The night in the abandoned quarter of Kyoto was unnaturally quiet. Not the silence of sleep, but the kind of void that suggested something had been cut away—like a thread severed from the weave of reality. Shinomiya Reiji felt it in his bones, the pulse of the unseen world shifting around him, as though a hand was deliberately pulling at the fabric of existence.
The air shimmered faintly, and within the distortion he saw it—an unraveling. Entire rows of old houses flickered in and out of sight, their foundations dissolving as if someone were erasing them from memory. Shadows bent unnaturally toward the void, drawn into the absence like moths to a flame.
"This isn't natural," whispered Akari, who had followed Reiji despite his warnings. Her eyes darted between the vanishing structures, fear wrapped around her words. "It's not destruction… it's erasure."
Reiji remained still, his gaze locked on the crumbling street. "Someone is severing the threads of this world," he murmured, the cold edge of realization cutting through his calm facade. "If the weave collapses, memory and existence won't just disappear—they'll never have existed at all."
He felt a tug against his own soul, a familiar pull. Memories. Faint flashes—his mother's voice, the warmth of a childhood summer, the weight of his first blade—flickered and dimmed for an instant. Rage surged inside him, steady and cold. Whoever was behind this was not just a threat to the world—they were reaching for him.
From the edge of the distortion, a figure emerged cloaked in a mantle of pale gray. No face. No voice. Only an outline stitched together by threads of fading light. They raised a hand, and Reiji felt an invisible string wrap around his chest.
"You are bound," the figure intoned, though its voice was not sound but a vibration inside his skull. "A fragment tethered by memory. Sever the tether, and you vanish like the rest."
Reiji clenched his jaw. "If you want me erased," he said, his voice steady, "you'll need sharper scissors."
The shadows erupted.
The clash was not of steel and flesh but of essence itself. Reiji felt his movements heavy, each strike forcing him to hold onto memory, to anchor himself to reality. The faceless figure's every motion tugged at the threads of his existence, making his limbs tremble as though he were unraveling.
Akari screamed his name, her hands glowing faintly as she reached out. She couldn't fight—not against something that existed beyond form—but her presence steadied him. Her voice, her fear, her stubborn refusal to leave… it tethered him in ways that steel could not.
Reiji's blade ignited with shadows, the mark of his pact with the darkness inside him. For an instant, he gave in—not fully, but just enough. He felt the abyss rise, the monstrous pulse of power surging through his veins.
He slashed—not at the figure, but at the threads themselves.
The distortion screamed, the street shuddering back into place as though forced to remember its own existence. The figure recoiled, its body fraying at the edges.
"This thread…" it whispered, fading into the void. "It will snap. Sooner than you think."
Then it was gone.
Reiji staggered, his blade dimming. His vision blurred, the weight of the encounter pressing deep into his chest. He could feel it still—the tenuous thread binding him to this reality, stretched thin, ready to tear at the wrong touch.
Akari caught his arm, her voice trembling. "Reiji… what was that thing?"
He did not answer. He looked at his hand, at the shadow still burning faintly in his palm. The truth gnawed at him—he was no longer certain if he was fighting to preserve the world, or to prevent himself from being erased with it.
For the first time in years, Shinomiya Reiji felt something he had long buried. Not fear of death—but fear of vanishing.
And somewhere, deep within the labyrinth of shadows, another thread shivered… waiting to snap.