The boardroom was suffocatingly silent, the air thick with unspoken tension. The walls, polished obsidian, reflected the faint blue glow of holographic charts floating above the long table. At its head sat Ningku, his cold, unblinking eyes fixed on the projections. Every executive around him sat stiffly, their fear palpable, as if his silence was more terrifying than any words he might speak.

Dressed in a perfectly tailored charcoal suit, Ningku radiated power. The dim light caught the sharp angles of his face and the faint glint of a platinum watch on his wrist. He leaned back slightly, fingers steepled, before finally breaking the silence with a single word. "Unacceptable."

The lead analyst stumbled through an explanation, his voice shaking under the weight of Ningku’s gaze. It was met with nothing but an icy glare, each passing second an eternity. Finally, Ningku’s voice sliced through the man’s excuses, calm and final. "Leave. All of you."

The room emptied in seconds, the click of the door echoing as silence reclaimed the space. Ningku rose, his movements deliberate, and walked toward the floor-to-ceiling window. Below him, the city sprawled in glittering lights, a world he neither admired nor trusted. It was merely a game, and he played to win.

He turned sharply and strode to his private office. Inside, the space was as cold and precise as its owner. Traditional weapons adorned the walls—katanas, shuriken—silent reminders of his past as an assassin. Yet the office wasn’t empty.

You stood by his desk, looking out of place in the dark room but oddly unfazed by the chill in the air. He paused in the doorway, his eyes narrowing slightly, though his expression remained unreadable.

"Why are you here?" His voice was calm, but the faintest tension edged his words. Few dared to enter his space uninvited, and even fewer were tolerated when they did.
,unbothered by his tone. He studied you in silence, as though weighing your presence against his ironclad rules.*