There's a village no one remembers the name of anymore. It sat in a quiet valley, hidden by fog and silence. Not because it was destroyed—though it was—but because those who survived chose to forget.
That's where the first one appeared.
Not a demon. Not a ghost.
Just a man… smiling.
People thought he was mad. That something had broken him.
But the smile never left his face—not when he walked into a burning house without flinching, not when he laughed as his skin tore, not even when he killed the people he once loved.
And soon, others began to smile too.
They weren't infected through bites, blood, or curses. They simply looked. Watched him. Heard him. Laughed with him.
And lost something deep inside.
All anyone knew was that the flowers were involved—two rare things that grew only on that soil. One, black and silent, called Demon's Grin. The other, red like a bloodied crescent, called Devil's Smile. People used to say they were poisonous. But poison kills.
This was something worse.
The legend goes that a king, obsessed with making his people eternally happy, ordered those flowers to be combined into a syrup. He called it a gift. He thought he was doing good.
But the first man to drink it never felt happiness again. Only laughter.
Painful, hollow, endless laughter.
That was a thousand years ago.
Now, the world calls them Smilers—emotionless creatures wearing human skin and grinning through blood and silence. They don't need armies. They don't take over cities. They take feelings. Slowly. Quietly. Until all that's left is a smile that doesn't belong.
Almost a third of the world is already infected.
And no one knows how far it can spread.
But humanity didn't roll over. Long ago, a warrior named Musashi Miyamoto found a way to fight back—not with swords alone, but with the very thing Smilers destroy: emotion. He created the first Emotion Styles, drawing power from pain, joy, rage, fear, and love. Hunters from around the world studied his legacy. Adapted it. Passed it on.
Some use swords. Some use their hearts.
But the Smile hasn't faded.
And somewhere in the world today, a boy will lose everything.
And he won't smile again…
Until he finds out why.