A silence stretched. Then Charles leaned back in his chair, exhaling softly through his nose. His expression didn't change—not grief, not joy, only the faintest tightening at the corner of his mouth.
"So. The Red Demon finally burned out."
He lifted his glass and took a slow sip, eyes drifting to the city lights below."In the end, that boy was too loud, too reckless. But…" His tone darkened, low and sharp. "…he left scars the Table will not forget. Even in death, he leaves the world trembling."
He set the glass down and muttered almost to himself,"Goodbye, Michael. I wished you lived longer because you were useful while you lasted."
Across the city, the news reached a very different place.
Crystal sat alone in her apartment, the rain hammering softly against her window. A knock came at the door, and one of her men stepped inside, his face pale. He didn't need to say anything—she could already read it in his eyes.
"…What happened?" her voice cracked.
The man swallowed."Michael. He's gone. They say he fought the assassins in Osaka… but he didn't come back. The sea took him."
For a moment, Crystal couldn't breathe. The glass in her hand slipped, shattering against the floor, but she didn't flinch. Her lips trembled, and tears welled before she could stop them.
"…No. Not him." She shook her head violently, clutching the edge of the table. "Not Michael. He doesn't die like that. He promised…"
Her knees buckled, and she sank into the chair, covering her face with trembling hands. Her shoulders shook as the weight of it sank in.
The man tried to speak, but she raised a hand, silencing him through tears."Leave me."
He obeyed, closing the door gently.
Crystal sat in the dark, the city lights glowing faintly through the rain, her tears falling silently. Her chest ached, not just with grief, but with the cruel knowledge that if he truly was gone,
No one else would mourn him the way she did.
And in that moment, she whispered his name under her breath, as though speaking it aloud might pull him back from the abyss.
"Michael…"
Was Michael truly dead?