「Prologue」
The city pulsed with neon. Billboards flickered overhead, traffic groaned through the rain-soaked streets, and people hurried past each other without meeting eyes. To most, it was just another night—ordinary, fleeting, meaningless.
But beyond the veil of glass and steel, something stirred.
Kaito Renji had always hated running home late. The streets felt different at night, as though someone—something—was watching him. He used to laugh it off, telling himself it was just his imagination. Yet tonight, the feeling pressed harder than ever, clawing down his spine as if invisible eyes traced his every step.
He cut through the old district. The place was dying, swallowed by urban development. Empty shops stared at him with broken windows like hollow sockets. Weeds crawled between cracked tiles. The air smelled of mildew and rust.
And then… he saw it.
A shrine. Hidden between half-collapsed houses, its gate barely standing, its walls blackened by rain and years. He swore it hadn't been there yesterday.
Curiosity gnawed at him, stronger than fear. His shoes squelched on the mud as he stepped inside. The courtyard was suffocatingly quiet, as though the world had muted itself. The only sound was his own uneven breathing.
On the altar sat an object. A talisman—or what was left of one. Charred edges, rusted chains, markings that bled faintly with a crimson glow. The aura around it pulsed like a heartbeat.
And against his better judgment… Kaito reached out.
The moment his fingertips brushed the surface, the world snapped.
A ringing filled his ears, sharp and violent. The rain outside froze midair, droplets suspended like glass shards. His body locked, his vision blurred. Shadows slithered across the walls, stretching longer, wider, until they wrapped the entire shrine.
A voice whispered. Not from around him, but inside him.
> "At last."
Kaito gasped, clutching his chest. Fire burned beneath his skin, etching itself into his flesh. Symbols writhed like living scars, forming a black sigil that glowed with otherworldly light.
> "Another contract. Another vessel."
The voice was ancient, layered, like a thousand souls speaking at once. He staggered, his legs collapsing beneath him. The chains binding the talisman shattered, their clang echoing unnaturally long, as though the sound stretched across dimensions.
Then—silence.
Darkness swallowed his vision. And in that darkness, a figure emerged.
A silhouette with no face. Its body shifting like smoke, its eyes—or what should have been eyes—burning white-hot. A grin carved itself across nothingness.
> "So, you are my contractor."
Kaito tried to scream, but his voice died in his throat. The figure extended a hand, and though it never touched him, he felt the weight of shackles lock around his soul.
Chains rattled in the void.
And the world beyond—his world—would never be the same again.