Arthur’s eyes snapped open to the sound of distant chaos.
His vision swam, the world blurring as if it refused to settle. Then the screaming rushed back in—loud, frantic, overlapping. The same horrible chorus he had heard before, tearing through the air without mercy.
A sharp crackle came through his comms.
Rey’s voice cut through the noise.
“Arthur, don’t lose consciousness. Come on… fight. You still have to fight.”
Arthur clenched his jaw and slowly pushed himself off the snow-covered ground. Every muscle screamed in protest, pain ripping through his body as if it were being pulled apart from the inside. His hands trembled as he forced himself upright, boots sinking slightly into the frozen surface beneath him.
They’re just slaughtering people for money… for survival, he thought bitterly.
Maybe… I can’t blame them.
That’s how the world works—ugly and simple.
He clenched his teeth, his roar tearing through the frozen air.
“YOU BASTARDS—I’LL KILL YOU!”
Arthur charged forward, blade flashing under the cold sky. Heads fell like shattered statues, bodies collapsing before they even hit the ground.
Men.
Women.
Strong, trained, deadly.
None of it mattered.
One after another, they dropped.
Arthur was unstoppable—until.
Pain exploded through his lower back.
A girl had slipped in behind him, stealth as a ninja, and drove her blade straight into his spine.
Arthur gasped as white-hot agony ripped through his nerves, fire racing through his body. His legs buckled beneath him, strength draining away in an instant.
Not now.
The story has been illicitly taken; should you find it on Amazon, report the infringement.
Not here.
I can’t fall—
He twisted mid-collapse, his spine screaming in protest. In one swift motion, he yanked the pistol from the holster strapped to his leg.
Before the girl could react—
He fired.
One clean shot.
The bullet went straight to her head.
Everything happened in a single, vicious second.
Arthur slammed into the ground, the impact knocking the breath from his lungs. His vision blurred as the cold bit into him, seeping through his clothes, crawling into his bones.
The world around him began to fade, the battlefield dissolving as his mind slipped backward—
—into memory.
When he got home that day, his sister was there.
“I heard you didn’t go to school today,” she said. “Why? What happened?”
Arthur snapped at her instantly, anger already boiling over.
“It’s none of your goddamn business, you bitch. Go shut the hell up.”
Arthur stormed into his room and tossed his clothes aside, his movements rough and careless.
Later, as his sister picked them up to wash, she noticed something in the pocket of his pants.
A card.
Black. Plain.
X-Cut.
The next day, Arthur went to school and came back home as if it were a normal day.
His sister still hadn’t returned.
Hours passed.
The house stayed quiet.
Too quiet.
Arthur sat there, the words he’d thrown at her replaying over and over in his head. He felt the weight of them now. The anger. The regret.
He wanted to apologize.
He even thought about what he would say when she came back.
But she never did.
The next morning, the news hit him like a bullet.
His sister’s corpse had been found in front of his school.
Arthur ran.
By the time he reached the scene, his mind was blank, his heart pounding so hard it hurt. Her body lay there—cold, unmoving.
A message was pinned to her chest.
“Arthur, come get your revenge.
Kill me.”
Guilt crashed down on him all at once.
And beneath it—
Rage.
Pure, suffocating rage.
The coroner arrived.
He wasn’t registered. No uniform. No paperwork that existed anywhere official.
Just an X-Cut agent who happened to know how to handle the dead.
Arthur watched in silence as his sister’s body was brought in and laid out beneath the harsh white lights. The room smelled of metal and chemicals.
Too clean.
Too cold.
“Check her,” Arthur said, his voice steady in a way that didn’t match his eyes.
“Fingerprints. Anything. I don’t care what it is.”
The coroner worked quickly, methodically. Gloves snapped on. Tools moved with precision. He checked her hands, her clothes—every place where answers might still be hiding.
Minutes passed.
Then more.
Finally, he stepped back.
“There’s nothing,” he said. “No fingerprints. No traces. Whoever did this knew what they were doing.”
Arthur’s jaw tightened.
“Nothing at all?”
The coroner nodded once.
“Just one thing,” he added.
“A single bullet wound. Straight to the head.”
Silence swallowed the room.
Arthur lowered his head, fists clenched so tightly his nails dug into his palms. When he spoke again, his voice was low—controlled, but burning.
“I’ll fight,” he said.
“I’ll do whatever you want. Any job. Any war.”
He looked up at Rey.
“But I want my revenge.”
Rey studied him for a moment, her expression unreadable.
Then she reached into her coat and placed two daggers on the table—clean, balanced, deadly.
Beside them, she set down a gun.
“Your first mission,” she said calmly.
“Kill the bullies you beat before.”
Arthur stared at the weapons.
Then he picked them up.
“…Fine,” he said.
To be continued.
Did Arthur made right choice whaddya think
