The city never truly slept. Its skyline was a battlefield of shadows and neon, where every glowing advertisement flickered like a lure to moths—and predators.
Tonight, one predator moved silently through the alleys, a hood draped low over his head. His hair, darker now and slicked back in sharp strands, caught the faint gleam of passing streetlights. His eyes were colder, sharper—eyes that measured everything, missed nothing.
This wasn't Arata the officer. This wasn't Ren the fool.
This was Kane.
The second personality.
The criminal.
The ghost in the digital web.
He stood before a sealed steel door leading to one of the city's underground data vaults. Ordinary thieves could never touch this place. But Kane was no ordinary thief. He wasn't here for money—he was here for information.
Sliding his backpack open, he pulled out a slim laptop, its screen lighting up his face in blue. His fingers danced on the keyboard with unnatural precision, keystrokes too fast, too exact for the average man. Code spilled like a river of secrets across the screen.
"Firewall… pathetic," Kane muttered, lips curving in a half-smirk. "They built this thinking no one could touch it. Fools."
Within minutes, the lock clicked open. The door eased apart with a hiss. Kane stepped inside, eyes scanning shelves of servers, machines humming like a hive.
But he wasn't alone.
From the shadows of the vault, a figure appeared—a man in a black suit, carrying a pistol fitted with a suppressor. His expression was cold, businesslike.
"Kane," the man said flatly. "You weren't supposed to be here tonight."
Kane's smirk widened.
"Weren't supposed to be caught tonight, you mean?"
The gun lifted. But Kane didn't flinch. His hands kept working on the laptop, wires snaking into the server.
"Pull that trigger," Kane said calmly, "and the system wipes itself in under sixty seconds. You lose everything you were protecting. And I'll be gone anyway."
The man hesitated. Kane's voice carried a sharp edge of logic, one impossible to argue with.
"You're smart," Kane continued, eyes flashing, "but I'm smarter. You think you can threaten me, but in this city… I'm the one who writes the rules."
The suited man lowered his weapon slowly, fury restrained. Kane chuckled and unplugged the device, his target files safely stored.
As he walked out, he tossed a final remark over his shoulder:
"Tell your boss that Kane was here. And that I'll be watching his every move."
The alley swallowed him again, and as he disappeared into the maze of city lights, his cold smirk shifted—just for a moment—into something more human.
A girl was waiting for him.
At a quiet rooftop café hidden from the chaos below, she sat with a glass of wine, her long hair tied loosely, eyes sharp and dangerous, but softening when she saw him.
"You're late," she teased.
Kane dropped into the seat across from her, pulling down his hood. His gaze, always sharp, softened at the sight of her.
"Got what I came for," he said casually. "They'll be busy cleaning their mess for weeks."
She leaned closer, her hand brushing his. "You risk too much, Kane. One of these nights, you'll slip."
His smirk returned, colder this time.
"Not me. I don't slip. That's what separates me from the rest."
But deep inside, Kane knew something she didn't.
He wasn't always in control.
And every time he woke up, he never knew if the man staring back in the mirror would be him… or one of the others.