The night was quiet in the way a wound closes — not healed, just tired of bleeding.
Smoke from the burned minions drifted over the ruins, thick with the stench of salt and rot. The survivors had moved what they could salvage into the old temple, now a hollow carcass of stone. Shadows stretched along the cracked walls, every flicker of flame painting distorted halos around the zealots as they prayed.
They were humming again. That same low, feverish chant.
> "Through the Prophet's wound, we are sanctified."
"Through the curse, we are remembered."
It wasn't music. It was infection given sound.
Genji crouched near the remnants of a fire, cleaning the edge of her blade with slow, deliberate motions. Every scrape of metal against cloth was her heartbeat trying to keep pace with thought. She'd stopped looking at Shitsubo hours ago — not because she didn't want to, but because every glance reminded her of what she couldn't understand.
He sat on the opposite end of the temple, silent. The curse pulsed faintly under his skin, crawling across his chest like living ink. Sometimes it whispered — not in words, but in a vibration that rattled the air.
Diago stood nearby, staring at the doorless archway. Beyond it, the sea murmured like something unsatisfied.
"It's quiet," he muttered. "Too quiet."
Juro snorted from the shadows. "You say that like quiet's the enemy."
Diago frowned. "You didn't see what I saw out there."
"I saw everything," Juro said, stepping into the firelight. His face was cut and swollen, his one good eye glinting like steel. "I saw him lose control again. I saw them"—he pointed at the zealots—"drink his madness like holy water."
The zealots didn't flinch. One smiled faintly, lips bloodied. "His madness is salvation."
Juro's laugh was sharp, cracked. "Salvation? That thing nearly tore the world open with his hands."
"He saved you," one of them whispered.
"No," Juro said. "He killed for himself. We just happened to be in the way."
The fire popped, sending sparks into the dark. The silence that followed was knife-thin.
Shitsubo finally spoke, his voice low, roughened by exhaustion.
> "You think I wanted this?"
Juro turned on him, stepping closer. "You think it matters what you wanted? You brought something with you — something none of us can see without it staring back."
Genji's hand tightened on her blade. "Juro—"
"No," he snapped. "Let me speak." He faced Shitsubo again. "I watched you, day after day. You move like someone who's been dead for years but refuses to fall over. You think you're different from the zealots? You're not. You've just built a quieter altar."
Shitsubo's jaw flexed, the faintest shadow of a smile ghosting across his face. "And yet you're still here."
"Because I'm not fool enough to die," Juro spat. "And maybe… maybe I want to see what kind of god you're trying to become before the sea finishes swallowing you."
That earned him a glance — something predatory, but not cruel. "If I were a god," Shitsubo murmured, "you wouldn't have a mouth left to speak."
The zealots gasped, bowing lower, muttering in tongues. Juro's expression didn't change. "You see? Threats. Always the same tune. The moment someone speaks truth, you reach for fear."
Genji stood now, blade still sheathed but her voice firm. "Enough. Both of you."
But the air was already shifting — tension folding inward like gravity. The curse beneath Shitsubo's skin pulsed once, reacting to emotion the way fire reacts to wind.
He rose slowly, eyes gleaming like dark glass.
> "You talk about truth as if it's clean," he said. "But truth's just dirt everyone pretends isn't theirs."
Juro stared at him, breath sharp. "Then tell me yours."
The world seemed to hold still. Even the zealots stopped murmuring.
Shitsubo stepped closer. The sound of his boots on stone echoed. When he spoke again, the words came quiet, each one dipped in something old and heavy.
> "Truth is… I don't care if you live. I don't care if they live. I'm not the shepherd they think I am — I'm the wolf that forgot how to stop biting. I fight because standing still feels worse than killing. You call that evil? Fine. But don't mistake it for your salvation."
His voice echoed into the hollow night.
Genji's throat tightened. Diago looked away. Even Juro's defiance flickered, if only for a moment.
Then he laughed — bitter, humorless. "You finally said something honest."
"I always do," Shitsubo said.
Juro's voice softened, the edge turning to something heavier. "You think that curse makes you special, but it doesn't. You're just proof of what happens when someone stops pretending to be human."
"And you," Shitsubo said, "are proof of what happens when someone hides behind reason because they're too scared to bleed."
The words landed like blows. For a heartbeat, Juro didn't move. Then, slow and deliberate, he turned toward the zealots.
> "You hear that?" he said. "That's your prophet talking. The man you pray to just told you he doesn't care if you live."
But they didn't listen. They bowed deeper, eyes wild. One whispered, "He denies his divinity because only the true chosen do."
Juro barked a laugh — one that bordered on breaking. "There's no saving you people."
He turned to leave, but Shitsubo's hand shot out, gripping his shoulder. The contact burned — literally. The curse hissed against Juro's flesh, leaving blackened marks in its wake.
Juro shoved him off, panting. "Touch me again, and I'll cut that curse out of your chest."
Shitsubo's smile returned, hollow and cold. "Try."
The tension splintered when Genji finally slammed her sword into the stone between them. "Enough!"
Her voice cut through the temple like thunder. "We're surrounded by monsters that don't even know what they are anymore, and you two are arguing over who's more broken?"
Her gaze swept between them — first Juro, then Shitsubo. "We're alive because we haven't fallen apart yet. Don't start now."
No one spoke for a long time after that. The fire burned lower. The zealots resumed their whispers, quieter now — less chant, more prayer for sanity.
Eventually, Juro walked to the far corner, sitting against the wall. He didn't look at anyone.
> "You keep saying we're alive," he muttered. "I don't think we are. I think we're just walking ghosts too stubborn to realize the difference."
Genji didn't reply. She stared at the dying embers, at Shitsubo's silhouette flickering against the stone — the cursed light weaving through him like veins of molten shadow.
He sat down again, eyes closed. Maybe praying. Maybe waiting for the curse to stop whispering.
Outside, the sea whispered Dagon's name.