There was something honest about it—raw and stripped of all the complications. The wind slicing at his face, the engine growling between his knees, and the unspoken contract between man and machine. Malik leaned into the curves of the street like he’d done it all his life, the tires kissing the slick cobblestones as the shadows of Kuroyami City twisted around him. For the first time since he’d woken up in that filthy hotel room, stripped of memory and surrounded by death, he didn’t feel like a ghost chasing someone else’s life. He felt real. Anchored. Like a hunter with purpose.

  The city blurred past him in streaks of wet neon and the low glow of arcane lampposts. Kuroyami City had a rhythm—broken and unpredictable—but it pulsed with life even in the dead hours before dawn. One moment he was flying down a wide boulevard lined with shuttered jazz clubs and smokestack diners, the next he was gliding through back alleys paved in uneven stone, the walls on either side seeming to press closer with every turn. There was a crooked magic in this place, a kind of breathing illusion. Streets that stretched too far, corners that looped back on themselves. Headlights blinked in his mirrors only to vanish when he looked. It felt like the city was watching him just as much as he was navigating it.

  There was something almost holy about it—wind in his face, throttle gripped in one hand, the city unfolding like a slow, whispering confession beneath his wheels. While Malik had no memory of what came before, but he knew this feeling, this rhythm. It was as though the machine wasn’t something he rode, but something he was. The pulse of the engine thumped in time with his own heart, and the road ahead stretched out like it knew it didn’t dare get in his way.

  Kuroyami City, still drowsy in the final hours before dawn, was a contradiction in stone and steel. Broad boulevards glowed faintly under humming arcane lamps while shadow-choked alleyways twisted into darkness like half-remembered dreams. The streets flickered between real and something less, a liminal pulse beneath his tires—curbs that didn’t match their shadows, headlights in the far distance vanishing without a trace, alley cats that stared too long.

  He leaned into a curve, moving like a ghost, a predator with purpose, tracing the red-marked route on the map burned into his memory. The rain had stopped but left behind a slick sheen that caught every glint of light like oil on water. The buildings loomed tall and silent, their faces cold, their secrets thick in the air. It should’ve felt oppressive. It didn’t. He was cutting through it like a scalpel through silk.

  That’s when the voice chimed in—smooth, clinical, the now-familiar cold whisper of the system in his ear.

  

  

  Malik chuckled under his breath, a short rasp that curled into a grin. He flicked the notification away with a thought and let the moment wash over him again, like whiskey heat down the throat.

  “Damn right it does,” he muttered to himself, kicking the throttle higher. The bike surged forward like it wanted to fly. The system might be using him, sure, but every once in a while, it knew how to give a man a good time.

  That moment didn’t last long.

  As he leaned out of a curve and onto a quieter stretch of road flanked by warehouse walls and shuttered shops, a flicker in his side mirror caught his eye. A black sedan—broad-shouldered and low-slung—slipped into the lane behind him like a shark scenting blood. No headlights. Just hunger. He didn’t slow, didn’t swerve. But his fingers tensed on the throttle.

  Then, from the side streets, two motorcycles emerged—one from each flank. The riders moved with purpose, cutting sharp and fast through the gloom, helmets low and symbols clear even in the shadows. Twisting ink on exposed arms, serpent coils and crimson fangs. Same gang. Same stink of violence.

  Malik’s eyes narrowed beneath the brim of his fedora jammed low and tight on his head as his heart kicked into that slow, heavy rhythm—the one just before the storm breaks. His grip adjusted on the handlebars, weight shifting ever so slightly as his body leaned into the anticipation. The game was changing again. This wasn’t just a ride anymore. This was a hunt. And someone had just made him the quarry.

  Malik swore under his breath and veered right, ducking into an old tunnel, the kind that had seen more ghosts than headlights. The air turned colder. Echoes of his engine bounced back, distorted by time and old regret. One of the riders drew close on his left—reckless, confident.

  Too close.

  Malik let the shadow wrap around him like a second coat. activated with a whisper of D?o and the telltale pull of energy from his core. The weapon slipped into his hand without so much as a breath of sound. The darkness curled around his shoulder and chest, hiding the motion even from the eyes on either side.

  He didn’t look. He didn’t aim. He just fired.

  The bullet whispered through the dark, kissed flesh beneath the left arm of the rider, and went clean through heart and lung. The thug’s head jerked back, his body collapsing like string had been cut, and the bike swerved sharply right, clipping the sedan’s front fender. The explosion was instant—metal shrieked and fire bloomed. The sedan skidded sideways and slammed into a wall of crates just off the road. Malik never looked back. He was already threading through the fire-lit wreckage and out the other side.

  The second rider dropped back—smarter than his friend. Malik could see the shape of a pistol drawn in his side mirror, the silver glint in one hand, but the man wasn’t ready to shoot just yet. Probably trying to line up the shot. Malik knew better than to give him that chance. He weaved left and right, dodging parked trucks and scaffolding, barreling through an early fruit market where wooden crates of melons and root vegetables exploded around him. Angry voices rose behind him, muffled curses chasing after rubber and smoke.

  He could feel the D?o flowing now, not just like blood in his veins but like static in his teeth. His reflexes were humming. Instinct and Quickness were doing their holy duet and he rode the tune like a man possessed. Ghoststep hadn’t activated—not officially—but he was starting to think it never really turned off, gotta love a passive ability.

  The river came into view, the broad steel bridge spanning it like the spine of something old and half-dead. He took the bridge at speed, tires bouncing on uneven rivets, water glistening below in the city’s mirrored light. Halfway across, he pulled a tight arc and looped back down the other side, tricking the tailing rider into overcommitting. For a moment, he was out of sight—an advantage he couldn’t waste.

  Malik shot through a maintenance corridor tucked under the bridge’s belly, grit flying off his back tire. He emerged on a side street three blocks away, heading west now. The bike purred like it appreciated the detour.

  The rider was still behind, closer now. Braver. Foolish.

  Malik hit the brakes hard, spun the bike sideways into a half-slide, then dropped a boot for leverage and pivoted the cycle in a tight crescent. The tires screamed but held, and when he faced forward again, the rider was charging at him.

  It felt like a joust—two steel steeds, two armed men, no shields.

  Malik didn’t flinch. He lined up the pistol and felt the D?o flood into the barrel. Shadow Strike burned through his arms like smoke and electricity.

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  The thug fired first—missed wide.

  Malik didn’t.

  The bullet struck center mass and crumpled the rider’s chest like tissue paper. The bike twisted, bucked, and folded into a streetlamp with a shriek of torn chrome.

  Malik exhaled slowly, lowered his weapon, and let the silence settle. The city was still again.

  For now. He turned the bike gently back onto the street and twisted the throttle. The mansion—and the package—waited. And Malik still had time on the clock.

  The flood hit like a jolt of high-grade whiskey to the spine—sharp, burning, and just a little too easy to like. Malik gritted his teeth as the D?o energy surged into him, blooming through every nerve ending, making the world shimmer in high definition. The ghostly cartridge belt unspooled across the bottom of his vision, a cold, silver arc of glowing notches dancing into place. Two more ghost rounds slid into the slots, humming faintly with power. The belt didn’t fill, not yet, but it was damn close. He caught the tail end of a system message as it echoed into his skull with that same cold efficiency as always.

  

  He waved the rest of the system chatter away with a flick of his will and a muttered, “Yeah, yeah, I was there.” That rush—it was starting to get to him. He was beginning to crave it, and that was dangerous. Nothing like a hit of power to make a man forget he was still made of blood and bone.

  The streets of Kuroyami City were a tangled ribbon of alleyways and arterial roads slick from the night’s earlier rain, glowing neon dripping from every reflective surface like the city was bleeding light. He was about to ease off the throttle and take a sharp cut through an old canal route when he caught it—the glint of headlights in his side mirror. The black sedan. Somehow, those bastards had picked him up again.

  “They’re tracking me…” he growled under his breath. “Not just me. They know where I’m goin’, maybe even how I planned to get there.”

  The realization came with a bitter taste. The sedan was angling hard behind him, engine roaring like a hungry animal. They weren’t here to tail him anymore—they wanted him off the road. The front bumper twitched, lining up with his rear tire like a boxer sizing up a knockout punch.

  Malik grinned cold and twisted the throttle wide open. “Not today.”

  The motorcycle responded like a well-trained wolf, darting forward, tires kissing the pavement with precision. The bike was lighter, quicker, and a hell of a lot meaner in the turns. That car might have had more engine under the hood, but it wasn’t dancing circles around narrow corners any time soon.

  As he veered through a narrowing alley that forced the car to slow, Malik started scanning the road ahead with a soldier’s eye. Something was off—too clean, too easy. The layout was funnelling him, herding him like livestock. It didn’t take a genius to see the setup.

  “Roadblock up ahead, maybe worse,” he muttered, voice low and dry.

  He needed a reversal—something dramatic. Something stupid.

  He leaned into a right turn, then hammered both the clutch and the front brake. The rear tire screamed across the slick cobblestone as he spun the bike into a tight 180, facing the predator head-on.

  

  The windshield cracked, then spidered out, but the moment was too fast to confirm the kill. The rear wheel of the bike kissed back down onto the street, and Malik was already gunning it hard left, disappearing into another narrow street before the echo of the gunfire could even settle.

  He hissed through his teeth as the belt filled with energy, new ghostly notches burning into place. That last kill—the one behind the wheel—must’ve been somebody important, even if Malik hadn’t known it at the time. The system seemed to think so.

  

  The rush hit like the last shot of something stronger than whiskey—fast, hot, and a little dangerous. Malik barely kept the bike steady beneath him as the surge of D?o energy poured through his system, chasing away fatigue and flaring through every nerve like dark fire. The cartridge belt in his HUD uncoiled again, the ghostly notches glowing with cold, silver light. Another round of phantom shells slid into place, and the belt shimmered faintly before vanishing back into the edges of his vision.

  He didn’t wait for the next curve. Instead, he pulled the bike into the mouth of a narrow alley cloaked in enough shadow to swallow a man whole. The kind of place where time slowed, and the city's pulse didn’t reach. He killed the engine, and the silence that followed wasn’t quiet—it was heavy. Like the city was holding its breath.

  He needed this. A moment to breathe. A moment to think.

  The cold, familiar system voice returned, cutting through the stillness like a straight razor. Smooth, clinical. Indifferent.

  

  The words glowed soft and stark in the bottom corner of his HUD. Malik leaned back against the cool brick wall and exhaled slowly, the night air thick with diesel, rain, and the lingering scent of ozone from the D?o energy he’d just absorbed.

  

  The screen in his mind's eye shifted, bringing up the details.

  

  Malik rolled his neck, feeling the tension crackle at the base of his spine. It wasn’t a power he could use on the fly—not yet—but the possibilities whispered to him like old ghosts. Cursed bullets. Sigils that bit deeper than lead. He could turn his firearms into something more than weapons. They could become messages. Warnings. Judgments.

  

  The message glowed faint in the corner of his vision, polite but unrelenting, waiting on him like a valet at a fancy funeral.

  “Alright,” he muttered under his breath. “Let’s play this game…”

  He was beginning to know what mattered in a city like this—a city that watched from alleys and spoke in gunfire. You didn’t last long on good manners or pure grit alone.

  Quickness? He already moved faster than most men blinked. Still, speed wasn’t just about running—it was dodging, aiming, staying alive. One more point wouldn’t hurt.

  Instinct? That itch between his shoulder blades had kept him breathing so far. The whispers of trouble before it hit. But sixteen was already high. Best not get greedy.

  Presence. That one still tugged at the edges of his understanding. He didn’t fully know what it did yet, but he could feel it. In the way folks looked at him a second too long. In the way words hit heavier when he spoke. There was power there. Something more than just shadow and steel. Yeah… it was growing.

  Grit… He let out a long breath through his nose. Only eleven. That was the number that’d keep him standing when knives found bone or bullets clipped deep. He needed more of that if he was going to take the kind of hits this city loved to dish out.

  “One into Grit,” he said quietly. “One into Presence…” He felt the faint tingle of the system accepting the input.

  Then, after a long, he gave the last point to Quickness.

  “Speed kills,” he muttered, twisting the throttle. And in Kuroyami City, survival belonged to the fast, the smart, and the quiet ones that never missed.

  Before he could dig deeper into the new abilities and stats, the voice returned—this time more insistent, almost urgent.

  

  The message faded like the dying echo of a bell tolling in the fog.

  Malik stood in the shadow for a long moment, staring into the slick puddles at his feet. The neon from the street bent and twisted in the oily water, warping the world in strange ways. He was being tracked. That much was clear now. Either by tech, by magic, or by old-fashioned guesswork, they knew his direction, maybe even the destination. If they were smart—and the ones pulling the strings always were—they’d be waiting ahead. Not just watching. Planning.

  Still, something in him refused to turn back.

  He tugged his coat tight, the weight of the black lacquered package tucked in the pannier on his bike tugging at his thoughts like a chain wrapped around his spine. Whatever was in that case was important enough to kill for. Important enough to chase through a sleeping city with guns and fury.

  He didn’t like being used. But he hated losing more.

  With a grunt, Malik pushed off the wall, the alley swallowing the last of the energy flare behind him. He swung his leg over the bike and kicked it back to life. The engine purred low and hungry, and as he peeled out into the street, he whispered under his breath—not to the system, not to the city, but to himself.

  “Let’s see how far down this rabbit hole goes.”

  And with that, the predator slid back into the night.