The sun bled slow across the city skyline, smearing pale gold and cigarette ash across the worn stone and rust of Kuroyami City. Malik stood in the front drive of the old manor, the rising light catching the edge of his silhouette, painting him in long shadows and fresh fatigue. The bike behind him clicked and cooled in the hush, like a spent weapon laid to rest. Smoke curled from the corner of his mouth, lazy and slow, drifting past the brim of his hat as he studied the scene laid out before him like a high-stakes poker table.

  Two guards flanked the porch—silent, stone-faced bastards, like they’d been carved from the same quarry as the mansion behind them. The house was all angles and age, wood darkened by time, iron fencing twisted into patterns that hinted at older, stranger designs. The garden was overgrown, wild and watchful, vines gripping broken statues of forgotten saints like they were trying to drag them down into the earth.

  And in the middle of it all sat the old man.

  He didn’t need to speak to carry weight. He had eyes like cracked glass—clear, ancient, and cold—and the stillness of someone who’d stopped running from death and made peace with the devil. Malik didn’t trust him. Hell, he didn’t trust anyone. But especially not a man who looked like he’d made it this far on secrets and survival.

  Malik took another drag, slow and even. He’d walked into firefights with more welcome than this. Tension rode the air like a wire stretched too tight—fragile, sharp, and just begging for someone to cut it. His fingers twitched near the holster. If it came to it, he figured he could drop both guards and the old man before they even finished blinking. But he didn’t want to—not because he cared about the mission, not really. The system had dumped it in his lap like some divine errand boy, and maybe it promised answers, but so far it had only delivered bullets and bodies.

  He wanted answers, sure—but he wanted control even more.

  Then a voice floated down from above.

  “Is that the courier, Grandfather?”

  It was like honey over ice, smooth but with a chill beneath it. Malik’s head tilted up instinctively, his whole body tightening like a sprung trap. And then he saw her.

  She stepped out onto the upper balcony with the sort of grace that didn’t belong in this crumbling world. Caramel skin kissed by the early sun, long dark hair that spilled like ink over her shoulders, and eyes the color of springtime—vivid green and sharp enough to cut through stone. Her body moved like poetry—rhythmic, effortless, dangerous.

  Malik didn’t believe in angels. Never had. Not even when he’d been shot full of D?o energy and left standing in alleys with corpses cooling at his feet. But the second his gaze met hers, he felt something press hard against his chest. Not fear. Not awe.

  Possibility.

  He didn’t know what was in the box. Could’ve been a cure, could’ve been a curse. Maybe it was the key to save this dying world, maybe it’d burn it all to the ground. Truth was, he didn’t give a damn. But the way she looked at him—as if he might be more than just the next dead man in a trench coat—that stirred something. Something dangerous. And maybe, just maybe, something worth surviving for.

  Malik tore his eyes away from the woman on the balcony, though it took more effort than he cared to admit. The curve of her voice still lingered in his ears—soft, curious, and unafraid. That alone should’ve been a warning.

  His gaze shifted back to the old man on the veranda, who hadn’t moved an inch. Still as a statue carved from war stories and old debts. Malik didn’t know how he knew the man’s name, just like he didn’t know why he could read runes etched into rusted steel or shoot like a ghost-trained gunslinger—but he knew. Somewhere deep in that echoing cavern where his memory should’ve lived, a whisper scratched the truth.

  Kazuo Arakawa. They called him the Pale Dragon once, back when the streets bled different and the city was young. Rumor said he’d been alive for over two hundred years, sustained by power siphoned from a darker well. Leader of the House of Glass Knives, a syndicate known for its brutal belief that the old world should be carved away to make room for something harder, colder, cleaner. In the underworld’s pecking order, Kazuo sat like a spider at the center of a blood-soaked web.

  And if that was true—if the man before him really was Kazuo Arakawa—then the girl on the balcony with the skin like burnished bronze and eyes like new spring leaves could only be Sayuri. His granddaughter. A living rumor wrapped in silk and secrets.

  Kazuo’s voice cut through the haze like a scalpel. “You’ve brought the case,” he said, not a question. He studied Malik with sharp, ageless eyes that held no warmth but offered something else. Respect, maybe. Or curiosity. “You’ve drawn blood in your passage. The Iron Talon dogs are loud when they lose their own.”

  There it was. A name. Iron Talon. The rival Yakuza clan vying for the scraps of Kuroyami’s decaying power structure. Younger, hungrier, and less disciplined than Kazuo’s old-guard empire. Malik now had a title too—Burakumin. Enemy of the clan. He’d earned it with shadow-forged bullets and the blood of men who underestimated him.

  Malik’s lip curled into the faintest smile. “I’ve been called worse.” At least he assumed that he had been.

  The guards shifted as Malik stepped closer, hands itching toward their jackets, eyes cold. One of them, broad-shouldered and stone-faced, moved to intercept, hand already half-raised.

  Kazuo didn’t even look at him. “Don’t insult our guest.”

  The bodyguard froze.

  “If he meant to kill me,” Kazuo continued, “he’d have done it back at the gate. Or on the road. Or a hundred other places less polite than my front step.”

  Malik nodded once, still holding the case. “Besides,” he said, flicking ash off his cigarette, “killing you would mean no answers. And I’m in short supply on those.”

  Kazuo offered the faintest smile, the kind that didn’t touch his eyes. “Then come inside. Let’s not keep your questions—or my years—waiting.”

  The guards stepped aside, slow and stiff like machines wound too tight. Malik moved past them, the weight of the package cradled under one arm. The doors yawned open before him, revealing a hallway lit in amber and gold, where time seemed to flow thicker than blood. He didn’t look back at the bike. Let it sit and brood in the drive like a steel heartbeat. For now, the real ride was just beginning.

  The inside of the Arakawa mansion felt like stepping into a shrine dedicated to a forgotten war. Shadows clung to the lacquered floors like loyal servants, and every footfall echoed in the quiet like it was trespassing. Malik followed in silence, his boots making low clicks against smooth wood as the guards led him deeper into the heart of the house. He caught glimpses of family portraits—sepia-toned warriors locked in frozen duels, geisha with cruel eyes and blood-slick fans. The walls whispered legacy in a language older than bullets.

  Flickering lanterns lined the hallways, their soft light casting golden pools on the floor, painting D?o inscriptions across the walls like scars. Some were carved into the wooden beams themselves, others woven delicately into the wallpaper—symbols of balance, power, motion. A house built not just to contain a man but to reflect a philosophy. It was part temple, part tomb, and somewhere in between, a living history of pain and pride.

  The tale has been taken without authorization; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.

  They brought him at last to a private study. The room exhaled quiet wealth. Bookshelves of dark wood lined the walls, filled with tomes bound in cracked leather and strange cloths that smelled of ink and incense. Crimson-stained paper walls shimmered faintly, stretched tight behind wooden lattices, and there was a low-burning hearth tucked beneath a carved dragon mantle. The place smelled of age and discipline—smoke, dust, and the faintest perfume of sakura long dead.

  Kazuo Arakawa moved behind a lacquered bar and poured two fingers of something amber and thick into a pair of crystal tumblers. He didn’t ask how Malik liked it—he just poured the way he always did. A man like that didn’t make room for preferences. The whiskey hit the air like a gunshot wrapped in velvet—peaty, rich, and heavy with secrets. He offered Malik a cigarette from a gold-pressed tin that clicked open with a sound like old bones settling.

  Malik took both. The smoke was rich, strong and earthy, rolled with reverence. It lit smooth under the flame of Kazuo’s antique lighter, a dragon etched in silver winding around the wheel.

  They drank in silence for a minute. Malik swirled the whiskey, watching the light twist through the glass, then finally took a slow sip. It burned on the way down, but not in a way that bit—more like an old story told by firelight. He leaned back into the chair, one leg crossed over the other, the cigarette resting easy between his fingers.

  “Not bad,” Malik said finally, voice dry as old bourbon. “You always treat your couriers like this?”

  Kazuo cracked a faint smile. “Only the ones who survive.”

  They both chuckled, the kind of low, dangerous laugh that left room for steel beneath it.

  “You’re not like the others,” Kazuo said. “They run. You ride.”

  Malik shrugged. “Running’s for prey.”

  That earned a nod from the old man. “And you, Malik… are a predator.”

  The name settled heavy in the room, as if spoken by something older than the walls. Malik didn’t react. The system had used that name, and now so did the old man. He still didn’t know if it was truly his, but it wore well enough, like an old coat found in a trunk.

  The door slid open behind them, and Sayuri entered without ceremony. Her steps were soft, measured, the rustle of silk and shadow. She didn’t look at her grandfather. Her eyes were on Malik—searching, curious, amused.

  Kazuo didn’t tell her to leave.

  She perched on the edge of a low chaise, one leg folded beneath her, the other extended just enough to suggest grace and danger. Malik exhaled a stream of smoke and watched it curl upward toward the red-lacquered ceiling.

  For a time, the room held only silence and smoke.

  “You’ve heard of the Race, I assume,” Kazuo said at last, turning his glass in his hand.

  Malik met his gaze. “I’ve heard the word. That’s about it.”

  “It’s not just a race. It’s a test. A crucible. One laid across multiple worlds. This one… this city… is one of the arenas.”

  Sayuri’s brow furrowed, but she said nothing.

  Kazuo continued. “You’re marked, Malik. The system chose you, and you answered with blood and bullets. That makes you a player. You may not know the rules yet, but they know you.”

  “Yeah,” Malik muttered. “It’s got a real bad habit of talking in riddles and throwing me into gunfights.”

  “That’s the D?o,” Kazuo said, almost reverently. “It doesn’t explain. It reveals.”

  Malik took another drag, staring into the fire. “You talk like a practitioner.”

  “I was,” the old man said, his voice tighter now. “D?o of the Sword. Fifty years ago. Until a curse stripped me of it. Severed the current. Left me half a man.”

  Sayuri turned to him, startled. “You never told me that.”

  “I didn’t want to.” He turned back to Malik. “I tried everything to reconnect. Meditation. Blood rites. Even the forbidden paths. But nothing worked. So I built this city a heart.”

  Malik raised an eyebrow. “The power plant.”

  Kazuo nodded. “A siphon. Drawing D?o energy from the world—raw, uncut, unstable. It feeds Kuroyami City. Powers its lights, its machines, its illusions. But every watt pulled here leaves the rest of the world a little colder. A little closer to death.”

  Sayuri stared at her grandfather, stunned. “You did this… all of this?”

  Kazuo didn’t meet her eyes. “For the city. For my survival. For the D?o. We are not born to kneel before entropy.”

  Malik stood slowly, letting the glass rest on the lacquered table with a soft clink.

  “You built a siphon to chase something that was never meant to be hoarded,” he said. “And now the world’s dying of thirst because you wanted a second sip.”

  Kazuo looked up at him, ancient eyes unreadable. “Would you have done different?”

  Malik didn’t answer. Because he wasn’t sure he would’ve.

  Malik sat with the weight of Kazuo’s question hanging heavy in the air, like a thick coat of smoke that refused to drift. At first, his gut twisted at the thought—the idea of bleeding the life force out of an entire world just to fuel one man's craving for power or salvation. It sounded monstrous, arrogant, and wrong. But then another part of him, deeper down in the bone and sinew, growled with quiet hunger.

  He remembered the way the D?o felt when it poured into him. That surge of clarity, the fire in his limbs, the sense that time had slowed and the world had tilted to his favor. He remembered what it felt like to see the stats bloom across his vision. To move faster, strike harder, dodge death by inches. Level 3 now. No ordinary man could do what he’d done, and every part of him knew it.

  It was addictive. Maybe even sacred. And in that dimly lit study, where the shadows danced between ancient paper walls and the slow curl of cigarette smoke, Malik couldn’t lie to himself. If someone had told him there was a way to pull more of that power—safely, efficiently—he might’ve reached for the valve without a second thought.

  So when Kazuo turned his gaze back to him, aged eyes flickering with something deeper than ambition, Malik didn’t answer. He just exhaled slowly, letting the silence serve.

  The old man didn’t need words to continue.

  “You’re not the first to be tempted by the D?o,” Kazuo said, voice quiet and dry as the paper walls around them. “And you won’t be the last. I’ve seen it twist kings and peasants alike into something unrecognizable. I thought I could master it… bend it to my will.”

  He poured himself another glass of whiskey but didn’t drink it. His fingers tightened around the crystal.

  “I was wrong,” he said. “And I paid the price.”

  Sayuri shifted slightly in her seat. She hadn’t spoken since her earlier question, but her eyes were on her grandfather now—searching, soft, wary.

  Kazuo continued, slower now. “Some time ago, I received a vision. The kind that comes not from dream or drink… but from the deeper currents. It showed me reborn—my youth returned, my blade sharp once more. And you—” he looked at Malik, not as a man looks at a courier, but as a gambler eyes a card yet to be turned—“you were the hand that gave it to me.”

  Malik leaned forward, cigarette dangling loose from his fingers, eyes narrowed beneath the brim of his hat. “You're saying I was in your little bedtime story?”

  Kazuo smiled faintly. “You were the storm on the horizon. And the path through it.”

  There was silence, heavy with meaning.

  Then Kazuo set the glass down and looked Malik straight in the eye. “The Race… it’s more than a test. At the end, the victor is given two boons. One for themselves—anything their soul can hold. And the other… must be given. Freely. To another. To a person, a place, an idea. It is not meant for the winner. It is meant to restore, to lift, to balance.”

  Sayuri’s voice cut softly through the hush. “You never told me that.”

  Kazuo didn’t flinch. “Because I didn’t want to hope.”

  He turned back to Malik.

  “I want that second boon. Pledge it to me, here and now. Let the system bind it. And I will move the heavens and hells to make sure you win. No matter who stands in your way.”

  Malik didn’t answer right away. He looked down at his cigarette, now burned to the filter, and stubbed it out in the ashtray with a slow twist. His heart beat steady, but something about this made the edges of the world sharpen. The idea of a system-binding oath didn’t sit right. It was too clean. Too final.

  “And what if I want to use that boon to fix the world?” Malik asked, voice like gravel sliding down a dry riverbed.

  “You could,” Kazuo said, nodding slowly. “And you’d be a fool.”

  Sayuri gave her grandfather a sharp look, but he didn’t waver.

  “This world has already made its choice,” he continued. “It chose rot. What’s left to save?”

  Malik didn’t answer. Not because he agreed. But because he didn’t know.

  He stood, pacing slowly toward one of the paper walls, watching how the light moved against it—soft and bleeding, like watercolor soaked too long.

  “You know anything else about me?” he asked, not looking back.

  “Only your name,” Kazuo replied. “And that the system marked you. If you want more than that… you’ll have to win.”

  There it was. The same damn answer every time. Win the race. Fight the fights. Kill the monsters. Deliver the packages. Survive. And maybe, just maybe, at the end of all of it, he’d know why the hell he was born into this story.

  He turned back to the two of them.

  “I’m not pledging anything yet,” he said. “But I’ll think about it.”

  Kazuo nodded. “That’s more than most offer.”

  Malik dropped back into his chair and poured himself the rest of the old man’s whiskey.

  “You got anything stronger?”

  The old man only smiled.