The convoy peeled away one by one, armored trucks sliding into the shadows of side streets until the formation was nothing but echoes. Engines died, lights dimmed, and in the silence only Renji remained, his Kawasaki's low rumble vibrating against the walls of a darkened alley. He let the engine cut, leaving the night to swallow the sound whole.
"I'm in position," he said into the comm bead at his ear.
"Good. I'm two and a half minutes out. But I hear the ladies already checked in," Kalfka replied, his tone sharp but laced with a grin Renji could hear.
Renji exhaled slowly, regulating the rhythm of his heart. His crimson demon eye pulsed faintly in the gloom, glowing with restrained power. To anyone else, he looked like a soldier bracing for battle. But to him, it was a ritual: clearing the noise, locking into the hunt.
The clouds above veiled the half-moon, burying the city in oppressive dark. For a moment, the silence stretched unnaturally still, as though the city itself was holding its breath.
Then it shattered.
"In position," Kalfka reported a minute later.
The clouds shifted away as though obeying the call, moonlight spilling down in a silver flood. It revealed the cracked pavement, the empty streets—and then came the sound.
BOOM!
The ground heaved. Asphalt split open, spraying debris into the air. A violent roar ripped from beneath, followed by the snapping of massive legs clawing their way out of the earth.
"Honegumo on the surface!!" someone bellowed over the comms.
Renji didn't wait to find out who. His crimson eye flared, and with a twist of his wrist, his Kawasaki shrieked to life. He shot forward like a bullet, tires biting into the street as sparks showered behind him.
High above, the sniper nests lit up. Tracers stitched the night sky, each shot cracking open demon carapace. The first monsters collapsed in grotesque heaps, black ichor spraying the walls.
The civilians had been evacuated earlier by Arashi's intervention with the president, leaving the battlefield empty. Perfect. Renji could open the throttle without restraint, his bike screaming down the abandoned road.
He banked into a sharp turn, drifting hard until the smoke curled in his wake. His crimson demon eye burned brighter, senses sharpening to a razor point.
Then he saw them.
The first Honegumo stood tall in the distance, its grotesque frame blotting out the glow of the moon. Its barbed legs twitched, mandibles clicking in a rhythm that set Renji's teeth on edge. Fifteen feet of pure nightmare, its black shell glistening as it reared up.
Behind it, the shadows pulsed and shifted. More claws. More eyes. More hunger.
Renji's lips pulled into a thin smile. "Figures."
He slammed the brakes. Momentum flung him from the bike, but he landed smoothly, boots cracking the pavement. With a thought, twin katanas of shadow materialized across his back, sliding into his hands with a hiss.
The nearest Honegumo lunged, its shriek splitting the night. Renji rolled beneath its snapping maw, the stench of rotting flesh hot against his cheek. He came up on one knee in the center of the street, surrounded.
A full circle.
Dozens of glowing eyes pinned him in place. Their claws scraped the pavement, their snarls building into a grotesque symphony.
Renji didn't move. He breathed. Waited. Calculated.
Then the swarm charged.
The ground quaked with their advance, mandibles gnashing, legs pounding.
Renji drew his blade in one smooth, explosive motion.
For an instant, time froze. The katana's shadowed edge caught the moonlight—and then black ichor sprayed as all demons collapsed at once, their bodies crumpling into twitching heaps.
The others didn't hesitate. Hunger drowned fear.
Renji rose to his full height, katanas poised, his crimson eye burning with a furious light. The shadows curled tighter around him, feeding into the hum of his blades.
The circle closed in, their shrieks deafening.
Renji smiled—razor-thin, unyielding.
He wasn't here to survive. He was here to cut through everything.
And as the next wave lunged, Renji surged forward, steel and shadow tearing into nightmare. He steadily tore through the chaos like a war machine.
" Hey everyone, they've got their heads as their weakness" Renji announced over the line slicing one's head open in a swift scissors motion.
" How did you find that out?" Ayaka asked. " Just trust his judgement" Hikari said while she tore a swath through with her own katana.
The battle continued relentlessly till Renji and Kalfka managed to link up. " Hey I've got sixteen verified kills how have you been holding up?" He asked.
" Me? I've killed so much I lost count" Renji managed till they backed each other to catch their breath while the Honegumos circled them.
" Getting tired yet Renji?" Kalfka taunted but then got shocked when he saw him make a sudden motion to sheath his blades.
In a flash it seemed like time slowed then struggled to catch up bringing up visible evidence of Renji's doing. The circle of demons around them collapsed to dozens of small pieces.
" Does that answer your question?" Renji asked. " Whoa, I don't think I even saw you move" Kalfka grinned.
" All demons in my sector annihilated" Hikari reported over the comms. " Yeah us too" Renji replied. " The demons were neutralized with zero casualties" Ayaka relayed over her comms channel.
" I guess you did it Renji" Kalfka approved. Just then it appeared that the bodies of the spiders except the ones fatally killed by Renji slowly started stitching up.
" What the hell!" Renji murmured while he watched them come back to life. " Are everyone seeing this?" Hikari asked.
" No surrender" Ayaka said. " Snipers load up and aim for the head". The ground soldiers had their swords ablaze.
" What just happened?" Renji wondered a sudden tremor rippled the earth he stood on and his demon eye came alive. " Something's coming" He said, his voice rough.
Hikari was closest to the hole the Honegumos emerged from and therefore was the first to see it. Gashadokuro,
A demon towering 9 feet tall, gaunt frame wrapped in a cloak of writhing shadows.
His body is a skeletal amalgamation, ribs and femurs shifting as if they're alive, constantly knitting together and tearing apart.
A jaw that unhinges too wide, teeth like obsidian daggers, and in his empty eye sockets burn sickly green flames.
She immediately arched her hands while shadows coalesced between them, she fired the dark orb in a burst of shadow that the demon deflected with it's arm.
It gave off a savage grin. " My… turn… mortal" The Gashadokuro's skeletal hand tightened around the femur-spear, shadows writhing like snakes across its gaunt frame. Its burning green eyes flared, and with a hiss of grinding bones, it hurled the weapon.
The spear ripped through the night, the air screaming in its wake.
Hikari snapped her hands up, shadows coalescing into a shield—but the defense shattered like brittle glass. The projectile tore through her spell, unstoppable, unstoppable—
And then Renji was there.
He burst out of the shadows in a blur, as if the world itself had dragged him into place. His crimson eye blazed, locked onto the weapon's deadly arc.
The impact landed with a sickening crack.
The femur punched through his right lung, the force driving him back until the jagged tip burst from between his shoulder blades, stopping just inches from Hikari's throat.
Time froze.
Renji's body jolted violently, breath hitching as white-hot pain ripped through his chest. Blood surged into his mouth, spilling past his lips in a wet cough, then harder—spraying crimson across the ground. His nostrils flared red with the overflow.
Hikari's eyes went wide. "Renji—!"
Even the hardened Sheshi soldiers faltered, blades quivering at the sight.
The spear still quivered in his chest, every ragged breath drawing more blood down its length. His vision blurred, shadows wavering—but his demon eye burned brighter, defiant.
He didn't collapse. Not yet.
Instead, he turned his head just enough to glance at
Hikari. Blood dripped from the corner of his mouth as his lips curved into a razor-thin, bloodied smile.
"…Still… standing."