The nights in the capital grew solitary. Businesses closed early, parents told their children not to go out, and by the time the sun set, doors and windows were locked.
It wasn't paranoia.
The recent disappearances had created a real fear among the citizens.
However, there was still someone who wasn't afraid of the night.
And that someone, or rather, that shadow, had a pending vengeance.
Dark descended from darkness itself and appeared in an amusement park. From the outside, it was an ordinary place where families spent the day; one could even still hear the distant echo of children's laughter.
He hadn't mistaken the place.
Precisely because it seemed an innocent place, it was perfect for hiding truths.
And for Dark, that was the beginning of a hunt.
He walked through the park unhurriedly, passing by the various attractions the park offered until he stopped at a specific one.
The attraction had nothing out of the ordinary.
Nothing at first glance.
What was peculiar about the attraction was that the shadow it cast was out of alignment. By a few centimeters, but enough for him to notice.
Dark extended his hand and touched it with his fingertips.
The misaligned shadow trembled at the contact.
"Shades Call," he conjured. "What did you see?"
The shadow responded, but not with words. A series of events circulated through Dark's mind: hooded figures... children being dragged... tunnels... muffled cries... desperation...
Dark slowly withdrew his hand. There was no room for doubt in his head; he would recognize that modus operandi anywhere.
The Order of the Broken Eclipse.
"They're moving again."
He remembered how he couldn't save that nobleman. How, by not being able to take risks, that man was stripped of his humanity.
His hand clenched into a fist without him realizing it.
"This ends today."
The promise didn't sound empty.
Because Dark's attire remained the same, with the exception of one item.
A totally white mask with a smiling expression covered his face. And, drawn right on the forehead, a symbol of a broken eclipse crossed out with a black X.
It wasn't for aesthetics.
It was a warning.
A warning that the hunt had begun.
✦☾✦
The amusement park tunnels smelled of rust and garbage. The corridors were long with lights that flickered every second, and a channel where water of questionable color flowed towards the drain.
A tall, muscular man moved through the corridors with an almost arrogant confidence.
He found a door and opened it.
The room behind it was wide and dark, with only a dying lamp barely illuminating the interior.
But enough to see what was hidden in the darkest corner.
Cages.
Cages with children locked inside.
Beaten. Dirty. Terrified.
"Dad... Mom..." one sobbed.
The man brutally struck the bars to make him quiet.
"Shut up, you damned brat!" he yelled.
The child stopped crying, but his eyes were still wet.
"W-Where... are you taking us?"
The kidnapper let out a cruel laugh.
"To a very distant place. Far from your mommy and daddy."
The child's response was to cry again, louder than the first time.
"Waaaaah! Mommy! Daddy! Help me!"
The man's face contorted into a grimace of anger.
"I told you to shut up!"
He prepared to deliver a hard kick to the cage, aiming to instill fear in the child.
The light suddenly went out.
His leg remained suspended in the air.
The room was plunged into gloom. And in that darkness, only a voice was heard:
"Release them."
The tone was calm, yet charged with an authority that asked no permission.
The man turned his head. His eyes adjusted to the darkness.
"What the hell...?"
There he was.
A long dark coat. Combat-reinforced gloves. The indispensable military-style cap.
And, his new garment, the white mask.
Beneath the mask, his eyes glowed with that unmistakable red light.
"Dark..." the captor growled.
"Release the children," Dark ordered. "Don't waste my time."
The captor laughed like a madman, causing the children to cower.
"Not in your dreams. I'll get paid well for these little ones," he said, with twisted logic. "Over my dead body."
Dark nodded as if agreeing with his idea.
"As you wish. Over your dead body."
Dark barely flexed his fingers, testing his mobility. He was ready to fight.
A hint of panic crossed the captor's face. He hadn't expected that reaction from him.
"D... don't come any closer," he said, searching for something in his pocket.
From his pocket, he pulled out a black mask, similar to a theatrical one, with the carved symbol of the broken eclipse.
He placed it on his face. The mask fastened itself, as if by invisible hands.
Inside the mask, a gray gas was released, entering the man's nose and mouth.
Those symptoms, if they could be called such, which other followers of the cult had already shown, began to manifest in him.
Pale skin. Empty eyes. White cracks bloomed. And his shadow was simply gone.
Dark almost smiled. And that meant danger.
"Interesting. Nothing new."
And then, the mask moved as if it had a life of its own, absorbing the little light left in the room.
The more light it absorbed, the larger its wearer's body grew.
And thus, stronger.
The man in front of Dark ceased to be human and became a monster.
An empty monster.
"Silence... Silence the shadow!" he roared.
His voice sounded double, like a superimposed whisper that didn't belong to its wearer.
Dark's smile faded, but he remained calm.
He saw the children in the cages, now utterly terrified, and that gave him strength not to back down.
With a single flick of his wrist, Nox Edge appeared in his hand.
"Alright, monster. Let's dance."
The man charged at Dark like a wild beast.
Dark didn't need to dodge; he took a step to the side.
The beast passed him by and slammed into the wall.
"I see those masks make them dumber... or they already were."
The masked creature roared with unbridled rage.
The beast tried again, charging at Dark once more.
This time, he waited for it to get closer.
When it was close enough, he responded with a series of quick slashes.
Arms. Legs. Chest.
The cuts seemed to have no effect on the monster. It ignored the pain as if they were mere scratches.
Dark, far from despairing, noted it in his head like any other piece of data.
"You're resilient."
The creature tried to land a powerful blow.
Darkness enveloped Dark like a dark cloak, and Dark Armor activated.
The blow passed through him and struck the floor.
The floor cracked, and debris flew in all directions.
"If that blow had connected..." he said, then retracted it.
Dark raised his hand.
Black threads emerged and entangled the beast's limbs.
The monster struggled violently against the threads.
Some threads were cut by its enormous strength.
Before it could break them all, Dark tightened the threads.
The threads gained a lethal edge.
They dug into its skin but failed to pierce its tough hide.
Dark pulled harder... and nothing.
Its limbs remained intact, receiving only small cuts from the threads.
Dark frowned, taking an involuntary step back.
"Shit... this isn't normal."
The monster's next blow was faster.
Dark didn't have time to react.
The blow landed on his chest. It was a dry, forceful hit, charged with abnormal power.
Dark was thrown against the wall.
His back hit the hard concrete with a brutal impact that echoed in the air.
Blood spewed from his mouth, forcing him to spit it out.
A piece of his mask cracked, revealing a brief glimpse of skin.
The pain was unbearable; he felt as if thousands of needles were piercing his body.
But Dark rose through sheer willpower.
He staggered but managed to stand.
"I... I refuse to fall."
In his gaze, there was no fury, only unyielding determination.
His eyes scanned the room. He wasn't looking for an escape. He was looking for a solution.
He stopped at the dying lamp hanging from the ceiling.
It barely emitted light, and that little light was being consumed.
Consumed by the black mask the man wore.
Dark instantly understood: Light was its source of power. Without light to consume, its power would wane.
So, he wasted no more time, materializing darkness into a black dagger.
He threw the dagger with surgical precision.
The lamp's bulb was pierced by the dagger, and the glass shattered into a thousand pieces.
The beast let out a shriek as if it were being burned.
Its form was returning to its previous state, more human and less monstrous.
"Damn you! What... what did you do to me?"
"I merely cut off your source of power."
He drew the tip of his sword back, adjusting his stance for a brutal charge.
"And now... it's your turn to bite the dust."
He lunged at the beast, ready to deliver the final blow.
The monster tried to strike him one more time, desperate in its clear disadvantage.
Dark leaped, dodging the blow that ended up hitting the air.
"Die."
The sword blade sank into the beast's flesh, cutting right at the juncture where the mask fused with its face.
The creature let out one last agonizing shriek, but Dark didn't even blink.
With a rage that didn't seem his own, he plunged the steel deeper, finishing the decapitation of the creature.
He landed on his feet and sheathed the blade while the beast's head still rolled across the concrete.
The other half of the beast, now merely reduced to a man, collapsed lifelessly onto the floor.
Dark breathed heavily but forced himself to stabilize.
"I did it," he said, not as a celebration, but as a statement of fact.
His first impulse wasn't to comfort the children; they were safe now, and that was enough for him.
Instead, he moved towards a nearby desk where some papers rested.
Placed in a way that only someone like him would notice.
He picked them up with one hand and examined them carefully.
The content read:
"Goals for inverted light rituals: successfully captured.
Delivery and payment process: pending.
Operation manager: P..."
The name was incomplete, but Dark knew it referred to the man he had just killed.
"Deliver..."
The word echoed in his head. It was clear the Order was responsible for capturing the children and had hired that man for the delivery.
He was just a disposable pawn on the Order's chessboard.
"They wanted the children for experiments," he deduced. "Anti-light rituals."
His thoughts were interrupted by a shout from outside.
"The Order of the Knights of Eternal Radiance! Come out with your hands up!"
Dark looked towards the door and sighed.
"You're late."
He adjusted the collar of his coat and looked at the papers.
"Time to go."
Darkness covered him like a shadowy cloak.
Dark was no longer there, vanishing as if he had never appeared.
The knights of the order burst into the room and found nothing.
Only... the headless corpse of a man on the floor.
And terrified children caged like animals.
One knight's eyes widened, unable to believe what he was seeing.
"What the hell...? What happened here?"
His superior seemed equally surprised but prioritized the children's safety.
"Release the children!" he ordered. "And get that corpse out of here."
The knights obeyed his orders and got to work.
One of them stayed by the superior's side.
"Captain, should we inform the other authorities?"
He nodded with a serious expression.
"Yes. And inform the newspapers too."
"The newspapers?"
"People need to know what happened today."
"Understood," he bowed. "I'll inform them right away."
The knight left, and the captain remained staring at the captor's body, pensive.
"First the disappearances... and now this," he whispered.
The strangest thing wasn't that there was a body.
The strangest thing was that there was no trace of who saved the children from that man.
"Interesting."
Far from there, Dark moved across the rooftops with feline agility.
And in his hands, he carried the papers he had found on the desk.
Like a secret not everyone was ready to see.
✦☾✦
The next day, newspapers were distributed throughout the capital like freshly baked bread, reaching the Aesoria academy.
The entire campus had a copy of the article; students murmured about what had happened in the hallways and in class.
Of course, the newspaper also reached the hands of Professor Maerin.
She was in the empty staff room, reviewing paperwork and finishing some tasks.
But all that took a backseat when the newspaper arrived.
She looked at the article with a face that didn't hide her incredulity.
"Children claim to be saved by a young man wearing a white mask," she read. "The Order of Knights found the lifeless body of the captor at the scene. The whereabouts or identity of the young man who saved the children are unknown."
Maerin laughed in a way that was chilling.
"How ridiculous. Don't they know what else to invent to get attention?"
Her laughter died down when she saw the description of the young man the children provided.
Young man. Athletic build. Black hair.
And they say they barely managed to see that his eyes were red.
Red eyes...
"Rei..." she uttered his name before she realized it.
The resemblance was undeniable; the same build, same hair, and eye color.
If it weren't for the mask, it might dispel doubts that it was him.
"The mask... he did it on purpose. He doesn't want to be discovered."
The more she thought about it, the more sense it made in her head. His performance in the test the other day wasn't normal; such results were impossible for a student to achieve.
"If he's capable of doing something like this, what else would he be capable of?"
Maerin needed to find proof to confirm that she wasn't losing her mind.
So, she took her PDA device to check where Rei had been last night.
Professors' PDA devices are different from students'; they allow them to review all information related to the student, and also see their real-time and past locations.
She scrolled the screen until she found Rei's profile among all the students.
His current location showed he was inside the academy, but his location from last night didn't say the same.
"Got you."
Rei's location last night showed he had left the delimited area of the academy, which should have triggered an alarm on Maerin's PDA informing her of the infraction.
The strange thing was that she hadn't received any notification yesterday. Her device detected that Rei had left the academy, yes, but it hadn't emitted any alarm all day to alert Maerin.
Maerin, annoyed, hit the desk, causing the papers on it to fly.
"WHAT?! How the hell did he do it?! That son of a...!"
She took a deep breath to calm her anger, though it was proving difficult to control.
She wanted to confront Rei right now and demand an explanation for his actions.
But she stopped and coldly analyzed her options.
After a tense silence, she let out a long, icy laugh, as if she had just understood a cruel joke.
"Rei, darling," the word "darling" left her lips like an edge wrapped in silk, "you turned out to be more interesting than I imagined."
She picked up one of the papers that had fallen to the floor and looked at it carefully. The paper was about an educational excursion to some mountains outside the city.
She licked her lips, having found what she was looking for.
"Perfect. Class... we're going on a trip."
The opportunity was perfect. She would be able to observe him closely all day.
And if he suddenly disappeared during the excursion, it would only confirm that her suspicions were correct.
But she wouldn't stop there; she would follow him even to the bathroom to discover what he was truly capable of.
"Good luck escaping this one, Rei."
Maerin laughed once more in the solitude of the room.
Her plan to unmask Rei ArcDusk's true identity had begun.