Chapter 2: Ghosts of the Past
Kuroda Azein sat in the darkened apartment, the city lights casting thin stripes across the floor. The message on his phone still glowed: "They are coming. Will you fight, or will you run?" He didn't need to think. Fight was the only answer he knew.
Before he could plan his next move, his mind wandered back to the beginning.
Flashback: The Making of 001
The streets of New Arcadia were unforgiving. Kuroda had grown up in the shadow of its towering skyscrapers and crumbling alleyways. Orphaned at ten, he learned quickly that the world offered no mercy. Survival wasn't just instinct—it was an art.
By sixteen, he had mastered the art of infiltration, combat, and silent elimination. The mysterious organization known only as The Syndicate took notice. They saw potential in the boy who moved like a shadow, struck like lightning, and vanished without a trace.
"Code Name 001," they whispered as they trained him, "because no one else will be as relentless, as precise, or as untouchable."
Under their guidance, Kuroda became a one-man army. He could neutralize a target in seconds, plan escapes before alarms were raised, and manipulate his environment with surgical precision. His world became a series of contracts and missions, each more dangerous than the last.
But it wasn't just skill that defined him—it was loss. Every mission left a mark. Friends, allies, and innocents alike became collateral. The man Kuroda wanted to be—the man who could rest at night—died somewhere along the way.
That man's death became his freedom. He left The Syndicate, erased his existence from the records, and disappeared into the shadows of New Arcadia, becoming a ghost among ghosts. For years, he lived in solitude, savoring the quiet life he had fought so hard to reclaim.
The knock at the door in the present jolted him back. Kuroda's instincts snapped into place. He opened it slowly. A messenger, much like the first, handed him another envelope, this one thicker, heavier. Inside, a single photograph of a familiar face—a woman, her smile bright, her life stolen years ago by enemies he had long thought gone.
The note beneath it read:
"You can't hide from your past, 001. They want you back. And they will not stop until they have you."
Kuroda clenched his fists. The man who had once lived only to survive now had a reason to fight again.
And the war that had been waiting in the shadows was finally coming to light.