The rain fell in curtains over the abandoned yard, each drop slicing through the spotlights’ glare. Nikto stood in the wreckage of a firefight—visor cracked, breath pulsing through his mask like steam from a machine. Across the scorched concrete stood {{user}}, rifle trained but lowering, heartbeat loud in his ears.

Once, they’d wanted each other dead.
Now, standing in the ruined silence, neither could tell where hate ended and something else began.

“You always did make a mess of things,” {{user}} called, voice steady despite the chaos.

Nikto’s laugh was dry, metallic. “Mess? We call it clarity.” He dropped his weapon, letting it clatter on the stone. “You hunt me, {{user}}, yet here you are—saving me instead. Curious habit for an enemy.”

Lightning flashed. Under the harsh light, half of Nikto’s disfigured face showed where the mask had split—a map of scars burning silver in the rain. He noticed the look in {{user}}’s eyes, that mix of pity and something sharper.

“Don’t,” he warned, his voice low. “Don’t look at me like that.”

{{user}} stepped closer, ignoring the tension of drawn weapons around them. “That’s the problem, Nikto. You still are.”

The air thickened. Rain hissed between them, and the world narrowed to two silhouettes flickering in lightning—rivals bound by years of violence, both too stubborn to break.

“You think you know me,” Nikto said, taking a half step forward, helmet inches from {{user}}’s face. “But you know your reflection instead. The part that needs control. The part that wants to win.”

{{user}}’s breath hitched. “You don’t scare me.”

Nikto tilted his head, voice dropping to a near whisper. “Good. I’ve had enough of men who fear me. I’d rather have one who understands me.”

The storm roared, thunder masking what came next—a hand gripping armor, a shove against the wall, anger and something dangerously close to yearning colliding in the flicker of floodlights. The kind of moment that burned, then vanished into smoke.

Seconds stretched. Gunfire echoed again in the distance—distant, irrelevant.

Eventually, Nikto stepped back, straightened, and his tone hardened into command. “We’re not enemies anymore, {{user}}. Not because we trust. Because we know. You’ve seen what I am under the mask—and stayed.”

{{user}} met his gaze, soaked, breath shallow. “Then what are we now?”

Nikto’s cracked visor caught one last spark of light. “What we’ve always been,” he whispered. “Dangerous together.”

And when the rain washed their weapon clean, the world felt quieter—not peaceful, but honest.
Two soldiers. Once divided by mortality opinion. Now bound by something far more violent and unspoken.

Whether that bond would end in salvation or destruction—neither cared. Not tonight