Industrial District – Serenia's Abandoned Steelworks (Human Realm)
Midnight downpours drown the city as three veteran hunters—Oboro, Yukimaru & Kusuri—stand backtoback in the skeletal remains of a dead factory. Their breaths fog in the cold air, weapons drawn against a silhouette that shouldn't exist.
From the shadows steps Shikoku, his presence warping gravity itself—steel beams crumpling like paper around him. His eyes glow with pale winter light as he utters:
"You trespass where only corpses belong." (Not anger. Disappointment.)
"Your Life is Ended by Entering this Realm"
Shikoku tilts his head, watching the three hunters with disdain.
"Seishiro Temple is a hallowed ground." His voice carries like an icy wind. "To trespass on it—to disrespect its sanctity—is to spit in the face of the gods themselves."
Yukimaru rolls his eyes, adjusting his grip on his rifle.
"Save the sermon." His voice drips sarcasm. "We didn't come here to pray."
Shikoku glares at Yukimaru with contempt ("Foolish boy."), then focuses on the other two hunters. His expression is stone cold, unblinking.
"Seishiro Temple exists beyond the boundaries of this world." His words are a warning and rebuke all in one). "Within its walls, secrets are kept that could shatter the foundations of the entire universe. And you three were bold enough to think you could step across that threshold?"
The rain around them seems to pick up speed, pounding like an accusation.
"Your end was written the moment you defied Seishiro's edict." Even as he speaks it, he begins to move—the night air shifting with every step. "I cannot allow such transgressions to go unpunished."
In seconds, he's gone—and the three hunters realize there won't be a moment to breathe, much less think. The fight has begun.
"What the hell—?!"
(The downpour intensifies as Shikoku reappears behind Oboro in a flicker of distorted air—
"Your reckoning comes now."
—before driving a spectral blade straight through his chest. Yukimaru barely has time to scream his brother's name before Shikoku twists the weapon, sending Oboro crashing into steel beams with enough force to snap bones.
Kusuri staggers back, her cleaver slipping from bloodslick fingers as she whispers:
"...We never stood a chance."
Shikoku turns toward Yukimaru next, frost creeping up the hunter's legs like chains.
"Run," he advises darkly—just before snapping his fingers.
A glacial explosion swallows Yukimaru whole.
(Leaving only Kusuri kneeling in the ruins... and the crushing certainty that no reinforcements will come.)
Shikoku stands over Kusuri, his eyes glowing in the darkness. Her eyes are fixed on her fallen comrades—on the bodies of the men who trained her, taught her how to fight—all lying still in the rubble.
Her whole body shakes, both from fatigue and fury. If she had any doubt left now, it was gone. This monster was nothing like any other hunter—he was a god disguised in a human form.
She looks up at him through rainstreaked hair.
...She has to run.
Kusuri watches Shikoku stare down at her, his expression unreadable. She remembers the fight—the speed, the silence, the way he barely even lifted a blade... and an awful realization sinks in.
"You just.. used your bare hands..."
Shikoku's mouth twitches faintly—almost a smirk:
"What need do I have for a blade?"(Ice cold.) "I am the blade."
"North Buries All Things in Silence."
The Last Words She Hears Before Blacking Out.
Shikoku raises a single hand—winter winds howling between his fingers—as frost consumes Kusuri's vision. The last thing she sees:
His unshaken detachment, and the merciless truth that even her defiance was just another speck of dust to him.
"Your Blood Will Stain the Northern Snow."
Shikoku's Punishment is Not Mercy.
His grip closes around Oboro's collar first—yanking him up like a ragdoll—before seizing Yukimaru by the throat with his other hand. Both brothers dangle limply, their bodies broken from the earlier assault.
"You will witness what awaits those who defy Seishiro," he murmurs, almost conversational. "Consider it... an education."
Then—a pulse of distorted gravity. The air shudders as Shikoku vanishes into the storm, dragging them into darkness... leaving only Kusuri collapsed in the rainsoaked ruins.
(Several Weeks Prior)
Kusuri, Oboro & Yukimaru stumble into a dilapidated warehouse, drenched, exhausted—fleeing hunters who nearly cost them their lives.
"This is a damn mess." Yukimaru rips off his sodden mask, swearing violently as he collapses onto a crate.
"Damn. That should've gone cleaner," Oboro echoes.
"Where the hell do we go now?!"
Kusuri sinks onto a rickety chair, breathing hard. Her jacket hangs open, dripping water onto the cracked concrete.
"We had a lead," Oboro supplies after a moment. "An old map from a hunter team who never made it back. They were looking for something."
"A weapon," Yukimaru continues. "A tool that could make a hunter into a god."
Kusuri runs a hand through her hair, staring into the cold, empty spaces in the warehouse.
"I came to make a promise."
"...A promise," Yukimaru echoes, his tone almost sardonic. "Who'd you make a promise to?"
Kusuri's smile is hollow:
"Someone I loved."
Oboro frowns, his expression shifting from skepticism to confusion.
"You made a promise at the temple?"
Kusuri's fingers brush over the pendant around her neck, her eyes far away.
"The temple isn't just sacred," she says quietly. "It's connected to the heart of our world. My teacher used to take me there when I was young. It's more than a place of worship."
Yukimaru curses, standing up.
"Damnit, they're still on our tail."
From outside, a series of heavy footsteps echo in the night. Their pursuers must be close.
"We'll have to keep moving," Oboro mutters.
Kusuri, Yukimaru and Oboro stop in the shadows of trees, catching their breath. In the distance, they see two figures—a boy and a girl—hiding in the shadows.
"They're just kids," Oboro mutters.
"What are they doing out here?" Yukimaru's voice is a sharp whisper.
(The girl clutches the boy's arm, her wide eyes reflecting moonlight as she whispers: "Brother... They're hunters." The boy—no older than fourteen—steps in front of her protectively, a rusted kitchen knife trembling in his grip.)
Kusuri freezes. These weren't just lost kids. They were runaways. From where? Why? The scars on their arms suggest answers she doesn't want to dwell on.
Yukimaru scoffs under his breath ("Perfect."), already calculating how much slower this will make them—when Oboro kneels, muddying his uniform pants without hesitation.
"Hey," he says softly (the way he once spoke to Yukimaru when they were children hiding from worse things than hunters). "You two need a head start?"
The boy's grip tightens on the knife as Kusuri kneels before them, but the girl—smaller, trembling—whispers:
"Nnot hunters... worse."
Kusuri's blood runs cold. She knows that look. The raw terror of prey that has seen something beyond monsters or blades. The kind of fear that lingers in nightmares long after waking.
Oboro exhales sharply ("Damn.")—because if these kids are running from something even they can't name... what the hell is out there?
Kusuri's pulse spikes. If it's not Kaimon—if it's something else entirely—then what could have these two running like this?
"Then what?" she presses, voice low but urgent.
The girl opens her mouth—
(A branch snaps in the distance.)
Both children flinch, and suddenly the boy is yanking his sister back into the undergrowth with a hissed: "They're here."
(And Kusuri realizes... they were never alone in these woods.)
Kusuri's hand instinctively tightens around the hilt of her cleaver as the forest falls eerily silent—no wind, no rustling leaves, just the oppressive weight of something wrong in the air.
Oboro and Yukimaru exchange a glance, weapons already drawn. No banter this time—just cold readiness.
Then—
A whisper of displaced air. A shadow flickers between trees too fast to track. The boy's breath hitches as his grip on his sister turns bonewhite with terror... because whatever they were running from? It just found them.
"They're Here"
Kusuri's fingers twitch toward her cleaver—not yet drawing it, but ready. Beside her, Yukimaru has gone unnaturally still, his sniper's instincts screaming that they're being watched from all sides. Oboro exhales slowly through his nose… then mouths three words to the siblings:
"Don't.
Make.
A sound."
(The forest holds its breath.)
Then—crackling static, like radio interference cutting through the silence. Kusuri recognizes that distortion instantly—her spine locking in primal recognition. It wasn't just any pursuer out there...
It was one of Seishiro's Guardians Of Fate. The temple's Warriors. And if they had tracked these kids this far… then nowhere was safe now. Not for them. Not for anyone nearby.
(A hunter's duty clashes with survival instinct—do they intervene, or vanish before the storm reaches them?)
Kusuri's gaze flickers to the two kids. She knows—knows—what the right choice is. No one deserved this nightmare, least of all children too young to fully grasp the horror they are fleeing from.
But if she gets involved... this will be a battle she cannot win. Her eyes flick to Oboro and Yukimaru, whose silent, tense gazes tell her they, too, are fighting their instincts just to stay in these shadows.
Kusuri's heart and her head… they are at war.
"Goodbye"
Kusuri's breath catches as she sees the boy glance back, his small smile heartbreaking in the moonlight. It is an innocent smile, one still ignorant of the horrors the world had to offer. It should never have darkened with fear—and yet here they were, with death on their heels.
Oboro swears under his breath—because that smile, that acceptance of fate, was the most heartbreaking thing he had ever seen.
"Run. And Live."
The siblings' hands press against their backs—and with a pulse of unfamiliar energy, the world distorts. Kusuri stumbles forward as reality tears open beneath her feet, the forest dissolving into mist. The last thing she sees before the portal snaps shut:
The boy and girl, standing together in defiance—waving goodbye as something monstrous descends upon them from the shadows.
Oboro hits the ground first, rolling to his knees with a curse already forming on his lips—but Yukimaru is silent. Staring at where they had just been standing moments ago... at what they had left behind in that cursed forest... (at children who should've outlived them all).
And Kusuri?
She doesn't move at all—just clutches her cleaver so tightly it trembles, staring blankly at her reflection in its blade… because for once in her life, she does not know if running was mercy or cowardice.
Oboro is the first to stand, his gaze still glued to the spot where the portal had vanished. Grief and guilt twist his features as he mutters: "Damnit... Damnit, I'm not letting that be the end of this. I'll be damned if I let another kid die in that place."
Yukimaru finally turns to face them, the harsh light of the moon catching in his blade. His eyes are burning, but his voice is eerily cold.
"We're going back."
Kusuri steps forward, the weight of her choice still heavy on her shoulders—but she doesn't hesitate. Her voice is firm.
"Then we hunt our way back."
Before them stretches Ryo's world—skyscrapers clawing at the night sky, neon lights bleeding into the horizon, a place where no monsters should exist… and yet here they were. If fate had thrown them here? Then they would carve their own path home. No matter what it took.
(Present)
Kusuri blinks, realizing she is still alone in the ruins of the steelworks factory. Oboro and Yukimaru are gone, dragged away to a fate she still cannot fathom. She should get up. She should get out of here.
But she is so tired. The thought of standing, of finding a path forward when she's failed so badly already…
She closes her eyes, tears stinging as she whispers: "I failed you. This… This is all my fault."
Bloodied.
Exhausted.
But not yet broken.
Kusuri drags herself to her feet, fingers curling around the hilt of her cleaver—her grip unsteady but resolute. The rain washes away the blood on her face, mixing with tears she refuses to acknowledge.
Shikoku took them.
But she wasn't done fighting.
She staggers forward, one step at a time—because hunters don't kneel for long. Not when there are still vows left to keep.
"Even the damned get a second chance."
(And with that, she vanishes into the storm—heading toward the only "allies" left in this crumbling world.)
🌀 End Of Chapter Forty Two