The storm ended by morning. The city moved on as if nothing had happened. Shopkeepers rolled up their shutters, children chased each other through puddles, and old men cursed the rain for ruining their newspapers.
But Shin Asakura couldn't move on. Not this time.
He sat in his apartment, a tiny one-room space with peeling wallpaper and a broken clock on the wall. His coat was draped carelessly over a chair, his blade lying across the table where last night's rainwater still dripped from its edge.
Shin stared at it for a long time. The weapon looked so ordinary, like a piece of steel anyone could buy. Yet for years, it had been his whole life.
He reached for a cigarette, lit it, and let it hang between his lips. He didn't even notice the taste anymore. Smoke filled the room, curling in the air like ghosts of the men he had killed.
Another job done. Another life taken.
His hand shook faintly as he tapped ash into the tray. It wasn't fear. He hadn't felt fear in years. It wasn't guilt either; guilt had been buried with his first kill.
What he felt was something harder to name. A kind of… weight pressing against his chest.
He let out a bitter laugh. "What am I doing…?"
The sound of his own voice startled him. He rarely spoke when he was alone. He rarely spoke at all.
For a moment, he remembered the man from last night—the way he had begged, voice cracking, hands trembling as he promised to change. He had seen that scene a hundred times before, but this time was different.
This time, Shin had hesitated. Just for a heartbeat. Just long enough to realize how empty it all felt.
"I used to kill without thinking," he muttered, leaning back in his chair. "But now… now I'm starting to think. And that's dangerous."
He closed his eyes and rubbed the bridge of his nose. His body ached in places he hadn't noticed before. Five years ago, he would've laughed at the idea of slowing down. But now, every mission felt heavier.
The organization wouldn't care. To them, he wasn't a man—he was a blade. A tool. A ghost they could send anywhere, to kill anyone.
But tools didn't get tired. Tools didn't wonder what their life was worth. Tools didn't lie awake at night staring at the ceiling, wishing the silence would end.
He stubbed out the cigarette and whispered to himself, "I don't want to die like this. Not as a weapon. Not as a ghost."
The words lingered in the quiet room, heavier than the smoke.
That morning, Shin made his choice. No announcements. No farewells. He simply walked away from it all—the contracts, the blood money, the comrades who were more strangers than friends.
The underworld whispered about his disappearance for months. Some swore he had been killed. Others believed he had betrayed them for another syndicate. A few thought he had grown tired of being death itself and vanished into the world of ordinary men.
The truth was simpler. Shin Asakura, the Phantom assassin, was gone… because for the first time in his life, he wanted to try being human.