The tunnel climbed for what felt like hours—cold seeping through the stone, air growing thinner and sharper until Kanashimi's lungs burned with every breath. Then, abruptly, a hidden hatch. Reina pushed it open from below, and a cascade of dry, powdery snow spilled in like frozen starlight.
They emerged into a dense forest north of Sapporo, the night sky vast and indifferent above the treetops. The moon hung low, silvering the snowdrifts. Kanashimi froze for one involuntary heartbeat—head tilted back, eyes wide at the endless black dotted with real stars, the wind carrying scents of pine and distant city smoke. For the first time in his life, there was no ceiling. No crystal glow. Just… open.
Reina hissed a warning. "Keep moving. We have a mile to the city edge."
They set off through the trees, footsteps muffled by fresh powder. But the storm that had been threatening all night finally broke—wind howling, snow whipping sideways, erasing tracks almost as fast as they made them. Visibility dropped to arm's length.
At a fork masked by drifting white, they separated without realizing—Reina veering left along what she thought was the marked trail, Kanashimi right, following a false gap in the trees.
Minutes passed.
Reina's low curse carried back on the wind, then nothing.
Kanashimi pressed on alone, Aura Fang warm against his arm, until a figure melted out of the blizzard ahead—tall, cloaked in white camouflage, face hidden behind a bone mask carved with Lumora's perimeter sigils. A newly appointed guardian, spear of ice-crystal in hand. Young, eager, and absolutely unforgiving.
The guardian leveled the spear. "Halt. Show permission."
Kanashimi raised both hands slowly, palms open. "I am on sanctioned mission. Kanashimi of the inner village. Reina carries the sealed note—she took a different path in the storm. I became separated."
The guardian's eyes narrowed behind the mask. "No note, no passage. Orders are clear. Turn back or be ended as deserter."
"I am not deserting," Kanashimi said quietly. "Do not force this."
The guardian lunged—spear thrusting for the shoulder, non-lethal but meant to disable and drag back for judgment.
Kanashimi flowed around it like water, Aura Fang flashing into his hand. One translocation blink—he was behind the guardian, bone tip kissing the base of the skull.
The guardian froze.
Kanashimi's voice was soft, almost regretful. "Yield. I do not wish to kill one of ours."
But the young guardian was proud, new to the post, burning with duty. He slammed his palm to the snow. Tochi surged. The powder exploded upward, condensing mid-air into a razor-thin crescent of ice—pale blue, nearly invisible, slicing horizontally at Kanashimi's neck with a hiss like tearing silk.
Kanashimi twisted at the last instant, hair shearing cleanly where the cut passed. The crescent carved a nearby tree in half before dissipating.
Before he could counter, the guardian spun, using the momentum to drive a second wave—snow compacting into invisible blades from every direction.
Kanashimi translocated twice, three times, blinking through the storm, but the guardian had trained for exactly this: perimeter defense against fleeing wardens who knew the same tricks.
A final burst—snow rising like a wall, then collapsing inward. Kanashimi dodged most, but one invisible edge clipped his calf, another his sleeve. He landed off-balance, and the guardian was on him—spear haft cracking against his wrist, sending the Aura Fang spinning into a drift. A follow-up kick to the chest drove him to the ground, snow cushioning the impact but not the weight as the guardian pinned him, knee on his sternum, ice-spear point at his throat.
Breath steamed between them.
"Deserter," the guardian growled. "Any last words before I end you?"
Kanashimi stared up through the falling snow, blood warm on his leg, heart strangely calm. The stars wheeled overhead, indifferent.
He drew a slow breath, tasting iron and winter.
"Tell Reina… I almost made it to the sky."
The guardian's spear hovered a hair's breadth from Kanashimi's throat, ice-cold tip dimpling skin. Behind the bone mask, the young man's eyes narrowed in confusion.
"'Almost made it to the sky'?" he repeated, voice muffled but sharp with suspicion. "What kind of last words are those, deserter?"
Kanashimi's lips curved—just barely—not quite a smile, more like the ghost of one. His gaze stayed fixed upward, past the guardian's shoulder, into the swirling white and endless black.
During the fight, in one of his blinking translocations, he had flicked the Aura Fang high overhead—straight up, thirty paces into the storm, hidden among the falling snow. It had been climbing silently ever since, reaching the apex of its allowed range right… about…
Now.
In the space between one flake and the next, Kanashimi vanished.
The guardian's spear stabbed only snow and empty air. He staggered forward, off-balance, whipping around in the blinding flurry.
A soft thud behind him.
Kanashimi reappeared mid-air, directly above the guardian's head, having ridden the fang's upward arc to its limit. He plucked the bone from the sky as he fell, twisting gracefully, spear-point aimed downward at the exposed neck.
For one perfect heartbeat, the tables flipped—he was the executioner again.
But the guardian was new, not inexperienced. He sensed the shift in pressure, spun, and slammed his palm to the ground once more. Snow erupted in a violent dome, crystallizing into jagged spikes that lanced upward in every direction.
Kanashimi translocated again—barely—blinking sideways, but one spike grazed his ribs, tearing cloth and flesh. He landed in a crouch ten paces away, blood blooming dark against the white, Aura Fang steady in his grip.
The guardian rose, mask cracked from the earlier fight, breath steaming. "Clever trick. Won't save you twice."
He charged, snow coiling around his arms like living blades, closing the distance faster than the storm should allow.
Kanashimi readied the fang, calculating the next throw, the next blink—knowing he was slower now, bleeding, tiring.
The guardian leaped, spear raised for the killing thrust.
And then a shadow detached from the trees.
Reina exploded into the clearing like a winter wraith—cloak snapping in the wind, scarred face twisted in fury. Her short blade of compressed crystal sang as it intercepted the guardian's spear mid-strike, deflecting it with a crack like breaking ice.
The young guardian flew backward, tumbling through snow, coming up in a defensive crouch.
Reina planted herself between him and Kanashimi, blade low, stance unbreakable.
"Stand down, guardian," she barked, voice carrying over the howl of the storm. "He is under my seal. Mission-sanctioned. Touch him again and you answer to me—and to Lord Eldrin."
She reached into her cloak and thrust forward the sealed permission scroll, crimson ward glowing even through the leather case.
The guardian froze, eyes flicking from the seal to Kanashimi's bloodied form, to Reina's unyielding glare. Slowly, reluctantly, he lowered his spear and stepped back, bowing stiffly.
"…Understood, Hunter Reina."
Reina didn't relax until he melted back into the trees, vanishing as completely as he'd appeared.
Only then did she spin to Kanashimi, dropping to one knee beside him, pressing a gloved hand to the gash in his ribs.
"You idiot boy," she muttered, but there was relief rough in her throat. "I told you—stay with me."
Kanashimi exhaled shakily, snowflakes melting on his lashes. "I tried."
She tore a strip from her own cloak, binding the wound tight and fast. "Can you walk?"
He nodded, pushing himself up with her help, Aura Fang sliding back into its sheath.
Reina glanced at the vast, stormy sky, then at the faint glow of city lights beyond the forest ridge.
"Good. Because we're late. The woman is still breathing, and the night won't wait."
She offered her arm. He took it without hesitation.
Together they limped toward the distant neon haze, two shadows swallowed by the blizzard—closer to the surface world than ever, yet still leashed by duty, blood, and secrets.
The wind howled louder as Reina hauled Kanashimi through the last stretch of forest, one arm slung over her shoulder, her grip iron-strong. Blood seeped warm against the makeshift binding, but the cold numbed it fast. Every step crunched in fresh powder, every breath plumed white.
Then the trees thinned.
And the city opened up below them like a dream made of light.
Kanashimi stopped dead.
Sapporo sprawled across the valley—towers of glass and steel glittering under blankets of snow, streets glowing gold and red with traffic, neon signs bleeding color into the night. Thousands of windows lit from within, tiny lives moving behind them. Snowflakes drifted through beams of headlights like slow fireflies. Far off, the faint pulse of music, laughter, engines—sounds he had only heard in muffled stories.
He stared, lips parted, chest rising and falling too fast.
Reina let him look for three silent seconds—long enough for wonder, not long enough for weakness.
"First time seeing it?" she asked gruffly.
Kanashimi swallowed, voice rough. "…It's louder than I thought."
She huffed something that might have been a laugh. "Wait till you're in it. Come on. She's in the old town district—small apartment above a closed bookstore. Photos showed her leaving an internet café an hour ago. We're already behind."
They descended the ridge, slipping into the city's edge where streetlights barely reached. Reina pulled up her hood deeper; Kanashimi followed suit, blending into shadow. The snow muffled everything, turning the world soft and strange.
Concrete under his boots instead of crystal. Exhaust in his nose instead of moss. People—actual surface people—passing on the far sidewalk, bundled in coats, laughing, oblivious.
He kept his eyes down, but every sense drank it in greedily.
They moved rooftop to rooftop where they could, alley to alley where they couldn't. Reina led, marking safe paths, until they reached a quiet residential street dusted white and gold under old-fashioned lamps.
"There." She nodded toward a narrow three-story building, dark except for one window on the second floor—warm light, curtains half-drawn. A silhouette moved inside: a young woman with short-cropped hair, pacing with a phone to her ear.
Reina crouched behind an air-conditioning unit on the opposite roof. "That's her. Aiko Tanaka, twenty, freelance photographer. No guards, no weapons we know of. She's alone."
She turned to Kanashimi, eyes hard. "You have the shot from here—forty paces down and across. Vertical drop like you planned. I stay here, watch the street. Go."
Kanashimi flexed his fingers around the Aura Fang hidden in his sleeve. The wound in his ribs throbbed with every heartbeat, but the bone hummed eagerly, tasting the open air.
He climbed to the edge of the roof, snow crunching softly under his knees.
Below, through the window, the woman laughed at something on the phone—bright, careless, alive.
Kanashimi raised the fang, ready to throw.
And hesitated.
Not from fear. Not from pain.
Just… one heartbeat too long, watching her live the kind of ordinary moment he had never been allowed.
Kanashimi stood on the rooftop edge, snow swirling around him like a living veil. The woman's silhouette moved behind the curtain—still pacing, still laughing softly into her phone, completely unaware.
He drew the Aura Fang, held it up to the faint city glow for one heartbeat, then let it drop straight down into the alley shadows.
Without hesitation he leaped after it, cloak snapping in the wind, falling silent and swift as an owl.
Halfway down he caught the falling bone mid-air, twisted his body, and hurled it sideways—hard—through the half-open window.
The fang streaked across the room like a pale comet.
Perfect distance.
Kanashimi vanished from the night sky.
He reappeared inside the apartment in a crouch, Aura Fang already recalled to his hand, arm cocked for the killing thrust.
But the space where the woman had been standing a blink ago was now occupied by something else.
A massive, obsidian-furred wolf's maw had erupted from nowhere—jaws wide, dripping void-black saliva, rows of jagged teeth forming a living shield around the girl. The demon's breath smelled of old graves and ozone.
The fang struck true—not flesh, but the phone in her hand. It exploded in a shower of plastic and sparks, shards slicing her palm.
The girl yelped, more surprise than pain, and stumbled backward. Her eyes—wide, dark, sharp—snapped up and locked on Kanashimi for the first time.
He was already moving, translocating again, blinking to her side to drive the fang into the exposed neck before the demon could fully manifest.
But the wolf's maw snapped shut protectively, teeth clashing where his arm had been a fraction earlier. The demon was only partial—head and shoulders bursting from a tear in reality right in front of her, like it had been summoned by the broken phone's flash or the scent of danger.
The girl didn't scream. She grabbed the ruined phone, blood dripping from her cut hand, and bolted—barefoot—toward the apartment door.
Kanashimi lunged after her, Aura Fang flashing in a blur of strikes at the demonic maw trying to shield her retreat. Bone met ethereal fang with bursts of black sparks; each hit forced the wolf-thing to recoil just enough to keep him from reaching her.
She yanked the door open and fled into the dimly lit hallway, slamming it behind her.
Kanashimi translocated straight through the wood—appearing in the corridor as she sprinted toward the stairs.
Snow from his cloak scattered across the worn carpet. City sounds—distant horns, muffled music—filtered up from below.
The girl glanced back once, eyes fierce even through fear, and took the stairs two at a time, clutching the broken phone like evidence she refused to lose.
Behind Kanashimi, the wolf demon's roar rattled the walls, the tear in space widening as more of its body began to claw through.
Reina's voice hissed in his ear through the tiny ward-stone communicator: "What the hell is happening in there? I'm seeing demonic resonance spike!"
Kanashimi didn't answer. He threw the Aura Fang ahead of him down the stairwell, watched it arc perfectly toward the fleeing girl's back.
One shot.
One breath.
But the wolf's head lunged through the wall beside him, jaws snapping for his throat—forcing him to translocate sideways instead of forward.
The fang embedded harmlessly in the wall.
The girl vanished around the corner toward the street door.
Kanashimi recalled the bone, heart pounding harder than it ever had in training.
The mission had just gone from silent assassination to open hunt—in a city full of witnesses, with a demon now bleeding into reality.
And the girl was running straight into the snowy night, barefoot and bleeding, carrying proof in her broken hands.
The apartment door banged open behind him, snow and cold wind swirling in with Reina. She took in the scene in one sharp glance: the torn wallpaper where the wolf demon's claws had raked through reality, black ichor sizzling on the floorboards, the broken phone shards glittering like frost, and Kanashimi crouched in the center, Aura Fang dripping void-sparks, chest heaving.
Reina's scarred face was grim. "She's gone."
Kanashimi straightened slowly, blood still seeping from the graze on his ribs. "Down the stairs. Into the street. Barefoot. She's fast."
Reina stepped to the window, eyes scanning the snowy alley below. Footprints—small, frantic—led out the building's side door and vanished into the swirl of white toward the main road. Already half-filled by fresh powder.
"She's bleeding," Reina muttered. "Trail won't last long. And that resonance…" She glanced at the fading tear in the air where the wolf's maw had been. Black edges still quivered, slowly knitting closed. "Whatever that thing was, it bought her time. Protected her."
Kanashimi's jaw tightened. "It came the instant I struck. Like it was waiting for the attack."
Reina shot him a sharp look. "Bound to her? Summoned by the breach she photographed? Doesn't matter right now. Mission's still active. We find her, we finish it. No witnesses, no evidence."
She pulled her hood lower, already moving for the door. "You're wounded. Can you keep up?"
Kanashimi tested his side, winced once, then sheathed the Aura Fang. "Yes."
"Good." Reina paused at the threshold, voice low. "Street cameras are everywhere. Stay off main roads. Rooftops and alleys. If that demon shows again, prioritize the girl—let it come. We can't have a full manifestation in the city."
They dropped from the window into the alley, landing soft in deep snow. The cold bit sharp against Kanashimi's face, but the pain kept him focused.
The footprints were faint but visible—small bare feet, blood speckling pink in the white. Leading toward the brighter lights of the shopping district, where late-night holiday crowds still lingered despite the storm.
Reina took point, moving like a shadow along the wall. Kanashimi followed, every sense straining.
Somewhere ahead, a barefoot girl was running for her life, clutching broken proof of secrets she was never meant to see.
And something ancient and hungry was waking to keep her breathing.
Reina and Kanashimi dropped silently into the alley, the city's hum swallowing their footsteps. Snow fell thicker now, fat flakes that blurred neon signs into watercolor halos. The blood trail was already fading—pink dots turning white too fast.
Reina crouched, gloved fingers brushing the snow. "She's heading toward Odori Park. Crowds thinning, but still enough people for cover. Holiday lights, late-night stalls. Perfect place to disappear… or to corner someone."
Kanashimi's breath steamed in the cold, pain a dull throb in his side. He closed his eyes for a heartbeat, feeling for resonance—the faint tug of whatever demonic thing had shielded her. Nothing yet. Just the overwhelming newness of the surface: exhaust, fried food, distant laughter, the electric buzz of a thousand lives he wasn't part of.
Reina stood. "We split. You take rooftops—higher ground, better sightlines. I'll track street level. If you see her, signal. Do not engage alone if the wolf shows again. We end this quiet."
Kanashimi nodded, already leaping—light, practiced—to the lowest fire escape. Metal groaned under his weight, but held. He climbed fast, ignoring the burn in his ribs, until he was moving across snow-laden roofs like a ghost.
Below, the city sparkled cruelly beautiful. Couples under umbrellas. Kids chasing each other with sparklers. An old man feeding stray cats near a heated bus stop. All of them warm, careless, alive.
Then he saw her.
Half a block ahead, limping through the edge of Odori Park's illuminated trees. Bare feet wrapped now in torn strips from her shirt, blood still seeping. Short hair dusted white with snow, shoulders hunched against the cold. She clutched the broken phone to her chest like a heart she refused to let die.
She was heading toward the old TV Tower—fewer people there now, lights dimmer, shadows deeper.
Kanashimi dropped the Aura Fang ahead of him, let it fall three stories into the empty space between buildings. He jumped after it.
Blink—reappeared mid-fall.
Threw it again toward the park's tree line.
Blink—closer.
One more throw, arcing silently over the treetops toward her back.
Perfect distance.
He vanished from the sky.
And reappeared right behind her, Aura Fang already in motion for the silent strike to the spine.
The girl spun at the last possible second—eyes wide, fierce, unafraid. She didn't scream. Instead she ducked low, swinging the broken phone like a weapon, jagged edge aimed at his wrist.
The fang grazed her shoulder—just a shallow cut—but the wolf demon erupted again, fuller this time. Massive head and shoulders bursting from the air in front of her, jaws wide, black fur rippling like liquid shadow. It snarled, frost exploding from its breath, forcing Kanashimi to translocate backward or be bitten in half.
People nearby finally noticed—gasps, phones rising, a woman screaming.
The girl didn't look back. She ran again, deeper into the park, toward the darker paths where snow muffled everything.
Kanashimi recalled the fang, heart hammering.
Reina's voice crackled in his ear: "Crowd's reacting. We're burning time. Finish it now or we pull out and try again later."
He leaped after the girl, snow flying from his cloak.
But for the first time, the mission didn't feel clean anymore.
It felt like chasing someone who was fighting to keep the truth alive.
Kanashimi's eyes narrowed in the swirling snow, the pain in his ribs forgotten, the mission sharpening into something raw and relentless inside him.
"No holding back," he whispered—to himself, to the night, to the wolf demon snarling in the shadows.
Then he moved.
The Aura Fang left his hand in a pale blur, streaking toward the girl's retreating back as she fled deeper into the darkened paths of Odori Park. Thirty paces. Recall. Blink—he reappeared mid-stride beside her, bone already flashing in a vicious horizontal slash aimed to end it clean.
The wolf demon's head erupted again, fuller now, jaws clamping where he'd been a heartbeat earlier. Black fur rippled like oil, red eyes glowing with fury.
Kanashimi didn't stop.
Throw—upward into the snowy branches.
Blink—reappearing above her, dropping like a meteor, fang driving down.
The demon lunged skyward, teeth snapping.
Throw—sideways through a tree trunk.
Blink—behind the girl, strike to the spine.
The wolf twisted unnaturally, shoulder and foreleg tearing fully into reality now, swatting him aside like a doll. He rolled with it, snow exploding around him, already throwing again.
Endlessly.
The park became a deadly ballet of vanishing and reappearing shadows: Kanashimi blinking in and out of existence around her—left, right, above, below—each translocation a new angle of death. The Aura Fang sang through the air, a constant white streak, striking, recalling, striking again. Snow sprayed in violent bursts with every missed blow, trees splintered, park benches shattered.
The girl ran desperately, breath ragged, bare feet leaving bloody prints. She darted between illuminated trees, using the wolf's massive form as cover whenever it manifested to block him. But she never screamed for help. Never dropped the broken phone. She just ran—smart, stubborn, refusing to die quietly.
The demon grew with every second—now half its body in the world, claws raking furrows in the frozen earth, howl shaking snow from branches. People in the brighter parts of the park were fleeing now, phones out, recording the "monster" and the black-cloaked phantom fighting it.
Reina's voice cracked urgently in his ear: "You're drawing too much attention! Finish or abort—now!"
Kanashimi ignored her.
He threw the fang high one final time, letting it climb into the storm until it nearly vanished.
Then he blinked after it—higher than before, thirty paces straight up into the blinding white.
For one suspended moment he hung in the freezing dark, city lights glittering far below like scattered jewels, snowflakes swirling around him like slow stars.
He saw her clearly: stumbling into a small clearing, wolf demon fully materializing now—towering, furious, shielding her with its body.
Kanashimi inverted, fang recalled to his hand, and dove.
Straight down.
Full speed.
No translocation this time—just raw fall, cloak whipping, bone aimed like a spear of judgment.
The wolf looked up, jaws wide to catch him.
Kanashimi smiled for the first time that night—small, cold, beautiful.
And released the fang point-blank into its open maw.
The wolf demon tore fully into the world with a thunderous roar that shattered nearby tree branches, snow exploding outward in a freezing shockwave. Eight feet tall at the shoulder, fur like living midnight, eyes burning crimson. It planted itself between Kanashimi and the girl, jaws gaping wide enough to swallow moonlight.
Kanashimi didn't slow.
Falling like judgment itself, he hurled the Aura Fang straight into that open maw—point-first, perfect line.
The bone punched through teeth, tongue, palate, lodging deep in the demon's throat with a wet, sickening crunch.
The beast howled in agony, rearing back, black ichor spraying across the snow.
But Kanashimi was already recalling it—yanking the fang free in a violent arc that sliced upward, carving a brutal line from throat to crown as he translocated right through the demon's body in the same motion.
The cut continued—clean, unstoppable—bisecting the wolf from jaw to tail in one blinding crescent of pale light.
The girl, directly behind her protector, had no time to even gasp.
The slash took her too.
She crumpled silently into the snow, eyes still wide with that fierce refusal to surrender, broken phone tumbling from blood-slick fingers.
The demon's two halves collapsed on either side of her, steaming black in the white, already dissolving into acrid smoke.
Kanashimi landed in a crouch between the remains, Aura Fang dripping dark.
He didn't look at her body.
Couldn't.
Throw—backward into the trees.
Blink.
Throw—sideways into shadow.
Blink.
Throw—upward, vanishing into the storm.
Blink. Blink. Blink.
He became nothing but motion: appear, vanish, appear, vanish—leaving only swirling snow and distant screams in his wake.
Sirens wailed now, growing louder. Red and blue lights flashed at the park's edges. Police cars skidded into view, officers piling out with guns drawn, shouting at fleeing civilians, staring in horror at the dissolving demon corpse and the girl's still form.
Kanashimi didn't stop until he reached the hidden place—an abandoned maintenance shed deep in the park's overgrown corner, roof sagging under snow, door half off its hinges.
He slipped inside, pressed his back to the freezing metal wall, and finally let the Aura Fang fall from numb fingers.
It clattered to the concrete floor.
His breaths came harsh, visible in the moonlight slicing through cracked boards. Blood—his, the demon's, hers—froze in dark streaks on his cloak.
Outside, radios crackled, boots pounded snow, voices shouted orders.
Inside, silence.
Kanashimi slid down the wall until he sat in the dark, knees drawn up, face buried in bloodstained hands.
The mission was complete.
One shot, in the end.
But the snow kept falling, soft and relentless, trying to cover everything.