The city skyline was lit up with buildings and signs. Signs for new brands of potato chips or jewelry stores. Business lights were still on with the late workers and graveyard shifts of the civilians of Stellac city. The many buildings were alive with bright, neon colors, except for one. This building was the biggest in the city, shaped like a feudal Japanese castle, the green roofs and bamboo-shaped pillars made it look out of place in the world of the year 2150. Despite the antique look, the building was a formidable fortress. It was built by the company, MAXCO, to act as their main headquarters, it has many weapons, traps, and security cameras. The building had all the lights off, except for one at the top, it glowed blue. Inside one man was fighting in an exo-suit with a katana. The Exo suit was matte bluish-gray with blue highlights and the V-shaped visor glowed an icy blue. The bluish-gray armor moved with his body, finely tuned to suit him. The suit is shaped to cover every inch of his body with a lunar titanium composite. It moves with near silence and only makes either inaudible or barely audible steps when it hits the floor due to the sound-absorbent pads in the soles of the feet. To the outside, it would be a blank room, but to him, it was a city filled with enemy combatants. These are other cyber ninjas much like him. Slicing and dicing at the ones with swords, axes, and hammers. Throwing his kunai throwing knives at the ones with guns and rocket launchers. Inside the suit, Nathan saw through a visor that was shaped like a V on the outside, but he could see everything on the inside. He sees blips on radar and sonar and several other sensors. Nathan Kojima noticed one more blip on his sensor.

“What, I thought the civilians were all evacuated” Nathan muttered

Nathan broke free of the grip he was in and dashed over to grab the boy, he grabbed him but didn’t notice the ninja jumping behind him. Nathan closed his eyes for the strike. When suddenly, the ninja, the boy, and the whole city faded out of existence. He got up off the ground, the room was blank, but when a door slid open, Twelve men walked in. The first one was the father of the other men including Nathan. He had gray hair but was nowhere near frail, he was strong. Stronger due to his powered Exo suit. He hit Nathan across the face, the impact would have broken his jaw if he hadn’t kept his visor and helmet on.

“What did I teach you” He yelled “I taught you how to fight, but I only saw you die”

“I needed to protect the child“ Nathan yelled back, getting up from the ground

“That was not the mission” The father yelled back, hitting Nathan back to the ground. “All of you follow me”.

Nathan got up and followed his brothers to the big portrait window in his father’s office. Nathan had a bad feeling about where this was going. 

“You, my sons, have great blood in your veins, the blood of a great ninja clan, which despite their efforts never was able to control their city, always defeated by the army of the daimyo, but now we will finally grant the wish of our ancestors.” The father said

A hologram of a phoenix with a katana in its mouth appeared on the wall behind them. 

“This is our organization, PHENEX, we have already taken this city and soon we will take over more of them, we will rise from the ashes and make our ancestors proud, we will create a new nation under our rule.” 

Nathan had no idea why he did what he did. It seemed to come from a place of hatred and anger. He had always hated his father, he was a taskmaster, someone who never showed mercy. His father also had multiple wives which Nathan found disgusting. He hated his father but even more than him, he hated his siblings, he had never learned all of his brother’s names, merely referring to them by their characteristics, such as the skinny one or the fat one. 

“This is insane” Nathan yelled “We are the guardians of the city, not the conquerors, why must we take something over when we could easily control the city through peaceful options” 

It was dead silent until his father slowly walked up to him. 

“I didn’t expect you to understand my goal, you have never had the strength to conquer or fight back, you always take it lying down, pushing his index finger into Nathans’s chest. Never showing any strength or backbone, you have too much of your mother in you and she was a washed-up useless who-”, but he never finished his sentence because right before he finished to word Nathan loathed with all of his heart, he pulled his katana, it was the fastest he had ever done it as if it was in fast forward. He slashed downwards. His father jumped back, but not quick enough, the tip of the blade cut into his left eye, destroying his lens and cornea. His father yelled in pain and stepped back grabbing his eye. The cut took out his left eye and left a big cut over his eyebrow to the top of his cheek.  

“You’ve attacked your father, there is no honor in that” His father yelled. 

“You have no right to comment about someone else’s honor when you have none,” Nathan said back, readying his blade. His father’s gloved hand was stained red, with blood seeping through the cracks between his fingers. 

“Kill that waste of space! Kill him NOW!” The father yelled to the other ninjas. One big ninja with a hammer, Nathan never bothered to remember his name, swung at Nathan hitting him through the portrait window. Nathan groaned in pain as he crashed through the plate glass and fell out of sight.

“After him, send the soldiers, if he’s been trained anything like you, you know that that won’t kill him”. The father yells, and he was right.

Falling down the side of the building, Nathan put his hands and feet up to the wall and sharp metal spikes shot from the tips of his fingers and the soles of his feet. Sparks flew as he slowed to a stop on the side of the building. Nathan lamented his situation before looking up and seeing five cyber ninjas running down the side of the building at him. Nathan detached from the wall and began to fall. Seeing a car flying, and not wanting to fall and hurt the civilians below, he grabbed one of the cyber ninjas and slammed him into the building, trying to slow himself. Activating the throwing kunai, he grabs one as it shoots out from his gauntlet, switching to holding it by the blade he throws the kunai at the head of one of the ninjas, and it hits, the body falls out of sight. Another one of the five grabbed his arms and the force disconnected his spikes from the wall. Nathan began to fall again. Seeing a nearby building he kicked the other ninja off, pulling his katana and stabbing him through the chest. Sparks and blood both shot out through the wound. Nathan used his wrist-mounted grappling hook to grapple to the nearest building. Getting up to the roof, three other ninjas followed him and he saw other soldiers on the ground following him as well. 

“If I get to the ground, they won’t fire at non-combatants.” Nathan thought, jumping off the building. Hitting the ground with a crash, cracking the pavement. The soldiers opened fire at him, using his katana he sliced the bullets in two, right down the middle, and they all hit the pavement around him. Nathan saw the civilians running away behind him as he jumped yet the soldiers still fired, and the bullets hit several people. 

“What? They didn’t stop shooting even though they were non-combatants, Simon must have changed the programming” 

Nathan landed and began to dash towards several of the soldiers, his exo-suit taking the shots, he sliced at the soldiers, cutting many of them down and taking out a machine gunner atop a building with a well-placed explosive kunai to the back of his ammo pack. Nathan relaxed his grip on his sword, but the battle was not over yet. Nathan was surprised as several Cyber ninjas landed on the ground, they were all wearing red, and Nathan knew who these guys were. They were Katana’s personally trained cyber ninjas, Nathan readied for battle as they all dashed at him. Nathan pulled out his second sword holding it upside down, this one shorter than the first and he began to fight as Katana’s ninjas began to throw smoke bombs at the ground. Nathan didn’t falter for a second, turning on the thermal vision. He saw several red figures on the walls of buildings and he took three kunai, throwing them at the backs of the ninjas. Sparks flew as the kunai stabbed through the armor. They fell to the ground, and one of them didn’t get up. The other two, after taking the kunai out of each other's back, threw them back at Nathan, they were moving too fast for him to catch, doing a backflip, the two kunai passed right below and above him. Landing on his chest, he quickly got back up to kick one of the ninjas in the head before he could stab him in the chest. Just then, a voice called to Nathan from a building. Nathan looked up to see a man wearing a red suit with only a visor over his face which was open showing the scar across his right eye. This was Katana, one of Nathan’s eleven other brothers

“So Nathan, you betray us, maim our father, and expect to live long enough to take him down.” Katana yells

“I seem to be doing ok right now” Nathan retorts. 

Katana leaps from the building slashing at Nathan, Nathan puts up a defense, swinging his sword.  The swords clashed in the air as the sparks flew. Nathan grabbed three of his kunai and hurled them at Katana, to no avail. Katana used his sword to knock the knives out of the air. Nathan and Katana started clashing swords. Nathan parries a blow from Katana and while they are tussling, Nathan sweeps his legs. Katana falls and drops his sword while Nathan jumps to slam his sword into Katana’s chest, Katana raises his legs, kicking Nathan and knocking the wind out of him, causing him to drop his sword. Katana and Nathan backed away from each other, panting as they looked at the swords that they let go of while tussling. Nathan and Katana ran at each other. They grab the swords as they run toward each other. They jab at each other, but Katana hits Nathan’s hip, breaking through the lunar titanium composite, cutting through his flesh and muscle, and breaking his bones. Nathan misses his shot and hits Katana’s shoulder armor. Nathan cried out in pain, and Katana kicked Nathan off the blade as he grabbed one of Nathan’s kunai out of the ground. Nathan was gasping, the breath was knocked out of him with that kick, grasping at his wound, he could not feel his waist, anything except pain was nothing to him. On the ground he knelt, he could hear almost no noise. Nothing except Katana and his heartbeat. He was disappointed in himself, he didn’t expect to die this early in life, he had such hatred for his father and his siblings, but although he didn’t want to die now, he came to peace with it, he was ready to die. Katana threw the kunai at Nathan’s head. Nathan closed his eyes accepting his fate wondering if he would see his mother in whatever afterlife there is, waiting for the impact, but it never came. He opened his eyes and saw the bleeding body of a woman, no older than twenty-five, in front of him. He gasped. The blood seeped from the wound in her chest. Nathan crawled towards the woman, shaking her.

“Why did you do it?” Nathan asked

“Because you are the only one who can save the lives of those who can’t defend themselves, who can stop these men.” The woman groaned and coughed up blood before passing out and dying.

Nathan was reminded of his mother, she was the only person in the world who cared for him, and she was always kind to him after he was beaten during practice or hurt in training. Then he remembered how much he hated his father. He remembered a time when he was thirteen, and it was the first time he wanted to kill his father. It was at night, but he couldn’t remember when, but he was walking down the hallway towards her room. Each of his father’s wives had a room to herself, they were relatively nice, fairly big, but with a big picture window.  He opened the door, fumbling with the doorknob, while still holding the food he brought his mother. He was in a cast so it was hard to keep everything from falling, but it eventually worked. He heard a woman weeping. He saw the silhouette of his mother, on the bed, the weeping was louder now. She turned to face him as he saw that she had a black eye. 

“He hit you again didn’t he,” Nathan said angrily. “I’m going to kill that bastard one day.”

“Don’t worry about me, what happened to you?” She was shocked as she noticed his arm was in a cast.

“Oh, Fatty, or whatever his name is, broke my arm during training today, I had to sling it myself because Simon wouldn’t let me go to the infirmary,” Nathan said angrily

“You shouldn’t call your father by his first name,” His mother said softly

“He’s no father of mine, never has been, never will be” Nathan growled

His mother sighed as she took the package in Nathan’s hand and began to walk toward the oven in her kitchen.

Nathan heard a scream, he jolted upwards as he was brought back to reality, he turned his head to see another woman, this one no older than the other, sobbing and running towards her body. Grabbing it, she cried screaming for Monica to wake up. 

“Who was she to you?” Nathan asks

“She was my wife” The woman still weeping says “We were going to adopt a child soon”

Nathan is shocked at the sacrifice this woman made, when so close to getting a child. Nathan feels his anger rise, clenching his fist around his sword, using it as leverage to get up.

“A.I., are you there?” Nathan asked 

All cyber ninja suits came with an A.I. to help during combat, doing things like scanning the environment, activating and deactivating stealth camouflage, and at this point, applying medical treatment to a wound.

“Yes, I am” The A.I. responded and a little dot showed up in the corner of his eye.

“Pressurize all wounds and apply painkillers,” Nathan responded groaning

The A.I. complied and Nathan felt a tightness around his hip and then some of the pain left his body, he was back and ready to fight back. Katana laughed as he saw Nathan shakingly get up

“You continue to fight even though you know that you have lost, how stubborn are you?” Katana asks still laughing

“YOU attack the weak and dying, YOU murder innocent lives, YOU ruin families,  yet you still consider yourself to be the righteous one, and call me stubborn,” Nathan says pointing his sword at Katana “Your, no, all of PHENEX’s problem is that you use the blade as a symbol of fear, whereas I use it as a symbol of justice, that is why I will win in my fight against you because I don’t fear you, I see you who you are, just a man in a suit of armor, and armor can be broken.”

“You will pay for your words!” Katana yells as he rushes toward Nathan with the blade to his side. Nathan readied his sword and began to slowly make his way toward Katana. Katana hops in the air, Nathan realizes what he was doing and readies to parry the blow, he corrects his stance and pushes towards Katana as he swings at him. Nathan grabbed Katana’s arm and threw him into an APC carrier which housed several cyborg soldiers. Katana was in awe at how Nathan could throw someone that hard when he has several broken bones and a stab wound in his hip. The rage was making Nathan stronger. Nathan was furious with his family and himself. He let that woman die, he ruined her wife’s life and he broke their home, it was all his fault. He wouldn’t let her death be in vain. Nathan and Katana were parrying so fast that there were only bright flashes of light as the swords clashed, using their fists, and slamming their heads together. Nathan got a slash on Katana’s chest. Grabbing Katana’s head, he slams him to the ground. They backed away as Nathan heard someone yell “Kill that red guy”. 

“Give the audience what they asked for,” he said to Katana, throwing a kunai at him. Katana hit it with his sword. 

“Let’s finish this!” Katana said

Katana dashed at Nathan, and Nathan readied for the final blow. Nathan stepped to the side as Katana dashed past him, Nathan saw it in his eyes, the fear he hoped to see. He had left his back vulnerable, and Katana had realized his fatal mistake. 

“You won’t harm anyone,'' Nathan whispered.

Nathan brought the sword down, slicing slightly diagonally, and it cut with nearly no resistance. The blade cut into his spine, and blood and sparks shot from the back of the suit as Katana staggered forward, sparks were mixing with the blood. He reached toward the sky.

“I did it wrong” Katana groaned before he fell onto the cold asphalt.

Nathan stood up and shook the blood off his sword before he wiped the rest on his forearm armor. He couldn’t tell if Katana was dead or not, but he didn’t care, he had hoped he was rotting in whatever pit he had come from. He went over to the body of Monica, the woman who died for him, the woman who saved his life. Kneeling he whispered Thank you, I’ll do what you told me to, I’ll destroy them so that no one has to suffer at their hands. He heard people running and leaving their houses. He grappled to the roof of the nearest building, sprinting on the sides of buildings using his crawling spikes in his feet and hands, getting away from the chaos that ensued just minutes ago. Swinging and running through the city skyline he saw the awful reality of his city, it needed protection, someone to stop the oppression and crime that rages throughout the city. It began to rain as he found himself a construction site to spend the night in. Inside he took off the suit and destroyed the transmitter inside the helmet. And makes small repairs with the tools he found on the site. 

In the tall building where all of this madness began, a soldier entered the office, bowing slightly before speaking. Simon was standing at the broken picture window, an eye patch covering his left eye. The droplets of rainfall through the picture window and onto the carpeted room. 

“Master, Your son, the one known as Katana, has been killed.” The soldier said solemnly.

“What?” Simon said, shooting up from his chair, “Who killed him?”

“It was your other son, the one known as Kunai or Nathan Kojima ” The soldier replied wincing, afraid Simon would lash out and he would be caught in the crossfire. 

Simon yelled in anger as he threw his desk out the broken plate glass window. The metal bent as he crushed it in his hands. The desk fell into the black abyss of the streets below the building. 

“Find him and capture him, I want to kill him myself” Simon growled, “and get me a new desk”.

Meanwhile, on the docks, a gang leader met with his people in a warehouse near a pier. The man was sitting on a throne in front of him were his men, all holding assault rifles and other guns. He was talking about how they are the most successful gang in the whole city. Just then, A man wearing a cyber ninja suit that looked exactly like Nathan’s suit, except for one detail, his suit’s highlights were blood-red instead of icy blue, smashed through the skylight. He stayed crouched on the ground as all the men in the room readied their rifles. The safeties clicked off as they pointed the guns at the man. The man in the suit stood up, they didn’t fire, he spoke with a calm and smooth voice.

“I came to tell you that your "operation" is under new management,” The man said, holding his katana upside down at the base between the hilt and the blade.

“Who are you?” The gang leader said, shaking.

“I am Raiser, your new boss,” the man said, opening and closing his hand.

¨Yeah right you are…” The gang leader said as he pulled the trigger, but the shot went wild. The shot went wild because, in the very short time Raiser had, he had thrown a kunai into the gang leader’s neck. The gang leader fell over-dying, as Raiser got up.

“Anyone else have anything to say,” Rasier said looking around at the other gang members. They shook their heads. Raiser could see their hands shaking as they clenched their rifles, he was not afraid, they wouldn’t dare pull the trigger, not when they see their old boss dead at their feet, and even if they did his armor could shake off some assault rifle bullets, and they would be dead before they could do any real damage.

“Good” Raiser replied, pulling the kunai out of the boss’s neck and making his way over to the throne.

“I’m the one in charge, you listen to me, any questions and you might just end up like him,” He said, pointing his blade at the man, now dead on the floor. “If not, then you should all get to work on importing weapons and armor, alright?” 

All the men left the warehouse. Raiser undid his helmet, the armor sliding back to reveal a thirty-year-old man with dark green eyes with a long scar on his cheek, it was from a blade of some kind. Raiser slicked his long black hair back as he thought to himself, We’re gonna have a lot of fun, won’t we?