The courtyard breathed in sunlight this new day.
The kind of golden hush that settles after morning rain—clean, weightless, and just a little too perfect. A breeze moved like it remembered how to be soft, stirring the corners of Mazanka's coat as he reclined on the steps, one leg crossed lazily over the other, eyes half-lidded behind red-tinted sunglasses.
"Ahhh," he said, "this is a good day to pretend we're not wanted criminals."
A small stone skipped off his chest. He didn't flinch.
"Get up, you big idiot," Teruko snapped, arms folded. "You promised training."
"I promised guidance. And I'm guiding you… spiritually."
"You're napping."
"Spiritual napping."
Across the courtyard, Rakan stood barefoot in the grass, shirt half-tucked, hands still gloved in Ka'ro residue from their early drills. He smirked and lobbed another pebble.
Mazanka caught it midair, spun it once between his fingers, and flicked it back hard enough to slap the side of Rakan's head with a sharp thwack.
"Ow—!"
"Don't be mean now," Mazanka cut him off.
"You're the worst teacher."
Mazanka grinned. "You say that now, but you'll thank me when your enemies underestimate you because you look stupid."
"You taught me how to tie my shoes with Ka'ro. That's not training."
"No, that's style. There's a difference."
The morning rolled forward like spilled honey—slow, golden, and a little sticky with unspoken things. They had trained earlier, yes—but half-heartedly, more movement than meaning. Teruko had led most of it, her movements clean and assertive, her voice sharp when correcting Rakan's posture, even sharper when correcting Mazanka's sarcasm.
"You bend your left knee too late," she told Rakan after one sequence.
"I have long legs," he muttered.
"That's not an excuse, it's an anatomical fact."
"Your face is an anatomical fact."
She snacked him on the back of his head, hard. He yelped. Mazanka didn't stop them—he just watched, swirling his tea. Simply taking in the boy who was leaping away to avoid incoming blows, bickering with the stray Kenshiki beside him.
"Rhythm before power," the older man called out. "Control before violence."
"Respect before tea breaks," Teruko called back.
He raised his cup in salute. "Blasphemy."
They moved like this for hours—not as soldiers, but as shadows of who they used to be. There was laughter, once, from Teruko—a breathy, startled thing that escaped before she could catch it. Rakan stared. She turned away quickly, cheeks flushed, and muttered something about the sun in her eyes.
Mazanka had noticed too. But he said nothing. Just let the warmth stretch.
He had a gift for knowing when a moment was sacred—even if it was stupid.
After some time, Rakan flopped down beside him, groaning.
"I think I pulled something."
"Pride?"
"Hamstring."
"Same thing."
Teruko was still practicing—alone now—repeating a motion again and again, her Ka'ro trailing like flame from her limbs. Every spin was a little tighter. Every breath a little sharper.
Mazanka watched her with a half-smile—not teasing this time, just… proud.
"She reminds me of someone," he said quietly.
"Yeah?" Rakan asked. "Who?"
Mazanka didn't answer.
The clouds began to part, letting more sun spill across the stones.
It was quiet.
Too quiet.
But no one noticed.
Not yet.
Because there was light goodness to this manifestation of absence.
The days blurred into a montage.
This time, it was Rakan's idea to go out.
"We've been training for days," he argued, brushing sweat from his brow. "We need to live a little or we're going to forget how to breathe."
Teruko rolled her eyes. "We're fugitives."
"Fugitives still need snacks."
Mazanka raised a single finger. "He's right."
Teruko groaned as Rakan grinned like he'd just won a war.
They walked the long side streets of the town, deeper into the belly of the human world where the shadows weren't suspicious and the trees still bowed with breeze.
It was the kind of street where the past hadn't been scrubbed out yet. Rusty signs. Moss-covered vending machines. The wind carried the scent of grilled meat and vinegar, fried batter curling through the air like it had somewhere to be.
Teruko walked like she was being followed. Her hands tucked into her sleeves, gaze darting at the slightest flicker of Ka'ro or breath. Rakan, in contrast, walked like he belonged—like the city was a rhythm he'd always known. He pointed at shops, made jokes under his breath, flicked his hood up when a patrol car passed—not because they were looking, but because he'd grown up knowing when not to be seen.
Mazanka lagged behind them slightly, looking like a tourist pretending to be a ghost.
They stopped at a street stall run by an old man with a broken voice and a younger assistant who barely spoke. The takoyaki was fresh. The benches creaked. The soda was warm but sweet, the ice melting faster than they could drink it.
They sat side by side in silence, dipping pieces into soy and mustard.
For a moment—just a breathless, unspoken moment—they weren't warriors or weapons or warnings.
They were just people.
Mazanka sat cross-legged, drinking from a chipped can of iced tea, watching Rakan and Teruko argue over who got the last skewer.
"You two are exhausting," he said.
"You're just old," Rakan muttered.
"And wise."
"And decrepit."
Teruko laughed—short, sharp, barely a crack in her composure. But it was real. She didn't stop herself this time.
"What are we even doing?" she asked softly, wiping her mouth with her sleeve.
Mazanka looked up.
"Buying time," he said.
She nodded.
"Feels like it."
"That's all anyone ever does when they know what's coming," he added. "We spend every moment pretending we've got a little more."
There was a stillness then.
A warm, aching stillness that wrapped around them like something they couldn't hold onto for long.
Rakan looked at the back of his hand, where his Ka'ro had flared earlier. The skin still tingled from overuse.
"You think we'll ever be normal again?" he asked, voice low.
Mazanka said nothing.
Teruko looked away.
They started to head back when the wind changed.
Just a flicker at first—barely a ripple in the air, like a breath drawn too sharply.
Teruko stopped walking.
Her Ka'ro shivered against her spine.
Rakan blinked. "You feel that?"
Mazanka's eyes narrowed. He looked up, toward the roofline where the shadows bent just a little too far in the wrong direction.
"…Stay close."
It began not with a sound—
—but with the absence of one.
A silence too clean. Too hollow.
Like the world had stopped breathing, just for a moment.
Mazanka's steps faltered. His hand slowly dropped to his side.
"Move," he said. Low. Urgent.
Rakan and Teruko didn't question him.
But they were a heartbeat too late.
A shadow blinked into existence.
It didn't move.
It wasn't there—and then it was, standing on the rooftop across from them.
Unmoving.
Watching.
Like water pouring into a shape it had always meant to become.
A shroud of gray cloth folded off its shoulders, too still in the wind. The mask it wore was jagged—smooth obsidian, split at the mouth with crimson cracks, like something had tried to scream through it and failed.
Its aura wasn't loud. It was worse than that.
It was intentional.
Too quiet.
Too exact.
Ka'ro bled from the figure like a controlled leak, measured and rehearsed.
Not corruption. Not chaos.
Purpose.
Mazanka's smile vanished. Not faded—vanished, like it had never belonged on his face to begin with.
He stepped forward slowly, boots brushing gravel.
"That aura," he said softly. "It's not Kenshiki."
The figure spoke. Its voice was filtered—low, almost modulated through the Ka'ro mask—but the words were unmistakable.
"Shujikō," it said, practically beaming.
Rakan stiffened. Shujikō?
"Mazanka," the figure continued. "I've walked through your Ka'ro footprint. Studied the remnants of your technique. Read every line you left behind. You were… disappointing. Until now."
"What do you want?" Teruko asked, blade already unsheathed.
"I came for him," the figure said, nodding to Mazanka. "The rest of you are context."
Mazanka scoffed. But his eyes didn't leave the attacker.
"You're not Kenshiki," he said. "You were trained outside the system."
The figure tilted its head.
"You talk too much."
It moved.
Not fast.
But as it shifted, the earth didn't shake.
It folded.
The stones beneath its feet split outward in a perfect circle, not broken but surgically divided, like an invisible pressure had pressed into them until the material relented.
A shockwave of Ka'ro rippled outward.
Not explosive.
Harmonic.
Teruko stumbled a step back.
Rakan's eyes widened. "What kind of Ka'ro is that…?"
Mazanka's hands emerged from his sleeves. Loose. Tense.
The Shujikō operative stood in the center of the cracked stone ring, arms still at its sides. No name. No title. No insignia.
Its Ka'ro curled upward around its feet—not wild or overwhelming. Controlled. Dense.
It was like standing in the eye of a storm that hadn't started spinning yet.
"You've been sought," the figure said.
Its voice sounded filtered—like it passed through two layers of glass and a dying breath. Deep, calm, reverent.
"Mazanka. Rogue of the Rift. Betrayer of the Eye. One who carries the wound."
Mazanka's expression barely shifted. But something old flickered in his eyes.
"No one calls me that anymore."
"You still bear the eye."
"Only when I feel nostalgic."
A pause.
"You," the figure said, nodding to Teruko. "Prodigy of the East Spiral. Branded. Watched. Still untested."
Teruko's grip tightened.
"And you," it turned to Rakan. "Son of the binder. Child born from the split. You shouldn't exist. Yet, here you are. Intriguing. Yes, intriguing indeed."
Rakan felt something inside his chest pulse.
He stepped forward without thinking.
"I don't know who you are, but you should leave."
The figure tilted its head again.
It raised one hand.
And Ka'ro began to shape around its fingers.
Not summoned.
Not forced.
But formed, like glass being blown in invisible air.
"I'm here," it said, "to return you all to silence."
The first blow came without warning.
Not a flourish. Not an incantation. Just movement—pure, purposeful, exact.
The Shujikō operative shifted forward, one foot scraping across the broken stone like a bow being drawn across a string—and the Ka'ro around him ignited.
Ribbons of pressure snapped forward, invisible blades of compressed force that bent around walls and slashed across angles Rakan couldn't track.
He dove instinctively, tucking his body under a low arc that hissed through the space his head had just occupied.
"He's not using signs," Teruko shouted, her voice strained. "His Ka'ro is pre-shaped—he doesn't need to form it in real time."
Mazanka's lips pressed into a thin line.
"He's studied the battlefield before stepping onto it."
Another burst shot toward him—not aimed to kill, but to herd.
Mazanka sidestepped once, twice—but every motion he made was anticipated. The Shujikō guided them like pieces on a board, each movement drawing tighter circles around their fates.
The Shujikō didn't move like a fighter.
He moved like a riddle. A breath drawn backward. A question waiting to close its teeth.
Mazanka stepped forward—slowly, deliberately.
Not rushing. Not preparing.
Reading.
The way the operative's weight shifted. The subtle pulse of Ka'ro leaking from beneath the cloth around his wrists. The pattern etched into the ground when he landed—spiral-shaped, like controlled burns carved by design.
Rakan rushed the figure with a raw pulse of Ka'ro trailing from his arm.
"Ikū-Ka'ro: Tenshō Hazumi! Heaven-Piercing Surge."
He aimed for the torso, trying to disrupt the Ka'ro field with brute impact.
But the Shujikō didn't block.
He rotated his shoulder in a spiral, deflecting Rakan's weight as if it were no more than smoke—and with a flick of his wrist, he carved a narrow line of Ka'ro up Rakan's exposed ribs.
Rakan hit the ground hard, breath torn from his lungs.
Teruko was already in motion.
Her blade swung in wide arcs, Ka'ro pouring from her tattoos like calligraphy written in war.
"Shintei-Ka'ro Art: Kōjin no Enban! Disc of the Incinerating God."
A spinning, fiery glyph crackled from her blade and hurtled toward the figure, whirling with incantations carved into flame.
It struck.
But it didn't touch.
The Shujikō twisted through it—not dodging. Interfering with the structure of her Ka'ro mid-flight, reducing its form to mere energy.
"He's breaking my techniques before they complete," she gasped. "That's not just training—that's intimacy with the way I fight."
"Someone's been doing their homework," Mazanka growled.
Teruko glanced sideways. "Then let's give him the wrong answers."
"Shintei-Ka'ro: Ketsujin Kekkai! Bloodblade Barrier."
Sigils flared along her thighs and calves, lacing into her sword's base. She dashed forward with precision, blade carving a wide arc that carried fire at its edge.
The Shujikō raised a single hand, fingers curled, and without speaking—
The ground in front of him folded.
Not shattered. Bent—like a sheet of water turned solid for a moment.
Teruko's blow bounced harmlessly off a perfectly constructed concave barrier made of Ka'ro threads no one had seen cast.
She flipped back mid-air, landing hard, sweat already on her brow.
The Shujikō turned his head again.
"Why do you persist?" he asked. "You've already been mapped."
Mazanka moved now.
He didn't draw a weapon.
His Ka'ro flared in a single pulse—a breath turned inward.
No flame, no sigils—just presence.
He moved low, fast—shoulder-first, sweeping to flank the masked figure while his left foot struck a nearby brick free from the pavement and kicked it up mid-spin.
The Shujikō turned—but not quickly enough.
Mazanka's fist met his jaw with a sickening crack, and the stone that followed behind it shattered across the mask's cheek, drawing sparks and an audible hiss.
But no grunt.
No reaction.
The figure shifted sideways and countered immediately.
A backhand—Ka'ro coiled around his fingers in needle-thin threads, almost invisible—and Mazanka barely dodged in time.
One strand scraped across his coat and cut clean through the fabric like it was silk.
"His Ka'ro doesn't explode," Mazanka muttered. "It threads. Sharp and binding."
"Then don't get caught in it," Teruko snapped.
"Duly noted."
The two men exchanged blows again, so quickly they blurred with the wind and light.
This time more fluid, more brutal.
Mazanka kicked off a wall and spiraled low, aiming for the Shujikō's legs with a sweep—Ka'ro exploding in his heel, sending gravel and pressure outward.
The operative leapt, but Mazanka was already mid-pivot.
"Ikū-Ka'ro: Karyū Toushi! Fire-Flow Interception."
He sent a twisting hook of Ka'ro in an uppercut—designed not to land, but to create a void around the figure's body and force a defensive reposition.
It worked.
Almost.
The Shujikō didn't dodge.
He compressed.
His entire form contracted, Ka'ro folding inward around him like layered paper—and then dispersed into blurs of afterimages.
Teruko's eyes widened.
"A projection—!"
The real figure appeared behind Mazanka.
Blade-shaped Ka'ro erupted from the air, six lances rotating in a spiral formation around the operative's arm.
They didn't stab—they sewed.
Each lance laced into Mazanka's coat, sleeves, and belt—not flesh—and with one sudden flick, he was yanked backward across the courtyard, pinned into the wall like a tapestry come undone.
"You were studied," the Shujikō said. "Your tactics are clever. Improvised. But they have gaps."
Mazanka coughed, free hand shaking.
He looked down at the threads binding him. They weren't just physical—they drained.
Ka'ro sizzled at his fingertips, like his own flow was being siphoned into silk.
"Damn," he whispered. "So that's your game."
The threads began to tighten.
Rakan rushed in.
"Ikū-Ka'ro: Gōrai Gekishō! Thundering Crash Pulse."
He slammed a wave of force into the lances from the side, shattering three, and Mazanka rolled out of the other bindings with a grunt—just in time to avoid the second volley of spiralled Ka'ro that carved into the stone like surgical saws.
"You okay?" Rakan asked.
"Getting there," Mazanka muttered.
He rose slowly.
Eye dimming.
A flicker.
And then he was in front of Mazanka.
No steps. No sound.
A hand reached forward.
Straight for the hair above Mazanka's left eye.
Mazanka caught the wrist.
They froze there—power straining between them.
Mazanka's voice was quiet. But final.
"That's a place you don't reach unless you're ready to bleed."
The Shujikō didn't respond. He smiled. His grip tightened. He was winning.
Teruko was already moving to intervene, but she wouldn't make it in time.
"You've spent years preparing this, haven't you?" Mazanka finally said, breathing hard.
The Shujikō didn't respond.
"Learning how to trap me. To bind me. You didn't just come for me. You came for the eye."
Still no answer.
"I didn't want to use it," Mazanka said. "But you're not giving me another door."
He lifted the dark bangs covering the left side of his with trembling fingers.
Rakan's eyes widened.
Teruko froze.
"Mazanka, no—"
But it was already exposed.
The eye was not flesh.
It was glass embedded in scar tissue, veins of Ka'ro etched into the socket like volcanic runes. It glowed—not with color, but weight. As if light had learned to lean.
The moment it was exposed, the air around them screamed inward.
Everything bent. Sound, color, pressure. The Ka'ro in the alley collapsed toward Mazanka, drawn like gravity into a black star.
His entire body convulsed as it activated.
"Akarui-Nenshō: Shinkai Zanka! Bright Immolation: Abyssal Ash."
The world collapsed inward.
Mazanka's Ka'ro didn't explode—it spiraled.
Like threads unspooling from a broken loom.
One by one, they unraveled the air around him—coils of radiant ash, spiraling outward in wide, slow arcs, each loop burning invisible glyphs into the stone beneath his feet.
The light didn't glow.
It ate.
Everything.
Dust, motion, silence—all swallowed into the slow-burning gravity of Mazanka's corrupted eye.
The Shujikō staggered back.
For the first time, he faltered.
Not because he was hurt.
But because the space around him no longer obeyed.
The threads of his own Ka'ro flickered—weakened, distorted—as if Mazanka's eye pulled at the source, demanding all flow be rewritten into its image.
But it was already too late.
Ka'ro burst from Mazanka's in rings of bladed ash, slow and wide, each pulse peeling back layers of the alley floor, etching spiral symbols into the earth as if the land itself was remembering something it wanted to forget.
The Shujikō was struck.
Flung backward—not by force, but disorientation.
He struck the wall in a blur of sound and vanished in smoke.
Mazanka staggered, clutching his eye but held himself in place.
"It's distorted his field," Teruko whispered. "It overrides his control…"
Mazanka didn't respond.
He could barely stand.
His coat was burning from the inside—not aflame, but turning to flecks of white, dissolving like memory peeled from the body.
The Ka'ro leaking from his eye crawled down his cheek like ink under glass.
"That's enough!" Rakan shouted. "You're going to burn yourself out!"
Mazanka gritted his teeth, still holding the pressure.
"That's the point."
His eye still burned, flickering erratically.
The Shujikō reappeared, flickering forward with his signature jagged step, blades re-forming in his palms—but the moment he raised them, the air fractured around his wrists.
A ripple of ash bent the trajectory of his strike mid-swing—Ka'ro forcibly re-routed, turned inward, scattering.
He was fast.
But not immune.
And he knew it.
His stance changed.
More defensive now.
"You've overextended," he said. His voice carried static now, laced with something deeper—frustration, maybe. "That power isn't yours to control."
"Then it's a good thing I'm not trying to control it," Mazanka hissed, blood pooling at the corner of his mouth.
He lunged one last time—just once—
—and missed.
His knees buckled. His balance broke.
The Ka'ro flared out in one final wave and then sputtered.
Gone.
Like a flame choked too long.
Mazanka collapsed onto one knee, eyes wide, breathing wet.
The eye still glowed faintly—but it was dimming, struggling, screaming in silence.
The Shujikō rose again, smoke trailing from his armor, his own Ka'ro warped, his stance less pristine—but still deadly.
He stepped forward slowly.
"Now," he said, "you've become quiet."
But before he could step any closer, Teruko stood before Mazanka's fallen figure, shielding him.
"Oh?"
Her blade raised.
Hands shaking.
She didn't shout a technique.
She didn't flinch.
She just stood there—one hand gripping her sword, the other clenched at her side, Ka'ro dripping down her spine like her body could no longer contain it.
Then—
It broke.
Her tattoos—etched in ritual geometry along her arms, legs, and back—burst outward, glowing in colours not yet named.
Her Ka'ro did not pulse.
It blossomed.
Petal by petal—flame-petals, sigil-petals, Ka'ro-petals—each one spinning from her body in erratic, beautiful arcs, like calligraphy drawn in panic by a divine hand.
She screamed.
Not from pain.
But from something deeper.
"Aithērya Unseal: Kōha Retsugan! Crimson Petal, Violent Bloom."
The petals shot outward, hundreds of them—arcing toward the Shujikō in a spiral that bent around gravity, thought, defense.
They didn't hit all at once.
They stitched their way toward him.
Slicing his threads.
Unraveling his symbols.
Interrupting his flow.
For the first time—
He stepped back.
"That's it!" Rakan shouted. "Teruko, keep going—let it free!"
"I can't—!" she cried. "It's—it's slipping—"
Her developed Ka'ro was too new. Too wild.
Already it was fraying, petals crumbling before they reached their target.
She raised her hand for another burst—but her knees gave out, and the storm collapsed.
Still, it was enough.
The Shujikō paused.
Just long enough.
Rakan dove in, grabbing Mazanka by the arm.
Teruko stumbled to her feet and moved to cover them both.
Together, they ran. Like there was an explicit timer on their existence falling short.
No time for glory.
No time for victory.
Just breath. Blood. Survival.
And the road home.
They ran through backstreets streaked in moonlight, bodies broken in rhythm, shoes scraping uneven pavement. The quiet of the human world returned—but not as comfort. It returned like a curtain drawn too late, hiding nothing.
Mazanka's weight sagged heavy on Rakan's shoulder.
Teruko stumbled beside them, a smear of blood along her jaw, breath ragged, eyes dazed from what had poured through her minutes ago.
Her Ka'ro was still flickering—slender petals of sigil-light falling from her fingertips like dying embers.
"Almost there," Rakan gasped. "We're almost home."
The neighborhood was sleeping.
Windows closed, streetlamps flickering, the sky overhead hanging in brittle stars.
They turned the last corner. Rakan's house came into view—modest, tucked behind the low stone wall, laundry lines swaying gently in the breeze.
For a breath, Rakan believed it would be okay.
He believed his mother would open the door, see the wounds, see Mazanka, and finally understand.
He knocked. Once.
The door opened.
Warm kitchen light spilled out, brushing the night away.
His mother stood in the doorway.
She saw Mazanka first.
Then she saw the blood.
Her expression darkened. It was as if she was struck physically by the sight. Rakan had never seen such an expression on her before.
"No," she was all she said. Not without a single thought, a single hesitation.
The warmth of the light of their home didn't reach her voice.
"He doesn't come in here."
Rakan froze.
"He's injured," he said. "He needs help."
"That's not the point."
"Then what is?"
She stepped out, closing the gap between them.
Her eyes burned—not in rage. In something older.
"You don't understand, Rakan. I know who he is. I know what he is. And I'll be damned if I let him into our home."
Mazanka's body trembled against Rakan.
He didn't speak.
Didn't protest.
He just looked down at the blood on his coat.
"You told me once," Rakan said, "that we help the people who save us."
His voice cracked.
"You said kindness doesn't care what came before."
"Kindness," she said, "doesn't let monsters rest in your home."
Silence.
Teruko looked away.
Mazanka's weight grew heavier.
"He's not a monster," Rakan whispered. "He's the only reason I'm alive."
"And if he stays," she replied, "you may not be."
The breath left him like wind through an empty house.
"Why do you hate him?" he asked. "Why? What did he do to you?"
Her mouth opened—
Then closed.
She looked at Mazanka.
Then at her son.
"Because people like him leave scars," she said. "Even if they don't know it."
Something broke in Rakan.
He stepped forward—anger trembling through him.
"If you won't let him in, then you don't know me at all."
"Rakan—"
"No. I'm not letting him die on the street."
She flinched.
Only for a second.
Then—
Silence.
She looked past him.
Past Teruko.
To Mazanka, who was hanging off the two teens and was raising his head slightly.
He offered a thin, broken smile.
Not pleading.
Just tired.
She sighed.
"Bring him in. But just him. No noise. No light."
She turned away.
"I'll boil water."
The door opened.
And for now—
That was enough.