The market noise dimmed as the scarred man stepped forward. His body was covered in burn marks, his arms layered with cuts that never healed right. A red veil covered half his face, and people moved aside without being told.
Renji noticed something strange.
Not one person met the man's eyes. Every head dipped, every gaze slid away.
The man's knife gleamed in his hand — but it wasn't steel. It was white and smooth.
Renji's first thought was simple:
Yara is being controlled.
This man… he looked like the master. A beast wrapped in human skin.
But then, Yara turned. She didn't flinch from him. She didn't bow her head.
Instead, she spoke one cold word.
"Wait."
The scarred man froze. His grip tightened on the knife, but he obeyed.
Renji's stomach dropped. The man wasn't her master.
He was her soldier.
And she commanded him without effort.
The scarred man turned from Yara's side and slipped into an alley, drowned in shadow.
At first, Renji thought he was simply standing there, motionless, staring at the wall like a broken puppet. But then — something moved.
The darkness itself twisted. Thin, claw-like shapes peeled from the wall, writhing like hungry animals. Shadow-pets.
Renji's breath caught in his throat.
The man reached into his red veil and pulled out… something. Renji couldn't see what it was — only that it was small, pale, and trembling. Without hesitation, the man bent down and fed it into the shadows.
The creatures devoured it soundlessly, melting back into the black as if they had never been.
For a moment, silence. Then the man straightened, knife in hand again, his body rigid like before. To anyone else, it would seem as though he had simply been standing still.
But Renji knew better.
The scarred man was a summoner.
And he wasn't feeding animals.
He was feeding something worse.
Renji stepped away from the market's chaos. His mind spun with Yara's command, with the scarred man, with those writhing shadows in the alley.
That's when he heard a voice. Calm, almost gentle.
"Why do you keep walking toward death, boy?"
Renji turned. An old man stood there, watching him. His face was lined with age, but not a scar marked his skin. He looked like someone who had never once been struck in battle, which itself was unsettling in a city like this.
Renji's mouth went dry.
"Death…? I don't know."
The old man's eyes narrowed, not in judgment but in something like curiosity. He gave a small nod and motioned with his hand.
"Come. If you don't know, maybe my house will help you understand."
Against his own hesitation, Renji followed.
The man's home was simple, but what lay inside stopped Renji cold.
Steel glimmered in the dim light. Dozens of swords filled the walls, all neatly placed.
Renji stepped closer. Each sword looked sharp and heavy, but something felt strange - they all carried the same design. Only the sizes changed. Some were long like great blades, some short like daggers, but the shape was always repeated.
He turned back to Renji, voice almost a whisper
"something older."
The world buried their names. But the echoes remain.
"The Obsidian Circle."