Several weeks prior...

"Three kilometers," the boy whispered to himself, inhaling deeply as he observed his target through the binoculars pressed against his eyes. The subject of his scrutiny was Honda Nishiki, a Japanese businessman deeply embroiled in drug and organ trafficking, with ties extending to over a hundred syndicates across Southeast Asia. The man was old and overweight, his skin sagging over a face that seemed disproportionately large for his body. Nishiki, according to the boy's client, was in Manila for a deal with the Triads, taking place on neutral grounds, away from the territories of both parties.

The Philippines, the boy acknowledged, was an ideal location for such transactions, being removed from the underworlds of both countries yet still close enough to be part of their illicit dealings.

At that very moment, Nishiki indulged himself in a sumptuous meal, savoring a generous portion of meat in a luxurious restaurant situated on the rooftop of a five-star hotel in the heart of the city. The man was perpetually paranoid, a trait shared by many who had amassed wealth through illicit means, which meant a close-quarters approach was not a viable option due to the number of guards and watchers assigned to defend a single man – hundreds of them, crawling all over the building, pretending to be civilians and guests.

While three kilometers might have been a considerable distance, it seemed Nishiki had no intention of leaving his seat anytime soon, judging by the size of the roast before him. The boy figured his target would be there a while, without moving or standing even once – perfect.

The boy nodded to himself, quietly confident that this assignment would be a straightforward one. Undoubtedly, none of Nishiki's guards would anticipate an attack from such an extreme range, which meant their sweeps and lookouts didn’t reach this far. Not even a CheyTac M200 Intervention, known for its exceptional range, could effectively hit a target from this distance.

Just another day on the job.

With a sigh, the boy rose from his seat and stowed the binoculars in their pouch. Bending down, he unzipped the large black duffle bag at his side, revealing the compound crossbow nestled within. The weapon was lightweight yet sturdy, devoid of any recognizable brand since he had purchased it from a dubious online hunting shop. Despite its lack of pedigree, it would serve his purpose perfectly.

Typically, compound crossbows, even military-grade ones, had a maximum range of around 500 meters and an effective range of 100 meters. Under usual circumstances, the bolts released by the weapon in his hands wouldn’t even reach the adjacent building, let alone his target. However, the boy was far from ordinary, and Honda Nishiki was not the first to die by his hand; the criminal businessman was just another name on a very long list of crossed-out names.

He gripped the crossbow firmly, positioning it against his shoulder as he would a rifle. The standard iron sights had been swapped out for a scope, its magnification not quite matching that of the binoculars but sufficient for him to clearly observe Honda. It allowed him to steady the crosshair precisely on the man's ample chest. The boy's grin widened as he loaded an explosive-shaft bolt, a deadlier variation than an explosive-tip. The distinction lay in their impact—where the latter tended to detonate immediately upon contact, resulting in limited penetration, the former bore into the target before exploding. It tore through vital organs, shattered bones into minuscule fragments, and ripped and charred flesh apart—a perfect instrument of death. An explosive-shaft bolt was virtually guaranteed to be lethal, even when striking limbs, due to its immense destructive power

The boy took aim and breathed in. And, when he spoke, the world stilled. “Motion.”

He didn’t know what it was, but he knew he had it. The boy felt its presence from within him the moment he spoke the words – a power, an energy source of some kind. Whatever it was, it flickered to life and injected itself into the bolt. He then pulled the trigger and loosed. And the bolt flew straight and true – undeterred by drag or gravity, its inertia inviolable as it surged across the air at a constant velocity, traveling at 121 meters per second. The boy smiled as he placed down the compound crossbow and grabbed his binoculars, placing them over his eyes once more. The greatest disadvantage of bolts and arrows was that they traveled far slower than bullets; but they made up for it with silence. They were the perfect stealth weapons.

It took 33 seconds for the bolt to reach its target. Long enough for Honda to slice, bite, chew, and swallow a piece of roast, before the projectile pierced right into his sternum and exploded.

The explosion was neither grand nor loud. In fact, it hardly made a sound as it reordered Honda’s internal organs and musculature, sending his fat carcass tumbling into the ground, bleeding profusely from every orifice. Honda’sguards panicked and desperately scanned every building around them. The boy smiled. They would find nothing. “Target eliminated.”

Honda was valued at $10,000,000 dollars. The boy honestly wasn’t certain what he would do with that money—or the rest of the earnings he had amassed from his contracts. This was merely a pastime, after all. Still, money was the kind of thing that was better to have and not need than to need and not have. He bent down and carefully stowed his crossbow back into the duffle bag it had arrived in. Before sealing the zipper, the boy armed a small incendiary grenade. Its purpose was to liquefy the entire bag, possibly even the floor beneath it, obliterating all evidence that could be linked back to him—though in reality, this was already an impossibility, if he were being honest. Yet, one could never be too careful in the lethal business he was engaged in. The grenade was set to detonate within thirty seconds.

The boy returned his binoculars to their pouch, which he kept slung around his neck, and retrieved a burner phone from his pocket—a phone with only one contact saved, his client. He dialed the number and pressed the phone to his ear. It rang once before a distorted voice crackled through the line. "Is it done?"

A smile curled on the boy's lips. "Honda's dead. I'll be expecting my payment in an hour. It was a pleasure doing business with you. Farewell."

He terminated the call and crushed the phone in his grip before tossing it out of a nearby window, watching its shattered pieces scatter into the open air, carried away by the wind. The boy inhaled the cool evening air, his hands returning to his pockets as he began his descent down the long flight of stairs. He found himself on the thirtieth floor of an abandoned and unfinished building—one among many scattered across the city of Manila. A distant sizzle in the air informed him that the incendiary grenade had detonated, fulfilling its purpose and erasing any trace of his presence in the building.

As he walked down to the twenty-eight floor, the boy saw a tall man standing with his back to a pillar, hands in his pocket. The man wore a black suit and tie, with a white undershirt and a pair of black aviator glasses over his eyes. There was something odd about him, a presence the boy could not quite understand or place. He was grinning. “Yo, you’re very good at what you do; took me a very long time to find you, Crow.”

That was his code name.

A lot of people knew it, but no one – absolutely no one – was supposed to know the face behind it.

The boy stiffened and immediately drew the 9mm pistol he’d hidden within his shirt. Before he could take aim, however, the tall man was upon him, having seemingly appeared in front of him in a burst of speed. The man placed his hand over the boy’s forearm and kept him from drawing the pistol. “Now-now, there’s no need for viole-”

The boy spun around and leaped backward, unleashing a rapid volley of five shots into the man's exposed chest before he even hit the floor. Swiftly, he rolled over and fired ten more rounds, then promptly swapped out the magazine for another. His eyes widened in disbelief. The man stood there, his grin undiminished. His suit smoldered from the impact, yet it remained unblemished. The scent of gunpowder hung heavily in the air. But the man was unscathed. Ten bullets. A 9mm might not be an exceptionally potent weapon, but ten shots into an unarmored chest should have proven fatal for just about everyone.

Still, the man remained unharmed. "Kiddo, are you done? Because, let me tell you, you can't hurt me—not in your current state, at least."

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The boy gritted his teeth, raised his pistol higher, and shot a bullet into the man’s forehead.

It bounced off – not even leaving a red mark on his skin.

Impossible.

"How...?" The boy muttered in astonishment, gritting his teeth. He aimed once more and fired a single shot. The man did not so much as flinch as the bullet ricocheted off his right eye, landing harmlessly on the floor. The boy lowered his pistol, his frustration mounting. His next course of action would have been to engage in melee combat, but if bullets were ineffective, a knife would hardly be any different, no matter how sharp he kept his blades. The man had yet to make any aggressive moves, even after the boy's relentless assault, which meant his intentions were not violent - probably.

"What are you?" the boy asked, his curiosity overtaking his caution.

"That doesn't matter—not yet, at any rate," the man responded, his grin still firmly in place. He reached out into the still air, seemingly plucking a chair from...somewhere. No, the boy was certain that there hadn't been a chair here; he'd carefully surveyed every single floor, committing every detail to memory. The chair in the man's grip now seemed to have materialized out of thin air, an impossibility given that there had been no chairs in the entire building. The man placed the chair down and sat on it. “What you should be curious about is why I’m here. What could I possibly want from you, hmm?”

The boy holstered his pistol and sighed in resignation. If the situation escalated, he still had a smoke grenade that he could use to cover his escape. Nevertheless, this seemingly invincible man was intriguing enough to warrant his attention, at least for now. It wasn't every day he encountered someone who could survive twelve bullets, including two headshots.

His eyes narrowed in suspicion, but he nodded. "Alright, I'll play along. What do you want with me? Do you need someone dead? Because if that's the case, there's an online form you can fill out; it's on my website and everything."

“No, nothing like that,” The man chuckled as he shook his head. “I don’t need you to kill anyone for me.”

Fair enough. If an invincible man wanted you dead, then there was very little for you to do.

“Then...” The boy raised a brow. “What do you want?”

"First, let me introduce myself," the man declared as he rose and offered a slight, polite bow. His North Asian heritage was evident, the boy noted; Southeast Asians really didn’t bow all that much and neither did they have snow-white skin. "I am Blake Ishimura, sorcerer extraordinaire, at your service!"

"A sorcerer, huh?" The boy blinked in surprise. That was not at all what he had expected, but then again, he wasn't sure what he had been expecting in the first place. Magic, however, was probably the last thing he had considered a possibility. He shook his head and let out a sigh. "Alright, I'll entertain this. Magic might as well be real."

After all, he possessed an unnatural ability that could not be explained by science. What was inviolable inertia, if not a form of magic?

“That’s the spirit!” Blake exclaimed – loudly, at that. His grin disappeared in the next moment and the shadows around him seemed to grow. The boy felt a hint of animosity and malice, but he’d been to and seen the darkest depths of humanity, the very dregs of society and the true horror behind the mask of men; this wasn’t anything new. Still, the man’s aura was nearly overwhelming; it was so thick that it could’ve almost been tangible. The boy stood his ground and glowered back. Blake removed his aviator glasses, revealing twin blood-red orbs that blazed like coals in the darkness. Their eyes locked. Another moment later, and all the malice disappeared; Blake's grin returned and his ruby eyes became emeralds. "Good. You're still standing. That's very good."

"I've faced worse," the boy said, taking a deep breath. He couldn't pretend to be completely unaffected because he was affected, but it wasn't a feeling he hadn't experienced before. It reminded him of a time when he was tasked with destroying a freight container supposedly filled with 'contaminated' cargo. Only when the fires burned and the screams began did he realize the container held people—rejects, he had surmised, from a human trafficking ring. It was just a job. He was paid to do it. It hadn't been personal.

Yet their screams still echoed in his dreams each time he slept.

“I know,” Blake grinned, donning his glasses once more. “That’s why I chose you.”

“For what?” The boy raised a brow. “A job?”

“I want to teach you – personally,” The man replied as he sat back down and smiled. “That thing you’ve been able to do since you were a child. It’s unnatural. It can’t be explained by science or anything you’ve searched on the internet. It doesn’t make sense. And yet, you can do it; it’s a part of you. Doing it feels natural. You know what I’m talking about.”

Ah – that.

“Motion.” The boy said, almost absently. He’d never spoken about it to anyone before. He’d poured through what must’ve been hundreds of books, ranging from science to the occult, and none of them were able to tell him just what his ability was or where it came from or how he came to possess it. “That’s what I call it.”

“Fascinating,” Blake said. “Most sorcerers your age still aren’t sure what their Innate Abilities even are. But to discover an Innate Ability at such a young age, without knowledge of the basics, is astounding – honestly.”

"Sorcerers..." the boy repeated. To summarize everything he had learned so far: sorcerers existed, therefore magic existed. The man before him, Blake Ishimura, if that was even his real name, was a sorcerer. His ability, Motion, was, in fact, a form of sorcery known as an Innate Ability. That was... a lot to take in, but he was nothing if not adaptable. He would’ve have accepted this story if the man before him hadn’t shrugged off a bullet to the forehead and the eye. "You mentioned that before. Is that what I am? Am I a sorcerer? Is that how I'm able to do what I do?"

“You’re not a sorcerer,” Blake replied, flatly. “You’re a very strong Sensitive, at best. To be a sorcerer is to feel, manipulate, and weave the Dimensional Threads that connect Earth to countless other worlds. A Thread Sorcerer is a paladin against the darkness and yadda yadda bla bla bla; the point is that you’re not a Thread Sorcerer, not even close. But you could be... if you want to. I’ll teach you. There’s a whole other world out there, kiddo; and, trust me, being a Thread Sorcerer is a whole lot better than being a killer-for-hire.”

The boy stood there. The moments seemed to stretch on for eternity, before he finally spoke. “I think I’ll pass. I’m good with who I am and what I have at the moment. I don’t need magic making an even bigger mess of things.”

Blake Ishimura grinned. It was almost as though he’d been expecting that answer – not a single predictable reaction to the rejection, not even on the subconscious body language. There was nothing. “Of course – of course. Still, the offer stands and it will remain standing for... a while.”

Blake reached into his coat and pulled out a black card with his name and number, etched in gold on its surface. Fancy.“If you ever change your mind... if you ever feel like the human world is too mundane... if you want to be bulletproof like my handsome self... then feel free to give that number a call.”

“I don’t think I will,” the boy replied as he took the card. The offer was... interesting –extremelyinteresting, but it was also... a little too much too quickly. It was almost overwhelming, honestly. The knowledge that magic was somewhat real – Thread Energy, Blake called it – was already staggering in itself. But that wasn’t the only thing the man told him. He needed time to think and plan, time to gather his thoughts and decide. He didn’t think he’d ever call the number, knowing himself, but it was nice to have it.“But I’ll keep that in mind.”

The boy inserted the card into the card holder he kept in his pocket, alongside various other cards for the restaurants he frequented.

"How did you find me?" The boyasked. "And how did you know?"

The boy didn't miss the slight frown that briefly marred Blake's seemingly eternal grin. "Honestly, it took me a... while to find you. It was tedious; you're really good at covering your tracks and staying hidden. Took me a whole lot of tries... But I'm nothing if not determined. And nothing—nothing—stays hidden forever. The Sorcerers have been looking for you ever since you first used that Innate Ability of yours; they couldn’t find you – no matter how much they tried. So, they asked for my help.Let's leave it at that."

Vague – deliberately so – but it still answered his question, in a way. It also told him that the sorcerers had a way of locating other sorcerers or, at least, others who had access to Thread Energy, like himself. The mechanism behind such a thing eluded him, but – as loathe as he was to admit it – it was probably magic, which honestly wasn’t a very good explanation. He wanted to learn more about it, the boy admitted to himself, but that also meant upending his entire life, his comforts and luxuries, and he wasn’t sure if he was ready to let go of all that just yet if at all.

“Alright. I should get going. Lots of things to do – evil spirits to exorcise, demons to banish, and monsters to kill,” Blake said, grinning as he waved his hand. He was standing, the boy noted. And the chair he’d been sitting on had disappeared. Blake’s eyes darkened as he suddenly leaned forward. “Be warned, Crow; I wasn’t the only one after you. You’ve made plenty of enemies and many of them are closing in on your scent. Be careful.”

“I know.”

“Toodles!”

The man vanished, as if he had never been there in the first place. The boy scanned his surroundings but found no traces of disturbance. The dust on the floor remained undisturbed, neither the chair nor the man's feet having left a mark. Blake had been there, standing, sitting, and even walking - the boy had heard the footsteps. Yet, there was no evidence of any of it. In fact, it seemed as though the man had never been there at all.

The boy sighed and muttered, "Magic..."

“How troublesome.” The boy shook his head and turned and walked away.