Shattered: Beyond End [RECODED]
Arc 1: Echoes Before Fire
——
District 9 didn't sleep—it glitched.
Neon signs outside the apartment window sputtered like dying stars, casting warped streaks of red and blue over walls that hadn't seen paint since before the war. Rain hissed against the glass, not falling but bleeding, smearing the outside world into a fog of color, static, and exhaust.
Inside, the apartment felt more like a crime scene than a home—scattered with crushed noodle cups, empty med-injects, and the faint metallic tang of old gun oil clinging to the air like memory.
Kun slouched in a sagging chair, shirtless, legs splayed out like he owned the world—or stopped caring if it owned him. His black hair was a mess of uneven tufts, like he'd wrestled sleep and lost. A faded scar dragged across his shoulder, and a dull silver chain hung loose against his collarbone. His body was lean, but not starved—tough the way feral dogs are tough. The kind of strength earned, not trained.
A worn COUNTERS Academy flyer fluttered between his fingers, corners bent, paper grease-stained and soft. He flicked it like a playing card, over and over.
"Yo," he muttered, amber eyes squinting toward the ceiling, "imagine the instructors are all sharp-eyed badasses in tactical skirts. One wink and I'm selling my soul."
Across the room, Suho sat cross-legged on a thin futon, adjusting the strap of a thigh sheath with clinical precision. His black hair was tidier—shorter, neater—but the same amber gaze glanced up, unimpressed.
"You flirt with one of them," he said flatly, "and they'll pin your corpse to the training wall as a warning."
Kun snorted. "Death by thighs. Worth it."
Suho didn't smile. He didn't need to. His calm had weight. Every movement said he was the one who double-checked escape routes in dreams. Shorter than Kun, but with the kind of quiet tension that made people forget.
A cracked tablet buzzed on the table beside him. He picked it up, scanned the message, then stood and began gearing up—jacket, sheath, gloves. All black. All clean. Too clean.
Kun's smirk faded. "Another job?"
"Takeda Construction ruins," Suho said, sliding his knife into place. "Cat-1 breach. Three clicks out. Quick sweep."
Kun groaned, dragging a hand down his face. "That dump again? It's cursed. Smells like mold and dead promises."
Suho didn't argue. That was the worst part.
Kun glanced at the floor, then back to the flickering flyer. His voice dipped, losing the joke.
"You ever get tired of this mercenary grind?"
Suho paused—not long, but long enough to say yes.
"…It's better than working for them," he replied.
Kun scoffed, soft. "Yeah. Better than being a cog."
He leaned back, letting the flyer fall into his lap. "But man... I'm sick of breathing the same stale air. Choking on someone else's dirt."
The silence held. Then Suho's voice came quieter.
"I don't trust them. But I trust us."
Kun looked up. The light from the window carved sharp shadows across their faces.
"I sent in the application," he said. "They said I qualify. Said we both do."
"You gonna go?"
Kun shrugged, still slouched in the chair. "If I don't, what's the alternative? Another month of roaches and bad takeout?"
He didn't stand. Just stayed there, elbow on the armrest, chin resting in one hand, gaze fixed on the flyer now lying flat on his knee. The paper looked thinner in the light—like it might tear just from being looked at too hard.
"I'm not asking you to come," he said. "I'm saying I can't keep doing this."
Suho didn't stop him. But he didn't answer either.
Kun didn't move, just shifted slightly—his fingers absently tapping the paper.
"Who's the client this time?"
"…Didn't say," Suho replied, thumb still scrolling. "Just that I was recommended."
Kun raised a brow. "Oooh. Mysterious sugar daddy. Hope he's got a nice voice."
For the briefest second, Suho's expression cracked—half a smirk, or maybe just a twitch.
"I'll be back before sunrise."
"If you die," Kun said, "I'm stealing your music files and telling people you cried."
"If I die," Suho replied, already slipping into his boots, "I'm taking you with me."
The door clicked shut behind him.
Rain kept falling—thick and slow, like the city was trying to drown itself without making a sound.
Kun didn't move. Just sat there in the half-dark, surrounded by ghosts of broken tech and dried ramen, his fingers still brushing the edge of the flyer like it might answer back.
COUNTERS ACADEMY
Join the fight. Defend what remains.
He stared for a long time.
Then, almost a whisper, "Hope she's got a nice sword arm."
The neon outside buzzed like a failing heart monitor.
The rain blurred the city beyond into colors that didn't belong anywhere.
——
The rain hadn't stopped since noon. It didn't fall in drops—it smeared like oil, clinging to skin and windows, streaking neon lights into ghosts. Smoke slithered through the alleys—acrid, chemical-laced, the kind that burned your throat and stuck in your hair like regret.
Suho walked alone.
His boots splashed through puddles stained with artificial colors—crimson from a cracked ramen sign, electric blue from the pulse of a scanning drone. The city around him twitched and buzzed like a dying circuit board.
A gunshot cracked behind a building, followed by shouting—two voices, one cut short.
He didn't turn.
To his left, a vendor with a half-metal jaw barked at passing mercs, selling fried noodles and stim packs from the same greasy countertop. The flickering sign above him read "NüTokyo Taste™"—half the letters glitched into nonsense.
Further down, a child no older than ten sat on a crate beneath a rusted umbrella, selling recycled firearm parts out of a cooler filled with melted ice and broken dreams.
Suho passed them all—silent, unreadable.
Above it all, the Administration's emblem floated on a translucent holo-screen, projected across a dozen floors—its cold blue light casting a sterile glow across the rot. Pristine and unblinking, it hovered like a god that stopped caring.
In an alley just ahead, Suho caught a glimpse—two Administration guards, their pristine armor a stark contrast to the filth, pinned against a wall by laughing mercenary Counters. One helmet was half-off, steam fogging between lips pressed in a kiss. The other guard leaned back, head tilted, eyes glazed from a half-chewed drug.
Suho didn't blink. Didn't judge. This was District 9.
Everyone here was selling something—even the ones who thought they weren't.
A burst of static crackled in his ear.
"Client Update: Zone breach stable. Cat-1 activity confirmed. Proceed to Takeda Construction."
Still no name. Still that cold, sanitized voice every suicide job came wrapped in.
He adjusted the strap across his shoulder and moved deeper into the city. Buildings towered above, stacked like rusting bones. Signs blinked in four broken languages—Japanese, Korean, English, Russian—fighting for attention no one had left to give.
He passed an old arcade with shattered windows. Inside, one screen still flickered:
GAME OVER_
Dust coated the consoles like grave dirt. A claw machine stood by the window, cracked and empty—except for a half-burned plushie slumped against the glass. Its face was melted into a permanent, lopsided grin.
Once, Kun had tried to win him one of those.
He failed.
And something about that failure felt heavier now, like losing a war they never knew they were fighting.
Suho paused for just a breath, watching the screen flicker.
GAME OVER_
Not a warning. Not a threat. A prophecy.
Dust clung to the machines like tombstone moss. A half-burned plushie hung from a claw crane, its smile melted off. Once, Kun had tried to win him one of those. Suho hadn't laughed, but he remembered.
Ahead, a mechanical dog limped across the road, dragging a thick cable from its back—sparking every few feet, leaving small scorch marks behind. One of its eyes flickered red. The other was missing.
Suho slowed for half a second, watching it vanish into the fog.
It reminded him of something he didn't want to name.
A drone hummed above, washing the street in a cold, artificial dawn. The people below didn't flinch.
As he approached the breach zone, the noise behind him began to fade—drowned by neon, exhaust, and the whisper of things too tired to scream.
The Takeda Construction Ruins rose before him like a corpse mid-autopsy. Concrete pillars jutted from the ground like fractured bones. Rebar reached skyward like broken fingers. Half-covered signs warned of radiation. No one cared.
A caution barrier swayed weakly in the wind. The tape was torn. Useless.
Suho pulled an Admin-issued scanner from his coat. Its blue light flickered across his face, sharp and cold. The casing was cracked, held together with tape and habit.
TARGET ZONE: ACTIVE
CLASS: CATEGORY 1
ESTIMATED COUNT: 3–5
THREAT LEVEL: LOW
Bullshit.
There was no such thing as a low-threat zone in District 9.
Suho exhaled, slow and tight. He remembered this place.
Two years ago, he and Kun dragged a dying contractor out of these same ruins—blood bubbling in his throat as he screamed about something in the dark.
They never found what he was screaming about.
Suho's fingers curled slightly, scanner dim in his hand.
He hated this part of the city. Not because it was loud—but because it sounded like him.
Alive. But wrong.
A single raindrop slid down his cheek. He blinked it away.
"This city always buries something," he murmured.
Then he stepped into the dark.