The ruins of Osaka were no longer ruins. They were becoming something else. Shitsubo felt it the moment they crossed into the southern quarter — the air itself was heavier, pressing against his lungs like wet cloth. The streets, once cracked concrete and scorched metal, now pulsed faintly as if veins ran beneath them. And the buildings, jagged and skeletal, leaned in unnatural ways, their windows warped into hollow sockets that seemed to watch.
This was no longer a city. It was a wound, and Dagon's hand was deep inside it.
No one spoke for a long while. The only sound was the crunch of broken glass beneath their boots and the faint, maddening thrum of the ground, like the heartbeat of a beast sleeping just under the earth.
Genji finally broke the silence. "Brother… this place is wrong." His voice was low, the words dragged as though he feared speaking too loudly might draw attention.
Daigo spat, though the phlegm landed on a patch of stone that twitched before swallowing it whole. He cursed under his breath and stepped back, muttering, "Nothing here should be alive. Nothing."
Juro kept to the rear, face half-swaddled in makeshift bandages. His ruined eye gleamed faintly in the dim light, not with strength but with that steady, surgical honesty that had grown sharper since Shitsubo struck him. He said nothing — but Shitsubo could feel his gaze drilling into his back. Even maimed, Juro refused to submit.
It irritated him.
The group slowed as they reached what used to be a marketplace. Stalls were collapsed, their skeletal frames bent at odd angles, while the ground between them rippled like water disturbed by unseen fish. A dead vending machine sat upright in the corner, its glass cracked, but inside the drinks moved, shifting against one another as though alive.
Daigo cursed again. "I hate this, Date. I hate this place."
Shitsubo crouched, pressing his hand against the ground. The pulse shuddered through his bones, crawling up into his curse. The rune etched into his veins burned faintly, whispering in the back of his skull. Blood. Blood calls blood.
He clenched his fist and stood. "This isn't just corruption," he said. "It's a forge. Dagon is reshaping the city. Osaka won't just fall — it'll become part of them."
"And what exactly are 'they'?" Juro's voice finally came, rough but steady. He tilted his head, the bandages around his eye dark with old blood. "You've seen more than us, Date. You've tasted the curse. So tell me: what are we walking into?"
Shitsubo turned, and for a moment considered ignoring him. But something in the man's tone — blunt, precise, not mocking — pulled an answer from him despite himself. "Dagon's minions aren't soldiers. They're grafts. Things torn from other worlds, patched together, made to crawl and bleed and serve. Each one is an experiment. Failures get fed back into the soil. The successes… hunt."
A silence followed, heavier than before. Even Genji's breath hitched.
And then, as if summoned by the words, the shadows moved.
They didn't lunge immediately. First came the sound — not growls, not screeches, but a chittering whisper, like knives dragged across bone. Shapes peeled themselves out of the walls, torsos stretching, limbs unfolding too long and too many. Their bodies looked skinned, wet muscle gleaming with a faint, black sheen. Their heads were eyeless, mouths stretched into spirals of jagged teeth that spun slowly, grinding against themselves.
Daigo swore loudly. "Ah, hell no—"
The first one dropped to the ground with a wet slap, limbs bending the wrong way as it scuttled forward. Another followed, then two more. Soon the street was alive with the sound of scraping claws and the grinding of those spiral maws.
"Rift-spawn," Shitsubo muttered. His curse stirred hungrily. Kill them. Break them. Feed them to me.
Genji drew the pipe he'd sharpened into a spear. His hands shook, but he stood beside Shitsubo anyway. Daigo grabbed a length of chain from his belt, wrapping it around his fists. The survivors behind them began to panic, pressing into one another, some crying, others praying.
Only Juro stood unmoved, his one good eye fixed on the horrors ahead. His voice cut through the noise: "Don't waste time screaming. Either stand and fight, or get behind me and shut your mouths."
For once, no one argued.
The first minion lunged. Shitsubo met it with his bare hands, curse flaring. His palm sank into its chest like mud, ribs snapping like wet branches as the curse writhed through him and into it. The creature shrieked — a sound like metal tearing — before its body collapsed inward, melting into a black slurry.
The curse pulsed, demanding more.
Another rushed him from the side. Genji stabbed upward, his makeshift spear piercing through its jaw into the spiral maw. Black ichor sprayed as the thing convulsed. Genji stumbled but held firm, twisting the pipe until the creature stopped twitching.
"Genji!" Shitsubo barked. "Behind me!"
But his brother shook his head, jaw tight. "Not this time. I won't always hide behind you."
Daigo swung his chain, wrapping it around a creature's arm and yanking hard enough to dislocate it. The limb tore free with a spray of black fluid, but the creature only staggered before rushing again, teeth gnashing. Daigo barely ducked in time.
The survivors screamed louder.
Juro finally stepped forward, picking up a broken piece of concrete. His voice carried, steady and merciless: "Keep your backs to the wall. Don't scatter. If you run, you die alone."
The command, so unyielding, snapped some of the panic. A few survivors clung to his words, pressing together, eyes locked on Shitsubo and the others.
The ground beneath them began to split.
Shitsubo's curse flared as more minions clawed their way free from the soil itself, dragging themselves up like corpses from graves. Their bodies twitched and cracked, but the hunger in their spiral mouths was the same.
Shitsubo's grin was feral. "Finally."
He leapt, curse blazing, and the slaughter began.