Kage's Mansion - Hillside Estates

  "I don't want to hurt you either... rather, I want to kill you."

  The words hung in the air between them, cold and absolute. Valen's grip on Kage's suit tightened, but something shifted in his eyes—genuine fear flickering behind the pathetic facade. For all his durability, for all his monstrous strength, Valen recognized the difference between a threat and a promise.

  Kage's voice carried the weight of a man who had killed more people than he could remember.

  Valen's hands began to glow with a sickly luminescence as his concept activated. Kage felt it immediately—his mana being pulled from his body like blood from an open wound, draining into Valen's palms with hungry efficiency.

  So this is what he did to Sebastian, Kage realized, his analytical mind working even as his strength waned. Absorbed his mana, copied his concept, then used it against me in those hallways.

  Kage tried to break free, but Valen's grip was iron. Each second that passed made the assassin weaker and the monster stronger. His shadow writhed uselessly at his feet, growing dimmer as the mana sustaining it was siphoned away.

  Fine. If strength won't work...

  Kage focused what remained of his mana into reinforcing his skull, condensing the energy into a single point of hardened bone and willpower. Then he snapped his head forward.

  The headbutt connected with Valen's nose with a satisfying crunch. Blood sprayed across Kage's face as Valen stumbled backward, his concentration shattered and his grip released. The mana drain stopped.

  Kage didn't hesitate. He launched himself at Valen with a fury of punches—each strike precise, calculated, aimed at nerve clusters and pressure points that would maximize pain. Valen raised his arms to block, his inhuman durability absorbing blows that would have killed ordinary men.

  The male version is pathetic, Kage thought as his fists connected with Valen's guard. Strong, but no killer instinct. The real headache will be Sister.

  He needed to understand the timing. How did they switch? What triggered the transformation between male and female forms? If he could figure out the window of opportunity—

  A shadow pooled beneath Valen's feet.

  The terrified expression on Valen's face transformed into something approaching joy. "Sister!" he breathed, and then sank into the darkness like a stone dropping into water.

  The shift, Kage noted, immediately reinforcing his mana reserves. He's retreating so she can take over.

  The mansion fell silent. Kage stood alone in his ruined hallway, surrounded by shattered crystal and overturned furniture. He focused on rebuilding his defenses, taking stock of what Valen had stolen. A sizeable amount of mana—enough to notice, but nothing he should fear.

  The shadow behind him rippled.

  Kage felt the murderous intent a fraction of a second before the attack came. He twisted sideways as clawed fingers sliced through the air where his throat had been, close enough that he felt the wind of their passage.

  Sister Envy stood before him now—smaller than Valen's male form, more compact, but radiating a predatory energy that her other half completely lacked. Her movements were deliberate, economical, the hallmarks of a trained fighter rather than a brute.

  "Kage of the Shadows," she purred, her voice dripping with honeyed venom. "What a pleasure it is to use the concept of the best assassin in Japan."

  A shadow materialized behind her—wretched and twisted, its form unstable and crackling with stolen power. It looked like a corruption of Kage's own technique, a bastardized mirror that turned any fight into a two-on-one.

  "A man who has not failed any mission except one," Sister Envy continued, circling him slowly, "now turned hero and wanting to protect Japan. How laughable."

  Kage's lips curled into a cold smile. He raised his hand, and his own shadow rose behind him—darker, more refined, moving with the fluid grace of something that had been perfected through years of blood and sacrifice.

  "You know of me yet want to challenge me with my own concept?" Kage scoffed. "Whatever you think I am, I promise I'm worse than you imagined."

  His shadow struck first, tendrils of darkness lashing toward Sister Envy with killing intent. Her borrowed shadow moved to intercept, the two constructs clashing in a writhing mass of darkness that sent tremors through the mansion's foundations.

  Kage used the distraction. He appeared behind Sister Envy in an instant, grabbing her wrist and driving his knee into the small of her back. The impact sent a shockwave of pain through her spine.

  Her shadow screeched—a sound like tearing metal that made Kage's teeth ache—and whirled to attack him independent of any command from its host.

  It acts on its own, Kage realized, releasing Sister Envy's wrist and summoning his shadow back to intercept the wild assault. Protecting her no matter what. Just like when my shadow first materialized.

  Sister Envy dove into the pool of darkness at her feet, disappearing from view as her feral shadow continued its rampage. The construct attacked everything in sight with uncontrolled tenacity—walls, furniture, support beams—screaming its rage into the ruined mansion.

  Kage's shadow fought to subdue it. Attacking would accomplish nothing—you couldn't hurt a user by damaging their shadow—but containing it would limit the destruction and protect himself from its wild strikes.

  She's diving into the shadows for defense while her summon does the dirty work, Kage analyzed, deflecting another slash from the feral construct. That bonehead didn't absorb enough mana for her to keep wasting my concept like this.

  But he couldn't afford to underestimate her.

  She's calculating. I should not take this lightly.

  The feral shadow suddenly surged with renewed fury, knocking Kage's construct backward. Before he could resummon it, the creature lunged at him directly, clawed hands reaching for his throat.

  "Shit—"

  Kage caught its wrists, the shadow's form surprisingly solid in his grip. It screamed directly into his face, close enough that he could see the absence where its eyes should have been—just empty voids filled with borrowed darkness.

  "Shadows are the absence of light," Sister Envy's voice echoed through the ruined hallway. She emerged from a shadow portal near the far wall, watching him struggle with evident satisfaction. "Still, a materialized one is dense and full of life, isn't that right, Kage?"

  He was vulnerable. Pinned in place, both hands occupied with the screaming shadow, unable to summon his own construct without releasing this one. Kage recalled his shadow entirely, using every scrap of remaining mana to reinforce his body instead.

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  His muscles bulged with channeled energy. A roar tore from his throat as he began overpowering the feral shadow through sheer physical force, slowly pushing it back—

  Sister Envy's foot connected with his ribs.

  The kick sent white-hot pain lancing through his side, but Kage refused to release his grip on the shadow. It continued thrashing in his hands, clawing at his forearms and leaving bloody furrows across his skin.

  "You just don't know when to let go, do you, pretty boy?" Sister Envy taunted, dancing back out of reach. "How about you stop paying attention to the shadow and fight me, you bastard!"

  Kage released the construct. It immediately resumed its assault, and now he was fighting two opponents—Sister Envy's quick, precise strikes complemented by the shadow's wild, unpredictable slashes. He couldn't gain space. Couldn't summon his own shadow without dropping his physical reinforcement. Every second was a desperate dance of deflection and evasion.

  "What an annoying bitch you are," Kage said coldly, narrowly avoiding a claw swipe that would have taken his head.

  "Oh, don't be so petty," Sister Envy replied, her smile never wavering.

  If this is a battle of attrition, I am surely losing.

  But the shadow was an indicator.

  Kage's mind raced back through years of memories—his own shadow's first manifestation, the way it had been combative to everyone, attacking friend and foe alike without discrimination. No one could control it. No one except...

  Lucifer.

  The devil had reached into that chaos and imposed his will upon it, showing Kage that the shadow could be tamed. And Kage had spent years doing exactly that—battling his own construct, sacrificing blood and sanity to make it truly his. He had looked into the abyss and forced it to blink first.

  And now this woman thought she could steal his mana and create her own shadow? As if the darkness was something that could simply be borrowed?

  What a slap in the face.

  Sister Envy and her shadow were herding him through the mansion now, cutting off escape routes, preparing to corner him against the far wall. Kage leaped through a doorway, buying precious seconds of space.

  "Let's make a gamble," he whispered.

  Instead of retreating, Kage charged directly at the feral shadow.

  For a single heartbeat—barely a fraction of a second—it halted.

  Not for long. Sister Envy didn't even notice. But it was enough for Kage to confirm what he needed.

  The shadow resumed its attack. Kage ducked under its swipe, and when he rose, the smirk had faded from his face. He reappeared directly in front of Sister Envy with killing intent radiating from every pore.

  She was ready for him. Her hands came together in a devastating overhead smash that cratered the floor beneath Kage's feet, driving him onto his back. She followed him down, her fist pressing toward his chest as he grabbed her wrists in desperation.

  She was overpowering him.

  The mana absorption was catching up. His reserves were depleted, his body running on fumes. Sister Envy leaned into the pressure, her weight and stolen strength slowly crushing his resistance.

  "I had more respect for you," she said, her voice dripping with disappointment. "A man who took life by the horns and made his presence known, reduced to this."

  Her fist pressed deeper. Kage's arms trembled.

  "Your house, destroyed. Your butler, defeated. And now you, showing fear to me."

  The feral shadow loomed over them both, raising its clawed hand for the finishing blow.

  "A man dying to his own technique," Sister Envy purred. "The irony."

  The shadow struck.

  Tendrils of darkness pierced through flesh and bone, spraying blood across the ruined floor. But not Kage's blood.

  Sister Envy's eyes went wide with shock. She looked down at the claws protruding from her chest, at the shadow that had been protecting her moments ago now buried in her back.

  "Wha—"

  Kage began to laugh.

  He shoved her off of him, rising to his feet and dusting debris from his ruined suit. The laughter grew—not the cold, controlled sound of before, but something unhinged, manic, releasing weeks of suppressed rage and instability through violence.

  Sister Envy collapsed to her knees, blood pouring from her mouth. Her own shadow had betrayed her. The construct she had stolen, the power she had borrowed—it had turned on her at the moment of victory.

  "You stupid bitch," Kage said between laughs. "I am Kage of the Shadows. A borrowed technique is just that—borrowed."

  He grabbed her by the throat and slammed her against the wall, pinning her in place exactly as her other half had done to him minutes ago.

  "You haven't earned the right of controlling the shadow."

  His knee drove into her stomach. Sister Envy retched, blood and bile spilling down her chin as she gasped for air.

  "I earned that shadow. I tamed it. It listens to me and only me!"

  Another kick to the stomach. She crumpled, rolling across the floor as she desperately tried to gather herself. Her body began to spasm—muscles twitching and swelling, then shrinking back down. The male Valen trying to surface, trying to switch and escape, but the wounds were too deep. The transformation stuttered and failed, leaving Sister Envy trapped in a broken body.

  "When I was wrestling your shadow," Kage continued, standing over her fallen form, "I imbued it with my own mana. I made it mine. Just like I did with my own shadow years ago."

  Sister Envy's eyes widened with sudden understanding. That moment—when the shadow had halted for just a fraction of a second—that was when Kage had seized control. Not through force, but through the same technique he had perfected over years of sacrifice.

  "I looked Satan in the eye and made him listen to me," Kage said coldly. "I heard the cries of the damned while I wrestled my shadow into submission. And you thought you could steal that with a parlor trick?"

  He stood over her, shadow coiling around his feet like an obedient hound.

  "Weakness is all I see."

  Sister Envy's body convulsed again—muscles bulging, bones shifting. This time the transformation completed. Male Valen emerged, his larger frame sprawled across the blood-slicked floor, eyes filled with desperate fury.

  His hand shot out and grabbed Kage's ankle with surprising speed, using the momentum to hurl the assassin across the living room. Kage crashed into his grand piano—a custom piece, one of only ten ever made—and felt it splinter beneath him.

  Valen rose to his feet, blood streaming from the wounds Sister Envy had sustained. His body shook with rage, with envy, with everything that defined his miserable existence.

  "You hurt Sister," he growled, stalking toward the ruined piano. "I didn't want to fight you. A man of such prestige. Everyone wants you, even Sister."

  His voice cracked with jealousy.

  "I'll kill you!"

  Kage lay in the rubble, face bloodied, mana nearly depleted. He looked up at the approaching monster with an expression of tired annoyance.

  "Oh, great."

  Valen loomed over him, fists raised for the killing blow.

  "This ends now. You're too low on mana, Kage—"

  BANG.

  The gunshot echoed through the mansion like thunder. Valen's head snapped back, a neat hole appearing directly between his eyes. His expression froze in confusion, as if he couldn't comprehend what had just happened.

  Kage rose from the piano's wreckage, a Desert Eagle gleaming in his right hand. Gun smoke curled from the barrel as he stood over Valen's twitching body.

  "You really tried to kill an assassin in his own house?" he whispered.

  BANG. BANG. BANG.

  Three more shots into Valen's skull. The body jerked with each impact, then went still. Blood pooled across the marble floor, mixing with the destruction that surrounded them.

  Kage stood in silence for a moment, staring down at the corpse. Under his piano had been an assortment of pistols. Hidden throughout his mansion were weapons of every variety—not because he needed them, but because preparation was survival. The element of surprise would kill anyone, even monsters.

  He knelt beside Valen's body and pressed two fingers to the throat. No pulse. He checked the eyes—fixed and dilated. He examined the head wounds—four entry points, catastrophic brain damage. No regeneration, no healing factor activating.

  Dead. Confirmed.

  "One of the Seven Deadly," Kage murmured, allowing himself a moment of satisfaction. "And I killed you with a gun."

  The irony wasn't lost on him.

  He grabbed Valen's corpse by the ankle and began dragging it toward the garage. An assassin never left bodies behind—they invited questions, investigations, witnesses. He would dispose of it properly, somewhere it would never be found.

  But first...

  Kage moved to the foyer where Sebastian still lay slumped against the wall. He knelt beside his butler and pressed fingers to the man's throat.

  A pulse. Weak, but present.

  "Still alive," Kage breathed. Something loosened in his chest—a tension he hadn't realized he'd been carrying. "Stubborn old bastard."

  He gathered Sebastian carefully, cradling the wounded man with a gentleness that would have shocked anyone who knew only his reputation. After depositing him in the passenger seat of his Bentley, Kage returned for Valen's corpse, throwing it unceremoniously into the trunk.

  The mansion stood in ruins behind him as he pulled out of the garage. Crystal chandeliers destroyed. Antique furniture shattered. His grandfather's portrait torn. The piano—irreplaceable—reduced to kindling.

  But Sebastian was alive. And one of the Seven Deadly was dead.

  Kage drove through the night toward the Guild, his bloodied face illuminated by passing streetlights. The violence had released something inside him—weeks of suppressed instability finding an outlet in combat. He felt clearer than he had in months, even as his hands trembled slightly on the steering wheel.

  His mind drifted to Haikito, still imprisoned at the Guild under blood oath. To the Academy, still under attack. To the students he had trained, fighting for their lives while he dealt with this distraction.

  "Soon," Kage whispered to himself. "I'll enact my revenge, Haikito. Just you wait."

  Above him, the full moon cast silver light across Osaka's empty streets—and within that celestial prison, something ancient observed its children with patient satisfaction.

  The night was far from over.