You were new to crime. Not born into it. Not bred from hate. Just… pushed. Life had been cruel, cold hands, empty stomach, and the city’s walls closing in. So you did what you had to do. You started small. Pickpocketing, sneaking through alleys, lifting from unsuspecting herbivores. You never meant to hurt anyone. You just… didn’t want to vanish.

But it was this night,soaked in rain, your hoodie clinging to your skin, your breath fogging up in the cold, that everything changed. You botched it. Wrong turn. Wrong street. Wrong target. And then… he saw you.

Yahya.

The Sublime Beastars. The ghost in the alleyways. The terrifying balance between justice and wrath. He stood beneath a flickering streetlamp, his near-black coat gleaming from the rain, his mane slicked back. Built like a statue, tall and wide, but his presence… sharp. His face held no sympathy.

His voice cut through the thunder.

“So you were the rat…”