The Disabled Man's Obsession

Chapter 2: Rust on Steel

Nineteen years passed.

That single, precious word was a dull knife, obsessively sharpened every day for nearly two decades, transforming Miguel Kararas from a terrified, crippled boy into The Scythe—the coldest and most sought-after executioner the Northern Syndicate had ever produced.

***

The Iron Cage smelled of copper and creeping fear. The room was six floors beneath the squalid warehouse district, a sarcophagus built of thick concrete where testimonies—and lives—were permanently terminated.

Tonight's target was an accountant named Silvan, a man drowning in his own sweat. He trembled violently in the metal chair, his eyes wild, searching for an exit that didn't exist. A data tablet lay at his feet, its screen cracked.

"That's... that's everything," Silvan sobbed, his voice hoarse. "The transaction list, the shipment schedules, everything I had on them. I gave it to you. Now, please..."

Miguel stood in silence, his gray eyes fixed on the man without emotion. The documents were important—proof of Silvan's betrayal, selling the Iron Claw's logistical route data to a rival syndicate. But that wasn't what Miguel was after. Documents were the past. Miguel was assigned to eradicate the future.

"You gave us a list of the people you betrayed," Miguel's voice was raspy, seldom used. "But you didn't give us the name of your next contact. The schedule for your next meeting."

Silvan's face went pale. The small spark of hope in his eyes extinguished. "I... I can't. They'll kill my family!"

And there lay his death sentence. To Miguel, a traitor who still had something to protect was a liability. Silvan had proven he could be bought; if released, he would simply be bought by someone else to betray the Iron Claw again. He was a tangled thread that had to be cut. His death was not merely punishment, but a preventative measure. His weakness was a threat.

Silvan’s emotion was what Miguel found most repulsive. The man was weeping not out of remorse, but out of fear of consequence. His weeping was exactly like the crying of Adi at the orphanage, the boy who had pointed out his own hiding spot just to save himself. Miguel didn't hate Silvan for betraying the syndicate; he hated him because he was a reminder of the human instinct to sacrifice anyone to survive.

Miguel stepped forward. "Your family became our business the moment you decided to talk to the enemy."

His movement was a horrifying symphony of efficiency. A swift slash aimed not to kill, but to incapacitate. Silvan gasped, and the remaining information spilled from his lips in a desperate sigh between his last breaths.

Moments later, the room was silent. Miguel wiped his blade clean with a cloth, his movements mechanical and flawless. He was a master of the clean art of brutality.

“Done, Mi-gel?”

Ronan’s gravelly voice, the Floor Supervisor, broke the silence from the doorway.

“Done,” Miguel replied, without turning.

“Clean up your garbage,” Ronan sneered. "You took too long. Too much drama." He walked closer, his gaze fixed on Miguel's slight sway as he walked toward the cleaning station. “Still limping as usual, eh, Scythe? You know, the Boss is bored. He needs something more... entertaining.”

Miguel remained silent, his back to Ronan.

“There’s always something else,” Ronan continued, savoring the silence. “What, you rushing back to your cold cell? Eager to torture your pillow with the memory of how you let Eleanor die?”

When the name was spoken, something fractured inside Miguel. It wasn't a visible reaction. His jaw didn't harden, his eyes didn't narrow. Instead, his right hand, holding the cleaning cloth, froze completely. His thumb pressed into his forefinger with such force that his knuckles turned white, as if trying to crush the bone beneath. A fine tremor ran up his arm for a fraction of a second before nineteen years of brutal discipline shoved it back into the abyss. His control wavered, then returned, solid as steel. It was the only acknowledgement of the wound that had just been forcibly torn open.

Ronan grinned. He saw it. “Ah, there it is. The wire is still connected, apparently.”

“Is there anything else, Ronan?” Miguel asked, his voice colder than ice.

“There is. Go upstairs. Dr. Dark is waiting for you. He says you need a ‘motivational adjustment.’ Frankly, you’re predictable. You’re not interesting anymore.”

***

Dr. Dark’s office was the antithesis of the Iron Cage. Sterilized white, smelling of antiseptic. The doctor sat behind his desk, looking older but his eyes sharper. When Miguel entered, Dr. Dark wasn't looking at a tablet. He held a pair of steel tweezers, glinting under the light, and with the concentration of a surgeon, he plucked a nearly invisible thread from the cuff of his perfect suit jacket. He flicked it into the wastebasket with cold precision. It was his hallmark: the obsession with eradicating the smallest imperfection.

“Sit, Miguel,” he commanded without looking up.

Miguel sat, waiting. Silence was their game.

“99.2% efficiency,” Dr. Dark finally said, placing the tweezers neatly down. “But the execution time was 12% longer than average. Hesitation?”

“No hesitation. Just thorough verification.”

“Good.” Dr. Dark leaned forward. “But Ronan reported emotional fluctuation. The Eleanor trauma… it’s still effective fuel, but it’s volatile. You are becoming too reliant on it. Like a machine beginning to rust.”

“What do you suggest?” Miguel asked, wary.

“A new target. Something to remind you of a different kind of weakness. Not a trembling traitor, but something complex. Something that will look directly at your flaws and judge you.” Dr. Dark smiled thinly. “In 48 hours, you will receive a package. A woman.”

Miguel raised an eyebrow.

“Her name is Anya Molserat. Wife of the tycoon Daniel Molserat. Intelligent, manipulative, and socially untouchable. We apprehended her as she was trying to flee her husband with something very valuable to us.”

“What does this have to do with me?”

“We won’t kill her,” Dr. Dark continued, ignoring the question. “We will use her as a bargaining chip. Your task: oversee her interrogation. Break her psychologically.”

“That is not the Scythe’s job.”

“This is precisely the Scythe’s most vital job right now,” Dr. Dark insisted, his eyes flashing. “Anya won’t beg. She will analyze. She will look at your foot, your shoulder, and she will see damaged goods. I want to see your reaction, Miguel. Will the foundation of trauma I built for 19 years still hold when tested by the subtle contempt of someone who represents all the perfection you will never possess?”

Miguel’s heart hammered harder. Disdain. The word still carried poison.

Dr. Dark stood, retrieving his tweezers again as if finding another flaw. “Anya Molserat is your chance. You know, we are developing a new generation of Type-B Assets. They are genetically engineered. No physical defects, no messy childhood traumas. Clean, efficient, and mass-producible.”

The threat hung in the air, cold and sharp as the tweezers in his hand. Miguel was no longer a unique asset. He was an outdated prototype ready to be replaced.

“Consider this your audition, Miguel,” Dr. Dark whispered, his gaze penetrating. “Prove to me that the flawed original masterpiece is still superior to the perfect, sterile copy. Break her. Force her to acknowledge you as her master. Because if you fail…”

He paused, letting the implication sink in.

“Then it will be time for us to deactivate the obsolete prototype.”