The illusion of belonging came easier the longer he wore it.
Each morning, Kai passed through the shifting wards of the lower compound, where recruits lined up like livestock,barely awake, mana signatures flickering with exhaustion. His steps made no sound on the stone floor. His breath never fogged in the cold.
Nobody stopped him anymore.
They thought he was one of them.
And that was the first lie.It started with a boy.
Half-collapsed near the auxiliary conduit, one arm bent wrong beneath him, a trail of blood winding down his side. The hallway was cold and smelled faintly of ozone and old spellfire.
No one had noticed him.
Or worse—someone had and walked on.
Kai crouched beside him without a word. The boy's eyes fluttered open, panic brimming, until he saw the face above him. Or what little he could see of it—just shadow beneath a hood, lit by the pale flicker of mana conduits.
"You gonna finish it?" the boy croaked.
Kai held out a vial instead. Illicit. Expensive. The kind of potion not issued by any guild.
"Drink."The boy hesitated. His fingers shook as he accepted it. He drained it in three swallows, then coughed violently, color rushing back to his face.
"Why… help me?"
Kai said nothing. He simply stood.
"You remember what it's like," the boy murmured.
Kai's voice was quiet.
"No. I remember worse."
By the end of the week, he had a handful.
None of them realized they were being drawn in. Not yet.Eren Voss, the boy from the conduit—Shadow-touched. Quiet. Eager. Fragile. But still standing.
A disgraced rune-forger whose fingers twitched from old burns.
A nervous medic who worked graveyard shifts and tampered with resurrection records.
A mute sensor-girl who could feel vibrations in the stone better than she could speak her name.
He didn't form a team. He gave no name to the group. No flags. No oaths.
Just tasks.
Small things at first. Untraceable. Innocuous.
A forged file rerouted. A damaged spell core quietly swapped. A map edited, just enough to redirect a squad ten meters the wrong way.
No one bled.
Yet.The guild's top brass began preparing for a promotion ceremony. Garrett was always at the center of such things—perfect posture, effortless smiles, handpicked for advancement.
Kai watched from behind mirrored glass as Garrett trained, bantered, laughed with his lieutenants.
The man was a cancer.
Still alive.
Still admired.
Still untouched.
Kai marked every face that praised him.
Nights belonged elsewhere.He descended beneath the lower wards, to where the city forgot its broken.
A narrow chamber glowed with dim mana-lamps, just enough to cast his sister's sleeping face in gold and shadow.
Her body lay suspended in stabilization threads, encased in a fragile stasis field fed by a failing mana tank. Her breaths were shallow but steady. Too steady. Like a ritual more than life.
He sat beside her.
Spoke nothing for a long while.
Then, softly:
"You always wanted to join the guild."
His hand hovered over hers.
"I hope you're proud of me."
The silence answered. Still. Eternal.But behind it, something stirred in him.
Not rage.
Not yet.
Hunger.
Back at the outpost, things shifted.
Recruits whispered of a "ghost" in their ranks. Someone who never failed a test, never spoke unless spoken to, and never seemed to blink when the alarms flared.
"He helped me."
"He fixed the forge conduit."
"He knew my name before I told him."
Kai kept no record of his subordinates. He asked for no thanks.
But they came back. Every time.And when he told them to plant false intel on a Rift signature, they did it.
No questions.
Their loyalty wasn't earned.
It was engineered.
Garrett passed him in the corridor one night, half-smiling, nodding like a man greeting an acquaintance whose name he'd already forgotten.
"Shade, right?"
Kai gave a shallow nod.
"You're making waves. Some say you've got a gift for logistics."
"I don't waste motion," Kai replied.Garrett laughed, clapped him on the shoulder—too casual, too trusting.
"Well, keep it up. The guild needs sharp minds."
Kai held his gaze for half a second too long.
"They need sharper knives."
The words meant nothing to Garrett.
But they buried themselves into the air like a warning.
That night, in a forgotten sparring room lit by guttering flame-threads, Kai stood across from Eren.
The boy had healed. But not grown stronger.
Not yet."Why me?" Eren asked, holding the dull edge of a training blade. "Why keep helping me? I'm nothing special."
Kai didn't answer. Instead, he drew an old dagger from his coat—runed, dark, scarred by time.
He offered it.
"You don't need to be special. You need to be useful."
"And if I'm not?"
Kai turned.
"Then you'll break. And something better will take your place."
Eren stared after him. Swallowed. And chose not to run.Internal System Log — [Shadow Protocol]
Operative: Kai Ardent (Alias: Shade)
Influence Spread: [Low] but Expanding
Subordinates: 4
Loyalty Type: Leverage-based
Emotional Anchor: [Family – Sister | Status: Stable but deteriorating]
Shadow Drift: 47% – Controlled
Suspicion Index: 0.9%
Target Observed: Garrett Varin
Action Recommended: Delay direct confrontation. Expand control web.
Next Directive: [Infiltrate mission deployment chain]