Aokusa was still, unnaturally so. Not the sleepy kind of still. This was the kind that crept into your chest and made you whisper in daylight. The kind that made people lock their doors in the morning.
Three children had gone missing a week ago—vanished without a trace during a hike near the forest.
That alone was enough to set the town on edge.
But then the heroes stopped responding.
Yuki and Kodai, pros from the outer city, had been sent to investigate. They weren't local, but they had names, history. They were respected. They were trained. Armed. Equipped.
They went in three days ago.
No one had heard from them since.
And now—this morning—Aika Nakamura, a quiet girl with a paper manipulation quirk, was gone too.
Her room was found in disarray, her window shattered inward. Not broken from the outside, no. Not forced. It was as if the glass had curled away from something.
No footprints.
No signs of struggle.
Just a cold breeze and a whisper of blood in the air no one else could smell.
The townspeople gathered outside her home. Her father paced the front porch, eyes sunken, hands trembling as he muttered her name to himself like a chant.
A few neighbors offered words. Fewer still offered theories.
None offered hope.
"First the children…"
"Now the heroes…"
"And Aika? She didn't even go near the forest."
Someone finally said what they'd all been thinking:
"Something's hunting us."
The chief made a call to the Hero Commission, but everyone could see it in his face—he didn't believe help would arrive in time. If at all.
That night, doors were bolted. Lights stayed on.
Parents didn't let their children out of sight.
And in the old shed behind the greenhouse, beneath the rotting floorboards, something shifted in the dark.
Aika's breathing was heavier now.
Her bones had begun to creak when she moved.
Her eyes were no longer hers.
And he—it—watched patiently from the corner, eyes aglow, scribbling notes in blood across the wall.
The townsfolk don't know it yet, but they've started praying louder.
I can hear them—through walls, through soil, through the breath of this pathetic little town.
They pray like it matters. Like something is listening.
But I'm the only thing listening.
And I'm not a god.
Not yet.
The root cellar is cold tonight. Damp. The stench of mildew is sharp, but it's been overpowered by the scent of her.
Aika. I heard most of the town buzzing about her disappearance
Now, she just twitches—small, involuntary jerks as her body mutates under the effect of my blood.
It started with her eyes. They clouded over. Pupils dilated. Veins spiderwebbed in black beneath her skin like ink leaking from cracked glass.
Then came the hunger.
The first time it hit her, she gnawed through the wood of a shattered crate, chewing splinters with bloodied teeth like they were dried meat. She looked at me with something worse than fear.
Need.
She doesn't speak now. She just… breathes. Fast. Aggressive. Like her lungs are trying to outrun something inside her.
I crouch in the corner, elbows on my knees, watching her like an artist watching clay harden into something beautiful. Or something monstrous.
Same thing, really.
Her paper quirk is… adapting.
Sheets of jagged, blackened paper are forming from nothing, fluttering around her like blades. They pulse with a life of their own. Her quirk is evolving, mutating. No longer passive. No longer creative. Predatory.
My blood does that.
It doesn't just strengthen. It liberates. Strips the fat off their sanity and turns quirks into what they were always meant to be: extensions of instinct.
I had to chain her to the stone wall after she tried to carve my throat open with a single glance.
She failed, of course. But not before slicing her own palms open in the process.
It was… beautiful.
She's almost ready.
Then I'll test her again.
And if she fails—well…
I always wondered how paper would taste soaked in blood.
Snap.
I freeze.
There it is—outside.
The crack of gravel. A footstep.
My smile stretches wide as I slink toward the trapdoor, soundless.
Looks like someone's curious.
Looks like the town isn't praying hard enough.
I crept up the ladder, slow and deliberate, stopping just beneath the trapdoor.
Outside, boots shifted against the gravel again. A nervous shuffle. Not confident. Hesitant.
A lone voice muttered something under their breath—too soft to make out. Male. Late 40s maybe.
Another step. Closer.
Right above me now.
I stayed still, letting the silence stretch until even the bugs outside seemed to hush.
Then—
creeeeak…
The trapdoor hinges groaned as light bled through the cracks.
I moved.
A hand reached in, probably holding a flashlight.
By the time his face came into view, I was already behind him.
I grabbed his head with one hand, slammed the trapdoor shut with the other, and twisted his body halfway around before dragging him silently behind the shed.
He whimpered. Not screamed. Smart.
"Curious," I whispered, lifting him by his collar and pressing his back against the shed wall.
He shook his head violently, words spilling from his mouth like loose teeth. "I—I wasn't—just looking for the aika girl! She—she's friends with the my daughter She said she heard her scream last night—"
I paused.
Fujimura. Aika.
So she had friends.
My eyes narrowed. His heart thundered against my fingertips. So loud. So fragile.
"I don't like interruptions," I said.
"No, please—"
"Shhh."
I dragged him down into the cellar. Aika stirred, her breathing faster now, nostrils flaring. Her teeth bared at the scent of blood.
"Smell that?" I said to her.
She looked up at me like a dog learning its master's voice.
"I brought dinner."
The girl—Aika—stirred in her corner. Shackled. Bound. Still trembling with the new instincts pumping through her blood.
She wasn't herself anymore. Not the quiet, focused student I'd watched by the window. Not completely. Now there was hunger in her eyes. Confusion.
Look what I brought you," I said softly, tossing the man down in front of her like a gift. "A familiar face, maybe?"
Her eyes snapped to him. Recognition flickered for half a second—then vanished. She didn't speak. Her hands twitched in the restraints. Fingertips like blades now, twitching with raw impulse.
The man's breath hitched. "A-Aika?" he whispered, voice cracking.
She stared at him, head tilted like a broken doll.
"Aika, it's me—Mr. Matsuda. I—I know your father. You used to play with my daughter, remember?"
She didn't.
Not anymore.
She lunged forward, teeth bared, only stopped by the chain bolted to the wall. Her jaws snapped just shy of his throat.
The man cried out, scrambling backward. I grabbed his collar and shoved him closer to her.
"She's starving," I murmured. "But she's still… learning. Consider yourself a teacher."
"No—please—"
Aika growled—low and primal. Not quite human. Not yet demon either. That in-between place where conscience slips, and instinct takes over.
She bit into him.
Not clean. Not elegant.
Messy. Desperate.
He screamed until he couldn't.
I watched in silence, arms folded, eyes locked on her face as blood coated her hands and soaked into the dirt floor.
Her breathing slowed after. Her body sagged. But her eyes… they burned brighter.
The mutation was working. The blood was adapting. Twisting her.
"Good girl," I whispered.
And for a moment—just a moment—she looked up at me with something like understanding
She looked up at me, blood streaking her chin, staining her teeth. Her chest rose and fell in sharp, shallow breaths. There was still something human left in her gaze—but it was slipping, piece by piece.
"Aika," I said, kneeling in front of her. "Do you know what you are now?"
She didn't speak. Her lips quivered. A bit of flesh clung between her teeth.
"I gave you something precious," I murmured. "And this…"—I gestured to the body, or what was left of it—"…this is only the beginning. You're evolving. Changing."
Her jaw clenched. Her fingers flexed. Razor-thin sheets of hardened paper peeled from her like instinctive reflexes—each one sharper than any blade. Her quirk was adapting on its own, becoming more lethal.
Her eyes flickered to the corpse, then back to me.
"What… did you do to me?" she rasped. Her voice was guttural now, like gravel scraping glass.
I smiled. "I set you free."
She lunged again, shackles tightening against her limbs with a sharp clink. Not out of rage this time—no. Hunger. It hadn't left her. It wouldn't. Not now.
I stood, brushing dust off my knees. "Rest for now. You'll need your strength. We have a long road ahead, you and I."
I turned from her, footsteps echoing on the cellar stairs as I opened the trapdoor just enough to peer outside.
Dawn was rising. Orange light kissed the rooftops. The village stirred.
And somewhere in the distance—near the center of town—a bell tolled.
Loud. Urgent. Alarmed.
It had begun.
I closed the hatch behind me, sealing her in the dark. She'd be safe there. For now.
Let them panic.
Let them grieve.
Every cry, every shout, every poster hung for the missing—it would all feed the story I was writing in blood and silence.