The moon hung low and pale in the night sky, casting a sickly, melancholic glow over the deserted district.
A slender silhouette flickered against the cold pavement, moving with a rhythmic grace that belied the growing tension in the air. Utaha Kasumigaoka walked alone, her long, ink-black hair swaying in the biting wind, trailing the faint, elegant scent of her perfume. Under the lunar light, her porcelain features were sharpened into a portrait of ethereal beauty, though her brow was knitted in a subtle, persistent frown.
She kept her gaze lowered, the screen of her smartphone illuminating her violet eyes.
"Urban Legend or Living Nightmare? Recent Sightings of 'Monsters' Preying on Schoolgirls Spark Panic."
Utaha's lip curled into a cynical line. Modern media was a parasite, she told herself, thriving on sensationalism and manufactured terror just to drive engagement. It was a farce—a collection of ghost stories designed to keep the masses trembling.
Yet, as the wind whistled through the narrow alleyways and the shadows began to stretch like grasping fingers, the logic of a novelist felt increasingly frail. The street was too quiet. The darkness felt too heavy. Despite her outward disdain for the headlines, a cold prickle of apprehension danced across the nape of her neck.
Click. Echo. Click.
The sharp staccato of her heels against the concrete rang out with unnerving clarity. Utaha adjusted her stride, her legs—clad in signature black hosiery—moving faster. She watched the sky with a sense of brewing urgency; the thick, bruised clouds were drifting closer to the moon, threatening to swallow the last of the silver light.
I should have stayed home, she thought, a bitter edge to her internal monologue.
She had ventured out to clear her head, the lukewarm reception of Koisuru Metronome's latest chapters weighing on her spirit. She had hoped the evening air would offer inspiration, but the wind felt like a blade against her skin, and the moon offered no solace—only a chilling reminder of how vulnerable she was.
Click-clack. Click-clack.
The rhythm changed.
At first, it was a subtle disharmony, a secondary beat falling just a fraction of a second after her own. But as she accelerated, the second pair of footsteps mirrored her pace. They weren't the sharp strikes of a dress shoe; they were heavy, dragging thuds that suggested something dense, something powerful.
Her heart hammered against her ribs like a trapped bird.
Faster. Just a little faster. She refused to look back. If she looked, she would acknowledge the reality of the predator. She just needed to reach the glow of the main road, to get back to the sanctuary of her apartment before the clouds finished their slow crawl across the moon.
Clack-clack-clack!
The pursuit intensified. The heavy breathing behind her began to take on a wet, rasping quality—a sound of dry leaves being crushed by a boot, mixed with the hiss of a dying radiator.
"No…" she whispered, her voice trembling.
The nightmare from the headlines had found her.
Utaha lunged forward, desperate to break into a sprint, but her luck vanished with the light. Her heel caught on a jagged pebble. Gravity betrayed her. With a sharp gasp, she tumbled forward, her palms scraping harshly against the grit of the sidewalk.
Pain flared in her leg. A jagged tear ruined her stockings, and the metallic scent of fresh blood began to seep into the air, vivid and hot.
"Not now," she hissed, biting her lip until it nearly bled. She braced her hands against the cold concrete, straining to push herself up, but the world suddenly went black. Above, the clouds finally smothered the moon, erasing her shadow and plunging the street into an oppressive, suffocating gloom.
The air behind her grew foul with the stench of rot and ozone.
"Khhh… huuuu…"
A guttural, bestial wheeze vibrated in the air just inches away. It wasn't human. The sound of grinding teeth—bone on bone—echoed in the silence.
"Meat…" a voice rasped, a distorted caricature of human speech. "Young… tender… human meat…"
Utaha froze, the blood in her veins turning to ice. She could hear the creature's joints popping as it crouched, preparing to claim its prize. The darkness was absolute, a shroud for the violence about to unfold.
Then, through the terror, came a new sound.
Thump. Thump. Thump.
Steady. Calm. Deliberate.
The footsteps were heavy, yet they carried an undeniable weight of authority, as if the very ground was honored to be stepped upon.
"So," a voice resonated through the darkness—deep, melodic, and hummed with an undercurrent of absolute power. "You're the Amazon I've heard about. The one with a taste for schoolgirls."
A man emerged from the periphery of the shadows, his presence warping the very air around him. Even in the dark, he seemed to command the space, a Singularity in the middle of a mundane world.
Rin Kuga stepped into the faint periphery of a flickering streetlamp, his eyes cold and fixed on the monster cowering in the dark.