For the first time since his fall out with Rina, Sasaki felt like he could breathe.
The night shift had given him a rhythm: quiet halls, steady footfalls, a job that demanded his attention and nothing else. It didn't heal the wound Rina left, but it kept him upright. He treated his rounds like rituals— check the exits, note the flickering lights, log the small things that might otherwise go unnoticed. Surviving, for now, was enough.
So when Ayase summoned him to her office after only a week on the job, he assumed it was a routine review. Maybe she'd seen his diligence. Maybe she wanted to reward him. He smoothed his collar, squared his shoulders, and climbed the stairs with a confidence he didn't entirely feel.
The mall was half-empty for early evening; a slow trickle of shoppers moved below while the elevator hummed up. Something at the edge of his awareness prickled, but he pushed it down. When he stepped into Ayase's office, she was already waiting.
She wore black. A fitted dress that caught the light, red lips, heels that tapped like a metronome as she crossed to him. She didn't sit behind the desk. She sat beside him on the leather couch, closer than protocol demanded.
"Sasaki," she said softly. "Come. Sit."
He nodded and took the seat. He expected a manager's distance. Instead, her hand found his knee.
He froze. "Yamaguchi-san?"
Her fingers slid upward. Alarm flared through him. He rose before his body would let him think. "What are you doing?"
Her expression didn't hurry. "Relax. You're a good-looking man. You work hard. You're quiet. Strong. Just my type."
"You're married," he said.
She tilted her head, uninterested. "That's not your problem."
"If you expect me to sleep with you for a job—" He stopped himself. "I'm not that man."
Her smile thinned. She stood with slow, deliberate calm. "So you're rejecting me?"
"Yes." He backed toward the door. "Keep the job. I'm done."
Her voice changed then —sharp, small like breaking glass. "You think you're better than me? After I gave you shelter and a purpose?" Her words were a trapdoor.
He didn't answer. He left, the air outside the room sour in his lungs. First Rina, now this. He only wanted to work. Only wanted to be left alone.
Halfway down the stairs, the radios burst to life.
"—intruder alert, main level!"
Footsteps thundered. Five silhouettes appeared, moving as one. Not mall staff. Not security. All black, faces dark, hands carrying steel pipes and bats.
"What the—?"
A pipe swung. Sasaki ducked, but a second blow caught his shoulder and threw him down the stairs. Pain lanced across his back; the world went loud and flat. Before he could scramble clear, the others descended —no words, only blows.
He screamed, but the night swallowed the sound. Cameras that should have watched were dead. Alarms were muted. The attack was clinical, merciless. Metal met flesh. Staggering, he tasted copper and felt the world tilt. One of the men leaned close enough for breath to heat his ear.
"He never touched her. Boss warned us. He couldn't stand the look on her face."
The sentence landed harder than any bat: this was not robbery. It was erasure.
Dragged out like refuse, they dumped him in a filthy alley. Blood made a trail where his body had been. The sky above blurred into gray. Ribs blazed; breath came jagged and wet.
This would be the end. He thought of nothing: no family, no home, no justice. Anger rose sharper than fear. Tears mixed with blood— not for death, but for the theft of his right to answer them.
"If I die… let me come back," he croaked into the dark. "Let me destroy every one of them."
Silence answered, then a shift. The alley— and even the rats —stilled.
A voice emerged: low, smooth, older than the brick. It felt like sound sliding under the skin.
> "Would you like a second chance?"<
His eyes barely fluttered. The world narrowed to that single word.
"…What?"
> "A new life. Strength. Revenge."<
"Yes," he whispered without thinking. "Anything. I'll do anything."
> "Good." The voice was both promise and contract. "You will wake. You will survive. You will be changed. In return, you belong to me."<
He rasped, "Who are you?"
> "A collector. Call me what you must—demon, shadow. I keep my bargains. Your rage has earned you everything."<
A warmth —not a hand, not flesh— pressed against his chest. Power like cold fire threaded into his veins. It burned and settled, filling hollows he hadn't known he had.
Then silence again. The alley smelled of wet cardboard and old rot. He coughed and a thin laugh escaped him— blood-tinged and unbelieving.
Pain detonated through him as he rolled onto his side. Every movement was white-hot. And yet—he was alive. He pushed himself up on shaking arms, the world slanting.
Near a dented dumpster hung a cracked mirror. He dragged himself closer and caught his own reflection.
For a breath, his eyes glowed —just a faint ember —and then they were ordinary again. But the image did not lie: he wasn't the same man who had walked into Ayase's office.
He had been broken and remade in a single night.
He would not vanish.
And he never would be the same again.