The train was a rusted ribcage of iron and glass screaming through the dark.
I leaned my forehead against the vibrating window, watching the neon lights of District 9 blur into a long, sickly smear of violet and orange.
My reflection looked back at me.
Sunken eyes. A pale, jagged scar running beneath my jawline.
I looked like a man who had been dead for a week and simply forgot to fall over.
Every time I used the Requiem Authority, the world felt… thinner.
As if the reality I touched was a cheap piece of fabric that I was slowly tearing apart with my bare hands.
The itch on my palm was no longer an itch. It was a rhythmic pulse, a second heartbeat that didn't match the one in my chest.
I pulled my glove tighter.
The new petal on the black lotus mark felt heavy. It didn't just look like ink; it felt like a lead weight grafted into my skin.
A Shinigami's essence isn't meant to be handled by a human. It's poison. It's concentrated entropy.
By forcing that collector to leave without its toll, I hadn't saved Miller. I had merely redirected the debt.
The universe is a cruel accountant. It never loses a cent.
"Next stop: Sector 4. Iron Lung Terminal," the automated voice droned.
The voice was glitchy, distorted by the electromagnetic interference that plagued the lower districts.
I stood up, my joints popping like dry twigs.
The passengers around me didn't look up. They were the "Hollows"—people who had sold too much of themselves in contracts they couldn't afford.
One woman sat across from me, her eyes replaced by glowing blue lenses. A contract for sight, likely bought from a bottom-tier Shinigami in exchange for her ability to feel warmth.
She was shivering, even though the train was sweltering.
That was the trade. You get to see the world, but you can never feel it again.
I stepped out onto the platform.
The air in Sector 4 tasted of grease and cheap ozone.
This was the industrial gut of the city, where the smoke from the foundries never cleared, and the sun was a myth whispered by the elderly.
I didn't go to my main apartment. That place was a tomb I visited only when I wanted to be found.
Instead, I headed toward a crumbling tenement building wedged between a chemical warehouse and a dead-end canal.
I climbed the stairs, skipping the third and seventh steps. The wood didn't creak if you knew where the rot was.
Unit 402.
I didn't use a key. I tapped a specific rhythm on the doorframe.
A second later, the heavy steel bolt slid back with a dull thud.
I walked in. The room was dark, lit only by the green glow of several computer monitors and a single hanging bulb in the kitchen.
"You're late, Ren," a voice said from the shadows.
It was a dry, clinical voice.
Ahn Jisoo sat at a cluttered desk, his fingers dancing across a holographic keyboard. He didn't look back.
He didn't need to.
Jisoo was a sniper by trade, but his real value lay in his eyes.
He had made a contract with a minor deity of Time. In exchange for his ability to dream, he could see five seconds into the immediate future.
To him, I had already walked into the room five seconds ago.
"Ran into a collector," I said, dropping into a moth-eaten armchair.
Jisoo's fingers froze.
He turned around, his eyes glowing with a faint, unnatural amber light. He looked at my gloved hand.
"You didn't just run into it," Jisoo whispered. "You broke it."
"It was going for a broker I needed. I didn't have time to negotiate."
Jisoo let out a short, harsh laugh.
"Negotiate? Humans don't negotiate with the end, Ren. They submit. Or they pay. You… you just slapped the hand of God and told it to go home."
He stood up, walking toward me with a slight limp.
"How many petals?"
I hesitated, then pulled off the glove.
The black lotus was sprawling, its edges jagged and dark. The new petal was a deep, bruised purple, shimmering with an oil-slick luster.
Jisoo hissed through his teeth.
"Six. You're at six already."
"I know the count, Jisoo."
"Do you? Because at twelve, the Requiem doesn't just subjugate them. It opens the gate. You won't be a Sovereign anymore. You'll be a door."
I leaned my head back and closed my eyes.
The darkness behind my eyelids wasn't empty. I could still see the Pale Watcher standing under that streetlamp.
"I got a message," I said, changing the subject. "The First Relic. It surfaced."
Jisoo's expression shifted from concern to cold, professional focus.
He walked back to his monitors and flicked a screen toward me.
It showed a grainy satellite image of the northern docks. A massive shipping container was glowing with a strange, bioluminescent hue.
"The Obsidian Relic," Jisoo said. "The Stone of Oblivion. The Archive has been hunting it for three decades. If they get their hands on it, they won't just control the contracts. They'll be able to rewrite them."
"The message told me to run," I muttered.
"It wasn't a warning for your safety, Ren," Jisoo said, his amber eyes locking onto mine. "Think. Why would someone tell you to run from a Relic?"
I frowned. The headache was returning, a dull throb behind my left temple.
"Because they don't want me to get near it."
"No," Jisoo said, his voice dropping to a whisper. "They told you to run because they know what happens when you and a Relic are in the same room. You're an anomaly, Ren. Your power doesn't just ignore the laws of the Shinigami. It negates them."
He tapped a key, and a new window opened.
It was a police scanner feed.
*"...all units to Sector 4. Code Black. High-level Contractor spotted near the Iron Lung Terminal. Target is Kurogami Ren. Authorized use of lethal force. Do not engage in dialogue..."*
My heart skipped a beat.
They were already here.
"How long?" I asked, my hand moving instinctively to the hidden holster beneath my coat.
Jisoo's eyes flared bright amber. He was looking five seconds ahead.
"Four," he counted down.
"Three."
I stood up, feeling the cold power of the Requiem stirring in my marrow.
"Two."
Jisoo dove behind his desk.
"One."
The door didn't explode. It simply ceased to exist.
A wave of white, searing light flooded the room, turning the furniture into charcoal in a heartbeat.
I didn't move. I didn't breathe.
I raised my left hand.
The black lotus glowed, casting a shadow so thick it acted like a shield, splitting the white light in two.
The heat was unbearable, the smell of burning carpet filling my lungs.
Through the haze of smoke and light, a figure stepped into the apartment.
He wore a pristine white suit that didn't have a single speck of dust on it. His hair was slicked back, and he carried a silver cane topped with a human molar.
An Inquisitor from the Archive.
"Kurogami Ren," the man said, his voice smooth and devoid of emotion. "The man who steals from the grave."
He tapped his cane on the floor.
The shadows in the room began to scream.
Not metaphorically. The actual shadows on the walls—the ones cast by the chairs, the desk, even my own shadow—began to twist and lengthen, turning into jagged blades of darkness.
"The Archive doesn't like loose ends," the Inquisitor continued. "And you are the loosest end we've ever encountered."
I felt the Requiem rising, a tidal wave of ice-cold void.
But as I prepared to crush his will, something happened.
The petal on my hand. The new one.
It pulsed.
A sharp, agonizing pain shot up my arm, paralyzing my shoulder.
My shadow, instead of obeying me, lunged.
But it didn't lunge at the Inquisitor.
It turned around and wrapped its dark, clawed fingers around my own throat.
The Inquisitor smiled, a slow, predatory thinness of the lips.
"Did you really think there was no price, Ren?"
I clawed at my own shadow, my breath hitching as the darkness tightened.
"The Shinigami you let go tonight… he didn't just leave," the Inquisitor whispered, stepping closer. "He went back to the Archive. He gave us his name. He gave us his essence. Just to see you suffer."
I looked at Jisoo. He was pinned against the wall by a spike of shadow, blood leaking from his mouth.
He looked at me, his amber eyes fading.
"Ren…" he gasped. "Don't… don't look back."
I didn't understand.
But then, I felt it.
A presence behind me. Inside the room.
The air didn't turn cold this time. It turned silent.
A hand, cold as the vacuum of space, rested on my shoulder.
I didn't need to turn around to know who it was.
The Pale Watcher.
For the first time in thirteen years, he wasn't across the street.
He was standing right behind me.
And then, he spoke.
One word.
A word that shattered every window in the building and sent the Inquisitor screaming to his knees.
*"Pay."*
The world went black.
When I opened my eyes, the Inquisitor was gone. The apartment was a ruin.
And I was holding a small, black stone in my hand that hadn't been there before.
The Obsidian Relic.
The price hadn't been paid by me.
It had been paid by the city.
Distantly, I heard the sound of ten thousand people screaming at once as they all lost their memories in the same heartbeat.
The Stone of Oblivion had activated.
And I was the only one who remembered who I was.
Or so I thought.
My phone, lying cracked on the floor, lit up one last time.
[Now they know what you are. They are coming for the heart.]
I looked at the stone. It felt warm.
Too warm.
Like a heart that was still beating.
I looked at my hand.
The seventh petal had bloomed.
I wasn't running anymore.
I was the hunt.
And the Archive had just given me the only weapon that could kill them.
But at what cost?
I looked at Jisoo. He was staring at me.
"Who… who are you?" he asked, his voice empty.
He had forgotten me.
The only friend I had left was gone.
I was alone in a city of strangers.
And the Watcher was still standing in the corner of my eye.
Waiting for the eighth petal.
I gripped the relic until my knuckles turned white.
"Fine," I whispered to the shadows. "Let's see how much this world can afford to lose."