The silence of the alley was broken only by the faint crackle of static in his earpiece.
Nomura Hayase lay sprawled across the pavement, his body twisted unnaturally, eyes frozen wide in a glassy stare. The warmth had already begun to leave his skin, his face pale beneath the dark smear of blood that covered half his features. A bullet hole gaped in the center of his forehead, its edges jagged and cruel. No twitch, no breath, no chance of rising again—just another corpse claimed by the night.
Zero One stood over him, calm, unshaken—or at least, that was the mask he wore. The silence of the alley broke with the click of his phone opening as he raised it to his ear, his other hand sliding his dark glasses into place. The cold gleam of the lenses swallowed whatever might have betrayed him, hiding the unrest flickering deep beneath his eyes.
“Nomura Hayase has been eliminated,” came the voice on the other end. Smooth, precise—Veronica.
“Well done, Zero One. As expected of you.”
He said nothing, only adjusted his stance as the line went quiet for a breath.
“With this,” Veronica continued, a smile audible in her tone, “what can I say? Everything turns out like a happy ending.”
Zero One’s silence lingered until her voice pressed in again.
“So… have you already disposed of the evidence?”
“Yes,” he replied flatly.
“Good. That settles it.” A pause. “So?”
He narrowed his eyes behind the tinted lenses. “…What now?”
Her soft laugh slipped through the receiver. “What now, you ask? Nothing. Everything’s settled—for now, at least.”
A stillness fell again. His grip on the phone tightened.
“You must be tired,” Veronica teased lightly, her tone turning almost sweet. “I’ll give you a day off for your hard work.”
“I don’t need it.”
“Oh, don’t be so stubborn, darling.” Her words dripped with mock affection. “Push yourself too hard and you’ll compromise your next mission. Rest is a weapon too, remember that.”
He gave no answer, just the faint sound of his breathing.
“Don’t worry,” she said finally, her voice softening. “I’ll call you as soon as I have another job for you. Until then… have a pleasant day.”
The call ended. Zero One lowered the phone from his ear but didn’t put it away. He stood motionless, the stillness broken only by the faint hiss of his breath—a breath he hadn’t realized he’d been holding. The mask of composure never left his face, yet beneath it, the weight pressed harder.
His eyes drifted back to Nomura’s lifeless form. But what glared up at him wasn’t only one corpse. His vision wavered, fractured—the alley darkened with the faces of the fallen. Hollow eyes multiplied in the shadows, soldiers and terrorists, men and women, the elderly, even children. Some he had judged guilty, others he knew had been innocent. All of them stared with the same expression: peace denied, accusation unspoken.
They never left him.
No matter how far he ran, no matter how many missions he carried out—
They would follow. Always.
But then—the air shifted. The alley grew colder, the silence pressing tighter around him, as if the night itself held its breath. Something stirred at the edge of his vision.
When Zero One lifted his head from the corpse, he saw her. A girl. Black hair cascading like ink against the stark whiteness of her dress, standing motionless in the shadows. She should not have been there, yet she was—fragile, spectral, as if stitched into the darkness itself.
Her face, however, was absent. Smooth, featureless skin stretched where eyes, nose, and mouth should have been. And still, he felt her gaze piercing through him—cold, unblinking, laden with an unspoken judgment. Was it pity? Was it sorrow? Or something darker, more damning? He could not decide.
Zero One’s expression remained unchanged. Behind the black lenses, his eyes hardened, his features unmoved—stone against the storm. Whatever she was, whatever silent verdict her faceless figure carried, he refused to acknowledge it. Not now. Not ever.
He closed his eyes with force, as though sheer will might erase her. Then he turned, boots striking the rain-slicked concrete as he walked away from the blood-soaked scene.
And with his departure, so too did she vanish—swallowed by the night, leaving no trace she had ever stood there.
Yet the silence that followed was heavier than before, her presence clinging to him like a phantom weight pressing hard against his chest.
As he walked through, his eyes focused on the object, a disc that he held in his right hand… the evidence that he was supposed to dispose of it… as he silently gazed at it, he put it in his pocket, and walked straight ahead of it…
TO BE CONTINUED…