Hearing the casual mention of the word ’numbers’ left an incredibly bitter, metallic taste in Aron’s mouth. It was violently dragging up buried memories of the Black Hand that he had spent years trying to suppress.
The Black Hand wasn’t a gang. They were a highly specialized, phantom group made entirely of stolen war orphans that were brutally trained from childhood to be the absolute best, most ruthless mercenaries in the world. They were ghost operatives that could be hired for absolutely anything, no matter how bloody or politically destabilizing the job was.
They didn’t inherently choose a moral side in any conflict; they always went strictly to the highest bidder. This twisted loyalty sometimes meant ruthlessly stabbing a former employer in the back the very next day. It also meant a Black Hand operative had to constantly be able to physically defend themselves from all sides, even within their own ranks. Because there were absolutely no true allies in that dark world—the Black Hand only cared about the survival and profit of the Black Hand.
During their grueling, torturous training days at the remote camps, there was a strict, Darwinian system the Black Hand had put in place to ensure only the strongest survived. And this was the notorious Number System.
There were no actual names allowed among the children or the adults. There was absolutely nothing personal to get emotionally attached to, even with the people they bled beside every day. Upon surviving the initial trials, everyone was simply stripped of their humanity and given a designated number.
But even these cold numbers were fluid and constantly subjected to violent change among the operatives, because the number wasn’t just an identification—it was a brutal, active ranking system for them all.
At any given point, day or night, one operative could violently challenge another to a bloody duel for their rank. And the terrifying part was, it didn’t matter what physical state the challenged operative was currently in.
Even immediately after returning from a grueling, near-suicide mission, having gotten severely injured or shot, the other ambitious operatives could ruthlessly take advantage of this physical weakness. They would ambush and challenge the wounded operative in the halls of the compound in order to steal their higher ranking and the privileges that came with it.
The only strict rule imposed by the masters was that an operative was strictly limited to only challenging the rank exactly one position above them.
This grueling rule forced the aspiring members to physically prove, through a gauntlet of blood, that they could actually beat every single individual person standing between them and the top, rather than just getting lucky and taking out a high-ranking officer.
With a volatile, cutthroat system exactly like this, the numbers constantly changed hands on a daily basis. Which was exactly why almost everyone in the lower ranks began to completely lose their sense of identity and sanity. There wasn’t even a stable, single number to refer to when speaking to each other for most of them; a "Number 84" today could easily be a dead man tomorrow.
That was, of course, entirely apart from the absolute elite—the ones widely feared and known as the Single Digits.
These nine individuals were the undisputed, terrifying apex predators of the Black Hand members. They were the most phenomenally skilled killers, and out of all the hundreds of operatives, they had violently secured and kept their coveted places at the top. Even after returning from catastrophic missions completely exhausted, if they were to get ambushed and challenged by the lower ranks, they ruthlessly slaughtered the challengers and kept their place.
And even amongst themselves, the Single Digits had challenged each other several times in earth-shattering duels, but their specific numbers mostly stuck over the years, with only a rare, bloody change here or there.
Everyone in the underworld knew that there was a massive, insurmountable chasm in raw skill and power between the Single Digits and the rest of the disposable Black Hand grunts. And this terrifying pedigree was exactly what Skull was confidently referring to right now in the gym.
Absolutely anyone that had ever been a part of the Black Hand would have inherently known exactly how phenomenally skilled and dangerous a Single Digit like Skull really was. To challenge one was considered pure suicide.
This dark history was precisely why Skull was so incredibly confident that Aron would drop his weapons and wisely take his generous offer to switch sides.
"Since I genuinely don’t recognize your face or your fighting posture, my educated guess is your number was much, much higher down the ladder, right?" Skull asked, his voice echoing off the mirrored walls as he took a relaxed step forward. "So come on, kid. Be smart about this. Be on the undeniable winning side in all of this corporate mess. Otherwise, it’s just more pointless blood I have to spill today, which I honestly don’t want to do right now. I have a schedule."
Skull tilted his masked head. "There’s a very good reason why I eventually got away from all of that endless Black Hand infighting to work for the Syndicate. The pay is better, and the targets are softer."
Aron didn’t lower his guard. Instead, his grip tightened, and he slowly stretched out his heavy steel batons again, pointing one directly at the assassin.
"There is a specific person that I have sworn a blood promise to protect," Aron answered, his voice devoid of fear, filled only with absolute resolve. "And I clearly see the Gilt Rats and your Syndicate bosses desperately trying to get rid of him in absolutely every cowardly way possible. And besides... the man I protect has vastly bigger, darker threats than the pathetic Gilt Rats to deal with in the future."
Aron bent his knees, his muscles coiling like springs. "Because of that unwavering promise... I have to stay firmly by his side and protect him from ghosts like you."
Without another word, Aron aggressively charged in again. He closed the distance in a blur of motion and swung his batons in a rapid, alternating flurry.
As he attacked, Skull expertly met him blow for blow, perfectly blocking each of the heavy steel hits. The assassin was definitely faring much better now that he had his heavy brass knuckles equipped. He was actively able to violently punch the incoming steel batons straight ahead, flawlessly utilizing an aggressive, offensive attack as a form of impenetrable defense.
The sound of steel clashing against brass rang out like gunshots in the empty gym.
Then, amidst the blur of strikes, Skull’s experienced eyes saw a microscopic opening in Aron’s guard. He violently snapped his brass-knuckled hand out in a devastating straight punch aimed directly to crush Aron’s chest cavity.
But Aron had anticipated the counter. He pulled his upper body away at the exact, perfect millisecond, letting the lethal punch graze the fabric of his suit. Simultaneously, in a display of incredible tactical fluidity, Aron intentionally let go of the heavy grip of his right baton.
He allowed the heavy steel weapon to briefly swing forward on its own momentum, slipping through Skull’s guard and slightly tapping the assassin directly in the face.
The physical hit was relatively light because the object was essentially thrown point-blank without full bodily force behind it. But it was thrown perfectly, the hard steel cracking directly against the bridge of Skull’s nose beneath the mask, painfully jarring his vision and momentarily breaking his absolute concentration.
Right after the distraction landed, Aron didn’t let the weapon fall. He instantly re-grabbed the leather handle of the rebounding baton in mid-air. Using his hips, he violently pushed the heavy steel forward with both hands, brutally hitting Skull squarely in the face and sending the assassin stumbling backward across the rubber mats.
Skull groaned, holding onto his injured, bleeding nose beneath the cracked white mask as he skidded across the floor. He finally stopped, looking up at Aron, his cold eyes now burning with genuine, unadulterated fury.
Aron stood tall, twirling the batons back into a ready stance.
"Did you, in all your infinite arrogance, ever stop to think that there might actually be another, much darker reason why you don’t recognize my face from the camps?" Aron asked coldly.