The heavy rain fell from the sky, soaking the unfortunate individuals still stuck out on the streets of Atherpefta. The beggars who had nowhere to go still sat in their places, their bowls held in their laps as if they thought that a passerby would even notice them in the downpour. Small children darted from awning to awning, lingering as long as they could before being chased away by the merchants. The usual press of customers were all packed inside of the boothes, being sure to make a fuss over whatever the merchant was selling so that they would not be harried out into the downpour. The merchants themselves looked as if they might have a heart attack at any given moment, as they tried to hawk their goods to the crowds under their awnings while simultaneously keeping watch on the street children's thieving hands.

Sungjoo allowed a slight smile to cross his thin face as he noticed one boy- his height suggesting that he was a mere five years old or so, but his eyes showing that he was likely double that- take advantage of a jewelry merchant's split attentions and slip a heavy necklace off of one of the tables and into his pocket. From experience, Sungjoo would be willing to guess that it was not worth a lot of money, but for an urchin such as that child, the money from hawking it would probably feed him for at least a fortnight.

The boy's eyes met Sungjoo's as he glanced around the crowd, and he instinctively froze for a moment. Most people did that when they were unfortunate enough to lock eyes with the assassin, but Sungjoo simply made a shooing gesture with his fingers and the boy darted away, casting glances over his shoulder.

Moving gracefully through the muddy streets, Sungjoo made his way into one of the covered stalls, keeping his cloak tight about him as he did so. Few people even glanced his way, only seeing a rain-soaked man of average height in a plain, unremarkable cloak: nothing special. He kept his head down as if he knew that these people were his betters, and it worked. Their eyes slid to him and away again, not even a flicker of recognition that he was even there. It was a skill he had perfected when he, too, was a street child, where being overlooked meant better chances of stealing coin. Had he not been taken in by the Temple of Kergisa when he was still young and taught her ways, he would likely be among the beggars in their hovels.

Or dead.

The dark goddess had found him, though, and now he served her of his own free will. It was more than he could say of the slaves and of the city, the backbone of life in Atherpefta. He had been lucky, if luck could have any say when the Goddess of Shadow had her way. It had been a rainy day like this one, and he had taken shelter in the eaves of the temple, despite the knowledge that Kergisa accepted blood sacrifice. Maybe he had been ready to give up on the life he'd known in the streets of the city, ready to quit the endless fight against starvation. He hadn't been sure of his motives even then, but when the priest stepped out of the temple and beckoned him to come, he had obeyed. 

Instead of meeting death in the halls adorned with masks of the dead, Sungjoo had met the goddess herself. The priest left him standing alone in front of a dark, massive crystal in the vague shape of a flame, and after the man had exited the room, the crystal had begun to glow. Her voice came out of it, both beautiful and terrible at once, the force of her power knocking him to his hands and knees as she spoke to him. She told him of her designs, of how the world was made up of those who suffer and those who cause it, and how there were none who stood in between. Of how light and goodness were the wishes of fools. He found his soul resonating with her's, his mind agreeing with her dictions; he had seen nothing in his young life to tell him otherwise. And so as Kergisa told him of what she would use him for, he had agreed, and become one of her many hands of darkness, to reach out and snuff the candles of life of those she chose.

His first kill had come when he was only thirteen, and the list had only grown since then. The goddess directed who he was to assassinate, and he carried it out to the best of his ability. Even now, eight years later, he had yet to come across a single soul who could prove the goddess wrong. Every target he'd been directed to had been someone deserving of their fate, someone whose own soul w