The Broken Blade

From the outside the storefront was nothing. A defunct animal clinic wedged between a predatory loan center and a noodle shop that no one ever seemed to enter. Friedrich stepped past the dusty signage and the flickering CLOSED light, the bell above the door didn’t ring—silent by design. He walked straight to the reception desk and placed two fingers on the glass bowl of peppermints.

A voice answered in Mandarin through the walls.
"Code phrase?"

Friedrich’s replied back in kind, his lips barely moving.
“Absence is presence. Pain is a lesson.”

The wall stuttered—pixels warping, light fracturing—then peeled away like wet film. An optical projection flickering out of existence. He stepped through the revealed corridor and into the cold light.

It was sterile. It was always sterile. Chrome walls, soft light, the faint chemical sting of recirculated antiseptic air.
Surveillance eyes tracked him like insects on rails.

At the far end of the corridor, a glass door parted with a hiss. Inside, his Handler Hu Kong stood with his back to him, feeding data into a slate while an IV dripped something black into his wrist. His suit, immaculate. His eyes, predatory, calculating—and missing nothing.

“Nero is dead.”
Friedrich said it without ceremony.

Hu Kong looked up. A flicker of surprise, rare as summer snow.
“That one had teeth.” He smiled. “And you’ve come back breathing. How did you pull it off?”

Friedrich let the silence answer for him for a moment. Then he stepped forward.
“I surprised him.”

Hu Kong chuckled lowly, though his words hung in the air like an implied threat. “Good. Let that be a lesson to anyone with a contract on their head. No one hides from us forever.”

Friedrich tilted his head just slightly, neural uplink sockets analyzing Kong’s stance and breathing. He stepped close enough to be within arm’s reach.
“Yes,” Friedrich said. “A lesson.”

The blade came from his sleeve. Compact. Half-snapped from Nero’s Somnic attack. Still humming faintly with residual charge.

Kong moved—not startled, but ready, trained, turning as Friedrich slashed. He caught the first strike with a forearm, the reinforced carbon sheath deflecting the attack with a crack that sent sparks flying. His other hand thrust into Friedrich’s throat, forcing him hard into the wall.

They traded blows like whispers. Minimal. Intentional. Each one meant to maim or kill.

Friedrich took a punch to the ribs that crunched something inside. He responded with a stab to Kong’s hip that drew a hiss but no stagger. They both moved like they'd rehearsed this—not together, but over years of other kills, other ghosts.

The pain inhibitors kept them upright.

Blood hit the glass wall in bursts. A cracked rib. A shattered kneecap. An elbow hyperextended with a wet pop. Neither flinched.

Friedrich caught Kong’s wrist mid-swing and drove the broken blade into his side, past muscle, past wire. Hu Kong grunted, staggered, but didn’t fall.

Neither spoke, but the looks they exchanged could have melted carbon steel.

Friedrich twisted the blade. Kong’s body arched—then finally collapsed.

Kong slumped against a steel column. Blood pooled beneath him—dark, thick, mixing with coolant. He blinked slowly, pain only now beginning to register through the failing inhibitor.

Friedrich knelt beside him, blade still in hand but not pressing.
“Do you remember the name?” Friedrich asked.

Kong coughed. “I forget many names.. What is this.. About you family or something?? They're dead Friedrich!! All our families are dead, you.. you ungrateful cur!!” He was struggling with his words. Liquid filling his lungs even as they spoke.

Friedrich didn’t blink. He hadn’t since he was seventeen.
“Lukas.”

Kong’s expression didn’t change, but something flickered behind the eyes. Recognition. Regret? No. Just calculation, running out of time.

“You took him. You made him a lesson.”

Kong exhaled through his nose in exasperation, as if he had taken away his favorite toy. “You were warned. Attachment weakens the knife.”

“I am the knife.” was all Friedrich whispered in reply.
He stood, pulled the blade clean, and left Kong crumpled behind him like every other mission file that had outlived its use. The antiseptic air didn’t smell like freedom, but it didn’t smell like orders either.

Friedrich didn’t look back. He would never look back again.