The city is a river of a different kind—a flood of flesh and stone, where the current of humanity flows so fast that a single drowning soul may go unnoticed until it is too late.
Aobara was a sprawl of wood and paper, of narrow alleys and broad avenues, of lantern-lit markets and shadowed tenements that leaned toward each other as if sharing secrets. It was the largest city Kaito had ever seen, and it overwhelmed him from the moment he passed through its gates.
The smell was the first thing he noticed—a thick, cloying mixture of cooking oil, unwashed bodies, incense from the shrines, and the ever-present undertone of sewage from the canals that crisscrossed the city like veins. The noise was the second—a constant, cacophonous roar of merchants hawking their wares, children shouting, cart wheels grinding on cobblestones, and somewhere, always, the distant thrum of a drum or a shamisen from one of the entertainment districts.
He found the Vanguard safe house with difficulty, following a series of discreet markers that Genzo had taught him—a certain knot in a wooden pillar, a particular arrangement of stones in a garden, a faded paper charm hung at a specific angle. It was a small, unassuming tea house in a quiet district, its sign faded, its windows shuttered. The woman who ran it, a plump, cheerful matron named Chie, took one look at the iron token he presented and ushered him into a back room without a word.
"Your partner arrived yesterday," she said, her voice a low murmur as she poured him a cup of tea. "He's been… nervous."
As if on cue, a door at the back of the room slid open, and a young man stumbled through.
Ren Shirogane was a study in contrasts. He was handsome in a delicate, almost feminine way, with large, dark eyes and hair the color of pale straw that fell across his face in unkempt strands. He wore the standard Vanguard uniform—a dark jacket and hakama—but it seemed to hang on him, as if he had shrunk since it was tailored. He was trembling, his hands clasped in front of him, his gaze darting around the room as if expecting an attack at any moment.
But it was his ears that drew Kaito's attention. The left one was scarred, the outer cartilage twisted and melted, the canal sealed shut. A childhood accident, perhaps, or something worse. Ren walked with his head tilted slightly to the right, as if perpetually listening for a sound he could only hear with one ear.
"You're Kaito?" Ren's voice was high, almost squeaky, and it cracked on the second syllable. "The one from the mountain? The one with the—with the box?"
He was staring at the wooden box on Kaito's back, his eyes wide with something that looked like terror.
"My sister sleeps during the day," Kaito said, keeping his voice calm. "She won't harm you."
"Harm me? I'm not—I'm not worried about her harming me." Ren let out a nervous laugh that bordered on hysterical. "I'm worried about me. I'm worried about everything. I'm worried about this mission. I'm worried about that tea. I'm worried about the fact that I'm standing here talking to you when I should be hiding under a bed somewhere."
He was pacing now, his hands waving. "Do you know how I passed the Gauntlet of Thorns? I fell. I tripped over a root about ten steps in and rolled down a ravine. I hit my head. When I woke up, I was in a cave. And I stayed there. For seven days. I ate moss. I drank water dripping from the walls. And I listened to the screams."
He stopped, his chest heaving. His eyes, when they met Kaito's, were haunted. "I didn't kill a single Hollowed. I didn't even see one. I just… hid."
Kaito studied him for a long moment. He thought of Genzo's words: When he swings his sword, the Hollowed die. He does not remember doing it.
"Then why did you become a swordsman?" Kaito asked.
Ren's face crumpled. For a moment, Kaito thought he was going to cry. But instead, he let out another of those nervous laughs, this one softer, sadder.
"Because my master believed in me," he said. "And I'm too much of a coward to tell him he was wrong."
The mission began that night.
The Hollowed they were hunting had been preying on the night markets of the southern district—a labyrinth of stalls and alleyways where the city's poor and desperate gathered after dark. Victims were found drained of blood, their bodies discarded in the canals, their faces frozen in expressions of impossible ecstasy.
"It's a seductress type," Chie had told them, spreading a rough map across the table. "She targets lonely men, lures them with promises of comfort, then feeds. She's clever. She hasn't stayed in one place long enough to be cornered."
Kaito and Ren moved through the market, the crowds parting around them. Kaito's Sunstone Blade was hidden beneath his jacket, but his hand rested on the hilt, ready. Ren walked beside him, his own blade—a Sunstone Blade of a pale, electric yellow, like trapped lightning—tucked against his side. He was shaking, his steps hesitant, his eyes constantly scanning the crowd with the frantic alertness of a rabbit in a field of hawks.
"There," Kaito said quietly, nodding toward a narrow alley between two food stalls.
A woman stood at the entrance to the alley, her kimono a splash of crimson in the lantern light, her face half-hidden by a silk umbrella. She was beautiful in a way that seemed almost too perfect—her skin flawless, her hair a cascade of ink-black silk, her lips curved in a smile that promised warmth and danger in equal measure.
She was looking at them.
"She knows," Ren whispered, his voice barely audible. "She knows we're here."
The woman's smile widened. Then she turned and vanished into the alley, her umbrella dipping out of sight.
Kaito moved without thinking, his body surging forward. He heard Ren's sharp intake of breath behind him, then the patter of footsteps as the other swordsman followed.
The alley was a dead end, a narrow passage lined with overflowing garbage bins and the back doors of shuttered shops. But the woman was not there. The alley was empty.
"Where—" Kaito began.
A sound came from above.
He looked up just as the woman dropped from the roof, her umbrella cast aside, her face no longer beautiful. It was stretched, her mouth split to the ears, her eyes gone to white, her fingers elongated into claws. She landed on Ren, bearing him to the ground with a shriek of triumph.
"Ren!" Kaito drew his blade, the copper hue flaring to life in the darkness.
But Ren was already moving—or rather, his body was moving without him. His eyes had rolled back in his head, his limbs jerking as if pulled by invisible strings. The pale yellow Sunstone Blade was in his hand, and it was singing.
First Form: Resounding Thunder—Clap.
The blade moved faster than Kaito could follow. There was a sound like thunder cracking directly overhead, a flash of light, and the woman was no longer on Ren. She was ten feet away, her claws scrabbling at the cobblestones, a deep wound across her chest weeping black blood.
Ren lay motionless where she had dropped him, his sword still in his hand, his chest rising and falling in the deep, even rhythm of sleep.
The woman—the Hollowed—pushed herself up, her face a mask of rage. Her wounds were already closing, the flesh knitting together with sickening speed. She fixed her white eyes on Kaito and lunged.
He was ready.
Second Form: Flowing River—Catar's Fall.
The same technique he had used on the mountain, but now with a blade that could truly kill. He met her lunge with a descending slash that she barely dodged, her claws raking across his shoulder as she twisted aside. The pain was a sharp, bright flare, but he used it, channeling it into his next movement.
Third Form: Flowing River—Eddying Current.
He spun, his blade tracing a wide, circular arc, the motion drawing the Hollowed into his orbit. She tried to retreat, but the current of his sword was already pulling her, her own momentum working against her. His blade caught her across the throat—not deep enough to sever, but deep enough to slow her.
She shrieked, her claws flailing. Kaito ducked under a wild swing and drove his shoulder into her chest, slamming her against the brick wall of the alley. She was stronger than him, far stronger, but she was off-balance, her wounds slowing her regeneration.
He brought the Sunstone Blade up, the copper edge pressing against the side of her neck.
"Wait," she hissed, her voice a wet, gurgling rasp. "Wait, please. I was like you once. I had a family. I had—"
"You chose this," Kaito said, and he thought of his mother, his father, his little brothers and sisters, their lives snuffed out by a creature just like this one. "You chose to feed."
"I was hungry!" The words tore from her, raw and desperate. "I didn't want to die!"
Kaito's blade did not waver. But something in his chest cracked. He thought of Yuki. Of the hunger she fought every day. Of the thin line she walked between humanity and monstrosity.
"I'm sorry," he said, and he meant it.
He cut.
The blade sheared through flesh and bone, and the Hollowed's head fell from her shoulders, her body dissolving into ash before it hit the ground. The head followed a moment later, the features melting away until all that remained was a pile of grey dust, stirred by the night breeze.
Kaito stood over the ashes, his chest heaving, his blade dripping with black blood that evaporated as he watched. The copper hue faded, the fire within the sword subsiding.
Behind him, Ren stirred with a groan.
"Did we win?" he mumbled, pushing himself up on his elbows. He looked at the ash pile, then at Kaito's bleeding shoulder, and his face went pale. "Oh no. Oh no. Did I—did I do something?"
"You saved my life," Kaito said, sheathing his blade. He turned to look at Ren, this strange, terrified boy who became something else entirely when unconsciousness took him. "And then you fell asleep."
Ren stared at him, his expression a mixture of relief and horror. "I don't remember. I never remember."
Kaito extended a hand to help him up. "Then I'll remember for both of us."
Ren stared at the offered hand for a long moment, as if it might bite him. Then, slowly, he took it.