The fire was weak, fed by scraps of wood scavenged from a collapsed convenience store earlier that day. Its glow barely reached the circle of gaunt faces gathered around it. Smoke hung in the night air, stinging eyes already red from exhaustion.
The survivors had grown quieter in recent nights, but tonight a whisper spread through the camp like static—faint, uncertain, but persistent. A rumor, crawling from tongue to tongue, weaving its way into hollow hearts.
"They say there's a place in Namba," one of the older survivors murmured, hunched over with arms wrapped around her knees. "A refuge. Walls high enough to keep Aggressors out. Lights that still shine at night. Food, clean water…"
The words rippled through the group. Tired eyes lifted; cracked lips parted. Hope—cheap, dangerous hope—spread like smoke in the dark.
Shitsubo sat apart, his back against a leaning slab of concrete, eyes narrowed at the fire. His silence was heavier than any voice in the circle. Daigo crouched nearby, sharpening a bent piece of rebar into a makeshift spear.
Finally, someone else broke the quiet. "We should go there," another survivor said. His voice cracked, but the conviction in it drew nods. "If there's even a chance—"
The fire popped.
And then Juro spoke.
He didn't raise his voice. He didn't sneer or shout. He simply spoke as though reading from a ledger, his tone flat, precise.
"If there were such a place," he said, "someone would have come for us. A messenger. A scout. Anything. Instead, we sit here surrounded by ash and bones. And you believe there's a city of light a few blocks away?"
The murmurs died. All eyes turned to him.
Juro leaned forward slightly, letting the firelight cut shadows across his face. His hands rested on his knees, still but tense.
"You want to know what's in Namba? More ruins. More corpses. Aggressors hunting in the dark. If there were lights, we'd have seen them by now. If there were walls, they'd be painted with refugees clawing at the gates. And yet—nothing."
He paused. The silence stretched. The only sound was the crackle of the fire.
Juro's voice softened, almost like a teacher scolding children. "This isn't about Namba. It's about desperation. You're starving, afraid, and broken. So you invent salvation. It's easier than facing the truth—that there's no rescue coming. No heaven waiting on the other side of this street. Just more of the same."
A bitter wind hissed through the shattered buildings. The fire bent low.
The old woman's lips trembled. "But… if it were true—"
"If it were true," Juro interrupted, "we'd already be there. And we're not. That's all you need to know."
Shitsubo's head tilted back, a sharp laugh escaping him. His voice was low, dangerous, coiled with contempt.
"You talk like a preacher at a funeral," he said. "Do you enjoy smothering their hope? Or is it just that you're too much of a coward to move?"
Juro turned his gaze to him, steady, unblinking. His face betrayed nothing—but Daigo, watching closely, saw it. The slight tremor in Juro's right hand, the shallow rise and fall of his chest. He was afraid. Not of the Aggressors. Not of Namba. Of Shitsubo.
Yet his words betrayed none of it.
"Cowardice," Juro said evenly, "is pretending the world is something it isn't. You wrap yourself in power like a ragged cloak, Shitsubo. But you can't feed people with fear. You can't lead them with shadows. And you certainly can't build a future on lies."
The survivors stiffened. His words rang too clean, too precise to dismiss.
Shitsubo leaned forward, eyes glinting in the firelight. "And what would you build it on, then? Your tongue? You think words will stop the Aggressors from tearing your flesh?"
"No," Juro replied calmly. "But words might stop us from tearing ourselves apart chasing illusions. Better to face the devil we see than the angel we dream."
The fire popped again. Sparks leapt, then died in the night.
Silence fell.
Shitsubo's hand twitched against the ground, nails digging into the dirt. His curse whispered through his veins, hungry, urging him to snuff out this insolence with a thought. To show them all what happens when someone stands against him.
Daigo noticed the shift. He leaned in quickly, muttering just loud enough for Shitsubo to hear. "Not here. Not now."
Juro didn't flinch. He watched Shitsubo like a hawk, his breathing shallow, his shoulders stiff. Only Daigo caught the sheen of sweat along his brow, the way his calm words had been forced through clenched teeth.
But to the others? Juro looked unshakable. A pillar of reason in a storm of madness.
And that was worse. Much worse.
The night dragged on. Survivors drifted into uneasy sleep, but the fire circle felt colder despite the flames. Juro sat silent now, his point made, his presence lingering like a blade left on the table.
Shitsubo turned away eventually, but the hatred burned hotter than the fire. Juro hadn't shouted. He hadn't mocked. He had simply cut him open with truths that refused to die.
And Shitsubo, for the first time in weeks, felt something he despised.
Doubt.