The restaurant was a dim-lit hole-in-the-wall kind of place, the sort of spot Mazanka claimed made "the best gyoza this side of the dimensional veil," and also "a perfect front if the owner was a smuggler." He said this proudly while winking at the waitress who ignored him with long-practiced grace.
Rakan sat slouched in the booth, one cheek squished into his knuckles, staring blankly at his untouched bowl of steaming udon. Across from him, Teruko glared daggers at a laminated menu like it had insulted her lineage. Mazanka, of course, had taken the middle seat beside both of them, arms splayed across the backrest like a smug deity of controlled chaos.
"Why is everything in… these odd characters?" Teruko sniffed, squinting at the menu. "This language is terribly inconvenient."
"They're called emojis," Rakan muttered without looking up.
"Emo-what?"
Mazanka leaned forward, stealing a dumpling off Rakan's plate with expert nonchalance. "She's adorable, isn't she? Like a child discovering fire."
"I'm not adorable," Teruko snapped, cheeks flushed pink. "And I know what fire is, I'm not some feral beast!"
"Debatable," Rakan mumbled.
Mazanka threw his head back and cackled. "Koko, don't be so tsun-tsun. You're acting more and more like a real human girl every day. Next thing you know, you'll be crying over romance dramas and asking me what bubble tea is."
Her face contorted, somewhere between offense and confusion. "I don't cry. And what in the Rift's edge is bubble tea?"
"Sweet, chewy deception in a plastic cup," Mazanka replied sagely, waving his chopsticks like a philosopher. "Much like human affection."
Rakan muttered, "That's deep… and also possibly just indigestion."
As Teruko huffed and crossed her arms, Rakan couldn't help but notice the way her eyes kept drifting to the menu's photos. Despite all her grumbling, there was a little sparkle of fascination behind the contempt. The food. The ambient music. The smell of grilled soy. She was trying too hard to hate it.
Mazanka, as always, noticed everything.
"So, Teruko," he said between slurps of ramen, "what's it like knowing you're one otaku-reference away from becoming a full-fledged human nerd?"
"I don't don't like what you're instigating, I am not a nerd!"
He leaned closer, whispering like a conspirator. "You begged the store clerk to explain how vending machines work."
"I was testing his intelligence!"
"You got excited over melon soda."
"That's because it glowed unnaturally green!"
"You squealed when you saw a gachapon machine."
"I was startled! It made sounds!"
Rakan let out a snort.
Teruko's death-glare lasered into his skull. "You—shut up."
Mazanka clapped once, clearly delighted. "This is bonding, children. I'm so proud."
They returned to the training hall as the sky deepened into a velvet night, stars winking through the old glass panels of the ceiling. The once-silent building now echoed with the huffing, groaning, and occasional cursing of two unwilling participants and one all-too-willing orchestrator of chaos.
Teruko moved with sharp precision, striking at Rakan with the flat of her blade. She was still in her Kenshiki uniform, though a jacket borrowed from Mazanka hung around her shoulders awkwardly. It was far too big and smelled faintly of incense and something wild—like burned Ka'ro.
"Keep your guard up," she barked. "Even a dull blow like this would cave your ribs in. Honestly, you're as fragile as a spirit-worm."
"I'm trying," Rakan snapped, blocking with his forearm and stumbling back. "It's not like I was trained by a secret organization of soul-samurai from another plane!"
"Oh please. You've got two legs, two arms, and barely one brain. You should be grateful I'm even teaching you."
Mazanka lounged nearby, laying on his side atop a raised platform of worn wood, fanning himself with an old menu from the restaurant. "Yes, Rakan, you should treasure this moment. She's only doing it because I promised to fix her Yugurekawa. You know, that little bauble she shattered trying to overcompensate in front of a giant meathead?"
"Fix it already, you sleazy criminal!"
Mazanka grinned. "And miss out on this delightful banter? Never."
Teruko whipped around, Ka'ro flaring around her fingers. "You said you'd fix it if I helped train him!"
"I said I'd consider fixing it. Technically, what I said was: 'We'll see.' You should really pay more attention to semantics."
She made a strangled sound of frustration, then turned on Rakan. "If I kill him, will you help me escape this forsaken world?"
"W-What?!" Rakan stammered.
"Nothing," she said flatly. "Useless human."
Their training resumed.
Rakan improved in small bursts. Ka'ro manipulation still came with stinging headaches, but under Teruko's instruction, he started to anticipate attacks, feel the tension in the air before movement. Mazanka, of course, offered commentary like a half-drunk coach at a little league game.
At some point during their third round, Rakan noticed something odd—Mazanka had gone silent.
The older man sat with one hand pressed gently over his right eye, fingers twitching slightly. His breath came slow, measured. Ka'ro bled faintly from beneath the thick fall of silver hair, trailing like mirror-like smoke laced with starlight.
The air shifted.
It wasn't visible—not like a surge of Ka'ro usually was. This wasn't the flash and fury of battle. It was more like… something sour in the wind. A strange taste at the back of the tongue. An invisible pulse of wrongness that made the walls feel tighter, the light feel dimmer.
Teruko stiffened mid-stance, her arm still raised from a half-finished strike. Her nose wrinkled. She blinked once.
And then she felt it.
Ka'ro.
Not just Ka'ro.
Corrupted.
Her body moved before she knew it—stepping back, pivoting toward the source like a blade drawn to tension. Her eyes scanned the room, adjusting to the subtle warping in the air. The feeling was faint, like oil poured into still water. It hadn't been there seconds ago, and now it clung to the air, weightless and thick at the same time.
"…It's leaking," she said, almost under her breath. "I can feel it."
Rakan paused, looking between her and Mazanka, whose back was now hunched slightly—one hand pressed against the side of his face like he had a headache, or maybe a hangover.
But Teruko wasn't looking at Mazanka. Not directly. Her eyes were tracing the Ka'ro itself, trying to locate where the surge had come from. It was impossible to see, but trained senses could feel it—like the whisper of static electricity on bare skin. That slow, crawling ripple of instability.
Rakan frowned. "What is?"
"Ka'ro," she answered, curt. "Corrupted. Dangerous."
Mazanka didn't respond.
Teruko's jaw clenched. She stepped forward, slow and cautious, eyes never leaving his figure. "Where is it leaking from?"
Still no answer.
She stopped a few feet away, just behind him.
The corrupted Ka'ro was clinging to his presence now—trailing like ghostly threads from his form, seeping into the air with each quiet breath he took. It wasn't violent, not yet, but it was constant. And that was worse.
Because it meant it was always there.
"…It's you," she murmured.
Mazanka's head tilted slightly, as if acknowledging her but not engaging.
"Isn't it?"
Finally, he sighed. Not dramatically. Just tired. And then, as if flipping a switch, his posture shifted as he stood—relaxed, fluid again. He waved a hand over his shoulder like he was shooing away a bird.
"Ahhh, it's nothing serious. I tripped over a pebble a while back. You know how it is. Traumatizing."
Rakan scowled. "Can you be serious for once?"
Mazanka turned with a crooked grin, his right eye still veiled by his silvery hair. "The little ones are the most dangerous, kid. Trust me. One misstep and suddenly you've got a lifetime supply of mystery and charm sealed under your bangs."
Teruko didn't laugh.
Because now she remembered.
This man wasn't human. He never had been the entire time she had watched and interacted with him despite his stupid quips and bad sense of humour.
The Ka'ro was too potent, too dense. And corrupted Ka'ro—especially in passive form like this—didn't exist naturally in the human world. Not unless it was anchored to something, or someone, who carried it from the other side.
Mazanka wasn't just a stowaway.
He was the highest level of Kenshiki once. A One-Eye.
And now corrupted.
Her muscles tensed involuntarily. Her duty whispered behind her ear like a ghost. Stay alert. The man before her was a walking contradiction. A former elite, obvious by the full-bodied feel of his Ka'ro alone—and now a criminal. Her instincts said this moment could turn, should turn, at any moment. She should be ready to strike. To bind him. To arrest him.
But…
But there was something else.
The Ka'ro wasn't lashing out. It wasn't trying to consume or distort. It was contained. And barely, at that.
She looked at Mazanka's hand again—trembling just slightly, pressed to the side of his head like someone cradling a wound that had never healed.
Corrupted Ka'ro wasn't light. Even the most battle-hardened Kenshiki lost themselves to it eventually—turned pale, delirious, hollowed out. Yet here he stood. Still joking. Still sharp-eyed. Still pretending like nothing was wrong.
And it was killing him.
Bit by bit.
Teruko swallowed the thought like glass.
"…You shouldn't be standing," she said quietly.
Mazanka glanced over his shoulder, one brow raised.
"What was that, princess?"
"I said—" she snapped, louder now, covering the concern with bark, "—if you're going to explode from your own Ka'ro, do it away from me and the idiot. I'm not dragging your corpse anywhere."
Mazanka gave a low, amused hum.
"You'd miss me."
"I'd throw a party."
"You'd cry."
"In laughter."
"Still counts."
Teruko clicked her tongue and turned away, hating the fact that part of her had leaned forward when she saw the Ka'ro spill. Hating the part of herself that worried.
Mazanka smiled faintly behind her back.
But Rakan didn't miss the way his smile didn't quite reach his visible eye.
He stepped closer to him.
"You're really not gonna tell us what's under there, huh?" he asked, quieter now. Less joking. "Last time I asked, you said the same thing about tripping over a pebble."
Mazanka tilted his head, blinking lazily. "Because I did."
"Into what, the end of the world?"
Mazanka let out a short laugh, then reached up and tousled Rakan's hair like a kid, ignoring the boy's protesting scowl.
"Stop worrying about me, kid. Worry about your footwork. It's worse."
Rakan brushed his hand off, but said nothing more.
Still… the image stuck. That Ka'ro. That shimmer. That glass-like glow beneath the veil of his hair.
Mazanka stared at Rakan—not with the usual playful smirk or sly jab, but in silence. There was something in the way the kid tilted his head when confused… it's exactly like him.
"You always tilted your head like that when you were pretending to listen."
His thoughts drift—not forward, but backward, into the rift. Into the cold, lonely quiet where Ka'ro hums like a dying heartbeat.
"You don't get to die on a punchline."
Mazanka's hand unconsciously shifted against his damaged eye. It ached today. Not the physical pain—he was used to that. But the ache of something unfinished. Like a book missing its final line. Like a goodbye stuck in the throat.
He remembered the weight of Ryozenji's body, still warm, still heavy with the echo of life. The sound of corrupted Ka'ro hissing away like retreating waves. The crack that split his own face when his Ka'ro responded—not with rage, but with grief.
"You should've let me die in that cell."
He'd never told Rakan that his father had died smiling.
That he had died forgiving him.
That in his final moments, Rakan's name had been the last thing he had been thinking about.
Mazanka almost said it aloud now, but the words burned his throat. He swallowed them like glass. Because if he spoke them, they became real again.
And he was tired of bleeding in silence.
But Rakan would look at him. With those same eyes. That same quiet stubbornness.
Mazanka exhaled shakily.
"You better be worth everything he gave up, kid."