⚠️ Content Warning / Reader Discretion Advised
The following chapter contains scenes of violence, manipulation, physical assault, and psychological distress. Some moments may be triggering or uncomfortable for readers sensitive to themes of coercion or abuse.
Please prioritize your mental well-being. If you choose to continue, proceed with caution.
You are not alone. Take breaks when needed. 🖤
Rin lay sprawled on the bed, panting, trembling, every inch of his body screaming from the inside. His nerves felt raw—like they were frayed wires short-circuiting under his skin. His limbs were barely responding. His heart thudded in uneven beats, adrenaline spiking with every shallow breath. The heat in his body was unnatural. Engineered.
He stared up at the man looming over him—the man who had been his "partner."
Kai's face was cast in half-shadow, his expression unreadable except for the cruel twist of a smirk pulling at the corners of his mouth. His eyes gleamed with something dark, something old and calculated and hungry.
If this is really Tsar Nochi... Rin's thoughts struggled to cohere, but one question pushed itself to the surface like a splinter. Then why...?
"Why did you let me live until now?" Rin forced out, voice cracked and breathless.
Kai scoffed. Not an answer. A dismissal.
"Don't flatter yourself, baby." His voice was smooth, almost bored. "You think I let you live...?"
He chuckled under his breath, a sound that sent a wave of revulsion down Rin's spine.
"You're solely mistaken."
Rin blinked. Solely mistaken...?
His thoughts sharpened like broken glass. Despite the fog, despite the drug eating away at his strength, he began to analyze—not react. That's what made him deadly. That's what always kept him alive.
This guy...
Rin's mind began to spin through everything. Like the drug had unlocked not only panic—but clarity.
This guy constantly went back and forth between a cocky colleague... and a ruthless killer.
He could still remember Kai's dumb, smug grins. His lazy, sarcastic tone. The times he got on Rin's nerves, the times he seemed almost childishly annoying. A guy too clever for his own good, always poking fun, always flirting with danger.
And yet—he was still the partner HQ assigned me. The one with the access, the tech, the muscle. The only one who knew all the ins and outs of the mission. Whenever Rin's suspicion started creeping too close to the surface... Kai gave him something. A save. A solution. A moment of unexpected help.
Just enough to reset the trust. Just enough to keep Rin second-guessing himself.
But now... now the veil was gone.
The amount of assistance he provided for me to come this far to find Scythe-9 was no joke. In fact, that assistance was the only reason Rin had come this deep. But thinking about it now...
The hotel room. The explosion. It happened right after Kai joined the operation. All of Rin's personal belongings—gone. His communication with HQ severed.
"Damn... that means the only person I could rely on after that was... him."
Rin's blood turned cold.
When I was being chased by the man I thought was Tsar Nochi...
Kai was the one who nearly killed me. He'd called it a "misunderstanding." Said it was too dark. Said he thought Rin was the enemy.
What a fucking joke.
The communication device Kai gave me at the Romanov manor? It malfunctioned. Like it was meant to.
And on the train? Rin had been attacked out of nowhere—while looking for Kai.
Rin's fists clenched weakly at his sides.
"I'm such an idiot..." he thought, his vision swimming.
He wanted to scream. Punch himself. Crawl out of his own skin.
Every red flag. Every sign. Every coincidence. He brushed them off because—because Kai smiled. Because he saved him just enough. Because the moment he started doubting, Kai would say something, do something, to make him feel safe again.
It wasn't trust. It was a trap.
Kai's grin widened as he watched Rin's face go pale.
Rin's body was shaking—not from fear, not yet—but from sheer overload. Adrenaline pumping, heart thudding against bruised ribs, muscles tense and coiled like a wild animal waiting for its moment to strike.
But still...
If he really wanted to kill me, I'd already be dead. So why—?
That single, lingering thought ran laps through Rin's brain like a broken record, taunting him, refusing to make sense.
Kai leaned in just slightly, the dim overhead light casting sharp shadows over his grinning face.
"It was really fun seeing you struggle to stay alive," he said, voice laced with that same lazy cruelty Rin had heard so many times before—but now it sounded true.
That sentence... That sentence sent a cold bolt through Rin's spine.
His blood turned to ice.
So, in other words... I was never a partner. Never an asset.
I was no more than a toy. A distraction.
Just a living puzzle for him to tinker with... or tear apart.
Rin's jaw clenched. His eyes narrowed, not just in rage, but in hurt. All those nights they'd sat across fires. All those briefings. The narrow escapes. The little jokes. The subtle moments of trust.
Fake. Every. Fucking. One.
His fist curled before he even realized it.
"You son of a bitch!" Rin growled, swinging his fist with everything he had left—
—but Kai caught it mid-air. Effortless. Like it was nothing.
His expression changed instantly. The grin melted away. In its place... something lifeless. Dead-eyed. Cold.
The real Kai.
His stare drilled into Rin's very soul.
"Don't you realize the position you're in right now?"
Rin barely had a second to process that before—
THWACK.
Kai's knuckles slammed into his cheekbone with a bone-cracking impact.
Rin's head snapped to the side. His vision went white.
Before he could even recover—
THWACK!
—another brutal punch, this time to the other side of his face.
"UGH!" Rin let out, a spurt of blood flying from his mouth as he fell sideways, his nose now streaming. Pain exploded through his skull like a shotgun blast. The taste of iron coated his tongue. He spat instinctively, barely able to lift his arm.
His entire world swayed like a collapsing building.
No... this is dangerous.
He's done playing around.
He wants me dead.
Rin turned, crawling—crawling like a damn insect—toward the door. His dignity was already gone. He didn't care.
He just needed to get out.
But Kai's shadow fell over him again. Like a storm cloud.
Then—
He grabbed Rin by the collar and flipped him over like a rag doll.
Before Rin could react—
Hands wrapped around his throat. Tight. Crushing.
"K-kghh—!" Rin gagged, his nails scratching at Kai's wrists desperately, air already leaving his lungs.
Kai's expression remained calm. Cold. A predator watching a struggling animal. His grip didn't loosen.
"I can't breathe—he's really trying to—"
Rin's vision blurred at the edges, flickering like static.
"This guy… he's not holding back. He's going to choke me to death—"
He slammed his fist against Kai's forearm, but Kai didn't flinch. Instead, he drove his elbow down into Rin's chest, hard.
"GUGH—!!" Rin's back arched, mouth open in a silent cry. The pain bloomed like fire through his ribs. It felt like his lungs had been crushed.
"Is this it...? Is this how I die? In a fucking locked room, hands around my throat, by someone I let into my circle?"
"I've been in tighter spots. I've escaped death more times than I can count. I've been stabbed, shot, betrayed—but I've never once... never once backed down."
And yet here he was. Weak. Disoriented. Choked out by a ghost wearing the face of someone he thought he knew.
Rin squinted up at Kai, desperate. Doubting himself. Maybe this was another trick. Another cruel fakeout. His lungs screamed.
"Are... you really...?"
He couldn't even finish the sentence.
But Kai understood. And he answered.
"Yes. That's right."
Rin's chest burned. His throat was raw, crushed by Kai's vice grip. He wheezed, mouth parted uselessly, grasping at air like it might escape him entirely. His vision flickered between light and shadow.
But then—
A memory hit him.
Unwelcome, vivid, and so painfully obvious now that it made him want to scream.
"You know, Tsar Nochi isn't just a name. He's an institution in the underworld. A ghost among tyrants. Everyone fears him. But the scary part? He's smart. Knows more about the arms industry than half the UN combined."
Kai's voice. Back then, it was casual. Lazy. Tossed out like a fun fact.
Rin hadn't thought much of it.
But now—
"Wait... wait a fucking minute…"
That knowledge. The way he talked.
The way Kai seemed to already know every angle of the arms dealing networks I had to dig for months to uncover. The way he always 'predicted' things—no, steered things.
He wasn't describing Tsar Nochi.
He was introducing himself.
"Pfft..."
A single, strangled sound of dark amusement escaped Rin's throat.
His blood-smeared lips curled into a grim, humorless smile as he looked up at Kai.
"I'm such a fucking idiot…"
He thought it again and again, each word cutting deeper than Kai's fists ever could.
"He told me everything. Right to my face. And I was too blinded by protocol and fake camaraderie to see it. This bastard didn't even lie to me. He just… let me assume. Led me around like a dog on a leash."
He coughed again, violently. His body convulsed from the pressure still echoing through his windpipe. But he didn't stop thinking.
"He let me walk into every trap. Burned every bridge I had with HQ. He's been playing chess while I thought we were on the same team. He never switched sides. He was always on the other side."
Kai's face, up until now smug and twisted with amusement, twitched. Just slightly.
He stared down at Rin—those piercing, soulless eyes studying him like a specimen.
Then he chuckled.
Not the usual fake-lazy one.
A real one. Deep, low. Something dangerous.
Like he was genuinely impressed.
He let go of Rin's throat.
Rin dropped like a stone, collapsing onto his side as his lungs gasped open and he began to cough violently, painfully. Every breath was a blade, but it was air. It was his.
Kai loomed over Rin like a predator savoring its trapped prey, his broad frame casting a suffocating shadow over Rin's frame. The dim light of the room caught the cold glint of the knife as Kai drew it from his pocket, the blade hovering dangerously close to Rin's wide, unblinking eye. Rin's breath hitched, his pulse hammering in his throat as the sharp tip nearly kissed his cornea.
"Is he about to kill me...?" Rin's mind raced, his body rigid beneath Kai's oppressive hold.
But then—the blade moved.
Instead of piercing flesh, it dragged downward, slow and torturous, tracing a path along Rin's chest, his stomach, the sharp edge catching on fabric. Rin barely had time to process before—
RIIIIPPP.
The knife sliced through his pants with terrifying ease, shredding the material into useless strips. Cold air hit his exposed skin, and Rin's stomach lurched.
"Oh hell naah—"
Adrenaline surged. He twisted, hands flying up to shove at Kai's chest, but the bastard was immovable. A smirk curled Kai's lips as he caught Rin's wrists effortlessly, pinning them above his head with one hand.
"What the hell are y—MMMPPHH!"
Two fingers shoved past Rin's lips, pressing down on his tongue, silencing him. Saliva pooled instantly, the intrusion violating, degrading. Rin gagged, his teeth clamping down instinctively—
Kai chuckled, low and dark. "Bite me, and I'll make sure you regret it."
The threat slithered into Rin's ears, paralyzing him for a split second—long enough for Kai's free hand to trail downward, fingers slick with spit, brushing against his entrance.
Rin's entire body jerked.
"NO—! U FUCKING PSYCHO, LET GO!!"
He thrashed, legs kicking, but Kai's weight crushed him deeper into the mattress. His struggles only seemed to amuse the bastard, his smirk widening as he pressed a saliva-slicked finger inside without warning.
Rin's back arched, a choked gasp tearing from his throat. The stretch burned—dry, unprepared—but Kai didn't care. He worked the digit in deeper, twisting, scissoring, his breath hot against Rin's ear.
"So fucking tight," Kai murmured, almost annoyed. "Gonna have to fix that."
Rin's vision blurred—rage, humiliation, pain all colliding in his chest. He gritted his teeth, nails digging into his own palms. "I'll kill him. I'll fucking kill him—"
But then Kai shifted, the sound of a zipper cutting through the air like a death knell.
Rin's blood turned to ice.
He didn't need to look to know what was coming. The heat of Kai's arousal pressed against him, thick and pulsing, already leaking with anticipation.
"NO—STOP—!"
Kai ignored him.
With one brutal thrust, he sheathed himself to the hilt.
"KEUGH—!"