The wind was sick with the scent of boiling mana and rusted iron—urban Rift energy smog that clung to the lungs like wet velvet. The streets narrowed the deeper he walked, buildings crouched over themselves like they were ashamed. Advert-spells flickered against cracked windows. Neon glyphs buzzed overhead, selling pills that promised to "awaken what's dormant."
He walked past them all.
His boots echoed on ferrostone as he passed through a checkpoint draped in rust-colored banners. The ward didn't flare. Of course it didn't.
The man he used to be was dead
The Registration
The office was nothing like the public towers—no golden spires, no polished glass. Just a concrete slab of forgotten brick tucked beside a supply depot. The kind of place where paperwork vanished and identities bent like heat mirages.
A bored registrar sat behind a mana-fed terminal, chewing something that smelled like synthetic cloves. Her robes were wrinkled. Her eyes didn't even lift as she muttered, "Name?"
Kai stepped forward. Not too close.
"…Shade."
She tapped the terminal. "Full name?"
He said nothing.She looked up then—briefly. Met the black in his eyes. Or maybe it wasn't black. Maybe it was the way light refused to sit in them.
The silence stretched until it suffocated the room.
"Just 'Shade' then," she muttered, and moved on.
"Origin?"
"Far Glint Detachment."
She frowned. "No record—"
"Classified," Kai said, quiet.
The way he said it didn't invite questions. Not spoken like a liar. Spoken like someone who'd made something classified through force of will.
She hesitated. Then shrugged.
There were too many new agents lately. Too many war-born ghosts returning from Rifts that shouldn't have let anyone out.She tapped the screen, let the mana seal burn through.
A glyph formed on the back of his hand—authentication marker, faint blue with a serial trace.
"Welcome to Verdant Fang, Operative Shade. You're on probation. Orders come through Sector-13. Don't get killed."
He took the stamp without a word.
Inside, the walls pulsed with soft mana conduits. The scent of disinfected spellpaper and training oil lingered in the air. Magic dampeners lined the corners. Instructors barked feedback. Arcane projectors simulated live Rift scenarios across mirrored walls. Half-trained recruits struggled with phantom enemies.
Kai moved quietly among them.
Unnoticed.
Unimportant.But watching everything.
He made no effort to stand out.
He helped where he could—silently correcting a recruit's flawed spellcasting stance. Redirecting a training bot before it exploded. Recalibrating unstable conduits during a mock collapse drill.
He spoke rarely.
But when he did, they listened.
His presence was like pressure in a sealed room.
One instructor, an older battlemage with a scar through her left eye, leaned to her colleague.
"That new recruit. Shade. Something's off about him."
"Off how?"
"Like he's done all of this before. Then forgot to care."He worked his way into logistics support—a quiet desk near the back, tucked between an enchanted armor rack and an illusion-stamped terminal.
From here, he had access to mission orders, squad deployments, Rift scans, requisition records, internal personnel memos.
And more importantly: names.
Names of the team that had left him in that Rift. Names of those who watched his vitals flatline and looked the other way. Names of those who sent the "mission failure" report with an unsigned condolence packet.
He read the logs the way a killer reads an autopsy.
There they were.
Garrett Varin.
Cenya Rael.
Torr. Marlen. Ilin.
All still breathing.
All still being rewarded.His fingers ghosted over the console. He sent a requisition for new gear—quietly rerouting it through a defunct field agent's number. No one would notice.
He uploaded a false record of himself: transferred from the Far Glint Detachment, details classified by Executive Order Blackroot-7. The number didn't exist. The detachment never had a "Shade" in it.
Didn't matter.
They accepted it.
Too many moving parts in the system. Too much blind trust.
He just had to play the ghost.
Later that night, the training ring was empty, save for one figure—tall, broad, his armor still sleeved in combat glyphs. He was running solo drills. His swings were practiced, but showy. Controlled power meant to impress.
That laugh. The same one from the Rift. That same easy, arrogant sound.
Kai stood in the corner shadows and watched.
Garrett Varin. The man who gave the order to pull out. The one who said: "He's dead weight."
He had a fresh scar now, along his jaw. New commendations on his pauldron. And no trace of guilt on his face.
Kai leaned against the cold railing, just close enough to hear his breathing between strikes.
Garrett paused, looked over.
"Shade, right? New blood. You watching or trying to learn?"
Kai stepped into the light, face hidden beneath the edge of his hood.
"Just seeing what passes for command these days."Garrett chuckled, unbothered. "Sharp tongue. You should try sparring sometime. I'll teach you something useful."
"I learn better when my teacher bleeds."
Garrett smirked and turned back to his drills.
Kai let him.
Not yet.
A few nights later, he stood by her bedside again.
The room was small. Dim. Quiet. Arcane threads suspended her in stasis, eyes closed, breath light as paper. Her Awakening had failed months ago. Something had snapped in her soul-circuitry. The guild refused further healing—"resource allocation," they'd said.
Now she slept here, somewhere beneath the city's heart.Forgotten.
Except by him.
He sat beside her. Pressed one gloved hand to the sheet. The shadows inside him recoiled, then settled—familiar with her. Protective.
"They're still alive," he murmured.
"But not for long."
The mana lamp flickered. The room dimmed further.
He returned to work the next day. Quiet, dependable. They asked him to consult on a Rift-pattern analysis. He solved it in two minutes. Smiled faintly when they called him a genius.
He told them it was luck.
Then he erased the records and rewrote the signature analysis with a flaw only he could detect.
They trusted him more after that.