The hospital room was quiet, tucked deep in a private ward that didn't exist on public records. No name on the door. No cameras in the hallway. No nurses outside.
Inside, machines beeped steadily. The woman on the bed gripped the blanket, her skin clammy, her breaths shallow. A nurse wiped her brow, her movements automatic but tense.
The birth was going badly.
Outside the room, Cain sat alone in the corridor, his fingers steepled under his chin. Known only to a few as one of the deadliest assassins in the world, he was a ghost to the public—powerful, calculating, feared. But today, he was just a man waiting for his child to be born.
This was supposed to be the beginning of his legacy.
Then came silence.
Inside the room, the doctor's face remained unreadable.
"Push again," he said.
She obeyed, barely. Her strength was nearly gone. Blood loss had drained her color, her fingernails cracked from gripping the sheets too hard. Her voice had vanished long ago.
A cry broke through the stillness.
But it wasn't hers.
A small body emerged—slick, pale, and screaming. The nurse caught the newborn in practiced hands.
Then she hesitated.
The child's eyes were a piercing sky-blue—but there was something wrong. The focus was absent. His gaze didn't follow light or motion.
The nurse's expression shifted. "He's blind," she whispered, more to herself than anyone else.
The doctor didn't respond. He was already checking the mother's vitals.
The woman on the bed turned her head weakly, her eyes searching. She looked at the nurse holding the baby—at her son—and smiled.
Then came the long, flat beep of the heart monitor.
She was gone.
Outside, Cain stood as the hallway light above the operating room turned off. The door opened, and the doctor—an old man who had worked under Cain's instruction for years—stepped into the corridor.
"She didn't make it," he said. "But your son is alive."
Cain said nothing.
The doctor hesitated, then added, "There's one problem… he's blind."
Cain stood still, the words echoing in his mind like a suppressed gunshot.
"Blind."
The doctor waited for a reaction. None came.
Cain's gaze was fixed on the closed door of the operating room. His hands were still at his sides, his face expressionless, but something in the air shifted. Cold. Heavy.
"Bring him to me," Cain said.
The doctor gave a subtle nod.
Moments later, the nurse stepped out with the baby swaddled in white. The newborn squirmed slightly, his soft cries fading into tired breaths.
Cain took the child without a word.
He looked down into the baby's face. Those eyes—open, glassy, unseeing—stared up at nothing. There was no focus, no recognition. Only the soft, instinctive struggle of a life newly born.
This was his son.
His heir.
His failure.
"Leave us," Cain said quietly.
The doctor and nurse obeyed, slipping down the hall without question. No one else moved through that wing. It was too well-secured, too silent. Just as Cain wanted.
Alone with the child, Cain walked slowly to the end of the hallway where a single chair sat by a darkened window. He sat, his long coat falling around him like a cloak of shadows.
He held the boy carefully, not tenderly.
"You're weak," Cain said softly, almost like he was speaking to himself. "Broken before you even began."
The baby made a faint noise, wriggling in his arms.
Cain looked at him—not as a father looks at his son, but as a craftsman looks at flawed steel.
He had wanted a successor. Someone worthy. Someone perfect.
But life was never perfect.
"You'll never see," he murmured. "But you will learn to listen. To feel. To kill."
His voice hardened.
"You will survive... or you won't."
He stood once more, the child in his arms.
A legacy wasn't something given. It was something forged.
And Cain would forge this one in pain and silence, until the world feared even the name he had yet to give.
Cain brought out his cell phone and spoke calmly, "Bring the car around. And call an assistant nurse—someone capable enough to care for a newborn."
Without waiting for a reply, he tucked the phone away, adjusted the baby in his arms, and made his way downstairs.
Outside, a black limousine pulled into the private parking lot. The moment it stopped, a suited man stepped out and bowed slightly.
Cain gave a nod. "Straight to the mansion."
"Yes, sir," the man responded, opening the rear door.
Cain slid in with the child, the door shutting behind him with a solid thunk. The driver got in, and without another word, they pulled out of the underground lot.
The city blurred past them.
They headed somewhere far—somewhere isolated. A place where people went when they didn't want to be found. No signals. No noise. Just silence, woods, and stone walls taller than any man.
It wasn't a home.
It was a stronghold.
The road twisted into the hills, the city lights fading behind them until there was only darkness and the hum of tires on gravel.
Pine trees rose on either side, tall and unmoving, like silent sentries. Fog drifted low across the ground. The air was colder here. Cleaner.
They drove for miles without passing a single building.
Then the gate appeared.
Massive. Wooden. Weathered by time. It stood between two stone walls that disappeared into the forest, no hinges visible, no signs of life.
The car slowed to a stop.
For a moment, nothing happened.
Then the gate slid open with a deep, quiet groan, wide enough for them to pass.
Inside, the road narrowed to a single winding path. Lanterns hung from old posts, spaced far apart, their glow soft and flickering in the mist. Wisteria vines crept along the tree trunks, their pale petals catching the light like falling ash.
The house came into view.
Low and wide. Black-tiled roof. Wooden walls. Traditional Japanese design, untouched by time. It sat at the center of a garden so still, it looked like it had been waiting.
The car stopped in front.
Cain stepped out, the child in his arms.
The front door slid open without a sound.
No one greeted them. No guards. No staff.
But he knew they were there—watching from the trees, the rooftops, the shadows.
He stepped onto the wooden platform, pausing only for a breath.
Then he entered.