The Strongest Killer, [Rachel]
The corridor was cold, and no matter how many times I came here, the feeling never grew familiar. Everything pricked at my skin — the kind of situation where a single moment of carelessness decided who lived and who died. So I did what I always did: pushed myself to the limit and spread my senses to their fullest, never once letting the tension slip.
— Bang
The first shot went precisely into the forehead of the man coming down the stairs. For someone too sloppy to even muffle his own footsteps, a messy death suited him far better than a beautiful one.
The bodies I'd carved through so far could have been stacked into a tower. I figured I was up to about twenty today — ah, twenty-one now, counting the one I'd just put down.
There was no telling how many of these rat bastards had crawled into this abandoned building. Judging by the sounds of movement, at least two more somewhere above.
— Bang
I punched a hole through the forehead of the fool standing in front of me and swapped weapons in the same fluid motion. The kukri strapped to my back belt came out fast, and I caught the man hiding behind the pillar by the nape of his neck.
"Ghk—"
I drove the blade deep into his carotid artery and watched for a moment as the crimson blood cells bloomed beautifully in the air. His breathing slowed, then stopped. He must have hated the idea of leaving this world, because he glared at me with bulging, axe-wide eyes right up until his pupils finally dilated and his lids slid shut, soft and slow.
Only one floor remained.
Today's target was waiting for me at the top of the building. For some reason, instead of hiding, he seemed to intend to stop me head-on. Poor man had the wrong address.
Stepping over the twenty-third corpse, I climbed the stairs at a measured pace.
The pounding of my heart, the speed of blood rushing through my veins, the faint tremble in my eyes — all of it sank me one floor deeper into cold, quiet solitude.
A little tension, a little tremor — that's what puts you in peak condition.
One short, sharp breath, and I set my foot on the final flight. I killed the sound of my breathing entirely and made my footsteps barely there, ready for enemies to come bursting out at any moment.
But against all expectations, no ambush came, not all the way to the top of the stairs. The enemies simply stood in a neat, unbroken line, staring at me. Not one of them moved.
"Well, well. Just like the rumors say."
A voice, from neither far away nor close — somewhere annoyingly in between.
"Now, then, boys. Make way. I have words for that young man over there."
At the sound of that voice rolling through the entire building, the men in black suits parted the path they'd been blocking like the Red Sea.
"Young man. Might you spare an old man a conversation?"
An elderly man in a fedora sat on a plastic chair, watching me with unmoving eyes.
"Don't think I have anything to say to you."
I ran a thumb along the kukri in my hand, tracking every twitch of his body. Calm eyes even in this situation. A voice that didn't waver, clear and steady. A torso that hadn't shifted so much as a hair. There was no doubt about it — this man was a veteran who'd survived everything the world could throw at him.
"Come now. Think of it as an old man's last words, at least."
"For a dying man, you don't seem the least bit afraid of death."
"Heh heh heh. Codename Rachel, indeed. A professional among professionals."
"Doesn't sound much like last words, though. A bit short."
I'd known long before coming here that this wasn't some senile old fool. The boss of the Viper syndicate — the organization that had once, in the past, ruled the underworld of this entire country. The staggering sums of dirty money he'd raked in back then had gone into founding a legitimate, thriving company, but that was nothing more than the usual image laundering. What they actually did hadn't changed: money laundering, stock and crypto manipulation, drug distribution — even organ trafficking. There wasn't a dirty line of business his hands hadn't touched.
"I don't believe this old man ever did anything worth earning that kind of hatred."
"It's a common enough thing in this line of work."
"Of course. Take a contract, honor the contract — that's the proper way. But word is you choose your contracts carefully. So why, I wonder, did you accept one on my head?"
"The pay was good. That's all."
"Is that so... I see..."
The old man picked up the cane resting beside him, tapped it against the floor a couple of times, and muttered something under his breath.
"I was certain I was never meant to be involved in this affair..."
"Was that the end of what you had to say?"
"One last thing, young man. Would you consider taking a contract from me instead? Your skills are legendary by reputation alone, and you've proven them well enough climbing up here tonight. You know full well we're laying the board for our move into politics. Rather than serving that side, why not come over to ours? I'll double whatever they're paying you."
He brought his cane down once more and looked straight at me. Honestly — switching sides? Not a bad offer. Double the contract fee, plus a comfortable future to look forward to. As retirement plans went, you couldn't ask for better security. And yet.
"A killer's credibility is worth the same as his life."
Not once, in the entire dictionary of my life, had I ever taken the side of someone who broke his word.
"Then negotiations have failed. Kill him."
At the old man's single word, long blades — the kind you'd expect to see slicing tuna sashimi — gleamed out from inside the suited men's jackets, welcoming me with open arms.
"Young man, I hope you come to understand — stare at too wide a world, and you'll find nothing waiting at the end of it but a boundless, empty sea."
"Spare me the sermon."
— Crash
The instant they all lunged at me, I smashed the overhead light and vanished into the dark, erasing my presence completely.
Showtime.
To a killer, sudden darkness was a field of pure opportunity. One second of panic could turn an entire battlefield on its head. The twin blades in my hands danced in a dazzling blur, an unbroken chain with no seam to cut, and the screams that rang out in time with their rhythm drew a melody of terrible beauty.
"Lights! Turn on your flashlights! You're telling me twenty men can't handle one!"
At the bellowing voice, the enemies swallowed their panic and fumbled for their phone flashlights.
"Huh?"
But sadly, only two flashlights flickered to life. And one of those went dark again a heartbeat later.
— Shff
Like the last leaf falling from a branch, the man's head dropped to the floor with a sound that was remarkably clear and clean.
"That's that."
"....."
"Was that your final words?"
The old man hadn't moved at all, exactly as before. Truly a master of his generation, then. As if to show that even before death he knew no fear, not the smallest tremor passed through him. And in that moment—
"Y-young man. C-can't you spare me, just this once? What's one old man's life worth, in the grand scheme of things..."
— Shff
"Pathetic to the very end."
I let out a long sigh and tilted my head back toward the sky. So in the end, facing death, it made no difference whether you were a syndicate boss or a titan of politics — you groveled all the same, ugly and desperate. The endings of men who believed themselves the pinnacle of the world were all, without exception, garbage. They imagined the outcome they wanted, and when reality refused to bend to it, they clawed and writhed for one last chance.
I wiped the blood-soaked blades carelessly on my shirt sleeve, then pressed the buttons on a ancient 2G phone — the kind nobody had used in years — and placed the call.
"Mission complete."
"Good work."
"As promised — this job was my last. I'm retiring."
"Understood. Every record of you, every secret, every trace — I'll see it erased completely."
"Thank you."
I snapped the 2G phone in two and hurled it off the building. And with that, my life as a killer came to its curtain call.
Leaning against the railing, I lit a cigarette, drew in a deep breath, and let it all out in one long exhale.
Cigarettes really do taste good.
It had started as an accident, but talent I'd been born with had carried me all the way to the top. I'd spent my whole life running to cut down every evil in the world, and only now, at last, every goal was achieved. The final credits began to roll.
"Time to live doing what I actually want. Should I binge my favorite anime first? Never had the time before. Or maybe a trip? With everything I've saved up, I could easily—"
— Bang
"Huh?"
— Bang
— Bang
— Bang
For some reason, a ceaseless rain of bullets was pouring down on me from outside the building.
I took out every enemy...
There was no way I'd failed to sense killing intent. And I had never once — not for a single second — let go of the thread of tension. So then why?
Barely able to gasp for breath, I wracked my brain over how this could have happened. Think. I've been in situations like this a hundred times. First, move the body—
"Kgh—"
Whoever these snipers were, they were good — they'd driven bullets into every joint I could move. The round that had grazed past my heart in that split second — was it luck, or skill?
I couldn't tell.
And then—
"Yes, he's still alive."
I could hear someone climbing the stairs.
"One final message for you."
A face I couldn't place pressed a phone — the exact same model as mine — up against my ear.
"Rachel, can you hear me?"
"...Boss...?"
"That's right. It seems I neglected to deliver one last thing."
"What the hell are you—"
"That this was the only way to erase what's stored inside that head of yours, along with the rest of your intel."
— Bang
"Remember this, at least: there is no such thing as true justice in this world."
— Bang
"We simply pursued our own justice, the same as you pursued yours. So don't hold it against us."
— Bang
Everything was going dark. Even that bastard's voice reached me only faintly now. My justice was wrong? I never forgot it. Not once. Every evil in this world should not exist, and a righteous world is what I strived for...
...Ah. I was one of the evils all along, wasn't I.
I don't know. I'm just so tired now.
The faint, wavering thunder of my heart faded away before I noticed it was gone. And I never opened my eyes again — not in this world, nor in any other.