The Superior Rebirth: A Hero's Awakening

The Past That Never Died

The scene opened to the ever-shifting night sky, its ethereal light casting silver shadows across the mountains and forest below. The wind carried a strange silence, broken only by the rustling leaves and the occasional cry of an owl.

From the gloom of the woods, Anastasia emerged. Her long brown cloak blended with the shadows, but her eyes—haunted and stormy—betrayed the battle raging inside her. Each step felt heavier than the last, weighed down by ghosts of a past she could no longer bury.

I'm sorry, Young Master, she thought, clutching her cloak tighter. But I can't come back... not until the chains of my past are fully and completely shattered. Not until I'm sure that past can't ever touch you.

She moved through the forest like a phantom, her steps soundless—an instinct honed from her childhood as a prodigy of death. It was in her bones: silence, calculation, control.

Then, she felt it.

A presence.

Dark. Familiar. Dreadful.

She did not pause, but her body shifted ever so slightly—ready. The path led her to an open clearing, where the lake mirrored the moon, and creatures of the wild wandered under the veil of stars. Birds scattered at her arrival.

On a boulder by the lake sat a figure, cloaked and still. They tossed pebbles into the water, each skipping stone sending ripples across the mirrored sky.

"You finally came," the figure said, not turning. His voice was smooth, almost amused. "Took your sweet time. I was beginning to wonder if you'd show up at all. If not, I would've paid a visit to that boy you follow around like a pet."

He flicked another pebble. "But I see you're still sharp. Loyal, even. Good to know you value his life that much."

Anastasia's voice cut through the night like a blade. "Who are you? Why did you lure me here? What do you want from me... from him?"

Her tone was calm, but beneath it seethed a rising storm.

The man chuckled. In a blink, he vanished—only to reappear directly before her. His presence pressed against her like smoke—ungraspable, yet suffocating.

His cloak and mask hid his identity, but his aura was unmistakable.

"Who am I?" he said softly, lifting his mask inch by inch. "Don't tell me... you've forgotten what you did to me? To my family?"

Anastasia narrowed her eyes. "I've done terrible things... to many. If you want specifics, you'll have to remind me."

Crack.

The man's grip on his mask tightened until it fractured.

"Of course," he spat, his voice trembling with rage. "Why would a street-born killer like you remember all the lives you shattered?"

He tore off the mask.

His face was half-burned, disfigured beyond recognition—except to one person.

Anastasia.

Her breath hitched.

"That... that face..."

He stepped closer, eyes alight with fury. "Oh yes. You remember now, don't you? I'm the boy whose family you were hired to slaughter. The boy you left to burn in that mansion—my home—alongside the corpses of everyone I ever loved."

He pointed to the scorched side of his face. "DO YOU REMEMBER THIS?!"

Anastasia's knees buckled.

The screams—long buried—came rushing back. Flames. Blood. Silence. Then more screams.