The city never hid its killers.It legalized them.Rain hammered the concrete training yard as seven figures moved in perfect synchronization beneath white floodlights. Steel rang against steel. Blades kissed throats, stopped millimetres short, then withdrew without hesitation. Every movement was lethal. Every breath controlled. These weren't students. They were contracts waiting to be signed. Kurogane Ryuusei stood at the canter—broad-shouldered, scarred, unflinching. Around him moved the others: Tsukino Nyx like a living shadow, Akabane Kaito burning with reckless pride, Shidou Vire smiling as if pain amused him, Hoshikawa Sora calm as still water, Kuroda Grimm crushing targets with raw force, and Tachibana Kade flashing past like a blade of wind. They were known as the Vein Seven—elite assassins trained to thin the city's population with legal precision. Then the gates opened. Four newcomers stepped into the rain.Jin Kanzaki walked first, hands in his pockets, eyes lowered. A loner even among loners, he carried silence like a disease. Beside him came Kai Moriyama, grinning too much, cracking jokes no one laughed at. Joe Takahara followed, solid and quiet, eyes mapping exits automatically. Aira Kurosawa brought up the rear, posture straight, gaze empty—already committed to whatever future demanded. The Vein Seven stopped training. Ryuusei scoffed. "They sent kids? "Kaito laughed. "This is a joke. "Grimm cracked his knuckles. "If one of them dies in training, does that count as homework? "The instructors didn't intervene. That was the lesson. Jin felt it immediately—the hostility, the imbalance, the certainty that this class was never meant to exist. Before the academy, Jin Kanzaki existed quietly. A one-room apartment. No mirrors. No photos. No one who would notice if he vanished. At night, the city whispered directions he never asked for. Three steps left. He's lying. You'd survive longer if I took control. The voices never screamed. That was the worst part. When the black recruitment envelope arrived, Jin didn't feel fear. He felt recognition. The Assassin Academy rose between office towers and highways, a concrete fortress pretending to be a government facility. Everyone knew what it was. Everyone pretended not to. Inside, rules were simple. Kill, or don't advance. Targets were provided. Legal. Anonymous. Kai vomited after his first mission Joe didn't speak for three days. Aira cleaned her blade like a ritual, expression untouched. Jin stared at the blood on his hands, unsure when the trigger had been pulled. "Clean," one voice inside him said. "I could've done it faster," another laughed. Training intensified. Elites and juniors were forced into shared exercises—sparring that crossed into punishment, lessons that felt like executions waiting to happen. The Vein Seven made it clear: the juniors were not classmates. They were replacements. The night Kurogane Ryuusei died, the academy locked itself down. He was found in a sealed training room. No wounds. No weapons. Just terror frozen across his face, eyes wide as if he'd seen something that shouldn't exist. Six elites remained. Four juniors. Whispers spread faster than blood. Someone inside the class was hunting assassins. Jin sat alone on his dorm bed, hands shaking, rain tapping the window like a countdown."It wasn't me," he whispered. Inside his head, the voices were silent. For the first time, Jin was more afraid of what wasn't speaking than what was. And somewhere deep in the academy, another vein began to open.
