Arc 1: Chapter 2 — Rainfall, Resonance
Chapter 2 — Rainfall, Resonance
——
The Takeda Construction Ruins didn't echo like a ruin should.
It swallowed sound. As if the concrete and steel remembered too much—and chose to keep it quiet.
Suho stepped past the caution barrier without slowing. It fluttered behind him in the wind, a limp, useless warning long ignored.
His boots splashed through oily puddles, the scent of rust and mold clinging to the air like rot that learned to walk. A flickering warning light blinked from a collapsed security panel, pulsing in and out like a dying heartbeat.
The scanner in Suho's hand buzzed, stuttering across readings.
ESTIMATED COUNT: 4
SIGNAL DISTORTED
He frowned.
From the dark ahead, something gurgled.
Then it lunged.
A Cat-1 Corrupted erupted from behind a fallen beam—jittering, twitching, its limbs too long and moving all wrong. Flesh bubbled with black wires, eyes sealed under skin that quivered like meat on a grill.
Suho didn't blink.
He shifted left, smooth as breath. The creature slammed into a pillar, bones cracking, flesh leaving a smear of black across the concrete.
Before it turned, Suho moved.
One slice.
His blade whispered through its neck. The head hit the ground with a slap, the tongue still twitching. The body crumpled a second later, shivering like a glitch trying to restart.
Suho exhaled.
A screech answered. Then two more.
From above. Rebar. Scaffolding.
They dropped like spiders.
He ducked the first. Blade through the throat. Down.
Second flanked. He twisted. Boot to ribs. Knife driven into an eye socket with a wet crack.
The last one stopped.
Bigger. Sharper. All wrong.
Its arms slammed against the walls like it didn't understand pain.
Suho didn't move.
The air rippled around him.
Not with power. With absence.
His hand rose.
"Void."
Darkness bloomed from his palm—not like flame, not like shadow. Like reality being overwritten.
The arc swept forward.
No flash. No roar.
The thing's left side vanished. Clean. Gone. As if space decided to forget it ever existed.
It collapsed to one knee, mouth opening and closing without sound. Confused.
Suho walked forward.
He didn't speak. Didn't blink.
Steel sank upward into the base of its jaw. Deep. Precise.
It stopped moving.
The silence returned.
He pulled the blade free, wiped it against his coat. The scanner buzzed softly.
THREAT: NEUTRALIZED
CLIENT: WATCHING
He paused.
Above him, in the scaffold shadows—a shape.
Tall. Still.
Polished shoes. A long coat. Watching.
For how long?
The shape stepped back.
Gone.
Suho stared for a breath longer.
That wasn't a client.
That was something else.
——
The rain hadn't stopped.
But Suho had.
He stood beneath a flickering streetlamp, its cold blue light stuttering above him. Blood washed clean, blade lowered, but the scent of steel still clung to him—sharp and metallic, like the taste of a memory.
Behind him, the Takeda Ruins were silent again. No screams. No corrupted. Just wreckage and wet concrete soaked in things better left unnamed.
Then—
Footsteps.
Measured. Deliberate. Too clean for the ruins.
Suho turned slightly. He hadn't heard the approach—but the man was already there.
Coat untouched by rain. Shoes polished like they hadn't touched the ground at all. Even the wind didn't seem to touch him.
He tilted his head, eyes scanning Suho like he was appraising a weapon—not for beauty, but for damage dealt.
And then, he spoke. Softly. Like this was all just conversation.
"You fight with elegance."
Suho didn't respond. His shoulders stayed square, body still as stone.
"Void manipulation… not many can use it that way," he continued. "Not with such control. Or such emptiness."
He took a single step forward. The puddle beneath his feet didn't ripple.
"You didn't kill because you wanted to. You killed because you had to."
Suho's jaw tightened. A flicker of movement—just enough to show he was listening.
"And yet," he added, "you still looked them in the eye."
Another step. The rain curved around his shoulders like it refused to touch him.
"That's rare."
Finally, Suho spoke—low, cold, unreadable.
"Who the hell are you?"
The man offered a faint smile, like the question amused him.
"I'm someone who gives people like you… a way out."
He reached into his coat—slowly. Not threatening. Not rushed. Just calculated.
From the inner pocket, he pulled out a card. Black metal, cool and smooth, catching the dim light. A silver insignia pulsed faintly at its center like a memory trying to resurface—a jagged sigil shaped like a broken sword piercing an eye. The symbol of the Recruitment Division.
COUNTERS ACADEMY Division: Rookie Recruitment
Suho stared. Didn't move. Didn't trust.
His voice dropped, sharper now.
"How do you know…?"
The man paused. Just for a second. Then answered, calm and almost… satisfied.
"Because someone made sure I would."
That hit something beneath Suho's calm. But he didn't show it. Didn't blink.
"You're with the Administration," he said.
The man smile thinned. "The ones who run the world from behind the curtain? Who pull strings and rewrite names like files?"
A breath.
"Maybe."
He turned the card slowly in his fingers.
"I'm something worse."
He let the card fall. It landed in a shallow puddle—face up, the silver seal reflecting Suho's face in rippling fragments.
"I don't recruit soldiers," Saito said quietly. "I find catalysts. You're not a killer, Suho. You're the kind of catalyst that can break the world… or remake it."
He stepped back into the mist.
But just before vanishing, he stopped—one final line, half-whispered:
"Tell Kun… the world is waiting to see what you two become."
And then he was gone.
No footsteps. No echo. Only rain.
Suho stood alone, staring at the card in the water.
His reflection stared back—tired, hollow, changed.
"…Bastard."
But he didn't walk away.
——
District 9 never slept.
But it never really woke up, either.
Suho moved through it like a shadow—hood low, footsteps steady. The streetlights flickered in sickly hues—blue, red, jaundiced yellow. Neon signs buzzed above shuttered shops, their reflections warping across puddles like broken memories.
He didn't look up.
Didn't flinch when a gunshot cracked somewhere two blocks over.
Didn't react to the scream that followed.
This was normal.
A girl sat on a busted vending machine, puffing on something that glowed neon violet.
An old man hosed blood off the steps of his noodle shop without pausing his whistling.
A drone zipped overhead, light stuttering as it scanned Suho's face.
TARGET: NON-THREAT. STATUS: CLEAN.
VOID RESONANCE: 3.4%
Suho exhaled—slow, measured.
Even the machines could feel it now.
A faint echo of what he'd unleashed still clung to him like static.
He didn't know what haunted him more—the man's words, or the way they stuck like a shard in his ribs.
"You're not a killer. You're a catalyst."
He hated how much sense they made.
A flickering holo-ad buzzed beside a rusted kiosk.
A girl with bright blue pigtails smiled beneath glitching text:
"DEFEND YOUR WORLD. BE A HERO."
The screen sparked once—then died.
Suho kept walking.
His mind drifted—unwanted—to Kun. To the apartment. To the countless nights they fought for scraps, dodged names, changed faces, survived.
What if this changes that?
No. He shut it down fast.
There's always a cost.
And yet…
He glanced at the card again, tucked in his glove.
Still warm.
Not from the rain. Not from his grip.
It pulsed faintly—like it remembered being given.
——
District 9 smelled like rust, rot, and regret.
As Suho turned down the alley to their building, a junkie stumbled from the shadows.
Face hollow. Eyes wired.
"Suho… hey, man. You got creds?" the man muttered, teeth clicking. "Just a few. I'm good for it, swear…"
Suho didn't stop.
Didn't speak.
Same pace. Same silence.
The junkie didn't follow.
Third floor. Broken lights. Mold slicking the walls like moss.
He reached their door. The metal was cold—too cold.
He stepped inside.