The blood had dried by the time the fire burned down to coals. Juro sat against a wall of shattered concrete, one hand pressed against the ragged scar that had stolen his eye. Someone had wrapped cloth around his head, but it was already soaked, crimson seeping through and down his neck.
No one dared look at him directly. No one dared look at me either.
That was the real wound I had carved tonight: not just his face, but their voices. I had silenced them.
The whispers of rumor—safe havens, letters of salvation, destiny written in ashes—were gone. Now there was only the crackle of fire, the cough of a dying man in the corner, the shallow breaths of people too afraid to speak.
At first, I told myself it was what I wanted. Silence meant obedience. Fear meant control. But as the hours stretched, the silence turned into something heavier. Something that pressed against me like invisible chains.
Genji sat close, as he always did, but even he wasn't looking at me. His eyes were fixed on the flames, the reflection of orange light dancing across the blade he held in his lap. Daigo shifted his weight over and over, restless, his knuckles white around the rifle he'd scavenged.
And Juro—damn him—still wasn't broken.
Even with half his face torn open, he sat upright. His remaining eye was steady, colder than it had ever been. When he finally spoke, it wasn't loud. It wasn't reckless. It was the voice of a man who knew pain and refused to bend beneath it.
"You've proven your point, Shitsubo."
The sound of his voice made the others flinch, as though speaking itself had become forbidden.
I turned toward him slowly, deliberately, letting the weight of my presence sink into the survivors around us. "And what point is that?"
His lips curled, but not into a smile. "That you can cut down anyone who challenges you. That fear is the only leash you know how to hold."
I narrowed my eyes. "Better a leash of fear than the leash of a lie."
"Lies," he said, his tone flat, "can at least comfort the dying. Your truth only reminds us how close we already are to death."
The words hit harder than any blade. For a second, I almost envied him—bleeding, broken, but able to cut me with nothing but syllables.
The silence that followed was unbearable. Not because they doubted me, but because their doubt was quiet. Invisible. Poison in the dark.
I stood, stretching my back, feeling the curse coil like a serpent beneath my skin. "Enough." My voice echoed across the ruined chamber. "We move at first light. If any of you want to waste your breath on rumors, do it while we walk. The next one who questions me again… loses more than an eye."
No one argued. They never did when my blade was close.
Morning came grey and foul, a haze of ash drifting through the ruined skyline of Osaka. The city was no longer a city—it was a carcass. Buildings sagged like rotting flesh, windows shattered into jagged teeth. What should have been silence was broken by distant groans—stone shifting, metal bending, air itself trembling.
The curse whispered to me as we moved. This is what survival feels like. This is power. Their fear feeds you. Their obedience keeps them alive.
But even as I swallowed its voice, I could see Genji's glances. Daigo's unease. They wouldn't speak against me, but their silence was almost as loud as Juro's words.
The road took us deeper into the wreckage. Cars lay overturned, their frames twisted into unnatural shapes, as if they'd melted and hardened again under some alien hand. The ground itself was wrong—pavement bulging in places, cracks glowing faintly with a sickly green light.
It was Dagon's mark.
The Aggressor general wasn't just sending soldiers anymore. It was remaking the earth, reshaping the city into something fit for its kind.
One of the younger survivors stumbled when the ground under his feet shifted, rising like a living thing. The boy cried out, and Daigo yanked him back just as the crack split open, revealing not dirt but something like flesh beneath the asphalt. Pulsing. Breathing.
The boy sobbed. Daigo cursed. Genji muttered under his breath.
And I felt the curse thrum in my veins, hungry, alive.
"This city isn't ours anymore," I said. "It's theirs."
"Then why are we here?" Juro's voice came from behind, hoarse but steady.
I turned to look at him. His face was a ruin, but his eye glared with the same infuriating clarity.
"Because running won't save us," I said. "There's nowhere left untouched. You think there's some safe haven out there? Some sanctuary hiding behind walls?" I barked out a laugh. "There isn't. We survive by standing in the fire, not running from it."
For once, Juro didn't answer.
But others stirred at his silence. A woman coughed into her sleeve. An older man shifted his weight, eyes darting between me and the road ahead. They wanted to believe me. Needed to.
I let them.
We marched for hours, deeper into the rot. Shadows clung to the edges of broken towers, stretching longer than they should. At one point, I thought I saw eyes blinking from inside a wall of glass, watching us without lids.
The survivors grew restless. Fear wasn't enough to hold them steady anymore. Fear alone doesn't stop tired legs from trembling.
Daigo finally spoke. "We can't keep pushing like this. They're exhausted."
I didn't stop walking. "Then they'll learn. The Aggressors don't care if we're tired."
Genji's voice was quiet, but firm. "They're not soldiers, brother."
The words cut deeper than Juro's had. Genji rarely contradicted me in front of the others.
I stopped. Turned. Looked at him, really looked. His face was pale, lips tight, but his eyes were steady.
"They're not soldiers," he repeated. "They're just trying to survive. Like us."
The curse writhed, furious at his defiance. My hand twitched toward my blade. For a moment, I almost struck him, as I had Juro.
But I didn't.
Instead, I smiled—a cold, cruel smile. "Then they'll either learn to be soldiers, or they'll die. That's all survival is."
Genji flinched, almost imperceptibly. But I saw it. And so did the others.
By nightfall, we found shelter in the husk of a subway station. The walls dripped with moisture, streaked with black veins that pulsed faintly in the dark. The smell was rot and rust combined.
The survivors huddled close, whispering prayers to gods that had never answered.
I sat apart, sharpening my blade. The scrape of steel on stone filled the chamber, louder than their murmurs.
Juro sat near the edge of the firelight, his ruined face turned toward me. His voice was low, but everyone could hear it.
"You think strength will be enough. But strength isn't loyalty. Fear isn't trust. And without trust, even gods fall."
The words cut through the room like a blade. No one dared breathe.
I rose slowly, sliding the sharpened blade back into its sheath. My boots echoed as I crossed the chamber, each step deliberate.
I stopped in front of him.
He looked up, his eye steady, his ruined face unflinching.
"You think you speak truth," I said quietly. "But all you do is remind them they're weak. Weakness doesn't deserve trust. Weakness doesn't deserve loyalty. Weakness is death."
For a moment, neither of us moved. The fire flickered between us, shadows dancing like spirits on the walls.
Then I crouched, leaning close, my voice a whisper meant for him alone.
"And death," I murmured, "is the only truth that never lies."
His breath hitched—not in fear, but in something colder. Resignation, maybe. Or understanding.
I stood, turned, and let the silence swallow the chamber again.
The survivors didn't speak. They didn't move.
And in that silence, I knew I had won—for now.
But I also knew this: every word Juro spoke, every doubt Genji couldn't hide, every glance Daigo avoided… was a crack.
And cracks, if left alone, eventually break stone.
That night, as I lay awake listening to the survivors' restless breathing, the curse whispered to me again.
You cannot lead them with fear alone. They will betray you. One day, they will carve you apart like you carved him.
I clenched my fists, staring into the dark.
Then let them try.
The city groaned above us, alive with things unseen. The ground shifted beneath, breathing in slow, monstrous rhythm.
Osaka was no longer dying.
It was being born again.
And whatever it was becoming, we were trapped inside it.