A dark and stormy night.
Fu Bianheng stalked amongst the high-rise buildings, pitch-black monuments drinking in the city's light and giving back only a faint, jaundiced glow that trembled across countless rain puddles. Neon bled into water and shattered itself.
Sirens wailed somewhere far away, a common sight in this crime infested city. He steadied his breath, his heart, and his gun, swearing to himself, as he always did, that tonight would be the night he avenged his family.He steadied his breaths, his heart, and his gun, swearing to himself that he would avenge his family.
For years, his only goal had been to hunt down the smiling killer. A disgusting psychopath who carved a path through the city with ritual precision, his style recognizable through the gruesome sights he left behind. He was a dastardly criminal who didn't steal. He didn't ransom. He arrived, uninvited, at dinner tables and left them sanctified in wine red. Whole families had been folded into silence, with their chairs overturned and their soup gone cold on the stove. This villain always left the same calling card. Cheeks slit from ear to ear. A macabre grin forced onto the dead. Not even children were spared, a fact that Bianheng knew on an unfortunately personal level.
It was him, who had killed Bianheng's family, who had torn Bianheng away from his rose-tinted childhood. Though he now knew that his own family kept countless skeletons in their closet, it was certainly not enough to warrant such a painful and cruel death.
He stalked the undergrowth, looking for the killer. The city was monochrome, the air full of smog. It was hopeless, yet it was home.
Rain plastered his hair to his forehead as he ducked under an awning, pausing long enough to check the reflection in a darkened shop window. Hollow eyes stared back. The kind of deathly eyes that one earned when sleep became optional and hope became a habit that was kicked out due to necessity.
Nights like this blurred together, stitched into a single long chase fueled by caffeine and cigarettes.
The police had stopped returning his calls a few years ago. Officially, the case had been "cold." Unofficially, they didn't want him muddying the water with his obsession. They hadn't been there, standing in a doorway that smelled like copper and burnt food. They hadn't seen the way his mother's hand still clutched the ladle, knuckles white, smile carved too deep to be mistaken for mercy.
It had been to his everlasting delight when the case had been rekindled, a way for him to pursue self-dispensed justice through a more legal means. It had been the main reason he had even joined the legal force in the first place.
He adjusted his grip on the gun. It was a familiar weight, both comforting and reliable. It was one of the few honest things in his life. He checked his gun out of habit more than necessity. The weight grounded him. Metal didn't lie. It didn't smile. It didn't pretend to be human.
Rain chased him down the street as he crossed the block, boots cutting clean arcs through water and reflection. The city watched him back through a thousand darkened windows. Somewhere above, a curtain shifted on the third floor of a residential building that was supposed to be empty tonight.
Bianheng slowed, every step measured. He wasn't afraid of dying. That part had burned out early. What scared him was arriving too late. Again. Well, it could be said that what Bianheng had wasn't truly fear. It was a vast combination of hundreds of powerful, negative emotions, but which could be summarized under one umbrella term: Hatred.
It was this unfettered hatred that had propelled Bianheng through his early school years, giving him the drive to study hard and earn countless awards even when he was all alone. It was this unfettered hatred that had propelled Bianheng through becoming a police officer, rushing to graduate and being the youngest in decades to brave the badge. It was this unfettered hatred that had propelled Bianheng through specialized training, until now, finally, he was deemed ready enough to hunt down this masked killer. He would kill this masked killer.
He and his team had been in touch with a rather corrupt conglomerate family, using them as bait to draw out this villain. The team would keep in patrol around the neighborhood, out of sight, but close enough to come to the rescue.
A signal would be broadcast, every hour, with a different catchphrase each time. The nearest one would be in just a few minutes.
Yet, Bianheng felt as though something was wrong.
A deep, unsettling feeling lay in his bones.
Try as he might, he could not think of any other reason except for if their plan had already failed, before it could even launch.
Just a few minutes would tell.
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Something was wrong.
The catchphrase hadn't been sent.
Bianheng couldn't reach any of the other patrol members, either. The city's usual hum had warped into a tense quiet, a held breath, waiting for something to break it. Fearing for the worst, yet hoping for the best, he sprinted out of sight towards the mansion of the conglomerate family.
Even in the midst of his panic, he was not yet stupid enough to rush down the main street. Every instinct drilled into him during years of training screamed to stick to shadows, to move with precision, to become nothing more than a ghost darting between walls and puddles.
Blood pooled across the marble floors and velvet rugs, slick and dark, reflecting the low, flickering lights like an unnatural mirror. The coppery smell was strong, thick, clawing at his sinuses. Disgusting. He gagged briefly, swallowed it down, and focused. Years of a mix of theory and fieldwork had trained him to do one thing when confronted with carnage: observe. His eyes swept across the room, taking in the entire scene at once. Every detail mattered. Every smear, every handprint, every overturned chair.
There! A trail, leading out of the house. Bianheng took after this trail like a bloodhound, dead set on capturing the smiling killer, or to die trying.
Bianheng didn't hesitate. Gun raised, boots silent on wet concrete, he became the shadow among shadows.
This was it.
The Smiling Killer would not escape him tonight, for the monster had to die.
Before the rain could wash away the villain's road to capture, Bianheng saw the elusive man for the first time. For the first time, he could put a frame to the stories, a shape to the terror that had haunted the city. Yet instinct whispered doubt. Something was off.
From the frame alone, it was clear that this was not the original killer. They were too young, most likely a protégé. Bianheng could not begin to imagine their talent if they were merely a copy-cat. Still, if a pupil could reach this level of calm, this level of precision… the original had been a monster beyond imagining.
The two stood, in the midst of a dark alley, both with their weapons out. Bianheng's pistol felt light in his hands, inadequate against the knives the other held. Two fish-gutting knives, sleek and cruel, gleaming in the rain. It was a tense scene.
If not for the constant rain, it would have felt as if the scene was frozen in time, a snapshot of deep seated grudges finally being let out.
All it took was a single flash of lighting, a single crack of thunder for the two to have started fighting. In that moment, the alley ignited.
The protégé lunged, knives slicing through the air with a metallic hiss, arcs of silver flashing against the puddled darkness. Bianheng fired his pistol twice, each shot striking home with sparks and spray! But the protege was fast, impossibly fast. He somersaulted over a bullet, knives slicing a steel railing in two as if it were paper.
Bianheng charged, feet slapping the wet concrete like gunfire, and slammed into him. Knives met metal. Bullets lodged into flesh. Rain mixed with blood, running down both their faces, dripping from ruined sleeves. The city around them disappeared, leaving only the two of them and the storm.
He swung his pistol like a club, catching the protégé across the ribs. The killer countered, knives weaving in a deadly ballet, each strike precise enough to pierce bone if not for Bianheng's own skill. He rolled, dodged, countered, spinning with the elegance of a nightmare come to life.
A discarded trash can flew past, knocking into a wall and shattering glass. Sparks erupted where lightning struck a nearby metal pipe, illuminating the alley in harsh white light. Both fighters paused for a fraction, catching their breath, eyes locked, knowing that each was the other's equal and neither would survive the night.
The protégé grinned, too young to know humility, knives poised like twin vices.
Bianheng's breath came in ragged gasps, blood dripping from a cut across his cheek. Rain slicked hair plastered to his forehead, dripping into eyes already burning with exhaustion and fury.
Steel met flesh again. Limbs twisted, bodies slammed into walls, windows shattering. Each strike tore clothing and skin, the echo of pain carried on the storm.
They moved like shadows and lightning, faster than sight, each attack more desperate, more vicious, more alive.
Finally, the protégé faltered. One miscalculated lunge, one breath too late, and he crumpled. Knives clattered to the wet concrete. Blood pooled beneath him, hissing where it touched the rain. His eyes, wide and terrified for the first time, blinked up at Bianheng.
Both sustained large injuries, both knowing that neither would survive the night.
The killer was the first to keel over.
Bianheng crawled towards the masked person, hand reaching out to see what was under the mask. He needed closure desperately. Yet, a part of him didn't truly want to look under the mark. For this person was not the killer of his family. His vengeance felt hollow.
As he watched the corpse, he noticed the edges flickering. The body seemed to turn bright and blue, and dissolved with a faint chime.
Bianheng was too tired now, too cold.
He could not tell if it had been an illusion. Could it have been cruel prank on a man who had given everything for vengeance? Certainly.
He slumped down as well. His limbs felt like lead. His chest burned and ached, but not enough to lift him.
With his last few breaths, he could feel his heart slow down.
He was full of regret.
Not only had he been unable to avenge his family, he had died a fool's death for not radioing in for help. He had failed. Failed to avenge his family. Failed to survive a fight he should have called in reinforcements for. Failed to be anything but a fool staring at a copy of his nemesis, too stubborn, too proud, too tired.
He lay there, sodden, pathetic, a shadow of the man he had been.
Yet all at once, his hatred and righteous fury was reignited, for he saw the original masked killer come in through the mouth of the alley.
His last view was of the monster sauntering up to him, before he too, dissolved into little pixels.
Later on, Fu Bianheng would laugh bitterly at the names of his system gifted blades. Justice and Dread. A mocking reminder of his greatest failures. The daggers themselves, were rather beautiful. They were black, yet with a gold trim. Rather delicate, unlike his body. He knew that he would not rest until he could buy his freedom back from the live broadcast, and hunt down the real killer. For now, he was content to track the protege, and drag them both to the depths of hell. Both were in the live broadcast, and it was only up to fate to see who would survive.