The day had been long, yet Elara lingered in the classroom even after her students had gone home. The sun was sinking, casting the empty room in a golden glow that made the chalk dust in the air shimmer like fading stars. She sat at her desk, pen in hand, but her eyes were far away.
A child’s laughter echoed faintly in her ears—phantoms of the past, not the present.
She closed her eyes. The memories came unbidden, as sharp and unrelenting as they always did.
---
She had not been born into privilege. Her earliest memories were of cold nights, of hunger gnawing at her stomach, of her younger brother clutching her hand as they huddled together for warmth in the servant’s quarters of House Delaunay.
The Delaunays were nobles who wore their kindness like a mask. They preached charity in public, but behind closed doors, they treated their servants as little more than cattle. Elara, clever even as a child, noticed things—their ledgers filled with embezzled funds, the cruel smirks when they discarded workers who had given them years of service, the bruises left on her brother when he dared to ask for more food.
It was her brother’s cough that haunted her most. The doctor had demanded money for treatment, money her family did not have. The Delaunays could have spared it without blinking, yet they had refused.
“He is not my concern,” the lord had said coldly. “Servants are replaceable.”
Her brother died within a month.
Elara had stood at his grave, only fourteen, her hands clenched into trembling fists. It was then that she understood: the system was not broken by accident. It was designed to crush people like her, to feed the powerful at the expense of the powerless.
That night, she had crept into the Delaunay’s study. She had left no trace, taken nothing of gold or jewels. But she had taken their ledgers, their documents, their evidence of corruption. By dawn, rumors had spread. By dusk, the family’s name was ruined, their fortune seized by rivals who suddenly “discovered” the truth.
She had smiled through her tears.
Justice had not come from law. It had come from her hands.
That was the birth of the Crimson Butterfly.
---
The classroom door creaked. Elara blinked back to the present as the janitor peeked in.
“Miss Reyes, heading home soon?” he asked kindly.
“Yes,” she said with her practiced gentle smile. “Just finishing up.”
When he left, she gathered her papers. But her eyes lingered on the crimson mask peeking from her bag. She brushed a finger over it, whispering to her absent brother:
“I’ll keep fighting. For you. For everyone who never got justice.”
---
Across the city, Adrian Dela Cruz lit his pipe, the room around him hazy with smoke. His desk was covered in files, maps, and photographs. Where most saw chaos, he saw order.
He picked up one photograph—the crimson butterfly card left at the last crime scene. His eyes traced the ink, the precise curves. Not random. Deliberate.
“She doesn’t just steal,” Adrian muttered to himself. “She selects. Wealthy officials with dark reputations. Companies accused of corruption. Not once has she targeted an innocent. She’s careful to appear… righteous.”
His partner raised an eyebrow. “You sound like you admire her.”
Adrian’s lips curved into a cold smirk. “I admire the design of a puzzle, not the arrogance of the one who builds it. She thinks herself untouchable. That will be her undoing.”
He leaned over the map, marking each crime scene with pins. A pattern began to emerge—not geographic, but social.
“She’s targeting pillars of Valderra’s corruption. She believes herself an executioner, passing judgment where the law fails. It’s not greed. It’s ideology.”
His partner frowned. “So what’s her endgame?”
Adrian’s eyes gleamed. “To become a myth. To be remembered as the butterfly that punished the wicked. But myths are written by survivors, not criminals.”
He tapped the butterfly card once more, his voice quiet but certain.
“She is brilliant. But brilliance always reveals itself. And when it does, I will find her name, her face, her shadow.”
---
Elara, meanwhile, stood on the rooftop of an abandoned building, the city lights glowing beneath her like a thousand watchful eyes. She wore the mask tonight, her crimson wings gleaming faintly in the moonlight.
In her hand was a ledger, stolen from Councilor Duran’s study. The evidence of his false orphanages was scrawled across its pages.
She let the wind lift the butterfly card from her fingers, sending it drifting into the night.
“Let them know,” she whispered. “Let them tremble.”
The card fluttered down, landing near the feet of the first officers arriving on the scene. They looked up, startled, but she was already gone—vanished into shadow like she had never been there at all.
---
At headquarters, Adrian held that very card later that night.
Crimson ink. Perfectly placed.
He stared at it, his mind sharpening. She had been there only minutes before the officers arrived. Bold. Almost theatrical.
“Why leave it?” his partner asked.
“Because she wants to be seen,” Adrian replied, eyes narrowing. “She wants her message carried. But every message has a sender. And every sender leaves a trail.”
He placed the card back on the table and leaned against his chair, his gaze dark but alight with challenge.
“You’ve played your move, Butterfly. Now it’s mine.”
---
That night, two figures stood at opposite ends of the city.
One, a woman with a crimson mask, swearing to destroy the corrupt in ways the law never could.
The other, a man with eyes like sharpened steel, swearing to unmask her and prove that law would always prevail over chaos.
They did not meet. Not yet.
But their thoughts already touched like blades in the dark.
And the city of Valderra was caught between them, waiting to see which hunter would prevail.
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