I raised my arm.
The motion felt slow, heavy, like the rain itself had weight.
Headlights cut through the downpour, white and blinding for a second, then slid past me without even a hint of hesitation. Tires hissed across wet asphalt. Exhaust drifted into the rain and vanished.
The car didn't slow.
Neither did the next.
Or the one after that.
I stood there with my arm half-raised, water running down my sleeve, blood thinning into pink trails against the fabric, until the gesture began to feel ridiculous.
So I let it fall.
People stared.
Not openly. Not with shock.
With quick, practiced glances — the kind that measured distance, threat, consequence.
A man walking past pulled his phone closer to his chest, his eyes flicking from the dark stains on my clothes to the faint glow tracing the sword in my hand. He didn't slow. He didn't look back.
I looked down at the hilt, the blue-violet veins pulsing against my palm. The light was objective. It was there. But as the man's gaze passed over it, his pupils didn't dilate for the glow. It was as if his mind was auto-correcting a glitch in his vision—seeing the threat of a weapon, but refusing to render the impossible light of the blade. To him, I wasn't a wielder of a legendary artifact; I was just a blurred edge of violence that his brain was choosing to ignore for the sake of its own sanity.
A woman on the opposite sidewalk tightened her grip on her child and stepped away from the curb, turning her body sideways as if she could block me out of their world by angle alone.
"Gangster…" someone muttered as they passed. "…maybe a killer."
The words weren't loud.
They didn't need to be.
No one stopped.
Somewhere nearby, a siren wailed — long, hollow, distorted by rain and distance. Ambulance or police, I couldn't tell. Red and blue lights flickered at the far end of the street, reflections breaking across puddles like fractured signals.
They weren't coming this way.
They weren't for me.
A shopkeeper noticed me standing under his awning and immediately dragged his shutter halfway down. The metal clattered loud in the space between sirens, sharp and final. Another store locked its door with a click that sounded too deliberate to be coincidence.
I kept walking.
My reflection caught in a darkened window.
Soaked.
Shaking.
Blood drying in uneven streaks along my cheek and collar. Hair plastered to my forehead. Eyes too sharp, too hollow — like they belonged to someone who hadn't slept in days instead of minutes.
And the sword.
Too clean.
Too wrong.
Its faint glow reflected against the glass, a thin line of light that didn't belong anywhere near a convenience store or a crosswalk or a closed bakery.
For a second, I considered letting go of it.
Just opening my hand.
Letting it clatter onto the wet pavement and stay there.
The thought didn't even finish forming before something colder replaced it.
I don't trust the world enough to be unarmed.
Not anymore.
I didn't look like someone who needed help.
I looked like the reason people crossed the street.
And when I needed help the most —
no one came.
No voices calling my name.
No hands reaching out.
Just distance.
Just space.
Just fear — not mine, but theirs.
So I made a choice.
A bike idled near the curb, its engine ticking softly as it cooled. Water beaded on the seat and handlebars. The owner couldn't have been gone long.
The key was still in the ignition.
My hand hovered there.
For half a second, the person I'd been earlier tonight screamed that this was wrong. That stealing wasn't an option. That there were rules, lines you didn't cross.
That voice sounded very far away.
The person standing in the rain — the one with blood on his clothes and sirens echoing behind him — twisted the key.
The engine coughed, sputtered, then roared to life.
The vibration slammed up through the seat, rough and immediate, rattling my teeth as heat bled through my thigh from the frame.
The sound was violent in the quiet street.
Final.
Like a door slamming shut on someone who would never catch up again.
I swung onto the bike without thinking, rain slick under my palms, and pulled hard on the throttle.
Pain flared instantly through my side — sharp, blinding — stealing my breath as if something inside me had shifted the wrong way.
I nearly lost control.
I bit down hard, forced my grip to hold, and kept the throttle open anyway.
The bike surged forward.
I didn't look back.
The first red light vanished beneath me. I barely registered it as I tore through the intersection, heart hammering so hard it felt like it might break through my ribs.
The city blurred.
Neon signs smeared into color and shadow. Reflections shattered across the road. Water sprayed up from the tires, stinging my ankles, soaking my jeans. Every pothole sent sharp pain through my arms and shoulders.
I welcomed it.
Pain meant I was still here.
Wind ripped at my eyes until everything dissolved into motion and sound. Rain hammered against my face, my neck, my collarbone. My lungs burned, breath coming fast and shallow, but I didn't slow.
I couldn't.
If I slowed —
I might think.
The streets stretched endlessly ahead of me, bending and splitting, swallowing me deeper into the city. Familiar landmarks passed without meaning. Tokyo felt vast and indifferent, a machine that didn't notice when something small broke inside it.
I didn't pray.
I didn't curse.
I repeated their names instead, over and over, like a rhythm I couldn't afford to lose.
Mom.
Renya.
Mom.
Renya.
The words kept time with the engine, with my pulse, with the rain pounding against my skull.
If I stopped — even for a second — I was afraid everything would collapse at once.
Mom. Renya. Please.
My brother's face forced its way into my thoughts without warning. His laugh. Casual. Tired. Like there would always be another day.
"Watch him for me," he'd said once, placing Renya in my arms.
I hadn't asked when.
I hadn't asked how long.
At the time, it hadn't felt necessary.
Now it felt like a mistake carved into stone.
A car swerved as I shot past it, horn blaring, headlights flaring bright enough to blind me for a heartbeat. Someone shouted something — anger, fear, warning — I couldn't tell.
I didn't hear it.
The rain swallowed everything but the engine and my breathing.
The sword was still in my hand.
I hadn't noticed when my grip had tightened, knuckles aching, muscles locked. The faint glow along its edge reflected off passing signs, a narrow, impossible line cutting through the night.
No one followed me.
No one tried to stop me.
The city let me pass.
And that scared me more than if it hadn't.
Because it felt like the world had already decided —
whatever was happening tonight
wasn't something it wanted to be involved in.
I leaned forward, accelerating harder. The bike shuddered beneath me as I pushed it past what felt safe, past what felt reasonable.
My vision tunneled.
Hospital.
Shinsei General Hospital.
The name repeated in my head like a destination and a warning all at once.
Somewhere ahead, my family was breaking apart under fluorescent lights and antiseptic air, and I was still racing through rain as if speed could negotiate with fate.
I didn't know what I would find when I got there.
I only knew this —
I was already too late for something.
And whatever waited for me at the end of this road
wasn't going to let me stay the same.
What did they want me to see?
✦ End of Chapter 6 — No One Came ✦