Kaito didn't like getting outplayed, not in his old world where everything came down to precision and intel, and especially not here where he had the only gun and somehow someone still managed to set fire to half the noble district before he could finish a clean job, and now there were guards panicking, bells tolling, and informants scattering like rats from a sinking ship, which meant two things—either he'd been noticed, or someone was intentionally moving faster just to cut him off, and he hated both options equally.
Back at the hideout, which was actually just a sealed-off basement under a broken tavern that smelled like smoke and wet wood, Lilyeth was sketching maps on the floor with charcoal, muttering names under her breath, while Kaito loaded new rounds into the ZeroSystem Mk-IX, each click of the cylinder echoing in the damp silence, and though neither said it out loud, the air between them was heavy with one question—who the hell dropped an assassin's coin at his feet and what did they want.
"I checked the back alley fences," Lilyeth said, tapping one of her smudged drawings with a finger, "No signs of entry or exit, no bootprints, no scorch marks, and the guard reports all blame a kitchen fire—which is funny, considering the explosion melted part of a stone gate."
"Which means it was magic," Kaito muttered, locking the final Frostbite Round into place, "Or alchemy."
"Or someone trying to get your attention," she added, eyes flicking to him, "And if they're using a burning eye seal, that means they want to be noticed, which means they're either confident, suicidal, or both."
Kaito stood, holstering the gun beneath his cloak, and moved to the corner where his supplies were stacked—scrap metal, mana crystals, broken gears, and alchemical reagents all stolen or bought from street vendors too scared to ask questions—because it was time to stop treating this like a one-man gig and start turning it into a system, and systems needed tools, infrastructure, and people who could follow orders without asking why things exploded sometimes.
"I need to build a forge," he said, half to himself, "Hidden, insulated, with a supply chain for materials. Somewhere I can craft without getting flagged by mana sensors."
"You mean you want to start a bullet business?" Lilyeth asked, raising an eyebrow, "Selling ammo? Or just stocking it?"
"Both," Kaito said, "And I'll need a cover. Something legitimate. Maybe a locksmith's shop or an abandoned blacksmith stall."
"Or a tea house," she said with a grin, "No one ever suspects tea."
He paused, considering that for a moment.
"…Actually, that's not terrible."
Before either of them could finish the plan, a knock sounded at the trapdoor above, three slow taps followed by two fast ones—a signal code only one person used—an old beggar boy named Rook who ran messages for anyone with coin and ears sharp enough to memorize secrets better left unspoken.
Lilyeth opened the hatch and the kid dropped down like a spider, face covered in soot, eyes wide as he held up a small envelope sealed with wax, the symbol barely visible in the flickering lantern light—a crown made of daggers.
"This came from the Moon Market," Rook whispered, "Guy in gray robes gave it to me, said if I didn't deliver it in one hour he'd hang me from a lamp post."
Kaito took the envelope, broke the seal, and read the message inside—short, elegant, written in crimson ink:
"We are watching. One trigger pull, one corpse, one offer. Meet us at the Hollow Needle by moonrise. Bring proof of your skill."
He folded the paper slowly, then looked at Lilyeth.
"I think we just got invited to an assassin guild interview."
She smirked, brushing soot off Rook's head before tossing him a silver.
"Well then," she said, "Let's hope they like loud resumes."
The Hollow Needle wasn't marked on any official map, not because it was secret, but because no one in their right mind wanted to admit it existed, tucked beneath the ruins of an old bell tower in the city's slum ring, wrapped in smoke from a nearby tanner's district and guarded by silence that made even rats tread lightly, and Kaito, cloaked in dark leathers with Lilyeth beside him wearing her merchant disguise—half cloak, half dagger—followed Rook through alleys so tight they had to move sideways, until they finally reached a rusted gate with an iron nail nailed into the center, crooked and stained black with what looked like dried blood.
"You sure this is it?" Kaito asked, glancing around for hidden archers or mana traps, because if he were running a guild of cutthroats he'd booby-trap the welcome mat and charge extra for disarming it.
Rook nodded fast, already backing away, "Yeah, yeah, he said you knock once with metal, then the Needle lets you in, no questions, no sounds, just don't blink."
Kaito pulled a copper coin from his pouch and tapped it once against the nail, and the sound that followed wasn't an echo but a vibration, low and cold, like something ancient had been sleeping beneath the stone and just woke up angry, and before he could comment on it, the ground slid sideways with a hiss, revealing a dark stairwell that reeked of oil and old bones, and Lilyeth coughed once before pulling a scarf over her nose.
"If we die here, I'm haunting you," she said, stepping down first.
"Noted," Kaito replied, drawing his pistol just in case.
The Hollow Needle was less a building and more a wound in the earth—narrow corridors lit by flickering blue torches, faces hidden behind masks shaped like insects, skulls, or blank porcelain, and every figure they passed turned just slightly to watch them, silent and unmoving, and it felt more like walking through a tomb than a guild, but at the far end of the hall, past a doorway made of bone-white wood, they found a room with a single table, three chairs, and a man wearing a wide-brimmed hat that dripped water even though the ceiling wasn't leaking.
"You brought a girl," the man said, voice slow like syrup, "Most applicants come alone. Bold."
"I don't take interviews without my secretary," Kaito said, sitting down casually, resting the ZeroSystem Mk-IX on the table, and the man's eyes flicked to it with interest, but he didn't reach for any weapons, which was a good sign.
"She doesn't talk?" the man asked, tilting his head.
"She does," Lilyeth said, crossing her arms, "But not to scarecrows."
The man chuckled once, then leaned forward, tapping the table with gloved fingers, "You were the one who took out Baron Greymoor, weren't you? Three days ago. One shot through the spine during his dinner. No witnesses. No trace."
Kaito shrugged, "I was in the area."
"We don't recruit amateurs," the man said, pushing a small velvet pouch across the table, "We offer contracts. You finish them. We pay. You break the code, we bury you. That clear?"
"Crystal," Kaito replied, weighing the pouch, hearing the soft jingle of silver and the hard clink of a mana gem inside.
"Then consider this a test," the man said, sliding a second paper forward, the name written in elegant ink beneath a seal Kaito didn't recognize—Sir Vellian Hurst, noble, tax collector, suspected of trafficking magical children through underground networks, and as Kaito read the details, something in his jaw tensed, not because the job was hard, but because it was familiar.
"They want me to kill this guy by tomorrow?" Kaito asked.
"No," the man said, standing, "They want you to do it before sunrise. We've already accepted the bounty. You're just the replacement after the last assassin got turned into wallpaper."
Kaito stood too, holstering his weapon, then looked to Lilyeth, who nodded without being asked, already scanning the names for any known safehouses or patrol routes.
"Then we'll need blueprints," Kaito said, "And I'll need to craft something custom—might be time to test the Echo Round."
The man chuckled again, stepping into the darkness.
"Welcome to the Hollow Needle, Gun Saint," he said, "Try not to miss."
The hidden workshop beneath the abandoned bakery was more furnace than forge, a tight stone-walled room where every breath felt like breathing through a sock stuffed with ash, but Kaito didn't mind because this was the one place in the city where he wasn't being watched, questioned, or cursed out, and as he pulled off his coat and laid the ZeroSystem Mk-IX on the ammo table, Lilyeth lit the lanterns and locked the door behind them, setting down a folded map she'd stolen from a royal courier two nights ago, and the sound of parchment hitting the stone table was louder than it should've been, like the city outside didn't matter anymore, only the bullet he was about to make.
"So," she said, brushing sweat from her forehead, "We're actually doing this? First contract from the Needle, target's a noble, and you're smiling like you're about to bake cookies."
Kaito didn't answer immediately, instead pulling open his ammo pouch, revealing the scattered shells he'd prepared before—Frostbite, Inferno, Shockburst—all good for chaos and pain, but none suited for silent kills, and that's what this one required, something clean, something ghostly, and something that left the enemy wondering if they were dead before their body hit the floor, so he grabbed a blank cartridge, two silver cores, a sliver of cursed obsidian, and one bottle of memory dust he'd "borrowed" from a crooked mage in the red lantern quarter.
"Echo Round," he muttered, fitting the components together, carefully layering the memory dust around the core so it would fragment time slightly upon impact, creating an aftershock of the same moment seconds later, making the target feel the same death twice, but to any onlookers it would seem like a single, muffled gunshot that echoed in an empty hall.
"That one again," Lilyeth said, eyes narrowing, "You really trust it? Didn't it backfire in the tavern test?"
"Only because I used copper casing," Kaito replied, snapping the final seal on the round and sliding it into the chamber with a quiet click, "This time it's silver. Purified. And the memory dust's fresher. I aged it with moonlight."
"You say that like it's normal," she sighed, sitting across from him and tapping the map, "Sir Vellian's estate is here, east of the merchant circle, guarded by city knights, two mages, and some kind of mana-sensitive barrier that triggers on projectile spells, but not blades, which means your bullet needs to pass as physical."
Kaito grinned, standing and twirling the pistol on his finger, "The Echo Round is mostly kinetic. Just amplified through time."
"You're really leaning into this whole 'gun assassin' thing," Lilyeth said, pulling on her cloak and covering her face, "So what's the plan? Rooftop perch? Or are we walking in the front gate?"
"Neither," Kaito said, pulling a grappling bolt from a crate and loading it into a crossbow, "We go sewer."
Her eyes widened, "Seriously?"
"They don't guard what they think they own," Kaito explained, slinging the crossbow over his shoulder and checking his gear, "We pop up through the wine cellar, take out the guards quietly, line up the shot, then disappear like ghosts."
"You're getting good at this," she muttered, almost impressed.
"I'm just adapting," Kaito replied, "And besides, every noble I take out is one less coin in the pockets of the people who want me dead."
By the time they reached the sewer entrance beneath the eastern gate, the night had fully cloaked the city, and the moon was barely a sliver in the sky, giving them the cover they needed, but as they stepped into the underground corridor, a flicker of mana pulsed ahead, and Kaito froze, raising his pistol with a whisper.
"Someone's down here," he said.
Then a voice came from the dark, quiet and broken, like wind through cracked glass.
"You're too late, Gun Saint."
From the shadows emerged a figure in Needle robes, mask shattered, blood soaking the front of his chest, and he collapsed at Kaito's feet, clutching a scroll sealed with the sigil of the royal family, and before Kaito could move, the dying man whispered one last thing.
"They knew you were coming... it was a trap from the start... and she—she sold you out."
He died before saying who.
Kaito's hands clenched around the scroll.
Behind him, Lilyeth drew her blade, eyes sharp.
"…Someone knew our contract," she said.
"And they knew my bullet," Kaito growled, eyes narrowing.
"Then what now?"
Kaito looked down the dark tunnel toward the estate.
"We finish the job anyway," he said, voice cold now, "But now we leave a message."