Dark Knight

Prologue

The city of Tokyo wore its late-evening hush like a thin veil. Neon signs flickered in the distance, trains sighed somewhere beyond the blocks, and a cool breeze threaded down the narrow street where a ten-year-old boy walked home. He stuck his small hands into his jacket pockets and hurried-schoolbag bouncing-toward the two-story house with the familiar tiled roof.

When he reached the gate and peered through the window, something felt wrong. The house should have been warm with light. Tonight, every room was dark.

"That's unusual... Is nobody home?" he whispered to himself.

He pushed the gate open, clipped the lock, and unlocked the front door. The lock clicked like an answer, but the darkness inside swallowed the sound. He flicked the hallway switch. Nothing. He tried the switch again, then another-nothing worked.

"The lights aren't working..." he said aloud, closing the door and turning the key until it tapped into place.

"Mom? Dad? Yuusuke?" he called, his voice small in the empty house. No footsteps answered. No muffled TV. Only the faint hum of a distant city.

He moved from room to room-kitchen, living room-fingers patting switches, eyes squinting for any sign of life. A television set, off. A single bowl on the table. The house smelled faintly of evening-half the scent of rice, half the scent of laundry left too long in a basket.

Upstairs, the boy's shoes whispered against the wooden steps. He stopped outside his parents' room, hand hovering over the sliding door. He rapped lightly and waited a beat. When no one answered, he slid the door open.

Moonlight poured through the window, painting the room silver. For a moment the light made everything surreal-soft futons, the folder of unpaid bills on the dresser-then his eyes fell on the red that pooled around the shapes on the floor.

"Mother?! Father?!" The boy's scream tore through the calm house and then vanished. Terror made his legs tremble; his stomach dropped as he inched deeper into the room.

Bodies lay still on the futons. Their faces, once familiar, were pale under the moon's wash. Blood traced dark ribbons across the tatami. The boy could not think-only the hot, sharp sting behind his eyes as a soundless, impossible grief closed in.

Something moved in the shadow behind them.

A figure stepped forward from the darkness, framed by the moonlight. He was a teenage boy-older than the child but young enough for the face to still hold a stubborn softness. Long black hair fell to his jawline, center-parted. He was dressed in black from head to toe, the cloth whispering ninja-like as he shifted. In his right hand he held a sword; the silver blade caught the moon and reflected the new, wet stain along its edge.

The younger boy's breath hitched. His voice came out thin and broken. "Y-Yuusuke...?"

"If you want to avenge your family," he said, voice steady and cold as steel, "train. Become stronger. When you're ready, come find me. Then we will end this-one of us will die."

He drew himself up, every inch composed, and then-without another word-he turned and melted back into shadow, leaving the smaller boy with his parents and the echo of that final, impossible command.

The moon watched them both. The house smelled faintly of iron and the jasmine from the garden beyond. The boy dropped to his knees, the word avenge repeating like a drumbeat in his head. Outside, the city kept breathing, utterly indifferent, as if nothing much had changed at all. Inside, the silence that followed carried a promise colder than the night air.