The shrine grounds still smelled of smoke and splintered cedar. The sound of crunching boots carried across the rubble-strewn courtyard as several police units arrived, their flashlights cutting harsh cones through the night. Radios crackled with clipped orders, the officers whispering among themselves as they tried to make sense of the devastation.
Detective Lisa Carter ducked under the police tape and stepped into the ruined shrine. Her eyes widened slightly at the wreckage—splintered beams, shattered lanterns, scorch marks across the tatami mats. It looked less like an accident and more like a battlefield.
She spotted a familiar figure standing near a toppled dragon statue, his shirt torn and streaked with dirt and blood.
"Reid?" Carter said, voice a mixture of sarcasm and worry. "What the hell happened to you?"
Reid glanced up, face battered but composed. "I'm alright. Don't worry about it."
Carter folded her arms. "That's not what I asked."
She studied him. Scratches carved across his forearm, and there was a deep bruise along his jaw. He looked like he had gone twelve rounds with a man twice his size. More than that, he looked like he was hiding something.
Carter's eyes swept over the wreckage again. Wooden splinters and broken weapons littered the floor. The walls were scarred with gashes that looked less like fire damage and more like claw marks. She muttered under her breath, "What happened here? It's like a bomb exploded in here."
Reid tried to hold her gaze, tried to sound steady. "That's exactly what it was. Some kind of… gas line explosion, maybe. Could've been a bomb."
But Carter's eyes narrowed. She was a detective, after all. She'd worked with Reid long enough to know when he was feeding her a line. "How do you fit into all of this?" she asked, her voice lower now, almost accusing. "When did you get here?"
Reid's throat tightened. He felt the lie forming, but the weight of her eyes crushed it. He knew he couldn't hide behind half-truths forever. He took a deep breath, ready to let some piece of it slip. But before he could open his mouth, Carter's phone rang, sharp in the heavy silence.
She sighed, answered, then walked a few paces away to take the call.
The moment she left, Chiaki approached quietly, her boots barely disturbing the debris. She stood beside Reid, eyes fixed on Carter.
"You didn't tell her, did you?" Chiaki asked softly.
Reid exhaled. "No. She doesn't know about us—the Exorcists. She doesn't know that spirits and demons are roaming this city."
Chiaki's expression was unreadable. "And you think that's best?"
"Yes," Reid said firmly, but there was doubt under the steel. "I'm not sure how she'd react. Lisa doesn't even understand how people can kill one another. To throw demons on top of that? It'd be an overload. I still remember my first time seeing one. I froze. Couldn't believe something like that existed outside of movies. If it wasn't for you, I don't know what would've happened to me."
Chiaki tilted her head, remembering. "I remember. After that night, you wouldn't stop asking questions. About demons. About the spirits. About us."
Before he could respond, Lisa returned. She slid her phone back into her pocket. "That was the boss," she said briskly. "A couple of kids—high school students—were found shot dead in an alley not far from here. I need to head over there. I'm trusting you to handle things here, Reid."
Her eyes lingered on him, suspicious, but she turned and left with the officers.
Chiaki folded her arms. "You should tell her. It's better to know the truth, even if it's ugly. Not everyone is as lucky as you were."
Reid's jaw tightened. "I'll tell her when the time is right."
The alley smelled of gunpowder and copper. Police cars lined the narrow street, red and blue lights washing against the walls. Detective Carter crouched beside the bodies.
The young couple lay sprawled where they had fallen—just teenagers. The boy had collapsed on his side, his arm stretched as if trying to shield the girl. His body was riddled with two clean bullet wounds. One shot had taken him through the head, the exit wound spraying the bricks behind him. The girl lay only a foot away, her blouse soaked crimson from a bullet that had pierced her chest. Their blood pooled together on the cracked concrete.
Carter's stomach knotted. She forced herself to keep professional detachment, but something about the way their hands almost touched tore at her.
An officer handed her a folded note. She opened it. On one side, in sharp block letters, was written: Who am I?
Lisa frowned. Did the killer leave this? What are they trying to say? The question wasn't rhetorical—it felt personal, taunting. A challenge.
She rose and walked toward the brick wall. There, drawn in the couple's blood, was the symbol: a crude circle with an eye in the middle. The blood dripped down the bricks, thick and deliberate.
Her breath caught. She knew this mark. She had seen it before.
In her mind, she saw the Robertson family crime scene—the parents found dead in their bed, the walls painted with blood, and that same eye-circle symbol drawn above their heads.
Her hands tightened around the note. "You again," she muttered.
Back at the precinct, Carter sat at her desk with old files spread around her like a paper storm. The evidence photos, crime reports, autopsies—all of it stared back at her under the harsh fluorescent light.
She pulled one file close, the Robertson case. The same eye symbol marked the wall above their bed. Then another file—the Morrisons. Another couple, shot in their living room. The same note. The same symbol.
She kept going. The Alvarez case. The Samuels case. The Tanners.
Five cases total, spanning the last ten years. All couples. All murdered in brutal, precise ways. Every single scene had two things in common: a note reading Who am I? and the blood-drawn circle-eye symbol.
Lisa scribbled in her notebook, drawing lines between the cases. The killer had been active for a decade, yet the cases were scattered, hidden among the city's endless crime sprees. No one had connected them before. But now, standing in front of her, the pattern was undeniable.
She froze when she opened the fifth file—the Tate case. The victims: a young man and his fiancée. But unlike the others, there had been a survivor.
The report included a black-and-white photo of the survivor, taken during questioning. A young man in his twenties, his expression distant, haunted. His cheek was bruised, his eyes shadowed by trauma.
Carter leaned forward, heart pounding. The face was older now, lined by years of wisdom, but she recognized it immediately.
It was the same man she had seen standing in the shrine earlier that night. The shrine keeper.
Sensei.
She whispered to herself, "What the hell…?"
The realization chilled her blood.
The one man who had survived the killer's rampage… was still alive. And he was connected to the very place that had just erupted with inexplicable violence.
Her pen slipped from her fingers, rolling across the desk.
The symbol on the wall. The note. The survivor.
It was all connected.