The rain in Neo-Kyoto was a perpetual, acid-tinged shroud that washed nothing clean. It only served to make the neon signs bleed their colors across wet asphalt and chrome. It was a city that had forgotten the sun, and in its heart, a man who had forgotten the light.
Grieremir Illescas, the last true shinobi, was on his final mission.
At ninety years of age, he moved with a silence that defied physics, a ghost sliding between the raindrops. His body, honed by nine decades of relentless discipline, was a testament to a forgotten art. He was a scalpel in a world of hammers, a whisper in a cacophony of noise. From the rooftop of a monolithic skyscraper, he observed his target: a fortified penthouse across the chasm of the city canyon. The man inside, a data-warlord named Kaito Silva, had sold state secrets that had cost thousands their lives. His death was a necessity, a single, precise edit in the chaotic text of the world.
This was Grieremir's purpose. It was all he had ever known.
He didn't use a grappling hook; his tools were far more advanced, yet rooted in tradition. A monofilament line, thinner than a spider's silk and strong enough to hold his weight, shot from his wrist-launcher, anchoring with a faint thump inaudible over the city's hum. He stepped off the ledge, a black silhouette against the electric tapestry, and ran down the vertical wall of the building as if it were a gentle slope.
Memories, unbidden, flickered behind his calm, grey eyes. The austere dojo of his master. The first life he had taken at sixteen, the coppery taste of regret that had followed. The countless faces of targets, their final expressions of surprise, fear, or acceptance. He had never taken a pupil. He had never taken a lover. His life was a scroll filled with the ink of death, and at its end, there was only a vast, echoing emptiness.
He reached the target's balcony, bypassing layered security systems with a series of micro-chips and esoteric hand seals that disrupted magnetic fields. He slipped inside, a wisp of shadow.
Kaito Silva was at his desk, surrounded by holographic screens displaying flows of information that dictated the fates of millions. He never heard the approach. There was no anger in Grieremir's heart, no vengeance. This was a function. A correction.
The single, pinpoint strike to the base of the skull was instantaneous. Silva slumped forward, his head resting on the keyboard, the frantic data streams casting a morbid glow on his lifeless face. It was a perfect kill. Clean. Efficient.
And it was a trap.
A soft chime echoed in the silent room. A holographic timer appeared on the main screen, counting down from ten.
SELF-DESTRUCT INITIATED. FINAL AUDIT: OPERATION SILENT SHROUD.
Grieremir did not panic. He analyzed. The exits were sealed with reinforced blast doors. The windows were plated with transparent armor. There was no escape route he could enact in ten seconds. He had been lured here not just to be killed, but to be erased. His entire life's work, culminating in this sterile room, was to be vaporized without a trace.
He walked to the window, looking out at the city he had spent a lifetime protecting in his own, twisted way. The rain streaked the glass like tears. He felt no fear of oblivion. Instead, a profound, soul-crushing weariness settled over him. Regret, not for the lives he had taken, but for the life he had never lived.
Was this all? he thought, the question a final, quiet rebellion in a mind trained for absolute acceptance. A lifetime of service, of perfection… for this empty room?
The timer hit zero.
The world turned white. Then, it turned to fire.
But in the incandescent heart of the explosion, in the nanosecond between existence and nothingness, something heard him. Something ancient and vast, a consciousness that thrived on narrative and paradox, perceived the perfect, tragic story of Grieremir Illescas. It saw the unyielding discipline, the untapped potential, the poignant, unvoiced wish for more.
It was a story too good to let end.
As the fire consumed him, Grieremir did not feel searing pain, but a sudden, violent pulling. The neon hellscape of Neo-Kyoto fractured into a kaleidoscope of impossible colors and screaming voids. He was unmade, thread by thread, and then…
…Agony.
A different kind. Not the clean flash of a plasma explosion, but a deep, bone-grinding, chronic agony. The smell of blood, filth, and despair assaulted senses that were not his own. The roar of a bloodthirsty crowd echoed in ears that were too large. He felt small. Weak. Terrified.
The last thought of Grieremir Illescas was not a prayer, but a final, analytical observation before his consciousness was swamped by the tidal wave of another's suffering.
So, he observed with detached clarity. This is not an end. It is a transfer of custody.
And then, the boy named Yrauos Ardynth opened his eyes.