Four years.

We traveled all over the world on many missions, taking out dangerous individuals along the way. Like a surgeon operating with deadly precision, we kept collateral damage to an absolute minimum.

Our latest mission took us to East Africa. Some mage by the name of Marick Vosloo near the capital of Kenya stopped responding to the Association. They believed the Blood-Red Syndicate got to him. We were among the first people on the job to retrieve his body.

The sun had already vanished from the sky. Our car came to a halt on the dusty terrain near a hill. Ryoken and I both got out and walked to the top. Once there, we took out a pair of binoculars to scout out the area.

I saw the prestigious manor right away, about 200 meters away from our position. It was surrounded by a brick wall on all sides. The front gate was wide open.

Next, I surveyed the courtyard. Flowers of varying colors along with bushes were arranged in neat squares. A few birds were skipping around before... flying away.

"The bounded field is disabled," I said. "Birds just flew out of the courtyard."

"I see no activity through the windows," Ryoken said. "Lights are all out, too."

We trekked the hill down toward the manor until we reached the wall. I scaled it up and jumped down on the other side. There, I hurried behind one of the bushes and scanned the area.

Silence. No visible activity in the house or the yard.

"Clear," I whispered through comms.

Ryoken hopped over the wall and we ventured inside. We had this process down to a science at this point. Check for activity, breach the room, and clear it of hostiles, if any.

The carpet in the lobby was burned. Bullet holes decorated the walls and the staircase. The ground was stained in blood. My first thought was that a group of freelancers ransacked this place, seeing as your typical mage wouldn't be caught dead using guns.

I crouched down and dipped my finger in the crimson liquid. Still fresh. Couldn't have been older than a few hours, but who did it belong to? There was no body.

"The raid here was very recent," I said, getting up and wiping the blood off.

"The compass isn't reacting," Ryoken said, putting it back in his pocket. "Let's find his workshop."

"Understood," I said.

We sneaked up the stairs. Though there might not be anyone there anymore, there was no reason to let our guard down. Small pools of blood were scattered around the building every now and then, accompanied by a wake of destruction. Shattered glass on the floor, bullet holes in the walls, and smoke traces on the carpets. We took turns in advancing room by room, scoping out every corner in the process.

We arrived at the last room, all the way down the hallway on the second floor.

The door was ajar. Ryoken held up three fingers and counted down.

Three. Two. One.

I kicked the door open. We rushed into–

An empty room.

It was a fairly small one. There was a wooden table at the middle and a desk at the back. What made this room stand out though were all the empty shelves where one would expect to find tons of books and other things.

I approached one of the shelves to inspect it. Layers of dust outlined the shapes of the missing books and jars.

"No bodies and all magecraft related items gone," I said.

All mages were paranoid enough to erect multiple layers of defense on their property. And judging by the signs of battle, he didn't go down without a fight. The rest likely scooped up the bodies of their fallen comrades to leave as little traceable evidence as possible.

"Matches the Syndicate's MO," Ryoken said, glancing around the room.

"Where do we go from here?" I said. "They could be long gone by now. The next airport is only an hour away."

"I'm inclined to agree," he said. "Let's search around this place if there are any clues left to follow. If not, we're just going to cut our losses here."

"Roger that," I said.

We split up to widen our search. I checked the ground floor again, opening the occasional drawer or cabinet.

Interestingly enough, valuables that weren't related to magecraft like paintings, pricy suits, and things like silverware were all still there. Untouched. A group of thieves would take them to sell them off the black market for extra profit, but the Syndicate's henchmen had no interest in that.

What did that say about them? That they were only objective-focused and didn't want to remain a single second longer to fill their pockets? Or perhaps they were simply not in it for the money?

Having found nothing of interest, I set my sights on the yard and front gate. I turned on a flashlight and checked the bushes. Nothing more than a few scant, muddy, footprints.

Maybe there was something of interest at the gate. I walked up to it and surveyed the ground with my light.

Tire tracks. Still fresh. Left by the vehicles the assailants arrived in no doubt. Past the gate, inside the premise, the ground consisted of a neat pavement, but there were still lines of dust left from the tires. This estate was positioned near the main road that led to two big cities on opposite ends.

I followed the track beyond and saw it leading to the left into the next road south-east.

I stopped to look back and make sure I followed the trace correctly. Something was bugging me about the direction they headed after their raid was done. A look at my compass only cemented that thought.

North-west of here was the city of Nairobi. South-east was Mombasa, a huge port-city. Both of them have an airport, but the former was significantly closer. So then, why would these professionals make the conscious decision to take the longer route? If they went to Nairobi, they could've most likely been on a plane by now. Unless their goal was to reach the ocean all along.

I reached for my earpiece. "Ryoken, I think I got something."


I looked idly out the window, observing the local savanna as it passed by. We had been racing down the highway for about an hour. It was completely dark outside. Only the street lamps lit the way. I didn't know the speed limit here, but I was pretty sure 130 km/h was over it.

I checked the time again. "At this rate, we'll reach Mombasa in about two hours. How many do you think we're up against?"

"Hard to say," he said, not averting his eyes from the road. "Their numbers were culled in the raid, but they're not your run-of-the-mill mercenary."

"So, we're going to wing it then?" I said. "Reminds me of that one time in Australia."

"At least we had more information to work with back then," he said.

The conversation trailed off. I began counting the trees we passed by. At least there wasn't any traffic at this hour to slow us down.

"Zayne, check the mana compass," he said. "There's a convoy up ahead. I'll switch the lane and overtake them."

"Understood," I said, rummaging through my bag.

I fished the compass out of the bag and looked at it. The convoy up ahead consisted of three unmarked vehicles. One small truck with one Humvee in the front and back end each. Our car slowed down a tiny bit to give me more time to check the readings.

The needle twitched and glowed bright red. It pointed right at the convoy. "I'm picking up a magical signature from it."

We were side by side with the first Humvee. The needle still pointed forward. As we closed in on the truck, the compass turned to follow its relative position to ours. No reaction on the second Humvee as we overtook it.

"Nothing in the Humvees, but there's something with a decently strong signature in the truck," I said. "Must be our target."

"I say we prepare an ambush up ahead before they reach Mombasa," Ryoken said. "That way we can avoid collateral damage. Thoughts?"

"No objections from me," I said. "I'll take the sniper to a vantage point. There's plenty of hills around here."

"Then I'll lay the trap on the road," he said.

We started building up distance between us since they were driving slower. About 15 minutes later, we went off-road to the right and parked the car behind a hill. Like clockwork, we grabbed the necessary gear from the trunk and separated.

I trotted up the hill with suitcase in hand. Once I reached the summit, I took a moment to assess the view. The ground below was fairly even. Other than some bushes on the side of the road, there wasn't anything that could give an enemy actual cover. Good.

I put the case down, opened it, and worked on assembling my sniper rifle. After putting on the silencer and bipod, I laid down, switched to thermal vision, and scoped out the road.

"I'm ready when you are," I said over my earpiece.

"Good, wait on my signal," he said.

Another minute passed. The convoy came into view.

"Three," he said.

I aimed at the driver of the Humvee in the front.

"Two," he said.

My finger was itching to pull the trigger.

"One," he said.

My shot flies through the air as the convoy gets covered in smoke.

The driver was dead, a hole right between his eyes. His vehicle stopped. I loaded the next bullet. The truck crashed into the first Humvee as my second shot killed that driver.

The others grabbed their weapons and exited the car when the next one fell. Number four tried to take cover behind the truck, but he wasn't fast enough. The last one hid behind the Humvee and I didn't have an angle on him.

Before I could even relay that info to Ryoken, I saw him appear from behind the truck and finish the last guy off. Shifting my rifle a little to the left, I confirmed he had already taken care of the four in the second Humvee.

He was faster again. I still had to improve a lot to catch up to him.

"Good work," he said. "Now, get the car. I'll take a closer look at the truck."

"I'm on it," I said, picking up my rifle.

After a small trek downhill, I stowed away my weapon and started up the engine.

I brought it to a halt next to the truck. Ryoken came out of the back, carrying a black body bag.

"Help me load a few more cases into the car," he said. "We don't have much time."

As I got to work, he explained to me that the truck had a tracker installed. In other words, someone was monitoring the vehicle's movements and would notice if it stopped for too long.

The cases had some mystic codes and other magical trinkets in them. No doubt the spoils of the raid. After loading everything in, Ryoken took over the truck while I tailed him with the car. The plan was to continue the route to Mombasa where we would ditch the truck and leave via the international airport on a private flight.

We continued on the road in both vehicles for another two hours. Once we reached the outskirts of the city, we abandoned the truck. Ryoken took the driver's seat before we headed south of the big intersection outside Mombasa.

Droplets of water splashed the windshield. One, two, five, ten.

"Just great," I said. "It's raining."

"If anything, it should make us more difficult to track," he replied.

I wasn't sure what he meant, so I turned my head to face him.

"To track?" I said, raising an eyebrow. "You think we're being followed?"

"I can't rule out that possibility," he said. "There were no other tracking devices on the body or other signs that it was tampered with in some way. Moreover, the ones we took out on the highway didn't strike me of being capable enough to take out a mage in his workshop."

"Even if that's the case," I said. "There's no way they can find us now, right? We're less than an hour away from the airport. By the time they realize what happened, we'll be long gone."

"I hope you're right," he said.

As far as I was concerned, this mission was already over. And yet, his words left this nagging feeling in me. I looked back, but I didn't see any vehicles through the rain.

I was probably just paranoid.

"Anyway, do you think this dead mage in our car is even going to make a dent in the Syndicate's business?" I said.

"I can't say for sure," he said. "But the Association has taken them more seriously after they started acting more boldly. If anything, this is a statement from them that they won't sit idly by."

"And people like us will get more jobs like this, huh?" I said. "I wonder how long will it take to bring down the Syndicate."

"Years," he said. "Though I'm not eager to fight a war on the Association's behalf. They have more than enough resources at their disposal if they went all out for once, but their constant tug of war for power within leads to them never getting anything done."

"So what? You want to retire, old man?" I said.

"Hey, I'm not that old," he said. "But well, perhaps I should start thinking about that one of these days."

I didn't expect him to take something I threw out as a joke seriously. Well, deep down I knew we wouldn't be doing this forever, but I thought that reality was still years away.

Our trip continued in silence, save for the humming of the engine and the patter of the rain on the windshield. Out the window, a river ran alongside the road. It was connected to the nearby port, which in turn led to the Indian Ocean.

"Incoming!" Ryoken said, turning the wheel to the right.

I barely had time to look when something hit our car from the left. I would have been flung from my seat, but my belt dug into my stomach, keeping me in place.

"Brace for impact!" he said.

I clung to my seat with every ounce of my strength. The car overturned once, twice, upside down onto the overgrown riverbank with a crash. I felt like I just came out of a roller coaster. My vision was blurred, my head spinning.

"Get out of the car and take cover," Ryoken said.

I climbed out of the window. Droplets of water hit me in the face. Mud squished beneath my feet. I was greeted by bushes and trees, overgrown with moss and vines. It was a piece of dense, untouched nature.

We took cover behind the nearest trees to take stock of our situation. We were in unknown terrain, it was dark, and it was raining. Realizing too late that I left my NV goggles in the car, I silently cursed to myself. Just great.

How did they find us? How did they get here so quickly? Did I mess up somewhere?

"Zayne, focus," Ryoken whispered.

"Right, sorry," I said, taking a deep breath.

My answers had to wait. Right now, our priority was survival. I peeked out behind the tree. To kill the enemy, I needed to see them first.

Thunder struck, illuminating the darkness. I saw five, maybe six silhouettes coming down from the road to our crash site.

I was laying low, my face nearly kissing the ground. I had to wait for the opportune moment.

"You know what to do," Ryoken said.

We talked about several what-if scenarios beforehand in case of emergency. So, there was no need to waste precious time on formulating a plan.

The enemies all wore something dark to blend in. Unless someone was within a few meters around me, I couldn't see them. The rain masked the sound of their footsteps.

A gunshot to my right. My head snapped in the direction of its source. The spray of rifles followed.

I could see the muzzle flashes. Finally, some targets. This had to be the signal.

I sneaked in a few shots. Two bodies splashed on the mud. The rifle fire subsided. I ceased as well to not give away my position.

No talk among any of them. They were probably communicating with hand signals. Damn it. If only I could see them.

The next gunshot fell. A brief scream. A tree splintered and fell. No rifle fire this time, maybe-

More shots. I crawled over to the nearest body to take their helmet. Not a perfect fit, but at least I could see in the dark.

There were six bodies strewn around the area. Ryoken was using the fallen tree as cover, holding one hand to his side.

He looked right at me and gave me a hand signal to get ready for more.

I moved over to a dense thicket to hide and hunkered down. I kept turning to search for enemies as time passed. Thirty seconds. Forty, fifty, sixty. No one in sight. Left, right, front, or back.

Gunfire came from all directions. Too many to count or pinpoint. Small explosions went off all around me.

They didn't know our exact position, but they wouldn't have to if they just laid waste to the entire area. I couldn't stay in this spot much longer. It was only a matter of time until a stray bullet or grenade killed me.

I crawled underneath the bushes away from the blast zone. The gunfire was continuous, which meant they took turns reloading to keep the pressure up.

I saw two of them. They wore combat gear and Kevlar armor.

I flanked them with a few precise shots to the unarmored parts. Namely their necks. Two bodies hit the ground.

The one closest to them turned to see his comrades on the ground. His head snapped in my direction before he whipped his rifle around.

I rolled sideways and emptied the rest of my magazine into him in the process. Reload. Time to check my six.

One guy got behind me and reached out with his arms. Time slowed down. I spun around and used the mud to slide underneath his legs while delivering the fatal shot upwards.

A grenade touched down in front of me. I ran a few meters, then dove forward just as it went off. Next enemy sighted. I shot him once, twice, three times before he finally went down.

I pulled myself up when a sharp pain lanced through my left shoulder. I bit down on my lip. The pain was excruciating. I had to run and find cover-

A bullet grazed my cheek. More blood splattered. Fuck, that was close.

I had to press on. Time slowed down. Damn it, there were too many of them.

I turned to face the next enemy. The gun flew out my hand, replaced by a small hole and more pain.

It was all over.

A silhouette dove in front of me from the left side. Both he and the attacker fell.

I knew who this person was, but I didn't want it to be true. That moment when he hit the ground felt like an eternity. Time might as well have stopped entirely for me.

My brain stuttered. My stomach dropped. As reality caught up, my hands clenched.

Four words left my mouth. "Time Alter: Square Accel!"

This Syndicate scum had to die for what they did. Every single goddamn one of them.

I ran up to the nearest one in sight and sliced his throat with my knife. Yanking the rifle out of his hands, I unloaded the entire magazine into the next group of three.

Looking back, left, right, front, only one was left standing. I charged at him and tackled him to the ground.

The buttstock of a rifle served as a good blunt weapon.

I hit him in the head. Once, twice, thrice. Again and again, until his helmet caved in and crimson gushed out.

My vision went fuzzy. The world spun a little around me. My time-altering effect wore off. It was as though I had just finished a day's worth of manual labor. The accumulated exhaustion finally caught up to my body. But I couldn't pass out yet. I had to check on Ryoken.

I staggered over to him and dropped on my knees.

He was lying on his back, completely still. I tossed my helmet aside in favor of a flashlight and slowly, carefully turned him around.

"Hey, Ryoken," I said. "Are you alright? It's over... We got them."

My heart sank. There were two holes in his neck.

"That's- " He coughed. "Good to hear."

He pushed his revolver over. My mouth opened, but no words came out.

"This is... as far as I can go," he said. "You need to... get to safety."

Had the rain intensified? It got into my eyes. Damn it. Why now of all times. My eyesight was all blurry now because of this shit.

No.

Tears.

They were falling.

"Zayne... this is the fate of all freelancers," he continued. "Y-You must think long and hard on whether you wish to continue down this path."

My body tensed up. I couldn't do or say anything. I wanted to tell him to not go, but that's not how reality worked. My mind went blank.

"Whatever you decide on," he said. "K-Keep going forward. Relentlessly, without looking back..."

The last groan escaped his mouth. He went silent. Once that thought registered, I snapped back to reality. He was dying right in front of me. Was there nothing I could do?

I looked down at my hands and remembered that I was wounded myself. That's it. I just had to heal his wounds like I did my own.

I had never done it before on anyone else. But if I didn't act now, he would die for sure. All I had to do was focus on the wounds and turn back time in that small area.

But there was a cost attached to it. "Equivalent Exchange," as the mages called it. Rejuvenating parts of one's body was paid with one's own time. I pay with time I would have had in the future to have more time at that moment.

In other words, my lifespan shortens. The greater the use, the bigger the price.

I cast caution to the wind. Even if healing this would cost me a decade, two, or even three, I had to save him. He was the only one I had in this world.

I had to try, consequences be damned. My hands rested over his neck. Focus. I had to focus. Failure wasn't an option.

There was still life left in him. I knew it. I could feel it.

My consciousness was slipping away. My eyelids wanted to close and lull me to sleep.

Magical energy surged in the space between my hands and his wound. Then, I felt a sting in my right hand and retracted it.

I could move my left shoulder now without any pain. The hole in my hand was gone... but the ones on his neck were still there.

"What the-" I said, looking back to Ryoken.

A decaying corpse. His skin turned grey and shriveled. His clothes shifted as if they didn't fit him anymore. The structure of his skull became visible.

My breathing got heavy. My eyes widened. I reached out, but his body crumbled to dust upon touch.

I don't know how long I sat there, staring at the ground as if something would happen if I tried hard enough. This had to be a bad dream or a sick joke, right?

No. He was gone. Dead.

Not only did I fail to save him.

I was the one who killed him. His blood was on my hands.

I screamed.