It started with the rain again.
It always did.
The same wet smell of stone and blood leaking into the cracks of the world.
The same greasy cold sinking into my bones before the first blade ever swung.
I stood there in the dark, one hand pressed tight against my ribs, feeling the slow, syrupy warmth of blood leaking through my fingers.
Two of them tonight.
Golden-ranked.
No amateurs.
Real wolves.
And I was already bleeding.
---
I shifted my weight, keeping my stance low, my sword angled to guard my exposed side.
The rain slid down my face, mixing with the taste of iron in my mouth.
The first assassin moved—a shadow cutting low across the alley, sword aimed for my legs.
The second came behind, silent and straight, like a butcher finishing the job.
I exhaled.
Not calm.
Not composed.
Just because if I held my breath any longer, I'd choke on it.
---
I barely twisted aside.
Felt the bite of steel kiss my thigh.
Not deep, but enough to stagger me for half a second.
Enough to remind me that even now, even after a hundred fights, pain could still make you slow.
---
I caught the second assassin's blade on mine, metal screaming against metal.
The force drove me back a step, boots slipping in the filthy puddles underfoot.
The assassin pressed harder.
I could see his face now under the hood—calm, almost bored.
As if killing me was just another chore before supper.
Maybe it was.
Maybe I was nothing more than a line on a ledger to them.
---
Good.
It made killing them easier.
---
I pivoted hard, shifting the blade up and across, pushing his strike high.
Drove my shoulder into his chest, hard enough to make him stumble back half a pace.
No real damage.
But a space.
A breath.
Enough.
---
The first assassin was already circling back.
They were working together—pinning me between them, cutting off escape.
I grinned.
It wasn't a good grin.
Wasn't funny.
It just bared my teeth to the cold.
---
"Two for the price of one," I said, voice rough and cracked. "Hope they're paying you bastards enough."
Neither answered.
Professionals didn't waste breath.
---
They came again.
---
Steel flashed.
Pain bloomed.
Another shallow slice across my forearm.
Another bruise flowering under my ribs.
I was bleeding in a dozen places now, death dripping slow and steady down my body like candle wax.
---
I stumbled back, breath tearing ragged out of my lungs.
The world blurred at the edges.
Pain painted everything in sharp, broken strokes.
---
And somewhere under it all, deep in the cracked core of my gut, something growled.
Something refused.
---
I planted my back foot hard.
Drew every shred of air left in my battered lungs deep, deep down into my core.
Held it.
Felt it coil and twist and sharpen.
---
**Breath of the Dusk Fang Tiger.**
But not like before.
This wasn't the neat, structured technique the masters praised.
This was something rawer.
Older.
Wilder.
Something born in cold mud and blood and broken fingers.
---
The first assassin came at me again, fast and low.
His blade aimed for my heart.
---
I let the breath snap free.
A surge of silver-gray aura burst outward from my chest—jagged, uncontrolled, vicious.
The assassin faltered.
Eyes widening.
He tried to pull back.
Too slow.
---
I stepped into the opening.
One step.
One breath.
One ugly, brutal slash straight across his throat.
---
Blood sprayed in a dark arc across the stones.
He crumpled without a sound.
---
The second assassin was already moving.
Smart.
No hesitation.
He pivoted wide, swinging in a long, controlled arc meant to gut me from hip to shoulder.
I twisted, barely catching the blade on mine, felt the impact rattle my broken bones.
---
The world spun.
Pain flared.
The alley tilted sideways.
---
I let it.
Let my body fall with the momentum, rolling across the filthy stones, dragging my ruined arm close to my chest to shield it.
I came up coughing blood.
Sword low.
Vision swimming.
---
The assassin charged.
Aura flaring golden-hot.
Faster now.
Desperate.
He knew it was him or me.
Maybe he didn't like the odds anymore.
---
I inhaled again, deeper this time.
Felt the breath tear through the wreckage of my ribs.
Held it.
Focused it.
Sharpened it.
---
He swung high.
I ducked low.
The blade screamed over my head.
---
I drove my sword forward in a short, brutal thrust—not elegant, not precise—just a desperate, ugly stab straight into his gut.
---
The force of his momentum carried him forward even as the blade bit deep.
He slammed into me.
We both hit the ground.
---
For a long moment, neither of us moved.
---
The rain pounded down around us.
The world smelled like blood and rust and old wet stone.
---
I shoved his body off me finally, gasping, shaking.
Looked down at him.
Dead.
Both of them.
Real dead.
Not the kind you wake up from with a healer's spell or a noble's coin.
---
I staggered upright.
The pain in my side sang louder now—sharp and ugly.
My vision blurred at the edges again.
---
I didn't care.
---
I wiped the blood off my blade with the hem of my ruined cloak.
Resheathed it with a hiss of pain.
Pressed one hand against my bleeding ribs and started walking.
---
One step.
Then another.
---
The dead lay behind me.
The living waited ahead.
Both wanted me.
---
The difference was, only one of them could still reach me tonight.
---
The Academy walls were a gray smear in the distance.
Safe.
For now.
---
I knew better than to hope for more than that.
Hope was for people who hadn't buried a hundred assassins behind them.
Hope was for boys who hadn't felt their own blood freeze under their nails while trying to hold their guts inside.
---
I wasn't a boy anymore.
Wasn't a noble heir.
Wasn't a sword student.
---
I was a blade.
A breath.
A slow, grinding refusal to die.
---
I stumbled through the gates just as the sun began to bleed up over the mountains.
The light caught the frost along the stones, turning everything pale gold.
Almost beautiful.
Almost.
---
I didn't stop to watch it.
I didn't look back.
---
I just kept moving.
Because stopping was dying.
And dying wasn't on my schedule yet.