The cathedral lay in ruin behind him, swallowed by silence. Shinomiya Reiji staggered into the open night, his blade still slick with shadows that dissolved into nothingness with every step. The moonlight was pale and merciless, casting his figure as a lone scar across the broken streets.
The city was no longer alive. Not truly. Every alley he passed through whispered with voices that had no mouths, whispers that scraped against the walls of his mind. He knew they were remnants—souls caught between existence and oblivion, bound to the ashes of what once was.
Reiji did not stop. His body ached, but there was no room for weakness. Ahead, at the heart of the ruins, smoke rose in thin columns. The smell of burnt stone and charred flesh lingered, acrid and suffocating.
And then he heard it—footsteps. Light, deliberate, echoing against the dead city.
He drew his blade without hesitation, the steel catching what little light remained. His eyes searched the emptiness until a figure emerged from the veil of smoke.
A woman. Cloaked in crimson threads that shimmered faintly, her face veiled but her presence sharp, cutting. She walked as though the broken ground bent for her, each step deliberate, almost ritualistic.
"You," Reiji said, his voice low. Not recognition, but instinct. Whoever she was, she did not belong here.
The woman tilted her head slightly, as if studying a specimen. Her voice, when it came, was calm yet laced with venom:
> "You walk with the stench of silence. An oath chained in shadows. But silence cannot bury screams forever."
Reiji's grip tightened. "Another ghost?"
She chuckled softly, the sound brittle and hollow.
"No, wanderer. I am no ghost. I am a collector of them."
The air thickened, and with a gesture of her hand, the ashes stirred. From the ground rose figures—shapes molded from soot and bone, faceless, groaning, bound to her will. Each carried fragments of weapons, shattered blades, rusted spears, all pointed toward him.
Reiji's chest heaved, but his stance did not falter. "So you command the dead."
"I command memory," she corrected. "And memory will crush you, as it crushes all who dare to defy the forgotten."
The ashen soldiers lurched forward. Their movements were stiff, grotesque, but their sheer number drowned the street in an endless tide.
Reiji's blade sang as it cut through the first wave, shadows scattering like smoke. But for every one he felled, another rose. They clawed, they grabbed, their weight dragging at his limbs. His muscles screamed, his breath turned ragged, yet his resolve did not crack.
The woman watched, silent, her eyes unseen behind the veil. Only her presence pressed against him like a verdict, as though every strike he made only deepened his guilt.
Blood ran down his arm where claws had found flesh. His knees threatened to buckle. But in the roar of the battle, a single thought pulsed in him, heavy and undeniable:
I cannot die here. Not yet.
With a guttural cry, Reiji forced his blade downward, splitting the ground. The shock tore through the ash-born soldiers, scattering them in a burst of dust and bone. He stood in the settling haze, chest heaving, blade trembling in his hand.
Across the street, the woman had not moved. She raised a single hand, and the remaining ash-figures dissolved into smoke. Her voice was quiet now, but sharp as broken glass:
> "You survived the oath. You survived the chains. But can you survive yourself, Shinomiya Reiji?"
His eyes widened at the sound of his name.
She turned, stepping back into the smoke as if melting into it.
"Wait—!" he called, his voice raw.
But the street was empty. Only the ashes remained, whispering, whispering, as if mocking the silence he carried.
Reiji lowered his blade, his breath shallow, his body heavy. The whispers did not fade. They only grew, beneath the ashes, beneath his skin, beneath the silence itself.
And he knew—this was only the beginning of what hunted him.