The old wooden door creaked as Elijah Cruz stepped into the dimly lit church. Light filtered through the stained glass in fractured colors, painting the cracked tile floor in reds and blues. Rain whispered against the windows outside, tapping like a warning he couldn't hear.
He kept his hood up.
The place was empty, save for a lone figure near the altar. A priest in a worn black cassock, head bowed in quiet prayer. Eli didn't approach him. He didn't need to. His boots echoed softly as he veered toward the confessional at the far end, the one cloaked in shadow.
He stepped inside, pulled the curtain closed behind him, and sat. The leather seat sighed beneath him. Across the screen, the priest's side creaked open.
Neither spoke at first.
Then Eli's voice, low and almost calm:
"Bless me, Father… for I'm about to sin."
A pause. The priest shifted, uncertain. "You mean you will sin?"
Eli didn't answer right away. He reached into his jacket and pulled out a small folding knife. It was light, razor-sharp, balanced just right. He flipped it open and closed with one hand, over and over, the soft click of the blade punctuating the silence like a metronome.
Click. Snick. Click.
"I've done bad things," Eli murmured. "I've hurt people. Some of 'em deserved it. Some of 'em… probably didn't. I don't know anymore."
The priest hesitated. "You came for forgiveness?"
Eli smirked, flipping the knife again.
"No. I came for permission."
Silence again. The priest drew in a breath. "That's not how this works, son. God forgives. But He doesn't give permission to do wrong."
Eli's hand stilled. The knife rested against his fingers like an extension of his thoughts.
"I tried to be good once," he said. "Had a family. A life. My mom she taught me how to fight. My dad wore a badge. Told me justice meant something. Told me I could be a light in the dark."
He exhaled, a bitter laugh caught in his throat.
"They were taken from me… just like that. One second we're laughing, next second there's blood on the street. My mom tried to protect us. My dad reached for his badge. The guy didn't even flinch. Just pulled the trigger. Twice."
He flicked the blade again. Click.
"I remember the sound more than anything else. Not the faces. Not the screams. Just that bang. It's all I dream about."
"You've lost," the priest said gently. "I understand. But vengeance won't bring them back."
"I'm not looking for vengeance," Eli said, leaning forward. "I'm making sure no one else loses the way I did. This city? It doesn't need saints. It needs someone who's willing to crawl through the dark and drag the monsters into the light."
A long pause.
"I came here tonight," Eli said, "to ask if there's still something left in me worth saving. If God sees what I see. If He forgives a boy with blood on his hands and madness in his head."
The priest's voice was barely a whisper. "What do you see when you look in the mirror?"
Eli stared at the blade in his hand, then slowly closed it.
"…A target."
He stood, pulling the hood up again. "Pray for me, Father. I don't miss."
And then he was gone, just the echo of footsteps.
The first fight wasn't for money. It was for space.
An empty warehouse near the edge of the East River. Broken windows. Rusted beams. Eli had been squatting there for two nights, curled in the cold with a switchblade under his arm. Then a man twice his size showed up, stinking of vodka and piss, yelling about territory like a rabid dog.
Eli didn't run. He didn't plead.
He moved.
Fast. Precise. Two steps to the left. Duck under the swing. Elbow to the throat. Knee to the gut. The man hit the concrete hard and didn't get up for a long time.
That was the first time Eli realized he could win.
In the Bronx, he fought in a makeshift cage under a busted meat-packing plant. No rules. Just blood and screams. They called him "Ghost" because he never talked, never stayed long. He'd walk in barefoot, hands taped, hoodie up. Walk out with enough cash to buy a week's worth of food and a burner phone for reading.
And every night, he studied.
Old books stolen from college dumpsters. Forensic psychology, anatomy, criminal behavior. He read until his eyes blurred, his ribs ached, and the distant hum of sirens became white noise. He memorized pressure points, nerve clusters, pain triggers. He didn't want to just fight criminals.
He wanted to understand them. Break them from the inside out.
There were nights he didn't sleep. Couldn't.
Memories stalked him like wolves. His mother's final cry. His father's badge slipping from his hand. The flash of the muzzle. The bang. Always the bang.
So he'd climb rooftops, find a perch with a view of the city, and throw things.
Bottlecaps. Rusted nails. Coins. Anything he could find.
One flick of his wrist, and they'd hit a distant streetlamp, a rooftop antenna, a fire escape chain. Dead center. Every time.
He was learning control. Range. Precision. Not just how to fight… but how to strike.
In an abandoned subway station, he trained for speed. He tied cans to string and let them swing, dodging them blindfolded. When he failed, he bled. He welcomed it. Pain kept him sharp.
He built reflex. Timing. That's what his mom taught him "If you can control your breath, your body listens. If your body listens, the fight is already won."
In Queens, he got stabbed. Twice.
Didn't cry. Didn't scream. Just gritted his teeth, patched himself with a sewing kit, and wrote the names of the guys who jumped him on the wall.
A week later, he found each of them. One by one. Never killed them.
Just made sure they remembered him.
By the time he was seventeen, Eli Cruz was a myth. A shadow. The kid with the dead eyes who could hit a moving target in the dark from twenty feet away. The underground circuit feared him. The streets whispered about him.
But he wasn't a killer.
Not yet.
He slept in graveyards sometimes because he said it kept him close to the ones he lost. Other nights, he curled beneath overpasses, hugging a knife and dreaming of blood.
He told himself he wasn't angry anymore.
He told himself he was becoming.
And one night, Eli sat shirtless on a folding chair in the back of a graffiti-covered tattoo shop. His expression didn't flinch, didn't change. He stared straight ahead, eyes black as coal and just as empty. The tattoo artist was an old friend of his mother's from the underground days and he didn't ask questions. Just worked.
The dragon took shape on the left side of Eli's neck, coiling like smoke, fangs bared, claws sharp. A symbol not of rage, but of discipline. Power in control. It had once hung as a banner in his mother's dojo The Black Dragon Dojo was a place that taught strength not for domination, but protection.
He had it inked into his flesh so he'd never forget what that meant.
When it was done, Eli stood and pulled on a plain black shirt. He nodded in silent thanks and walked out the shop to his base an abandoned warehouse.
The suit had been a slow creation. Built over months in the dark between fights and rooftop watches, stitched together from scavenged tech and armor plating he'd lifted off old tactical vests, broken helmets, and surplus shops no one monitored closely. Every piece was tested. Refined. Upgraded.
The bodysuit was matte black and lightweight, reinforced at the joints with flexible Kevlar mesh. It didn't look flashy, but it could take a knife and in the city, that was the difference between standing back up or bleeding out.
The boots were reinforced at the soles with steel toe inserts, perfect for breaking kneecaps or sprinting across rooftops. The gloves were stitched with subtle grip pads and shock-resistant knuckles. His belt? Custom rigged lockpicks, throwing knives, a compact sidearm he never used unless there was no choice.
Eli stared at himself in a cracked mirror. The black of his eyes stared back, cold and sharp. His black hair, now falling past his ears, gave him a wild look. He looked like someone else now. Someone harder. Someone built in the fire of every broken night.
But deep inside, he was still that thirteen-year-old boy who lost everything in one breath.
He took a breath now.
Deep. Centered.
Like his mother taught him.
"Control your breath. Your body will follow."
He slid the mask over his face slowly, the fabric tightening with a subtle stretch. It was simple, functional, yet unmistakable. Across the forehead was a single, clean target a bullseye. Not a threat. A promise.
He strapped the last buckle, sheathed a knife to his thigh holster, and stepped into the shadows of the warehouse.
Tonight wasn't about revenge.
It was about precision. Purpose.
He wasn't Eli Cruz anymore.
He was Bullseye.