"...I'm sorry… I'm sorry… I'm sorry…"

He whispers those words under his breath, mechanically, over and over, until they lose their meaning and become part of the noise in the background and join the steady hum of the air conditioning unit. Before him, his lord – his former lord – lies on the floor, crumpled; he is sprawled out, arms outstretched, looking so animated and full of life without even moving. It is almost as if he is still alive, passed out once again from an alcohol-induced stupor… except for the pool of red which grows from underneath his body. Five minutes later, and Kagura is still bleeding.

The entire time, he stands and watches him bleed out. His body is filled with electricity; his body is filled with lead. He feels shock. He feels awe. He feels regret. He feels nothing. Eventually, the swell of thoughts and emotions which had pooled up begin to recede into the emptiness. He feels nothing.

"So… you followed your dream in the end."

The one calling himself Hazama from Intelligence appears from behind. His jet-colored coat tail swishes behind him; his squinted eyes betray nothing.

"I doubted you would go through with it. Congratulatio – "

He does not finish his words before his blood joins Kagura's. Hibiki leaves his corpse on the floor with no reverence and stands over his former lord.

Is this what he wanted? His heart hammered beneath his ribcage; his vision narrowed until all he could see was the sight before him. Is this his purpose?

"...I'm sorry… I'm sorry… I'm sorry…"

It is. This feeling of emptiness is familiar to him. This is what he was trained to do. This is what he is meant to be. Hibiki Kohaku is a cold-blooded killer – someone like Kagura Mutsuki has no part in that world. Kagura made him forget that.

To think the Black Knight could be felled like a common hit… but Kagura did not have the right mindset to guard himself against assassins. He remembers what his family taught him: even the strongest man will fall if you can cut him once, hard, on the back of his neck. Kagura made him forget that.

Someone like him can never truly walk among those who live under the light. He only feels whole when he is in the shadows. He only feels right when he kills. Kagura was always too idealistic – too optimistic. His goodness choked the darkness; his kindness quelled the bloodlust. But such an arrangement can never last. Kagura Mutsuki was a good man – someone like Hibiki Kohaku has no part in that world. Kagura made him forget that.

But he remembers now.

"Captain – captain Kohaku?! What's going on here? Is that… i-is that Colonel Mutsuk – "

A soldier's blood joins Kagura's and the captain's. He checks the time; it is almost midnight. He leaves the room, and the bodies, behind.

The world blurs, reshapes, and reforms – it becomes a massacre. Past and future slowly fade away. The present is all Hibiki can see, and it is filled with strange and grotesque faces. Only Kagura was hard to kill – the rest come much more easily. He cuts them down like blades of grass, leaving a trail of scarlet in his wake, finding and killing indiscriminately. Soon, he is covered with more blood than any of his victims. His methods become messier; they start screaming.

"Hibiki…"

Not that it matters. So long as he keeps moving in the shadows, nobody will be able to catch him. Stay out of fields of vision; keep yourself in constant motion; aim for the back of the neck – those early lessons as an assassin come back to him like a floodgate, and they control him like wires on a puppet. Like hands on a tool. Hibiki does not even need to think.

"Hibiki!"

Everything drains from him; all that is left is compulsion to kill, not out of pleasure or pain but rather a sense of necessity as natural as breathing. The room is completely dark. He is holding sticks instead of blades – presumably to keep the trainer safe – but Hibiki knows better, he knows that anything can be used to kill, that if he drives the wood hard enough into the back of the neck, they will fall and never get up again. He knows there is a place of complete darkness, a place where even shadows cannot exist –

– because shadows need light –

"Hibiki! HIBIKI!"

Hibiki wakes up with a start, covered in cold sweat. He sits upright on his bed; the clock reads 4am. There is somebody banging at the door outside – it sounds like Kagura, likely back from engaging in his favorite pastimes of drinking and being generally useless.

"Hi-bi-kiiii…! Let me in…!"

Hibiki realizes that he had locked the door, and Kagura did not have the keys. He grudgingly moves to his feet and rubs his eyes – they are moist. He touches his cheek and is surprised to find that it is also wet. Tears? Did he dream something?

"Hibiki… damn it, I'm gonna break in!"

Well… no matter. He wipes the tears away and announces that he is awake and comes to open the door, chiding Kagura once more for staying out so late. Whatever his dream was, he does not remember it now.