The target was simple.
On paper, at least.
Kenji Asakura.
CEO of Asakura Dynamics.
Officially a philanthropist, businessman, and pillar of society.
Unofficially?
Weapons dealer.
Human trafficker.
Murderer.
He didn't just build weapons.
He built wars.
Entire cities overseas had burned so his stocks would rise.
The world saw a smiling billionaire.
Hiroshi saw a rabid dog.
And dogs needed to be put down.
---
The subway tunnels buzzed with energy.
The Shadow Seven gathered in a forgotten maintenance station—ancient brick walls lined with rusting pipes.
Only the hum of distant trains betrayed the fact they were still under the city.
Hiroshi stood at the center, projecting a 3D map from a tiny black cube.
"Asakura Dynamics' headquarters," he began.
A sleek skyscraper unfolded in holographic lines—tall, armored, a fortress pretending to be an office building.
"Top three floors—Asakura's private residence.
Middle twenty—corporate operations.
Basement levels—classified labs and vaults."
The others leaned in, masks reflecting the blue glow.
"Security?" Wraith asked, her voice crisp.
Hiroshi smiled faintly.
"Over two hundred trained guards.
State-of-the-art sensors.
Facial recognition, drones, lockdown protocols."
Nova whistled. "Sounds like a nightmare."
"Good," Hiroshi said. "I like nightmares. They make better stories when we break them."
He looked around.
"No casualties unless necessary.
No exposure.
We leave no trace."
He tapped the map.
"The mission is simple: Extract data from Vault Zero."
He clicked again.
"And deliver a message."
---
Night fell hard over Tōriku.
On the city surface, neon lights screamed for attention.
Below, in the arteries of forgotten rail tunnels, the Shadow Seven moved.
Like smoke.
Like death.
---
Echo hacked the outer systems first.
Her fingers danced across her portable rig, invisible to the world.
"Disabling primary cameras… now."
Across the skyscraper, camera feeds looped still frames—empty corridors, frozen elevators.
Geist and Umbra slipped inside through a forgotten sewer line.
Nova's micro-drones zipped ahead, mapping patrols in real time.
Zephyr waited in a stolen maintenance van, engine idling, ready for extraction.
And Wraith?
Wraith moved alone through the ventilation shafts, a silent dagger inching toward the top floors.
---
Asakura sat in his penthouse, swirling whiskey, watching stock prices rise.
Another deal closed.
Another country destabilized.
Another million earned.
He didn't notice the shadows coiling outside his bulletproof windows.
---
Geist knocked out a patrol squad without a sound.
Revenant deployed sleeping gas through the air vents—perfect doses calculated to mimic "sudden exhaustion."
Within fifteen minutes, half the building was dead asleep.
The other half were about to be.
---
Vault Zero sat deep in the second basement, behind five biometric locks and three armed checkpoints.
Echo cracked the locks like peeling an orange.
Umbra moved through the halls, so silent even the security dogs didn't bark.
At exactly 2:37 a.m., Hiroshi entered the vault.
Inside: evidence.
Contracts.
Secret ledgers.
Blackmail files.
Proof that Asakura wasn't just dirty—he was filth incarnate.
Hiroshi copied everything onto a slim drive the size of a tooth.
Then he planted a small device in the vault.
A gift.
Not a bomb.
Something worse.
---
Meanwhile, at the penthouse, Wraith reached Asakura's office.
She stepped out of the shadows like a ghost, a slender blade in hand.
The bodyguards were already unconscious—thanks to Revenant's earlier preparations.
Asakura turned—and froze.
A girl in a black mask stood in his private domain.
"Wh-who the hell are you?" he barked, reaching for a hidden gun.
Too slow.
Wraith flicked her wrist.
The gun fell apart in his hand—sliced cleanly into pieces.
She pressed a thin slip of paper against his trembling chest.
A single message written in elegant ink:
"We Are Watching.
We Are Coming.
Confess... or Vanish."
Asakura staggered back.
"Wait—wait! We can make a deal! How much do you want? Money? Power? Anything!"
Wraith tilted her head slightly.
As if considering.
Then she said coldly:
"Silence would have cost you nothing."
She turned—and vanished into the night.
Leaving him alone with his terror.
---
By dawn, the world changed.
Anonymous leaks flooded the media.
Video footage. Financial documents. Secret recordings.
Everything Hiroshi's team had extracted.
Proof of Asakura's crimes.
Proof that shook the city's core.
Protests erupted.
Senators called for investigations.
Allies abandoned him like rats fleeing a sinking ship.
And Kenji Asakura?
He held a desperate press conference—sweating, trembling, rambling about "ghosts" and "messages in the dark."
He was a broken man.
The empire he built over decades crumbled in hours.
And no one knew who pulled the strings.
---
In a quiet coffee shop across the city, Hiroshi stirred his drink calmly.
Yuki sat across from him, watching the news play out on a dusty TV.
"You really brought down an empire," she said, voice low.
Hiroshi smiled slightly.
"No," he said.
"We just opened the first door."