Gun In Another World

"You ever heard of someone called the Blade Behind the Veil?"

That question hung in the backroom of a gambling den run by former smugglers and current cowards, Kaito leaned on the table with his coat undone, fingers tapping a charm round on the table, not threatening, just existing, and across from him sat a man who smelled like broken promises and overcooked rice, his left eye twitching each time Kaito moved, his hands flat on the surface like the wrong answer might earn him a bullet instead of a glare.

"Why you asking about that ghost?" the man muttered, his voice hoarse from too much cheap incense, "Ain't no one seen him since the Temple Bleed riots, they say he cut six inquisitors down in the middle of a sermon and walked out dressed like a bishop."

Kaito didn't blink.

"Where."

"East edge of Redveil," the man said, his eyes flicking toward the doorway, "Old bathhouse by the bone market, boarded up, smells like vinegar and ash, if he's alive, he's either there or already behind you."

Kaito flicked the charm onto the table and walked out without a word, and by the time the man realized it wasn't loaded, Kaito was already three alleys away, sliding back into the city like smoke.

He wasn't looking for a legend.

He was looking for a teacher.

The Vault was growing too fast, too loud, and the Church was getting smarter, throwing subtlety out the window and replacing it with organized hunters, inquisitors trained in memory-scrape and movement prediction, he couldn't just outshoot them anymore, he needed to move in a way they couldn't trace, kill without noise, vanish without shadow—he needed to become what they feared more than heresy.

He needed to become invisible.

The bathhouse was silent when he arrived.

No signs, no guards, just rot and rust, the kind of place you'd walk past without a second thought unless you were looking for something you weren't supposed to find, he stepped through the splintered entrance and immediately noticed the scent—herbs, dried blood, and something old, something sharp beneath it all.

"Take off your boots."

The voice came from the far corner, quiet, bored, like Kaito was interrupting tea time.

He froze mid-step.

"You're tracking Vault dust," the voice continued, "Smells like copper and stupid decisions."

Kaito stepped back, untied his boots, and left them by the door.

"I'm not here to fight."

"No," the voice replied, "If you were, you'd already be bleeding."

A man stepped into the light from behind a cracked steam vent.

Grey coat, one arm sleeveless, eyes like shattered mirrors—reflective, unreadable.

He didn't move like a warrior.

He moved like a shadow pretending to be bored.

Kaito studied him.

"You're Darius?"

The man raised a brow.

"You're Kaito."

Silence.

Then a slow, dry chuckle.

"I don't train charity cases."

"I'm not here for charity."

"Good," Darius said, walking past him, "Because I don't like bleeding hearts or revolutionaries who think they're clever, especially ones who brand bullets as blessings."

Kaito didn't rise to the bait.

"I need to learn how to kill without being seen."

"You're already doing that."

"No," Kaito said, eyes locked, voice low, "I'm killing loudly, and it's starting to backfire."

Darius stopped.

Turned.

"You're not wrong."

Then he sat.

And said nothing.

For a full minute.

Kaito waited.

Because that was the first lesson.

Most people talked to fill silence.

Darius didn't.

He just stared until he finished his internal math.

Finally, he spoke.

"I train ghosts, not heroes."

"I'm not a hero."

"I train knives, not martyrs."

"I'm not here to die."

"I train killers," Darius said, his eyes narrowing, "Not legends."

Kaito smiled, just barely.

"Good."

"Why?"

"Because I don't need to be remembered," he said, "I just need them to forget I was ever there."

That made Darius pause.

He leaned back.

Poured two cups of something that looked like dirty tea and smelled like vinegar.

"I don't train often."

"I don't learn slow."

"Then we'll start tomorrow."

Kaito nodded once.

Turned to leave.

"You'll live here," Darius added, sipping his cup, "Vault business stays outside. Training stays in. I don't care about your rebels or your coins or your curses. If you waste my time, I'll cut your trigger finger off and feed it to the rats."

Kaito didn't flinch.

"I'll be here before sunrise."

Darius grinned without smiling.

"Then bring bandages."

Outside, the wind picked up, and Kaito tightened his coat, walking toward the south quarter, toward Lilyeth and the Vault's newest safehouse, the street kids were already rerouting the coin drops, Rook was forging false patrol maps, and the black market whispers had started calling him a myth again.

But he knew better.

He wasn't a myth.

He wasn't a saint.

He was about to become a ghost.

Before the sun rose, Kaito was already standing in the bathhouse's center chamber, stripped of his coat, gun holstered but untouched, arms loose at his sides, he didn't speak when Darius entered from the far corner with a cup in one hand and a curved blade in the other, the kind of blade used not for war but for work, not to clash in heroic battles, but to end a man's heartbeat with silence, precision, and no glory whatsoever.

"First lesson," Darius said, not even looking at him, "Forget your gun."

Kaito raised a brow.

"I didn't bring it to show off."

"I don't care," Darius said, circling him, "Every breath you take still sounds like someone waiting for recoil."

Kaito stayed still.

"Then teach me to breathe different."

Darius stopped walking and pointed the tip of the blade at Kaito's throat.

"No."

Kaito didn't move.

Didn't blink.

Just stared back.

That made Darius smile for real, not the fake grin he wore when mocking cowards or sipping tea with half a threat in his tone, but something sharper, something more like recognition.

"Alright then," he said, lowering the blade, "Lesson one. A ghost doesn't move like a fighter. A fighter braces to win. A ghost flows to vanish."

He took off his coat and dropped it onto the floor.

Then, without warning, he was gone.

Kaito blinked.

Nothing.

The room was empty.

The air wasn't.

Behind him, Darius's voice whispered like it belonged to the bathhouse walls.

"You don't need power to kill a man. You need timing. Space. A shape that doesn't belong where eyes expect it."

Kaito turned.

Darius stood ten feet behind him.

Smiling again.

"No enchantment. No stealth charm. Just breath control and body reading."

Kaito exhaled.

"I want that."

"You'll bleed for it," Darius said, "But if you survive, you'll never be seen again unless you want to be."

The next three hours weren't lessons.

They were ritual punishment.

Every wrong step was a slap to the ribs, every mistimed breath got him shoved to the floor, Darius didn't explain most things—he demonstrated them, again and again, vanishing from angles Kaito thought impossible, reappearing in blind spots, tapping pressure points, shifting weight, teaching him to move like mist wearing shoes.

It wasn't about fighting.

It was about disappearing between movements.

"Most people walk in straight lines," Darius muttered, flicking chalk dust at Kaito's legs, "You need to walk in suggestions, give them the idea of your path, but never the truth."

By the time the sun was high, Kaito's shirt was soaked, his lungs were fire, and his thighs screamed every time he shifted weight wrong.

But he was learning.

Faster than expected.

And Darius noticed.

That evening, Kaito returned to the Vault's safehouse with Lilyeth pacing by the wall map and Rook mid-lecture to two new street kids about drop routes and cover phrases, when they saw Kaito, both stopped talking, because he looked different, posture looser, steps softer, like someone had turned the noise in his presence down to a whisper.

"How'd it go?" Lilyeth asked, folding her arms.

Kaito sat on the crate by the entrance and unlaced his boots.

"I learned how to stand."

Rook frowned.

"That's it?"

"It's a start."

Bean, the youngest runner, walked in through the back window holding two coin drops marked with fresh tags.

"One of the new kids spotted something weird," she said, tossing the coins to Rook, "Same guy's been asking the same question in five alleys—keeps asking about a Vault runner named Sticky."

Lilyeth took the coin and flipped it.

The glyph was marked for priority.

Kaito didn't speak.

Just stood, stretched, and pulled a charm round from his belt pouch.

"Send a false trail," he said, "Have Sticky drop a message at West End Fountain, make sure someone's watching the rooflines."

"You think it's a trap?" Rook asked.

"No," Kaito said, loading the charm into a fake ring box, "I think it's an opportunity."

Lilyeth narrowed her eyes.

"What's the play?"

Kaito smiled slightly.

"We don't kill him."

"Then?"

"We follow him," Kaito said, stepping toward the window, "Let him lead us to whoever's paying. Then we learn something more important than a bounty."

"Like what?"

"Like how much they fear us."

Outside, the streets shifted.

The Vault wasn't just fighting to survive anymore.

It was learning to see through the smoke.

And Kaito, for the first time, wasn't walking like a fighter.

He was moving like a ghost.

The fountain at West End dripped like it always did—half-dry, half-broken, smelling of moss, rust, and pocket change no one dared pick up anymore, Sticky sat near the rim pretending to count fruit seeds while biting into an apple that had already gone soft on one side, across the square three church knights posed as casual travelers, dressed too clean to belong, their boots too polished for the dust they stood in, and on the roof above the closed apothecary, Kaito lay belly-down, wrapped in patchy cloth and wearing gloves darker than his thoughts.

He watched through a slit in the rusted vent cover.

Nothing moved that he didn't track.

He wasn't the only hunter anymore.

Darius was somewhere nearby—unseen, unheard, probably behind someone's shadow sharpening a toothpick just to prove a point.

Rook was in position across the street with two charm mirrors, keeping eyes on reflections.

Lilyeth circled two blocks out with Bean, feeding false signals to any watchers trailing the drop kids.

This wasn't a normal intercept.

It was a field test.

Kaito wanted to know if he could apply what Darius taught him in a live setup, not just to kill—but to vanish, to insert a lie and leave truth behind, to move like fog through plans built by men who thought money could buy clarity.

The mark arrived twelve minutes late.

Which told Kaito two things.

One—he was nervous.

Two—he thought he had control.

The man wore a faded noble's coat, rich cloth dulled by travel dust, gold embroidery dulled on purpose to blend in, but his boots were new and the way he walked screamed higher education and bad fencing lessons, he held a small scroll in one hand, tucked too carefully for it to be unimportant.

He stopped near Sticky.

Dropped a coin beside the apple core.

Said something.

Sticky nodded once.

Didn't even look up.

He was playing it perfect.

Like Darius taught them.

The man turned.

Walked.

Didn't check over his shoulder.

Another mistake.

Kaito slipped off the rooftop like wind unbothered by gravity.

No flair, no flare.

Just silence.

He landed behind a chimney, crouched, ghosted across two ledges, timed his breath with street chatter, moved into position three rooftops down, tracking the mark with quiet footsteps and a heartbeat trained to lie.

The noble moved into a side alley near the tailor's guild.

Paused to adjust his coat.

Kaito slowed.

The man dropped the scroll into a waste barrel—an old spy trick.

Fireproof barrel.

Hidden ink.

Message delivery without contact.

Kaito didn't go for the scroll.

He waited.

And waited.

Until a second figure entered the alley.

This one moved different.

Tighter.

More efficient.

Robe layered like a wandering priest, but shoulders told the real story—combat-trained, scarred hands, face covered with a prayer cloth that didn't match the local clergy.

He reached into the barrel, pulled the scroll, didn't even check for eyes.

That was the moment.

Kaito dropped.

Not with a gun.

Not with a flash.

He just landed behind the man like a whisper that forgot to echo.

"Confessions come late this week," he said softly.

The man froze.

Didn't turn.

"Who are you?"

Kaito stepped closer.

"Just the wrong question at the wrong time."

The man moved, hand flicking toward his belt, charm trigger ready.

Too slow.

Kaito struck his wrist with a slip-blade hidden in his sleeve.

The charm fell.

Didn't activate.

Kaito kicked it into the sewer grate.

Then pressed his hand to the back of the man's neck and whispered one word.

"Sleep."

A soft dart hit the nerve behind the collarbone.

The man collapsed.

Kaito caught the scroll before it hit the ground.

By the time Lilyeth arrived, he was already gone, message case sealed, target dumped in a slum corner with a fake blessing tag taped to his robe, another loose thread cut before it unraveled.

"You went quiet," she said, catching up with him three rooftops later, "Thought you got bored."

Kaito passed her the scroll.

"Don't open it. Let Rook scan it with Vault dust first. It's layered."

"Who was he?"

"Wrong question."

"Then what's the right one?"

Kaito stopped.

Turned to her.

"Who's paying people to follow kids."

She stared at him.

He continued.

"We're past the point of being hunted. Now they want to understand us. Track us. Copy us."

Lilyeth's grip on the scroll tightened.

"And?"

Kaito looked back toward the cathedral.

Toward the city gates.

Toward every noble estate that had ever whispered Vault with fear and interest in the same breath.

"We let them try."

He turned away.

"And we bury every one of them who thinks bullets can be bought."

Back at the safehouse, Darius waited at the door with tea already steeped and three knives drying in a bowl.

"You passed," he said simply.

Kaito raised a brow.

"I didn't kill him."

"You didn't need to," Darius replied, "You made a ripple without breaking the surface."

Kaito sat, dropped the scroll on the table.

"We're about to make waves."

Darius sipped his tea.

"Then learn how to swim silent."