The storm broke at dusk.
The ruined horizon of Osaka was bruised in gray and blood, the skeletal towers humming with dying wind. Shitsubo and the others trudged through the wreckage of what was once an underpass—now a tomb of cars and half-eaten bodies. The smell of charred oil and sour rain stung their throats.
"Movement," Diago hissed, hand tight on his rusted rifle.
Shitsubo didn't slow. "I know."
From the mist ahead came a dragging sound—metal grating against bone. Then, through the haze, a figure appeared. It was tall, impossibly thin, its limbs bending wrong, its face wrapped in what looked like stitched human hands. Around its neck hung bodies—four of them—bound together by rope and wire.
A Dagonite collector, a minion built for scavenging humans.
The captives twitched. They were still alive.
Juro cursed under his breath, raising his blade. "That's no soldier. That's a butcher."
"Wait," Shitsubo said.
The minion froze, sensing them. The hands over its face began to open and close like mouths gasping for air. A low croon rippled through the street. Then it dropped the captives—five of them—and scuttled backward into the fog, retreating with inhuman grace.
The survivors collapsed, moaning. But not all of them were terrified.
One of the captives—a bald man with crimson lines painted across his chest—looked up at Shitsubo and smiled.
"Blessed be the vessel," the man whispered hoarsely. "You came for us."
Shitsubo frowned. "What?"
The man crawled forward, dragging his bloody knees through the mud. "We waited in the dark, my lord. The eyes saw. The curse burns for us all, but you alone carry it. You are our salvation."
Juro stepped forward, sword raised. "He's delirious. Back away from him."
But more of the captives stirred—men and women in tattered clothing, with crude black symbols carved into their skin. They looked starved, half-insane, yet their eyes glowed with reverence. One woman reached toward Shitsubo's arm, fingertips trembling.
"You are the one that walks beyond pain," she murmured. "The flesh remembers your flame."
"Get off me." Shitsubo yanked his arm away, but the touch lingered. Her hand left a faint imprint—dark veins pulsing beneath his skin, feeding the curse. He felt it hum… pleased.
Diago took a step back. "Boss… what the hell is this?"
Juro spat. "Cultists. Another pack of broken minds trying to make sense of dying."
The bald man—Maru, the others called him—laughed. "Sense? No. We saw him. When the skies split. The fire poured through the Rifts, and his shadow stood against it. The Aggressors fell before him!"
Shitsubo's voice was quiet, but edged with disdain. "Then you saw wrong."
Maru's grin widened. "Did we? You still walk when others perish. The cursed flame does not consume you—it obeys. You are the proof that power is divine."
Behind him, one of the other captives—a younger woman—shook her head. "Maru, stop. You're making him angry."
"Silence," Maru barked, turning to her. "He must hear devotion. He must feed!"
Shitsubo's eyes darkened. "Feed?"
Before anyone could react, Maru seized the woman by her hair, dragging her forward. She screamed. Diago lunged, but Juro held him back.
"Wait—"
Maru's knife flashed. It wasn't quick or clean. The woman's throat opened like a torn curtain, blood spilling into the dirt. Maru knelt, smearing the blood across his chest, and pressed his palms together. "Her life for his strength. Her fear for his curse."
The air thickened.
Shitsubo felt it—the pull. His curse trembled like a living beast, drinking the scent of death, dragging warmth through his veins. The woman's body hit the ground, and a wave of strength coursed through him.
It was undeniable.
Real.
And it terrified him.
Juro was the first to move. He kicked Maru backward, slamming him into the mud. "You sick animal!"
Maru coughed blood and laughed through broken teeth. "He accepted it! You saw it! The curse demands it!"
"Shut up!" Diago yelled, pointing his rifle at him. "One more word and I'll—"
"Enough," Shitsubo said.
Everyone turned to him. His voice wasn't loud, but it carried weight. The same weight that crushed air and silenced men.
"You want to follow me?" he asked Maru, his expression unreadable. "Fine. But you do nothing without my command."
Maru's grin faltered, but only slightly. "We live to serve."
"Then start by burying her," Shitsubo said.
Maru nodded, trembling with devotion. As he dragged the corpse away, Juro watched in disgust.
"You let that happen," Juro muttered. "You let him kill her."
Shitsubo didn't answer.
"Say something, damn it!"
Shitsubo finally looked at him. "Would you rather I killed all of them? Then who would bury her?"
Juro stared, speechless. The logic was cold, but unshakable.
Genji spoke softly, almost pleading. "Brother… these people, they're insane."
"They're survivors," Shitsubo replied. "The only kind this world seems to reward."
---
They camped that night in the shell of a subway tunnel, the zealots building small fires from broken signs and plastic crates. Their chants echoed softly through the dark:
"Through the curse we live. Through the flame we endure."
Diago tried to drown them out by cleaning his gun. Juro sat near the wall, silent, his one good eye fixed on Shitsubo.
"I'm not sleeping near them," Juro said finally. "They'll slit our throats in our sleep."
"They won't," Shitsubo replied.
"You think you can control them?"
Shitsubo smirked faintly. "I already do."
Juro stood, fists clenched. "You're becoming the thing you claim to fight. You know that?"
Shitsubo didn't rise. "I never claimed to fight anything."
For a moment, the two men just stared at each other—one hollowed by power, the other by fear pretending to be courage. Then Juro laughed bitterly. "You're right. You never did."