For a while, they just walked like that, hands clasped, letting the silence speak. Then Colleen's voice broke through softly.
"You ever think about how nights like this are so rare? When everything just... clicks?"
Alex smiled, squeezing her hand gently. "Yeah. I think about that a lot lately. Maybe it means we should hold onto them when they come."
She glanced up at him, eyes reflecting moonlight and something tender. "I think I'm ready to see where this goes."
He stopped walking, turning to face her fully. "Me too."
The space between them felt charged, electric yet gentle. Slowly, Alex lifted a hand to tuck a stray lock of hair behind her ear, his touch lingering a moment longer.
Colleen leaned in just a little, her breath warm against his cheek.
Then, with the quiet grace of a shared secret, their lips met.
Soft. Tentative. Full of promise.
When they pulled apart, both were smiling—breathless, a little shy, but undeniably connected.
"I think, its time we go home" She said as Alex sighed "I guess so" he said.
Eventually, he pulled the car around and drove her home. The ride was calm, filled with soft music and the comfortable quiet that only came from two people who understood each other, even without saying much.
He parked just outside her place—the familiar gate of the dojo standing silently in the night.
Colleen lingered as she stepped out. She turned back to him, brushing a strand of hair behind her ear.
"Thanks for tonight," she said softly. "It was beautiful and I enjoyed it."
Alex smiled, resting one hand on the wheel. "So did I."
She leaned in suddenly and pressed a light, sincere kiss to his cheek.
His eyes widened just slightly, but he didn't move. Only smiled more.
"Goodnight, Alex," she whispered as she stepped back. "I'd… love to have more nights like this."
Alex watched her as she turned and walked toward the dojo, her figure slowly fading into the shadows beyond the gate.
"Yeah," he said to himself, softly, after a pause.
"I would too."
Then the engine started again, and the black car slipped back into the sleeping city, leaving behind only the faint trace of something new… and something quietly hopeful.
{A/N : Honestly I am not good with romance, So yeah forgive me if you guys found it not goood enough}
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The sun barely pierced the thick haze that hung low over the city. Fog curled around rusted rooftops and empty lots as the skyline bled into shades of gunmetal and ash. This part of the city didn't appear on tourist maps—because it wasn't for them.
This was the Lawless Zone.
Alex stepped through it with purpose. His coat fluttered behind him, boots crunching on broken glass and gravel. Around him, old tenements stood like crooked tombstones—abandoned, graffitied, alive only with the whisper of old sins.
The address Krow had given him led to an old meatpacking warehouse behind Pier 17, half-collapsed and long-forgotten by any official zoning records. The air smelled of rust, salt, and something sour beneath the surface—something that had soaked into the concrete over decades.
Alex stopped in front of a chain-link fence, its gate barely holding onto its hinges. He didn't bother looking for a lock. With a sharp kick, the gate screeched open, slamming into the side of the fence like the crack of a warning bell.
He entered.
The warehouse loomed ahead, its walls streaked with rain rot, windows broken and dark. Crates and rusted meat hooks hung from the ceiling like forgotten ornaments. The cold inside clung to the bones.
Alex moved silently.
This place was wrong. Not in the usual criminal-syndicate way—but in the sense that something else had passed through here. Something unnatural.
Symbols were scrawled along the walls—circular, jagged, and red. Not paint.
He followed the trail deeper inside, until the faintest light spilled from a room half-concealed behind hanging plastic curtains. Inside, two figures stood hunched over something on a table.
Alex stepped through the plastic slowly, Cypher's presence humming just beneath his skin.
The men looked up—startled.
Alex raised an eyebrow. "You two don't look like Hand members either."
One of the men cursed and suddenly reached for something beneath his coat. It was a gun.
He barely had time to lift it.
Cypher moved first.
A blur of shadow and claw—its black, jagged hand closed around the man's wrist with bone-cracking force. The gun clattered uselessly to the floor as the man screamed, stumbling back, his arm limp and shattered.
The second man had already drawn his weapon, but before he could aim, Cypher's other limb lanced forward, a sharpened tendril of obsidian piercing straight through his chest.
He didn't scream.
He simply collapsed, eyes wide with the shock of death.
Alex didn't even look. As the second body hit the floor, a faint red shimmer pulsed from the corpse—a blood crystal—and vanished into Alex's body. It was automatic now. Part of him.
The injured man writhed on the floor, clutching his ruined arm.
"Unless you want to die like him," Alex said coldly, stepping forward, "tell me where the Hand is—or anyone related to them."
The wounded man gasped, trembling, blood dripping through his fingers. "I-I don't know much! B-but—there's a key! Just pull it!"
He gestured weakly to a rusted candle stand near the far wall.
Alex stepped over and gave it a sharp tug.
Click.
A low mechanical rumble echoed through the warehouse as a hidden panel slid open in the wall, revealing a staircase descending into darkness.
A cold draft of air and rot spilled up from below.
"Classic," Alex muttered, cracking his neck.
He stepped onto the stairs without hesitation. Cypher rose behind him like a living veil of armor, tendrils weaving close, forming a jagged shield around him.
No gaps. No blind spots.
If someone were to look at Alex now, they wouldn't see a man anymore.
They'd see a silhouette—a dim outline of human form, and from it, shadows would rise like smoke twisting into shape. Cypher's presence would pour out from him, curling like dark flames, forming a shifting veil of armor and menace around his body.
This wasn't just a summoned creature. This was a fusion—a skill Alex had honed over time with Cypher. A combination state where their essences overlapped.
In this form, Alex became untouchable to the average foe.
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