The precinct's archive room smelled like dust and old coffee. Metal shelves caged rows of battered file boxes, the kind of place where stories went to sleep unless someone cared enough to wake them. Detective Reid did. He dragged another box onto the table, the cardboard rasping beneath his fingers. Beside him, Detective Carter sorted photographs into neat rows, her pen ticking against a legal pad in a brisk, nervous rhythm.
"There were three similar crimes," Carter said, placing a manila folder on Reid's desk. "All families' bodies were bitten, and the same symbol—a circle with an eye—was found on a wall in each house. First victims were the Hopkins family: four people, each killed in their own bedrooms, but the symbol showed up in the parents' room. Second victims: the Tanaka family—three bodies, all in the parents' room; symbols above them. Third: the Hernandez family. Only the parents were killed. Their son was at a sleepover with the Perez family. The Perezes found the bodies when they brought him home—Hernandez never showed up to pick him up."
Reid slid the photos closer, his jaw tightening at the gnawed flesh, the torn sheets, the spray of dark maroon. "No forced entry?"
"None," Carter replied. "Windows latched, doors locked. And none of these families had pets—no large dogs, nothing that would leave bite marks like these. Animal control hasn't had any reports of wild animals either." She tapped the symbol in one picture: a circle with an iris scratched into the middle, painted in blood. "It's deliberate. Meaningful to the killer."
"Yeah… it's strange indeed," Reid muttered, leaning back. The fluorescent lights hummed above them like a nest of hornets. "This isn't a slobbering beast; this is a ritual."
Carter's pen paused. "You think we're looking at a cult?"
"I think we're looking at something that wants us to think cult," Reid said. "Or something that doesn't care how human we think it is."
They worked in silence for a beat, the weight of the photos pressing on them. Outside the archive door, phones rang, printers jammed, and a radio crackled through dispatch codes. Inside, the quiet deepened, brittle and heavy as old bones.
"Put Robertson on the list," Reid said finally. "Same M.O., same symbol. Whatever this is… it's active."
Carter scribbled the name, then shut the file with a soft thud that felt like a promise.
Morning unrolled in sheets of gold across Aozora High School, warming concrete, glass, and the river of students flowing through the gate. They were a sea of chatter and sneakers, the ungainly ballet of adolescence—until she walked in.
Mamushi drifted through the gate the way a breeze moves a wind chime—effortless, deliberate, and impossible to ignore. A white blouse, a black pencil skirt, hair gleaming like ink. She let the morning light polish her edges until they glittered. Heads turned. Whispers popped like soap bubbles. Jealousy bloomed in little gasps. She smiled, slow and bright.
"That's right, boys," she murmured to herself. "Look all you like. Make your girlfriends furious."
Hunger licked at her ribs. So many throats, so many pulses. She could devour half this courtyard before anyone screamed. But she kept her face soft, her steps measured. She wasn't here to gorge. Jack's orders rattled in her pocket—Jay, red hoodie; Ellie, the prize. Any misstep would bring the exorcists running, and she had no desire to taste holy ash today.
Her plan was simple: become a teacher. Students trusted teachers, especially beautiful ones. Principals always thought with their softest organs. Then she'd be close enough to pluck the target out of the herd.
In the main hall, she passed a woman in a nurse's coat—short dark hair, eyes like scalpels. The woman's shoulders stiffened almost imperceptibly as Mamushi drifted by.
"Are you lost?" the nurse asked, turning.
"Excuse me?" Mamushi pivoted, masking her annoyance as curiosity. "As a matter of fact, I am. Where is the principal's office?"
"End of the hall, then right." The nurse's gaze didn't blink.
"Thank you." Mamushi glided away, feeling the prick of those eyes between her shoulder blades. Interesting.
She rapped once on the principal's door and entered when a flustered voice called, "Come in!"
The principal was middle-aged, balding, cheeks oversoft and pink. He rose, fumbled with his tie, sat, then stood again, his eyes ping-ponging as if he had forgotten how to be a person.
"How… how can I—I help you?" he stammered.
"I'd like to apply as a teacher," Mamushi said, letting sunlight catch her profile.
"Oh! Ah—yes, of course—please, sit." He swallowed. "Which subject?"
"Science," she said, the first word that felt clinical enough to pass.
"Excellent. We'll need your teaching degree, references, the usual—"
She crossed the room slowly, her skirt whispering against her thighs, and perched on the edge of his desk, just close enough to fog the glass frame of his family photo with her breath. "Documentation?" she said softly. "Is that really necessary?"
"It's… a standard procedure," he managed, though his pupils had dilated, and his fingers were kneading a stress ball he didn't know he was holding. "For school safety."
She tilted his chin up with one finger, let him fall into the sheen of her eyes, and whispered, "I am the safest thing in this room. I'm going to be the new science teacher."
Something in him folded, like wet paper. "Yes… ma'am."
"Good." She slid off the desk, the air cooling as she moved away. "Then that's sorted."
The hall smelled of floor wax and vending machine sugar. She was halfway to the stairs when a flash of red snagged her gaze. There—there. The hoodie. Jay. Beside him, a small figure eased out of a classroom, pale and delicate—the photograph came to life. Ellie.
A fizz of triumph rose in her throat. She smoothed it down. Not here. Not with the nurse prowling and the halls bristling with witnesses.
"Hi there," she said, gliding toward them.
Jay turned with the flinch of someone used to bad surprises. "Hi?" he said. He looked at her like she might bite.
"I'm Yumi," she lied sweetly. "Your new science teacher."
"So the teacher really is sick today," Jay murmured. Luck brushed her shoulder like a friendly cat.
She leaned in, lowering her voice to something confidential. "That's why I'm here as a replacement. I was hoping to—"
"There you are, Jay." The voice cut cleanly between them. The nurse from the hall—Chiaki—appeared with no sound of footsteps. "We need to talk. Urgently. My apologies, ma'am." She smiled without warmth. "School business."
Annoyance pinched hard beneath Mamushi's ribs. "Of course," she said, pressing the smile wider. "Duty calls."
Chiaki took Jay by the sleeve and steered him away. Ellie's eyes flicked between the two women, then she scurried after Jay, more shadow than girl.
Chiaki didn't scold. She teased—lightly, like a needle before a blood draw. "Training at the shrine doesn't mean skipping to shop, you know."
Jay reddened. "I—I only went for a bit."
"And with company," Chiaki added, her gaze level. "A girl, I hear."
Ellie made a sound like steam escaping a kettle. Chiaki hid a grin.
Mamushi stalked the corridors in a patient loop, waiting for the moment a herd animal strayed. She tried the stairwell first, catching Jay alone at the landing as he rummaged in his bag.
"Jay," she said, breathing softly in the hush of concrete. "A word?"
He looked up, mistrust flickering. "Uh—sure?"
"About lab safety," she improvised. "I like to meet students one-on-one. To understand… temperaments."
He opened his mouth to answer—and Chiaki's voice sprang from the bottom of the stairs. "Oh, there you are! Jay, the office needs you to sign something for the nurse—a vaccine form." She squeezed in, shouldering past Mamushi as if by accident, and pressed a pen into Jay's hand, already towing him away.
Later, in the courtyard, Mamushi found Ellie sitting alone on a bench, knees tucked, watching the koi pond with that glassy quiet of a child trying to be small.
"You must be Ellie," Mamushi said, lowering herself to the bench with care. "I have a gift for—"
"Ellie!" Chiaki called, breezing in with a stack of attendance sheets. "I need your help. Your handwriting is so neat."
At lunch, Mamushi angled across the cafeteria, a tray balanced, and slid into the seat opposite Jay. "Mind if I join you?"
"Actually," Chiaki said, appearing with surgical timing and a radiant smile, "we were just leaving." She slipped a hand beneath Jay's elbow. Ellie floated behind them, suspicious as a cat in a thunderstorm.
Three times Mamushi set the snare; three times Chiaki sprang it first. By the last period, Mamushi's smile had the shine of a blade.
The shrine's main hall was an ocean of polished wood and slow light. Sensei moved across it like a shadow remembering it was once a man, his bare feet whispering over the boards, hands carving invisible geometry into the air. Detective Reid hovered in the doorway, watching the old man spar with emptiness, and felt the strangest urge to applaud.
When the sequence ended, Reid did. "Seems the old man's still got moves."
Sensei exhaled a laugh. "Rust moves too, Detective." He took the towel Sota offered and draped it around his neck. "What brings you?"
"Another family," Reid said, all levity gone. He handed over the photos of the Robertson bedroom. "Chewed. Symbol on the wall. We've got three other cases with the same sign."
Sensei's fingers, calloused from years of grip and prayer, paused on the glossy paper. The circle with the eye gazed back at him, and the room tilted, not physically, but along some quiet seam in his mind. He was twenty-three again, a house that smelled of jasmine tea and laundry soap, a woman in a yellow dress laughing as she folded towels. The door splintered. A man in gray, face hidden, arm steady. Bang. She fell before the towel hit the floor. He rushed, unthinking, and the second shot took him in the torso, punched the breath out, turned the ceiling into a white tunnel he swam through, gasping.
He blinked. The shrine returned in pieces—the rafters, the dust, Sota's worried eyes.
"You know the symbol," Reid said quietly.
Sensei nodded, voice scraped raw. "Zodiac Killer."
Reid's eyebrow twitched. "As in the Zodiac? California, ciphers, hood, lake murders. That Zodiac?"
"The same symbol," Sensei said. "He leaves notes. 'Who am I?' followed by his code." He tapped the photo. "But he hunted couples. Not families."
"There were no notes this time," Reid said. "CSI found nothing like that."
"Then it is an echo," Sensei murmured. "A pretender. Or someone borrowing the mask."
"How do you know all this?" Reid asked, though he already suspected.
"Because my wife and I were among his victims," Sensei said without flinching. "I survived. She did not."
Reid bowed his head. "I'm sorry."
"It was a long time ago," Sensei said, which was true the way old scars are true—distant and here every moment. He straightened. "You came for Sota."
Sota stepped forward, jaw set. "If I can see what did this, I will."
"And I'm coming with you," Sensei added, tying his hair. The old fire had crept back behind his eyes, not reckless, but alive.
Reid weighed the request and nodded once. "All right. Let's go wake the dead."
The last bell exploded over Aozora High like a flock of birds, and the corridors belched students in laughing, shouting waves. Jay hunched into his hoodie the way a turtle retracts its head, with Ellie flickering at his shoulder like a skittish lantern.
Mamushi followed at a polite distance, the way a riptide follows a swimmer. She had almost reached out—almost—when a prickling skated down her spine. Someone else was tracking her.
Annoyance flared into anger. She snapped away from Jay and Ellie, cutting down a side street into the thin seam between buildings where the sun barely reached. "You can come out now," she said, voice flat. "I hate being followed."
The nurse detached from the deeper shadow, calm as a thought. "I knew there was something off about you," Chiaki said. "You don't smell like a teacher."
Mamushi's smile split just enough to show the first shine of fang. "You have very good instincts for a school nurse."
"I have very good instincts for a lot of things," Chiaki replied. Her eyes flicked once toward the main street—toward Jay—and then fixed again on Mamushi. "Who sent you?"
"An admirer of children," Mamushi said coolly. "And red hoodies."
Chiaki didn't move, but the air around her tightened. "You won't touch him. Or the girl."
Mamushi's laugh was a coil sliding free. "You think you can stop me?"
Her face slid, skin rippling as if something swam beneath it. Scales surfaced, iridescent as oil. Her hair lifted, each strand stiffening into the idea of a snake. Her pupils contracted to slits, and when she opened her mouth, the hinge seemed unbound, revealing needle fangs and the wet pink darkness of a throat made for swallowing.
Chiaki's right hand flicked, and a spear bloomed out of thin air, a shaft of pale wood banded with charms. It hovered before her at shoulder height, spinning lazily as if eager to fly.
Mamushi struck first, faster than a blink. She snapped forward, arm lancing, fingertips becoming hooked talons. The spear leapt, meeting her with a sharp clang. In the same breath, it split like mercury into twin daggers that screamed through the air and pinned Mamushi's wrists to the brick with a meaty thuck.
"Stay," Chiaki said, and flung a vial of holy water into Mamushi's face.
The droplets sizzled where they landed—but then, stubbornly, went out. Mamushi's smile widened, blood ribboning down her forearms where the blades nailed her. "Oh, exorcist," she purred. "I am not the church mouse you're used to."
Chiaki's expression didn't change. "Upper-class demon," she said softly, assessing. "Chthonic. Venom-based. Traditional binding won't hold."
"Good," Mamushi hissed. "Then let's stop pretending."
The daggers melted into black snakes, scales oozing out around the blades, and sank into Mamushi's wrists, coiling lovingly around her arms. With a wrench of muscles that moved like ropes, she tore free, brick popping, mortar spitting dust. The snakes launched from her forearms at Chiaki, mouths opening like tulip petals, fangs flowering.
Chiaki stepped into the strike, not away from it. Her spear reformed mid-motion, shaft whipping around to sweep the first serpent aside. The second lunged for her throat; the spear's butt cracked its jaw with a sound like a snapped ruler. Chiaki's left hand flicked, and a paper talisman sprang into existence, slapping onto the alley wall. Lines burst across the bricks—an instant circle of containment—and for a heartbeat Mamushi's foot stuck as if the ground had turned to glue.
Chiaki drove in, blade darting for Mamushi's sternum—only to find her target collapse into a cascade of scales. A decoy. The spear sank into a writhing coil; it wasn't a torso at all but a viper the size of a fire hose. Chiaki yanked the spear free and pivoted as the real Mamushi poured out of shadow behind her, hands scissoring for Chiaki's ribs.
The spear intercepted, wood groaning. Chiaki whispered a string of syllables like thrown pebbles. Her weapon shivered, then split into a chain of floating knives that orbited her in a tight corona. She sent three forward; they etched a sigil in the air, lines burning pale blue. Mamushi struck the sigil—and pain flared up her arms, blistering. She recoiled, hissing, eyes blazing with a hatred that felt almost joyful.
"Not bad," Mamushi said, voice rough. "But not enough."
Chiaki feinted high, then slammed the spearpoint low. It punched through Mamushi's belly—only to skewer another serpent, which thrashed and dissolved into smoke. The real Mamushi was already at the alley mouth, half-shadow, half-woman, laughing.
"Catch me next time, nurse," she sang, and slid into the crowd.