Darkness.
The flickering light panels overhead sputtered weakly, casting a broken glow across the empty warehouse.
At its center stood a man in his forties—tall, broad-shouldered, his presence heavy and menacing. Sharp black eyes burned beneath messy brown hair, loosely tied into a ponytail. His once-pristine white butler-style suit was now torn and soaked in blood—his or someone else's, it wasn't clear.
He stood there, barely upright, chest rising and falling in ragged breaths. The silence around him felt suffocating, thick with rage and betrayal.
"You escaped from me!" he shouted, voice cracking through the still air. "You refused what was best for you! You betrayed me, Kazuya! You threw away everything—everything that could've put you above them all!"
He clutched his bleeding chest tighter, blood soaking deeper into the white fabric.
"Kazuya…" he snarled, eyes wild as he drew a pistol from beneath his ruined suit. "If you don't agree with me now… I'll have no choice but to kill you."
He rose his pistol.
A single shot echoed.