Rukongai smelled like ash and piss when it rained. The kind of smell that settled into your soul and reminded you what you were worth.
Kaito crouched low behind a half-collapsed spirit kiln, fingers brushing bone fragments from a freshly killed Hollow. The thing hadn't even finished fading when he started slicing bits off with his dull knife.
"Reactor bone's still hot," he muttered, wiping sweat from his lip. "Could fetch at least… thirty kan."
He pocketed the shard, burned his thumb in the process, and winced. The wound hissed faintly. That wasn't normal.
He looked at the broken Hollow. It hadn't died right. Its mask cracked like porcelain, but the black ichor beneath was… off. Thick. Laced with faint red veins that throbbed as they faded.
Kaito didn't care. Not really. He couldn't afford to.
Ten minutes later, he ducked into a collapsed sake stall where Ginta, a fence with three teeth and one eye, sat puffing on a soulweed pipe.
Ginta looked him up and down. "You smell like guilt, boy."
"I smell like cash," Kaito said, tossing the warm bone into his lap.
Ginta grunted. Licked it. Then bit it. "You're late."
"I was killing something." Kaito leaned against the frame, shaking his hand from the burn.
"You always bring me the ugliest pieces."
"Ugly sells."
Ginta grunted again. Then leaned in close and whispered, "You want something real? There's a stone. Pulled outta the Valley's edge. Got a reiatsu burn on the handler's palm—ate his prints off."
Kaito raised an eyebrow.
"Still sealed. Still warm. Still whispering. I'll trade you for it."
"What do you want?"
Ginta smiled, showing one molar and a rotted gumline. "The guts of a Shinigami."
Kaito stared.
"…Kidding. Kidding." Ginta waved it off. "Just bring me another Hollow core next moon."
He handed over a small cloth bundle, black as sin. It pulsed faintly, even under wrap.
Kaito should've walked away.
Instead, he tucked it in his coat and left.
He didn't make it twenty steps before a voice cut through the alley.
"Drop the relic, streetrat."
Three Soul Reapers in faded uniforms stepped into the light, swords half-drawn. One wore a lieutenant badge—though it looked like he'd inherited it, not earned it.
Kaito raised his hands. "Didn't know it was stolen."
"You think this is about theft?" The leader nodded to his squad. "Confiscate it. Kill him if he resists."
"No trial?"
"No time."
The air cracked.
Kaito moved on instinct, darting left into a cluttered courtyard. A Byakurai spell hissed past his ear and lit a tree on fire. He ducked behind a crate, heart pounding.
He tried to focus. Hands shaking, he raised two fingers and whispered, "Hadō number… shit, number four—Byakurai."
The spell backfired instantly—no light, just a sound like tearing paper. His hand went numb.
"Found him!" one of the Reapers shouted.
They rushed forward.
Kaito reached for the cloth bundle.
The moment his fingers touched the relic, it screamed.
Not out loud. In his head.
It split open like a cracked tooth, and a black flame erupted, curling around his wrist and up his arm, peeling skin, rewriting veins. Time slowed. The Soul Reapers stopped mid-strike, frozen in horror.
A voice purred from inside the fire.
"What a broken little boy… How delicious."
Kaito's knees buckled. His vision doubled. The world smelled like copper and perfume and blood. And heat—not warmth, but presence. Hungry, ancient.
"Get out of my head!" he choked.
"You opened me. You breathe me. We are already lovers, Kaito."
The flame swallowed him whole.
When the smoke cleared, two of the Soul Reapers were on the ground, twitching. Their bodies weren't burned—they were withered, as if years had been drained in seconds. The last one crawled away, sobbing.
Kaito stood in the center of the courtyard. Barely breathing. Smoke leaked from his fingertips. His coat had burned off one sleeve. His eyes flickered red for a second—then gold.
The relic was gone.
But the fire was inside him now.
Later, in the outer district ruins, Kaito knelt beside a broken fountain, splashing filthy rainwater on his face.
His reflection looked wrong.
His left eye burned faintly around the iris. A flicker of something deeper beneath the surface.
He unbuttoned his shirt.
There—etched across his chest—was a circular brand of black flame, like ink that shifted beneath the skin. Jagged lines, curling inward. A gate that pulsed with every heartbeat.
He reached to touch it.
His fingers shook.
"I'm called Yami."
The voice was quieter now. Closer. Intimate.
"You're not real," he said under his breath.
"Then stop hearing me."
Silence.
Kaito exhaled, slow. The heat didn't leave his body. He didn't know if it ever would.
He stood, picked up the rusted sword one of the Reapers had dropped, and walked toward the smoke rising in the east.
He didn't look back.