—Florida, a summer evening.
An eight-year-old Black boy, Sekou Kagetsu, was laying down a beat in his upstairs room. His long, spiky dreadlocks bounced, the hem of his thin T-shirt swaying with the rhythm. Each time his sticks struck the drumhead, even the palm leaves outside the window shivered. His shoulders were loose, his eyes held a touch of defiance, and his steps carried the cocky ease of "I'll walk my path at my own pace"—yet it never tipped into obnoxiousness. The innocence of his age still glinted through.
Sekou came from a Black family in Florida.
"Sekou—dinner's ready!"
His grandmother Saya called up from downstairs. He grinned, cracked one last snare hit, and caught the sticks out of the air.
"All right, time to eat. I'm comin'."
When he came down the stairs, the lights in the entryway and living room burst on at once.
"Happy birthday!"
Confetti in every color, balloons, a hand-made banner. A line of relatives and neighbors. Sekou laughed louder than his drums and threw his arms wide.
"No way! Y'all got me good!"
His little sister Sakura ran up, proudly hoisting an aluminum tray to her chest.
"Tadaaa! A mountain of chicken wings—your favorite!"
"Thanks, Sakura!"
He bumped her shoulder with his fist. "Ow!" she said, then stuck out her tongue, grinning.
Saya sat at the far end of the table, watching her grandson with a tender gaze. The gifts kept coming.
A brand-new orange basketball. A small box stuffed with game cartridges. A black jacket lined with gold piping.
"Whoa... this is fire. I'm absolutely gonna rock this."
He slipped it on; the gold thread caught the light with a sharp gleam. Whistles and applause rose around him, and Sekou shrugged, bashful.
As the sweet smell of cake spread, Saya stood and drew all eyes.
"Lemme tell one old story."
Her voice was low, but it carried.
"In this world, there are things folks call yōkai. Every so often they spill out from Hell—the place people reckon the wicked fall after death—and walk the cracks of the night. They take many shapes. They're frightening, hold grudges you can't make sense of, punish people sometimes, and sometimes reflect our sins back at us like a mirror. They don't forget what humans do to each other."
A few guests chuckled and shrugged.
"There she goes again with her ghost stories." "Oooo, scary."
Laughter rippled out. Cutting through it, Sekou spoke up with a straight face.
"Grandma, the rest?"
Saya set a hand on his shoulder. Her wrinkled palm felt somehow warm and cold at the same time.
"—Never doubt what you are, Sekou. Not ever."
That one line rang long in his chest.
Night deepened; simple lights dotted the yard. Kids gathered around "Pin the Tail on the Donkey," squealing over the blindfold. Sekou popped his collar and clapped along with Sakura's laughter.
—Knock, knock.
A polite tap at the front door.
"Who could that be?" A tall man waved lightly and reached for the knob.
"Wait." Saya's voice went sharp. Too late.
The instant the door cracked open, the air turned to rancid mud. A black shadow slipped through by a hair, and white claws flashed across the man's throat.
—Blood bloomed.
Screams. Behind the shadow, several crooked-edged somethings shouldered through. Wet, not-quite-footsteps multiplied across the tatami. People shoved tables and chairs aside and scattered in panic.
"Sakura, come on!"
Sekou grabbed his sister's hand and sprinted toward the back of the living room. Picture frames fell; glass cried underfoot. As they rounded the corner, a long, tongue-like arm scraped along the floor and snaked around their legs.
"Let go!"
Sakura's small body lifted off the ground. Sekou pulled. The shadow pulled.
—Bones made an ugly sound.
"Sakura!"
The next instant, a red mist washed across Sekou's vision. Claws tore into his side, heat and cold lancing him at once.
"Cut that out!"
Like a peal of thunder, Saya's scolding voice cracked the air as she burst in. In her hands was an old metal staff—worn bonji characters carved along it, the tip split into three prongs.
The swing was too fast to see. The next thing visible was a shadow's head rolling across the floor. A faint violet lightning skittered along the staff's blades.
Saya dropped to one knee without panting and pressed the staff to Sekou's chest.
"Take it. This is the ward our family's passed down."
"This...?"
"Its name is Vajra. Listen to me, Sekou. Don't you ever let them have your special."
"'Special'? What's that even mean...?!"
"There ain't time. I love you. You're a lot more special than you think."
She pushed him toward the back hall—
—and in that moment, a beast-shaped shadow crashed in from the side.
A dull impact. Saya's body slammed the wall.
"Grandma!"
Blood in his mouth. His legs wouldn't listen. Sekou crawled. His heartbeat rampaged in his ears. At the edge of his vision, the swaying crowd of figures looked like a nightmare feasting at a party.
From the front hall, a pair of footsteps approached—quiet, too quiet.
The hem of an old, fine kimono. A round head. A wrinkled smile.
An old man stood there, simply looking at them.
Smiling—looking.
(Who...?)
The darkness dropped from above and crushed everything.
◇
—Eight years later. Japan.
The classroom was swollen with afternoon heat; fluorescent white clung thinly to paper and hair. In the back by the window, Sekou Kagetsu screwed a tiny earbud into one ear and let his gaze drift outside. His notebook was blank. His pencil rolled like a thin shadow.
"Sekou, tests are next week," the boy in front whispered.
"Yeah. But... there's something bigger stomping around in my head right now."
"That again? The teacher's gonna blow a fuse."
The warning went in one ear and out the other—same as the wind.
Then a tremor hit the building, like someone clubbed it. Outside the window, a black "death" lurched along the distant highway.
A swollen corpse—skin with the sheen of rotten mud, eyes like dried fish. Its belly bulged obnoxiously; ink-dark fluid drooled from its mouth.
"...Nuribotoke," someone breathed.
Before the word had finished, the city filled with screams. Cars collided, poles bent, the ground started a nasty kind of breathing.
Sekou's eyes narrowed into a grin.
"Looks like today's gonna be a good one."
He planted a foot on the window frame and rolled his neck.
"Kagetsu!" the teacher shouted. The wind took the rest.
A heartbeat later, the boy launched from the second-floor window. Air stabbed his chest; he bled off the landing on his knees. He opened his palm, and there it was—
—the three-pronged staff passed to him in blood eight years ago. Before he could even speak its name, the weight settled into his grip like it belonged there.
Vajra.
Ahead, four figures charged the Nuribotoke.
A fox-woman with flowing white hair drew her blade—Aki.
A girl with a black-and-silver ponytail—Ikue—flashed into a giant skeleton and clamped onto the dead thing's torso.
Red twin-tails—Yukika—whirled a massive pair of scissors, sliding the blades into underarms and joints.
And last, a woman who never hurried. Long purple hair. An unreadable face. She summoned black gauntlets tipped with claws bigger than fists—Shibukanu.
"Stay out of it!"
Aki's low warning slid right past Sekou's grin.
"Can't. I'm not the hold-back type."
He burst forward and slid into the Nuribotoke's legs.
"Hyah!"
Vajra flashed. Impact. A dull, stubborn feel—rotten meat, but hard.
"Tch... tougher than I thought..."
The Nuribotoke's foot slammed down; the asphalt sagged. Ikue's bone arms groaned; the giant was flung away, forced back into human form.
"Gh—!"
Yukika's scissors carved a cross, but black sludge stitched itself shut at once.
"Ew, gross! ...But fun!" she giggled, stabbing again.
"Stand down, Sekou."
The flat voice fell behind him.
Before he could turn, the world itself warped.
Shibukanu's right fist twitched; the outline of the air peeled back.
—And in the next instant, the Nuribotoke was pulverized. The sound arrived late. Black flesh fluttered like confetti; bones rained onto prefabs down the block.
Silence.
Shibukanu turned, pinched Sekou by the scruff. Limbs dangling, he hung light as a cat.
"...You ditched class."
Same expressionless face, low voice.
"Yeah. But—stuff like this, you can't just ignore it, right?"
"Denied."
Still holding him, she started toward the school gate. Passersby gaped. Yukika doubled over laughing; Aki sheathed her sword without a word; Ikue only pushed up her glasses and gave a small shrug.
Back in the classroom, the homeroom teacher's sigh was waiting.
"Out the window again, Kagetsu."
"The door's too far."
"Homework?"
"Blank pages have the most potential."
"If you've got time to learn sophistry, spend it on math."
Sirens crossed outside the window. Shibukanu left only, "Training at our place this afternoon," and was already gone. The room took back the smell of study, though a few classmates were still shaking.
Everyone in this town knew.
—Sekou Kagetsu was a half-yōkai.
And those women were the Kibu clan.
◇
Meanwhile—nowhere, and somewhere like it.
A gray-white plain stripped of color and temperature. Distance blurred; no sounds but footsteps. Black mud gathered and pretended to be a human shape.
The Nuribotoke that had shattered to bits was slowly "coming back." Flesh pooled. Bones laced. A cold fire lit in its sockets.
From nowhere, a voice like ice fell.
"...Dead again, were you?"
The Nuribotoke's cracked lips slowly parted.
That smile overlapped, somehow, with the one worn by the old man who had smiled in that seaside Florida house.
—-