Fifteen Years Ago
Edge of Tokyo B — SSRC Medical Base
The rain never stopped that night.
Katsuhara sat beside the hospital bed, holding the tiny hand of his daughter—Rin—barely five years old. Her small face was pale, streaked with tears, silent in her grief.
Her mother was dead.
The world outside was all black sirens and broken promises.
He wiped her tears away with a trembling thumb.
"I will protect you," he whispered into her hair, voice cracking under the weight of the vow. "No matter what, Rin. I swear. I will save you... even if it kills me."
Rin clung to him tighter.
Neither of them knew just how cruel a promise could become.
Present Day — Inside the Garden
The world burned around them.
Ash fell like snow as the sky split open.
Katsuhara stood, FP204 rifle heavy in his hands, facing his daughter—or the thing she had become. Behind him, the Black Reaper—Lin—emerged from the smoke, swords glinting under the stormlight.
Graden lay broken in the rubble, his silver eyes wide in disbelief, a single clean slash marking his defeat. His body began dissolving into motes of stardust, carried away by the wind.
Lin barely spared him a glance.
His gaze was locked on Rin.
And then—
A new presence.
Hirukushi.
He stepped from the mist, tall and skeletal, black coat billowing, his gaunt face twisted into something almost reverent as he looked at Rin.
"Beautiful," Hirukushi breathed. "The birth of a true Asseter."
Katsuhara pivoted, raising his rifle.
Hirukushi smiled coldly and moved.
Faster than sight.
Katsuhara fired—rounds laced with anti-psionic disruptors—but Hirukushi bent reality itself, sidestepping the bullets as if time slowed just for him. His hand, long and clawed, reached for Katsuhara's heart.
The world tilted.
In that moment of death—
Steel flashed.
Lin intercepted, his twin blades catching Hirukushi's strike inches from Katsuhara's chest.
The impact sent a shockwave rippling through the broken landscape.
Katsuhara stumbled back, heart pounding.
Why?
Why would the Black Reaper—his enemy, the most wanted assassin in all of Tokyo B—save him?
Lin said nothing. His masked face betrayed no emotion.
Only his stance—defiant, unwavering—spoke: You are not dying today.
"You're interfering, Reaper," Hirukushi snarled, voice like rusted iron.
Lin responded the only way he knew.
By fighting.
They clashed—two storms colliding, blades and psionics ripping through the ruins. Lin's movements were brutal, surgical, driven by something more than mission, more than survival.
Something close to fury.
Hirukushi grinned wider, releasing a wave of corrupted energy. Reality warped—ground curving upward like the surface of a dying star. Lin flipped, landed, and drove his swords through the distortion, cutting through the impossible.
They fought among the corpses of fallen dreams.
They fought while the Garden rotted around them.
And finally—
With a vicious cross slash, Lin severed Hirukushi's spine.
The man gasped.
Lin's second blade pierced his heart clean through.
Hirukushi staggered back, a look of profound betrayal on his face.
"You... you were supposed to..." he choked, before his body collapsed into dust.
Gone.
Silence fell.
But the true battle was not over.
Rin screamed.
Her voice shook the sky apart.
Roots erupted again. Shard fragments floated around her like a cruel halo. Her eyes were not human anymore—silver and endless like a dying star.
She moved—no, she manifested—appearing before Katsuhara in a blink.
And in her hands was a lance of crystallized hatred.
She drove it at him.
Katsuhara didn't move.
Maybe he couldn't.
Maybe he wouldn't.
But Lin did.
Again.
The Black Reaper threw himself between them, swords a blur, parrying the strike—though the force hurled both men back like paper dolls.
Katsuhara gasped, feeling ribs crack.
Rin advanced slowly, inexorable.
"I hate you," she whispered, voice fractured with grief and rage. "All of you. You left her. You abandoned us."
Katsuhara struggled to stand.
"No," he rasped. "Never... I never left you."
Tears blurred his vision.
She raised the lance again.
Lin landed beside him, barely holding his stance.
"Katsuhara," Lin said hoarsely behind the mask. "You have to end it."
"I can't!" Katsuhara shouted, voice breaking. "She's my daughter!"
Lin grabbed him by the collar, dragging him up.
"You must," Lin hissed, eyes burning. "Or she will destroy everything. Including herself."
Katsuhara shook his head, the rifle trembling in his hands.
He remembered the hospital room.
The tiny hand gripping his fingers.
"I will save you," he had promised.
But some promises were impossible.
The lance came again.
Time slowed.
Katsuhara moved.
One shot.
Straight into her heart.
Rin's body jerked, crystalline light shattering around the impact.
The rain stopped.
The world froze.
Rin looked at him—not with anger. Not with hatred.
But sadness.
"I knew," she whispered. "You loved me... even now..."
Her body glowed, heat radiating outward. Flesh melted into light, shards turning to ash.
Katsuhara dropped the rifle.
He stumbled forward, catching her as she collapsed one last time into his arms—not a monster, not an Asseter—
Just his daughter.
Her body was warm.
Then burning.
He clutched her tighter, ignoring the pain, the melting skin, the searing agony.
"I'm sorry," he whispered, tears blinding him. "I'm so sorry, Rin..."
The rain began again.
Soft, mourning.
Lin watched from a distance.
"This world..." Katsuhara gasped through the pain. "...only devours the flowers before they can bloom."
He smiled one last time at the broken sky.
And then he died.
Holding her.
Next Day — Nunuki Apartments
The walls were thin.
The faucet dripped.
The city beyond the cracked window pulsed with a thousand sirens.
Lin sat on the stained mattress of his old apartment, his twin blades leaning against the wall. The air smelled like rain and cigarettes.
He was alive.
But it didn't feel like it.
The clock ticked loudly. Noon.
A soft knock at the door.
Lin opened it a crack.
Standing there was his neighbor—the girl he had seen once before but never spoken to.
Misaki.
She wore a loose sweater and jeans, her short hair tousled from sleep, grocery bags in her hands.
For a moment, they just stared at each other.
The storm outside—the screaming death—felt impossibly far away.
"Uh... you're new here, right?" Misaki said awkwardly, giving a small smile. "I'm Misaki. Remember .."
Lin nodded silently.
"...If you need anything," she said, hesitating, "I'm just next door."
She waited, as if hoping he would say something.
He didn't.
Misaki laughed softly, covering her awkwardness, and turned away.
He watched her go.
A sliver of something unfamiliar flickered in his chest.
Something dangerously close to hope.
Later — At the Old Convenience Store
The sign buzzed weakly.
Lin walked down the cracked pavement to the ancient store, rain tapping on the awning.
Inside, the familiar faces waited.
Nel—leaning lazily against the counter, flipping through a fashion magazine.
The Crow—perched on the freezer, jet-black eyes glinting.
And behind the counter, old Mao—bald, grinning, his face a thousand years deep with scars.
"You're late," Mao said, sliding a can of coffee across the counter toward him. "But you did good, kid. Syndicate's real happy."
Lin caught the can without looking.
"You knew," Lin said quietly. "You knew Rin would die."
Mao's grin faded.
He sighed, lighting a cigarette with trembling fingers.
"In this world," he said, voice hoarse, "flowers bloom only to wither."
Lin crushed the can in his fist.
"Was there no other way?"
Mao shrugged helplessly.
"This is the dark," he said simply. "We're just trying to survive in it."
Outside, the rain washed the blood from the city's bones.
Inside, Lin stood very still.
"I'll take the next assignment," he said finally.
Nel looked up, startled.
"Already?"
Lin nodded.
"There's nothing left to save."
The Crow cawed sharply—almost mournfully.
Mao leaned back, shadows deepening around his face.
"Good," he said. "Real good."
He slid a black envelope across the counter.
Lin picked it up.
Inside, a name.
A face.
Another target.
Another ghost.
As he turned to leave, Mao called after him:
"Hey, Reaper."
Lin paused.
"Don't forget," Mao said, voice low. "Even in the dark... some flowers still try to bloom."
Lin said nothing.
He stepped back into the rain.
The city swallowed him whole.
And somewhere far above, past the poisoned clouds, past the broken stars—
The ghost of a girl named Rin watched him go.
And wept.
[TO BE CONTINUED]