Tōriku City. A glowing graveyard made of steel, neon, and lies.
The rich sat above the clouds. The poor rotted below. And in between? Monsters in suits. Men who sold nations, trafficked lives, and smiled for cameras.
But not everyone smiled.
Hiroshi Kurogane, 17, walked through the rain-soaked streets, his schoolbag slung low and his eyes heavy with silence. The sky cried above, but inside Hiroshi, there was no rain. Only fire.
The same fire that had burned since his family was murdered.
His father—poisoned during a peace summit. His mother—burned alive in a car "accident." His little sister—vanished, body never found.
And the media called it justice.
No, Hiroshi thought, it was war.
They wanted to erase the Kurogane name, the one family that held back the rising wave of corruption. They succeeded.
But they didn't realize something.
They left one behind.
---
They thought he'd die with his family. That he'd disappear. They were right—he did disappear.
But not to cry.
To build.
He started in the gutter. Low-level courier for tech gangs, learning routes, faces, secrets. He found his father's encrypted vault—a hidden fund. Billion-yen accounts. Blackmail files. Secret contacts.
He created SPECTER—an invisible network, unknown to the world, where hackers, rebels, and vigilantes moved in the dark. He made connections. Formed alliances. Collected dirt.
He recruited orphans, failed soldiers, and ex-assassins. He gave them shelter. Orders. Purpose.
He rebuilt the Kurogane Foundation as a front—a rising powerhouse disguised as a young business empire. In reality? A silent juggernaut moving behind the curtain. It existed but had no public figure. No symbol. No face.
It wasn't time.
Until the night everything changed.
---
One rainy evening, while Hiroshi returned from a covert meeting, he heard a scream.
CRASH.
He turned into a dark alley lit by flickering neon.
Three men stood over a silver-haired girl, beaten and bloody but not broken. Her defiance burned brighter than the city lights.
"Kill her," one muttered.
She spat blood. "Do it, cowards."
Hiroshi stepped in, silent as death, holding only one thing—
A pair of reinforced black chopsticks.
"Wrong target," he said.
They laughed. Guns flashed.
Too slow.
Bones cracked. Bullets clinked. The last man fired.
Hiroshi caught the bullet—between the chopsticks.
"W-what are you...?" the thug stammered.
Hiroshi jabbed his throat, dropped him like the others.
---
The girl blinked. "Why save me?"
"Because you still have fire in your eyes," Hiroshi replied.
He handed her a card:
Yuki Kurogane Daughter of the Kurogane Empire.
She stared at it. "I'm no one's daughter."
"You are now," he said. "At least to the world."
"What do you mean?"
"I built something," he said calmly. "An empire. Unseen. Unheard. But it's time to give it a face. Someone powerful. Untouchable. A rising star."
"And you want me to be that?" she said, incredulous.
"No. I need you to be that."
---
Weeks passed.
And suddenly, news spread through social media, tabloids, and corporate whispers:
The Kurogane Empire had returned. A powerful heiress had emerged from the shadows. The daughter of a fallen legacy—rising anew.
Yuki Kurogane.
Now she walked the halls of Tōriku International College, not as a student, but as a superstar.
Daughter of a growing empire. The face of wealth, power, and mystery.
Students turned to watch her. Cameras clicked. Rumors flew.
"She's untouchable."
"She's the Kurogane heiress!"
"No one dares to cross her."
And behind her, silent in the crowd, was Hiroshi.
Just another student.
But everyone she met, everything she said—was carefully guided. Managed. Controlled.
By the boy who once walked alone in the rain.
The empire had found its star.
And the game had begun.