’Is this it?’ Kai frowned, weaving beneath a fast jab and twisting to block a kick with his forearm. ’All that build-up... and this is what I saved energy for?’
Phantom V was quick, absurdly so, but seed to be all he had.
’Fuck, this guy’s good,’ the masked man cursed internally.
With a sharp flick, he drew a sleek combat dagger, the edge gleaming under the blood-tinged light. His grip was practiced as he lunged towards Kai. His stance had the markings of soone trained - but only just. There was no flow, no adaptability. Just rehearsed movents and borrowed discipline.
Kai pivoted aside, letting the blade pass inches from his face, then countered with a brutal knee to the gut. Phantom V grunted but rolled away with speed that left afterimages.
Then he ca back in - low feint, high strike, twisting elbow - but Kai saw through every move. His glowing crimson eyes tracked it all.
He ducked under the elbow, parried the dagger, and stepped inside the man’s guard. A tight arc of his blood blade opened a shallow cut across Phantom V’s chest before he darted back.
’He’s not bad,’ Kai thought, ’but he’s burning out fast.’
And it was true.
Phantom V was bleeding from at least half a dozen spots now, each one slowing him more than the last. His breathing had turned heavier. His footwork sloppier. His dagger hand twitched before every lunge.
anwhile, Kai was just getting started.
He moved in a blur, pressuring the operative with a flurry of strikes - one blade feinting while the other lashed out. Phantom V blocked with his dagger, barely deflecting a few hits, but each clash sent shockwaves through his arms.
Blood whirled around them - Kai manipulating the droplets into sharp needles mid-combat, forcing Phantom V to dodge and reposition constantly. But with every movent, Nyx’s operative got slower.
Kai advanced with eerie calm. Efficient. Precise. He wasn’t fighting to kill - he was fighting to break him.
A sudden lunge from Phantom V. Desperate.
Kai sidestepped, caught Phantom V’s wrist mid-strike, and drove his knee into the man’s elbow. A sickening crunch followed, and then the dagger hit the ground. Before Phantom V could retreat, Kai’s fist, coated in hardened blood, smashed into his jaw with brutal force.
The operative hit the ground, dazed with a coppery taste in his mouth, struggling to get up. His body was shaking, eyes wide with disbelief. He’d been the predator a hundred tis before. Fast, untouchable.
But now?
He looked up and saw Kai.
Eyes glowing. Calm. Composed.
No anger. No rcy.
Only domination.
"Wait, wait, wait! We can make a deal!" Phantom V rasped with his aching jaw. Panic bled through his words as he scrambled to his feet, arms up in defence.
Too late.
Kai’s blood gauntlet slamd into his gut like a sledgehamr. Reinforced and driven with pulsing blood, the hit lifted him off the ground and sent him crashing through a wall.
There was a puff of dust and smoke.
Phantom V coughed, curled on his side, blood dribbling from his mouth.
And Kai?
He stepped through the rubble, slow and deliberate. No words. Just that cold smile and those red eyes that were more terrifying than anything Phantom V had ever seen.
He wasn’t shackled. He wasn’t tied down.
But at that mont, Phantom V had never felt more trapped as he lay there, crumpled on the ground.
’This is really the fucker that caused all this ss,’ Kai couldn’t help but think to himself.
His eyes swept over the wreckage of the town Nadya had cared about so deeply, and the destruction bothered him. Not just the loss of life or the ruin of what was once a peaceful place - but how pathetic the man behind it all was. A coward doing Nyx’s dirty work.
As if months of torture and experints hadn’t been enough, the sadistic bastard had to send soone to cause more pain around him. Had to find the one place Kai had sowhat started to settle and turn it into a wasteland.
It wasn’t over, though. Not even close.
And if Kai thought the damage so far was bad, what was coming next would be far worse...
-
Phantom V slumped against the rubble, body trembling as Kai approached. Blood dripped from his mouth, but his eyes darted - calculating, scheming.
"I give up," he muttered weakly.
But Kai wasn’t buying it.
His gaze flicked down, sharp. Phantom V’s hand was twitching behind his back, fingers fumbling with sothing.
Kai reacted imdiately.
The blood pooled beneath Phantom V surged upward, twisting into tendrils that coiled around his limbs like serpents. They squeezed tight after wrapping around him, eliciting a pained groan. A tallic clatter followed as sothing slipped from his hand and hit the ground.
Kai reached down and picked it up - a compact pistol, silencer attached.
"You give up, huh?" he said, voice flat. He held up the gun. "Why didn’t you try to use this earlier?"
’This guy must really be stupid,’ Kai thought.
Against most of the monsters wreaking havoc across the town, a few bullets wouldn’t have made a difference. Their bodies were too tough, too big. Sa likely went for beasts. But for many mutants - especially the non-combat kind - it only took one shot to the head.
Kai turned the weapon over in his hand, inspecting it.
He flicked the safety on, then off again, weighing it in his palm, before unscrewing the silencer and chucking it aside.
’Could I block or dodge a bullet right now?’ he wondered. ’And if I took a shot... how long would it take to heal?’
They weren’t questions he wanted the answers for anyti soon.
’I’ll probably find out eventually, knowing my luck,’ he thought, letting out a quiet laugh.
To think he was already at a point where he wasn’t even sure if a gun was a threat anymore.
The world really had gone mad.
anwhile, Phantom V was still trying to find a way to weasel out of his predicant.
"Hey, about the gun - I wasn’t going to do anything with it," the man stamred, forcing a shaky grin as Kai yanked down the lower half of his mask.
Kai had half-expected sothing unusual. Maybe a scarred face, sothing to make the man more interesting. But all he saw was rough stubble and a desperate smirk, the kind worn by soone already digging their own grave.
Tied up in blood-forged ropes, Phantom V sat slumped, bleeding from multiple wounds - each one giving Kai more fuel to work with. His escape routes were gone. His stealth was useless. And his speed? Worthless against soone who could see through his tricks and match him step for step.
Especially since he was far from being in the best condition.
If only he’d gone full speed from the start. No stealth. Just velocity. He could’ve been miles away by now.
But he hadn’t expected this - a blood-wielding mutant he’d never heard of, tracking him like a predator. Unrelenting. Unforgiving.
"Don’t worry," Kai said, tone casual, eyes anything but. "I won’t kill you."
Phantom V’s stomach twisted.
"But you’re too slippery," Kai added.
Then he raised his foot... and stomped.
The sound was sickening. Bone shattered. Phantom V howled in agony as his leg folded in the wrong direction, knee completely crushed beneath Kai’s heel.
He clutched at it instinctively as he writhed in pain while wailing hopelessly.
"You can’t run away now," Kai comnted casually as he released the blood bindings.
The detached, distant look in his eyes never changed as he watched the man suffer. To Kai, this was simply justified retribution. For the town. For the lives lost. For everything Nyx had done to him.
And he deserved much worse...
Bang! Bang! Bang!
The pistol barked in Kai’s hand. Three clean shots tore into Phantom V’s torso, each one t with a spray of blood and a strangled cry. The man squird, twitching, still alive - but barely.
’What a bitch,’ Kai felt nothing but bitter disappointnt. Weak. Cowardly. A puppet with no spine.
anwhile, Phantom V gasped for air, choking on his own blood.
But through the haze of pain, a strange feeling crept in.
Relief.
’A-At this rate, I’ll bleed out. I’ll die from this.’
And as the thought settled in, another followed quietly, bitterly.
’What was I even living for?’
Before the Z Virus, he’d been a nobody. Just another face in a cubicle farm, slaving away with one distant hope: retirent.
Then ca the outbreak. The mutation. His gift of stealth and speed turned him into soone useful. Valued. He’d joined the Association. Eventually worked under Nyx.
At first, it was simple. Surveillance. Tracking. Easy money.
But it didn’t stay that way.
Soon, it was kidnappings. Assassinations. And worse.
At so point, he stopped caring. The missions blurred. The paychecks got bigger. And his life beca just as dull and soulless as it had been before - just bloodier.
This mission was supposed to be his last. One final job. Nyx promised more than he’d ever need. Enough to disappear forever.
’But maybe retiring was never in the cards for .’
He closed his eyes.
But Kai wasn’t finished with him.
He crouched down slowly, red eyes still glowing.
"You don’t get to die just yet."
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