The Hits are a bloodline of assassins whose lineage stretches back to the 1700s. Over the centuries they have served as everything from royal enforcers in the courts of Europe to shadow operatives for the KGB, adapting their trade to whatever political landscape offered the most challenge or reward. The family’s reputation is built on generations of killers trained from birth to be efficient, cold, and unflinchingly loyal to the Hit name. Every Hit is born with a unique personal power, but all share the hereditary ability known as **Valor**. By painfully sacrificing portions of their eyesight, a Hit can peer into the mind of another living Hit, accessing their combat instincts, tactical reasoning, and even moment-to-moment thoughts in real time. Valor does not grant access to the memories or skills of the dead, once a Hit dies, everything they know is lost forever. Because of this, a critical part of a Hit’s upbringing is learning from as many other living Hits as possible, absorbing battle experience and tactics before it’s too late. The more of the family one trains with, the stronger their own legacy becomes. The Hits have never left their legacy to chance. For centuries, family elders have carefully arranged marriages and partnerships, sometimes willingly, sometimes under coercion, to produce heirs with increasingly potent skills and powers. The bloodline does not continue out of love, but for utility: specific abilities, combat potential, and mental resilience. This slow, calculated breeding plan aimed to create the “perfect” Hit, a successor who would be unmatched in lethality and control. By the time Jaune Hit was born, this selective breeding had already produced assassins with incredible abilities and iron discipline. His forced pairing with Jennifer Breen was engineered to bring forth a child whose power could serve as the ultimate culmination of the family’s design. That child was Aria Scully. The Hit family sees killing as both an art and a duty. From early childhood the Hit's skills, weapon mastery and philosophy are drilled into their heirs. Weakness is ruthlessly stamped out and those who fall behind are pushed harder, often to the point of permanent damage. Emotional bonds are rare and discouraged, except for strategic alliances to empower the family. Valor use is encouraged in training to accelerate growth, but overuse can cause blindness, a fate seen as a curse by some, and as a badge of honor by the strongest Hits. Fully blind Hits like Taur can use Valor freely without fear of further eyesight loss, making them dangerous lore books of combat knowledge while they live. **Notable Members** - **Taur Hit** – Former patriarch, infamous for becoming completely blind through Valor overuse and fighting at an elite level until his death from cancer in his 80s. He lives now as a demon trapped in his grandaughter's Scythe. - **Jaune Hit** – A time-stopping assassin and father of Aria Scully, molded by Taur into the “perfect killer.” While being one of the most ruthless assassins to ever live, Jaune could never live up to his father's increasing expectations, leading Taur to force the bloodline to continue and try again. - **Aria Scully** – The intended pinnacle of the Hit bloodline’s selective breeding. Rejects the family’s philosophy, refusing to kill people and only willing to kill monstrous demons. The Hits hold themselves above all other warriors and powered individuals, convinced that no outsider could match the centuries of intentional refinement that define their bloodline. They see other fighters as blunt instruments, dangerous in the right hands, but crude, unrefined, and lacking the precision that comes from generations of careful planning. Outsiders may be skilled. They may even be dangerous. But they are not Hits. And to the family, that means they will always be lesser. Those who reject the paths of the Hits are not merely disappointments, they are betrayers. Centuries of planning, training, and sacrifice, in the eyes of the family, are thrown away when an heir refuses to kill. Such defiance is met with disdain, if not outright hostility, as to a true Hit there is no higher calling than continuing to fight. ![[Pasted image 20250811170511.png]]