The Fall

The city sprawled beneath the young woman’s feet. From the edge of the rooftop of the building where she had lived for the past four years, she observed her target: the Rat’s Nest.

Just a few blocks away, the unfinished building loomed like a husk of decay. Corroded scaffolding and mold-stained walls turned it into a living ruin—a perfect symbol of everything wrong with her neighborhood. That place didn’t just harbor literal rats; metaphorically, it was home to the worst kind of people: murderers, rapists, addicts. Scum who, to the young woman, had forfeited their right to breathe.

For years, people like them had taken over the streets, suffocating the few remaining hopes of the neighbors still trying to resist. No one stopped them. Not the heroes, who appeared smiling on television while busy protecting wealthier areas, nor the police, who simply looked the other way.

And neither had she.

The young woman clenched her teeth as she recalled how many times she had looked away to avoid trouble. Every act of **** she witnessed, every scream she ignored—they all weighed on her shoulders. But tonight would be different.

She adjusted the hockey mask with steady hands, trying to silence the tremor in her chest. She checked the bulletproof vest, feeling it press against her small chest. The shoulder pads and kneepads were securely in place. She counted the bolts in the quiver strapped to her thigh: fifty, no more, no less.

At her waist rested a second-hand katana. On her opposite leg, several throwing knives. And on her back, an old crossbow purchased from a pawn shop. Every piece of her gear was cheap but effective. She had trained until her mentor deemed her ready.

Speaking of her...

“Once you start this, there’s no turning back.”

The voice echoed behind her, firm yet tinged with melancholy. The young woman didn’t need to turn around to know who it was.

Kyoko was there—or what remained of her after her ****—a manifestation of her regret given form. The translucent figure looked almost real, clad in a tight black suit reminiscent of ancient Japanese spies, the ninjas. Her face was obscured by shadows, but her posture radiated the same quiet authority as always.

She also had a large chest—not overly exaggerated, but noticeably larger than the young woman’s. Not that it mattered to her in the slightest, of course. A minor detail she always ignored, never giving it even a glance.

Never.

A sigh escaped the young woman’s lips as she shook her head to dispel the stupid thought. She couldn’t afford to be distracted by such trivial things.

“Being a true hero is hard,” Kyoko continued. “You’ll have to wake up every day with the will to keep going, knowing no one asked you to. To the media, you’ll be a killer. To the people, a villain. To the heroes, a target. And to the criminals... you’ll be their worst nightmare. Your life, as you know it, will end.”

The young woman let out a sigh, tired of hearing the same speech. “We’ve been over this before... I’ll continue your legacy. It’s all I can do.”

She didn’t need to turn to see Kyoko’s expression. That regret, that doubt—as if placing this burden on someone so young was unforgivable. But there was no turning back now.

“You still have time,” Kyoko insisted. “You have friends, family... You can walk away. Nothing forces you to follow this path.”

“Walk away?” The young woman let out a bitter laugh. “And do what? Keep watching as crime consumes everything? Let fear rule our lives? Maybe I’m not the best fighter or have great powers, but if I can stop one more ****, then...”

For a moment, her mind betrayed her. The image of someone dear, someone lost, flashed briefly. That person she couldn’t save—the reason she was here.

“I’ll do whatever it takes,” she said firmly, her right hand resting on the katana’s hilt in an attempt to summon confidence she didn’t feel.

Kyoko remained silent. She had heard those words before, from her own lips, long before the weight of failure consumed her. Finally, she sighed, conceding to her apprentice’s resolve.

“Alright,” she said, though her voice still carried sadness. “Just promise me one thing: don’t regret it.” When you inevitably fail was left unsaid. The young woman knew... Kyoko had no faith in her, not the slightest hope that she would succeed where Kyoko had failed.

The thought, like everything else, pained the young woman in her chest. Instead of showing it, she smiled—a smile full of arrogance she used more to convince herself than Kyoko of what she was about to do. “I told you already, I won’t regret it.”

She adjusted her mask one last time before finally moving toward her target.