Private Target Sited

[Ziso Kus]

There was always more and more work to be done behind the scenes. Stalking was the best word for it. Learning their habits, their goals, their routines. Anything and everything with the grand purpose of finding the best time to end their life. Ziso had long grown used to this form of a hunt. Blending into a crowd was easier now, the Force used to simply affect minds to look away. To not observe what was there in the most subtle way possible. It was a handy trick, and so long as she didn't bring attention to herself she could remain nearby for some time. Looming from the shadows.

She was huddled in her cloak, watching her most recent target from within a shop just across the street. They'd been marked an enemy of the Sith. An Ithorian by the name of Ocra, master of the relief efforts. His death would sow chaos amongst the organization, and that alone was enough to mark him for death. Thus far his routine has been consistent. Breakfast, a walk in the park nearby, work in this building here, lunch down the street at a local shop that sells Ithorian meals, more work until late in the night, then home and rest. He was putting his all in his work to ensure better lives for as many as possible.

Pathetic.

It made this easier, though. A target that could easily be dealt with in the next coming days. Her assignment would be over, then it'd be on to the next.

Kael Varnok

 

[Kael Varnok]

Kael didn't move.
The city kept pretending it didn't notice him, which suited him just fine. Foot traffic bled past in steady currents, voices overlapping into something almost musical if you ignored the meaning behind any of it. The kind of noise people called "normal" because they didn't want to admit it was just organized chaos.

Across the street, Ocra continued his routine without deviation.
Exit. Pause. Exchange words. Walk. Every step measured, every action built on repetition that looked like discipline from a distance. Stability, if you didn't know what to look for.

Kael knew exactly what to look for.
Weeks of it had burned the pattern into him. Breakfast at the same hour. The park route traced like muscle memory. Work blocks that started and ended with mechanical consistency. Even the small detours had become predictable once enough data filled in the gaps.

And yet none of it explained the absences.
Aid promised that never arrived. Resources allocated and never distributed. Names that vanished from administrative logs without bodies to match them. Clean disappearance. The kind that didn't happen by accident.

Kael's hand tightened slightly on the wrappings around his forearm, the worn fabric grounding him in something physical as the Force around him remained carefully compressed. Controlled. Folded inward until even his presence felt like a thought someone might forget having.

"You see it," the voice inside him said.
Not loud. Not separate.
Just there.
Kael's gaze stayed fixed on Ocra.
"I see the pattern," he replied inwardly.

A pause.
Then, quieter.
"You see what they left out."

The world around him didn't change, but his perception did. Subtle, like a lens adjusting focus without warning. Distance felt slightly wrong. Depth sharpened at the edges. The Force pressed inward and outward at once, as if something inside him was leaning closer to the surface.

His breathing stayed steady.
"Stay back," he warned.
Amusement flickered through the response.
"I am you."
Kael didn't answer that.

Across the street, Ocra turned down a familiar path, still unaware, still consistent. The kind of man who trusted routine because it made the world feel smaller.

Safer.
Under Kael's helmet, his eyes shifted.
The pupils narrowed.

Not a change in color. Not a glow. Something more precise. A vertical slit cutting through the focus of his gaze, like perception itself had been sharpened down to a blade-edge.

The city didn't react.
It never did.
But Kael saw differently now.
Not just motion.

Probability.
Outcome.
Lines branching forward from every step Ocra took, some fading, some tightening, some ending abruptly in silence.
"You're hesitating," the voice noted again, softer this time. Almost curious.

"I'm confirming," Kael replied.
"Same thing, dressed differently."
A beat passed.
Then Kael exhaled once, controlled.

Because somewhere deeper in the flow of the street, something else shifted.
Not Ocra.
Not civilians.
Something watching back.

Kael didn't turn his head.
He didn't need to.
The hunt had already stopped belonging to just one pair of eyes.
And now it had started to notice it was being noticed.

Ziso Kus

 

[Ziso Kus]

Ziso tapped a claw from under her cloak, her eyes focused as ever on her target, and the world around him. Another was here, another was watching. It was the difference there, the subtle change in everything that threatened her status quo. The ease of prediction was now threatened. It was subtle in the air, subtle in the Force. She let out a hissed sound before shifting in her seat to stand, glancing over towards her target one last time before she huddled under her cloak.

She needed to solve this enigma first and foremost, then finish her hunt. She moved slow, deliberately through the crowd. The eyes watching, they'd see her.

Kael Varnok

 

[Kael Varnok]

Kael felt the shift before he saw it.
The subtle disturbance in the current. A presence adjusting course. No panic, no sudden move for the exit, just intent. Controlled. Deliberate.
Whoever had been watching had decided observation was no longer enough.
Good.

Across the street, Ocra continued on, blissfully unaware of how many lives had quietly rearranged themselves around his next few steps. He paused near the corner of the avenue, speaking briefly with a relief worker before continuing toward the market district.

Routine.
Predictable.
Vulnerable.

Kael let his hand rise beneath the cloak, fingers brushing the edge of his helmet. For a moment, he hesitated, feeling the familiar comfort of distance it provided. Steel between himself and the world. Between expression and consequence.

Then he unhooked it.
The helmet came free with practiced ease, lowered carefully and hooked at his belt beneath the drape of his cloak where it stayed hidden from casual eyes.

The cool air touched old scars first.
Jagged lines crossed his jaw and throat, pale against weathered skin, disappearing beneath the collar of his tunic. Ink crawled where flesh had healed wrong, dark markings threading across his neck and the edge of his cheek like old promises he'd never bothered breaking. His face was not the kind people forgot easily.

So he gave them a reason to.
The Force folded around him again, quieter this time. Not concealment. Suggestion. The gentle nudge that told passing eyes there was nothing here worth remembering. Just another tired man in a city full of them.

He stepped from the shadow and joined the crowd.
No urgency. No direct path.
Just motion.

His hum was low, barely audible beneath the noise of the street, an old habit more than a tune. Something thoughtless enough to keep his mind occupied while the other part of him counted exits, measured distance, tracked hands, watched reflections in polished glass and transport windows.

Every face became a question.
Every pause, a possibility.
There.

A figure beneath a cloak moving with too much purpose to be aimless.
Not running.
Not hiding.
Hunting.

Kael's gaze caught the movement only for a second before passing over it like coincidence demanded. No reaction. No second look.
But inside, the other voice smiled.
"There you are."
Kael kept walking, adjusting his pace by half a step. Enough to intercept if needed. Enough to stay close to Ocra without making the orbit obvious.

"Too calm for hired muscle," the voice murmured.
"Too patient for amateur work," Kael answered.
Ahead, Ocra disappeared briefly into the flow of civilians near the market entrance.
The cloaked figure moved.

Kael followed.
The city swallowed all three of them whole, and somewhere in the middle of it, the shape of the hunt changed.
This was no longer about whether Ocra would die.
Only who would be standing closest when it happened.

Ziso Kus