A/N: Warning for violence, self harm and angst!!
He stood there on the dark alley, staring down at the man who's life he had just taken. This one tried to run, but it all ends up like this. No one escapes from him.
Fools.
You had it coming, the assassin spared one last glance to the dead man, before he turned his back and left the corpse in the alley. It was simply another name on the list. This man needed to be taken care of, and it was the only fact that mattered to him. No details, no questions asked. The people that ended up on his list were those who had already messed up their chances. Failures, criminals, traitors, someone who simply knew too much, but frankly, it didn't matter to him what they'd done. It wasn't his business.
Darkness dwelt in his soul. The remorse and guilt he felt when his knife sunk into another human for the first time, was no longer there to hold him back. He hated himself back then, he was too disgusted to look himself from the mirror, too messed up to sleep or eat, and yet, he still did it again. He had to, it was his job now, his only way to save himself from facing the same end.
He had made mistakes, everyone has, but he did something big that messed up everything for him. He didn't know that the drunk man who insulted him, and who's face he ended up mashing with his bare fists, was someone important. He realized his mistake and tried to disappear, but the knights found him. The King's righteous dogs nearly beat him to death, because they felt like he deserved it, or maybe the dead man's friend had paid good money for them to do it. The knights might wear a shiny armor, but they are the dirtiest people in the whole kingdom who won't hesitate to do favors for those willing to pay.
They locked his barely breathing body behind bars, and he knew the cell door would only be opened again when it was time for him to face his end for real. One day, a knight came to see him. This is it, he first thought as he looked up to the king's pet that stared at him through the bars, but instead of simply dragging him out of the cold box, the man asked: Would you like to walk out of here, Levi?
Levi wasn't surprised for him to know his name, the other knights had already punched that information out of him. The knight asked Levi a lot of questions about his everyday life. What kind of people he associated with and how well he knew the streets. Levi didn't have a lot to say, but he assured the knight that he knew how to handle himself out there where the kingdom's rules didn't quite matter. Pleased to hear this, the swordsman asked if Levi was interested to do a few favors for him, in exchange of his freedom.
It turned out that the man Levi accidentally killed, was planning a big betrayal, something that may have put His Highness in bad light in his allies eyes, so to say. The knight had evidence of this, and he said he could tell a story of how he had personally asked Levi's help to get rid of the man. All of this to be done for the sake of securing His Majesty's image, Levi liked the sound of that. He could get a friendly pat on the back and be told what a good lad he was, instead of having his neck snapped by a thick rope. But, of course, the knight was expecting something in return for this generous act.
The knight dreamed of a better position, and he was clearly willing to do anything to achieve that higher rank. There's always something happening in the shadows of the city, beyond the kingdom's laws and its army's reach. The knight was ambitious, wanting to be seen as the hero who cleans the kingdom from the dirt. He couldn't do this all by himself. Some matters required actions that weren't meant to be shown to the public eye. He needed to remain as the clean image of justice, but at the same time spare no means if someone comes on his way. He needed someone who'd be willing to do the dirty work for him, when it was needed.
