The streets of Osaka were bones beneath a red-black sky. Shitsubo moved through them like a shadow stitched into the ruins. The curse in his veins was restless tonight—every corner hummed with the scent of survivors, every echo teased his hunger.
He found them in what was left of a subway entrance. A dozen people had built a makeshift barricade from bent rebar and overturned vending machines. At the center of the camp stood a girl.
Not older than nineteen.
Her hair fell in uneven cuts around her shoulders, and her clothes were scavenged like everyone else's. But when she lifted her hand, light poured from her fingers. Real light—not fire, not scavenged torches, but brilliance so pure it painted the tunnel walls white.
The survivors bowed their heads toward her. Not in worship, but in trust. In hope.
Shitsubo froze. His veins burned.
Yunki Adachi.
The name rang somewhere in his memory. A student he had heard about, once. Brilliant, untouchable. Someone who stood against cruelty long before the Rifts opened.
Now she was something else entirely.
Her voice carried through the tunnel. "Stay close to the barricade. Don't wander. The Aggressors won't push past the light."
The hunger inside Shitsubo twisted violently. Envy poured off the survivors in waves—their trust, their awe, their dependence on her. He could almost taste it, sharp and clean.
And Yunki herself… she shone like a wound against his silence.
He stepped forward. The silence crawled ahead of him, pressing into the subway like a fog. Survivors stiffened. The nearest man dropped the tin cup he was holding; the clatter echoed too long.
Yunki turned. Her eyes locked on him at once.
Not fear. Not confusion. Recognition.
"You."
Her hand flared with light, so bright it stabbed at his eyes. The survivors gasped, scrambling behind her.
Shitsubo didn't move. He couldn't. His silence rolled out, pressing against her radiance, and for the first time since he'd claimed Dvalinn's curse, something resisted it.
Yunki's voice rang sharp. "You're the one they've been whispering about. The Silent Aggressor."
Shitsubo's jaw clenched. He wanted to speak, to tell her she was wrong, that he wasn't Aggressor, wasn't one of them. But nothing left his throat. His silence bound him, and in its absence her words filled the air like blades.
Her light cut through the shadows, forcing back the weight of his silence. Around her, the survivors breathed again.
"You're no different from them," she spat. "You take and take until there's nothing left. I don't care if you look human. You're filth."
The hunger roared inside him, roused by her contempt. He staggered, veins pulsing black-blue beneath his skin. The survivors shrank back, their envy spiking again—their fear of him, their longing for her protection. It rushed into him like a tide, unbidden.
Yunki's eyes widened. She felt it—the way their fear and awe of her twisted into envy of him. She raised her hand higher, flooding the tunnel with light so fierce the shadows shrieked against it.
For the first time since his curse awakened, Shitsubo felt pain.
The silence recoiled, thinning, fraying.
Yunki stepped forward. "Stay away from them."
Her voice was steady. Not angry, not afraid. Certain.
Shitsubo's hunger clawed at him, demanding he devour her brilliance, silence her radiance forever. His hands shook with the urge. But some part of him, some faint remnant of the boy who'd once lived, kept him rooted.
He turned away.
The survivors gasped. Yunki blinked, momentarily stunned that he hadn't attacked. But Shitsubo melted back into the ruins, his silence curling after him like a wounded beast.
---
He didn't stop moving until he was alone again, deep in the husk of a skyscraper. His veins still burned from her light. His head throbbed.
But for the first time, he'd met something that could resist him.
And she had called him filth.
The hunger whispered, vicious and eager:
She is the one you must break. The brightest light makes the sweetest envy.
Shitsubo sat in the dark, veins pulsing, silence rattling like chains around his throat. He closed his eyes. The memory of Yunki's light burned against his lids.
Light against silence.
Their paths would cross again.