The silence was wrong.
Tokyo had never been silent. Even at 4 AM, the city breathed—trains running, convenience stores humming, the eternal white noise of fourteen million lives overlapping. But now, at 3:47 PM on what should have been a busy Thursday afternoon, Shibuya Crossing lay perfectly, impossibly still.
The first thing you noticed wasn't the bodies. It was the absence of sound. No traffic. No voices. No heartbeat of civilization. Just wind moving through a city that had forgotten how to live.
Then you saw the red.
Shibuya Crossing—that famous intersection where thousands of people crossed simultaneously in organized chaos, where tourists took photos and locals navigated with practiced efficiency—had become a canvas painted in shades of crimson and gray. Hundreds of corpses lay where they'd fallen eight months ago, some still clutching phones or shopping bags, frozen in the last moment before their skulls had exploded from the inside out.
The Cataclysm, survivors called it. The day every Ibalas device activated its Final Optimization Protocol. The day eight billion people died in the same second.
The day the world ended in a fountain of blood and brain matter.
Crows had claimed the crossing now. Thousands of them, feasting on what remained. They scattered as a small figure walked through the center of the intersection, barefoot, stepping over bodies with the casual ease of someone navigating familiar ground.
Katzugari Mizuhara was six years old.
He'd been six for three months now, though he couldn't remember celebrating. Birthdays required someone who cared enough to count the days, and everyone who'd ever cared was dead. His white hair—grown long and unkempt, reaching past his shoulders—caught the gray afternoon light as he tilted his head, examining a particularly interesting corpse. The body had been a business worker once. You could tell from the suit, though rot and weather had reduced the face to something no longer quite human.
Katzugari smiled. His teeth were too sharp, pointed like a predator's, though that had started before the Cataclysm.
His red eyes—natural red, not contacts or disease, just one of those quirks that made him look wrong even before the world ended—swept across the crossing. Looking for movement. For prey. For entertainment.
The game was getting boring.
He'd killed forty-three people in the eight months since the Cataclysm. Not for food or resources or territory. Just because their fear made interesting shapes on their faces. Because the wet sound of electricity through flesh sounded like music. Because when you laugh in a world of corpses, at least someone was making noise.
A flash of movement—there. Three figures emerged from the ruined Shibuya 109 department store, carrying salvaged supplies. Three people. Survivors, like him. Unlike him in every way that mattered.
Katzugari's smile widened, sharp teeth catching light. His eyes began to glow, crimson intensifying to something almost fluorescent. Around his small body, the air crackled. Red electricity—Trauma Voltage, the power created from witnessing absolute horror—sparked and danced across his torn black clothes.
The game could continue after all.
The three scavengers didn't notice him at first. They were focused on their haul—canned food, bottled water, medical supplies. The basics of survival in a dead world. The third, maybe thirty, spotted him first.
"Oh thank goodness," she breathed, genuine relief flooding her voice. "A person. A living human." She took a step forward. "Sweetheart, are you alone? Are you hurt?"
Katzugari giggled. It was a child's sound, sweet and violent, completely wrong coming from someone standing in an ocean of rotting corpses. "I'm not alone. I have friends." He gestured to the bodies around him. "Lots of friends. They're just not very talkative."
The persons relief curdled into unease. Something in his tone, in that too-wide smile, in those glowing red eyes that tracked her movement like a cat watching a mouse.
"Kid," one of the people said carefully, "we're not here to hurt you. We're just trying to survive. We can share our supplies if—"
"I don't want your supplies," Katzugari interrupted, his voice maintaining that unsettling sing-song quality. "I want to play a game. It's more fun than scavenging." The red electricity around him intensified, crackling louder. "The game is called 'How Fast Can You Run Before I Make You Into Art.'"
The second person—younger, maybe mid-twenties—pulled a knife. "Stay back, you little freak."
Freak. Katzugari had heard that word a lot, even before. Because of his eyes. Because of his teeth. Because he was too smart and too quiet and too wrong. His parents had told him it didn't matter, that being different was okay, that people who used that word were scared and small.
His parents were dead. Their heads had exploded like everyone else's. He'd watched it happen while hiding under their kitchen table, four years old, as government agents dragged their bodies away for protesting against Ibalas.
Being different had mattered very much, in the end. "Run," Katzugari whispered, his child's voice suddenly devoid of innocence. "Run, or the game's no fun."
They ran.
Katzugari counted to ten—slowly, properly, like his mother had taught him—then launched himself forward in a burst of red lightning. The Trauma Voltage propelled him with inhuman speed, closing the distance to the slower runner in seconds. The person with the knife didn't even have time to turn before Katzugari was on him.
The child's electrified hand punched through the persons lower back with the force of a battering ram, red lightning cooking flesh from the inside. The person screamed—high and terrified and raw—as Katzugari withdrew his hand, now dripping with blood and internal spine matter.
"That was too easy," Katzugari pouted, genuinely disappointed. "You didn't even try to block."
The person collapsed, twitching as residual electricity burst through his nervous system. Not dead yet. Dying, but conscious enough to feel it happening. Good. Better. That made the art more interesting for are main character.
Katzugari left him there and pursued the others.
The second living person and the first living person had split up—smart, forcing him to choose. He went after the first person, leaving the third for dessert. This one was faster, more desperate, vaulting over debris and corpses with practiced efficiency. He'd survived eight months of this apocalypse. He knew how to run.
But Katzugari had been surviving since he was four. And he'd learned that in a world without rules, the only thing that mattered was power.
The red lightning coalesced in his hand, forming a whip of pure electrical force. He cracked it forward, wrapping around the runner's leg. The runner went down hard, face smashing against concrete. Before he could recover, Katzugari was there, straddling his back, small hands grabbing his hair.
"Riddle time," Katzugari said cheerfully. "What's a human but cannot escape, has a face but cannot scream through living, and dies slowly while I watch?"
The person struggled, trying to throw off the child. Katzugari responded by sending a pulse of Trauma Voltage directly into his skull—not enough to kill, just enough to make every nerve ending scream. The persons scream joined the phantom chorus of eight billion others.
"Give up? The answer is: you. Right now. Isn't that funny?" "Please," the person sobbed. "Please, I have a life—"
"Liar," Katzugari said, and his voice was almost sad. "Everyone's life's are dead. That's the rule of the game. That's why it's fair." He leaned close, whispering in the persons ear. "My life is dead too. But I don't lie about it."
He bit down on the persons neck—those sharp teeth finding the neck spine with predatory precision—and tore. Blood sprayed, painting his white hair a deeper red. The persons struggles weakened, became jitters, became nothing. Katzugari stood, wiping his mouth, tasting copper and salt and the particular flavor of human fear.
"Two down," he announced to no one. "One to go."
He found the final living person hiding in an abandoned clothing store, curled behind a counter, trying to breathe quietly. Trying to be invisible. As if that ever worked.
Katzugari walked past her hiding spot once. Twice. Three times. Building the tension. Letting her hope she'd escaped notice. Hope was important. It made the fear taste better when he finally shattered it.
On the fourth pass, he stopped directly in front of the counter. "I can hear your heart," he said conversationally. "It's beating really fast. Like a rabbit's. Are you a rabbit?"
Silence. Then, quietly, desperately: "What do you want from me?"
"Want?" Katzugari tilted his head, genuinely considering. "I want lots of things. I want my parents back. I want the world to not be dead. I want someone to explain why the people who were supposed to protect us made everyone die instead." His red eyes found her through the gap beneath the counter. "But I can't have any of that. So I want to make you cry. Because at least that's something."
She burst from cover, running for the exit. Katzugari let her get three steps before the red lightning wrapped around her waist, yanking her backward. She crashed into a rack of clothes, hangers scattering.
"You're not very good at this game," Katzugari observed, walking toward her slowly. "The others were better runners. But maybe you'll be more creative?"
The person grabbed a metal rod—part of the broken clothing rack—and swung it at his head. Katzugari ducked easily, giggling at the effort. The second swing he caught, electricity arcing from his hand to the metal, making her entire body convulse as the voltage traveled through her.
She dropped the weapon, gasping. Katzugari picked it up, examining it with childlike curiosity.
"Do you know what this feels like?" he asked, genuinely interested. "When I use my power, I have to remember the day everyone died. Every time. I have to see my mom's head explode again. My dad's blood on the walls. Eight billion people's last thoughts trying to fit inside my brain." He looked at her, and for just a second, something human flickered in those red eyes. Something small and scared and broken. "It hurts so much that laughing is the only thing that doesn't make me scream."
Then the moment passed. The smile returned. "So I'm going to hurt you now. Because if I'm hurting, everyone should hurt. That's fair, right?"
He swung the metal rod down on her leg. The crack of breaking bone echoed in the empty store. She screamed—high and terrible and real. Katzugari listened to it like music, head tilted, appreciating the acoustics.
"Better," he said. "Do it again."
He broke her other leg. Then her arms, methodically, taking his time. Between each break, he'd ask her questions: "What's your name?" "Did you have a friend?" "What did you dream about before everyone died?" "Do you think anyone will remember you existed?"
She answered at first—"Sakura," "Yes, a brother," "I wanted to be a teacher"—but eventually just begged. Begged for mercy, for death, for anything to end.
Katzugari considered her request. "Okay," he said finally, almost kindly. "You played the game. You get a prize."
The red lightning enveloped her completely, cooking her from the inside out. She died screaming, body jittering, until there was nothing left but a smoking corpse and the smell of burned meat.
Katzugari stood over the body, electricity fading from his hands, that sharp-toothed smile fixed on his face. Then he started laughing.
It began as giggles—childish and bright. But it built into something manic, something broken, echoing through the dead city. He laughed until tears streamed down his face, until his ribs ached, until the laughter became indistinguishable from sobbing.
He laughed because the alternative was remembering. Remembering that he was six. Remembering that he'd once been different. Remembering the moment eight months ago when he'd stood in this exact crossing, covered in the blood of eight billion strangers, and felt power—pure, terrible power—flood into his small body as their deaths became his strength.
He laughed because in a world of corpses, at least his laughter proved something was still alive.
Eventually, the laughter faded. Katzugari wiped his eyes, smearing blood and tears across his pale face. The sun was setting, painting the sky in oranges and reds that reminded him of the Cataclysm. Beautiful colors. Murder colors.
He started walking toward his hideout—an abandoned apartment where he slept in what used to be another child's bedroom, surrounded by toys and drawings that weren't his.
As he walked, he spoke to the corpses lining the streets. An old habit. The dead were better listeners than the living had ever been.
"Today wasn't a good game," he told them. "They broke too easy. I'm getting better at hurting people, but they're not getting better at surviving it. That's not fair." He kicked a skull, watching it roll into a storm drain. "Mom used to say fairness mattered. But she's dead, so maybe it doesn't."
He paused at an intersection, looking at a particular corpse. A person with long dark hair, face mostly gone, wearing clothes similar to what his mother used to wear. He'd stopped at this spot before. Talked to this body before. Pretending, just for a moment, that she was listening.
"I killed three more people today, Mom," he whispered, that manic smile finally faltering. "I didn't want to. I did want to. I don't know anymore." His small hands clenched into fists. "You said people who hurt others were bad. But everyone who didn't hurt people is dead. So maybe being bad is how you survive."
The corpse didn't answer. It never did. But sometimes, in the space between heartbeats, Katzugari could almost hear her voice: You're not bad, sweetheart. You're just hurt.
"I don't feel hurt," he said. "I don't feel anything except..." He trailed off, unable to name the hollow aching thing in his heart. The space where emotions used to live before the Cataclysm burned them all away.
A sound—footsteps behind him. Katzugari spun, red lightning crackling to life, eyes glowing fierce.
A person stood there. Older, maybe thirties, wearing tattered yellow clothes. She wasn't threatening. Wasn't holding a weapon. Was just... looking at him. At the blood covering him. At his glowing eyes and sharp teeth and the electricity dancing around his small frame.
"Hello," she said quietly. "My name is Yumeko." Katzugari's smile returned, predatory and eager. "Are you here to play the game?" "No," Yumeko said. "I'm here to make sure you get home safely. It's getting dark, and people shouldn't be outside alone after dark."
The absurdity of the statement—in this world, in this city of corpses, worrying about a person being outside after dark—broke something in Katzugari's brain. He laughed again, but it was different this time. Confused. Uncertain.
"I just killed three people," he said, as if explaining. "I broke them and burned them and made them cry. And you want to make sure I get home safe?"
"Yes," Yumeko said simply. "Because you're six years old and shouldn't be doing such things, and six-year-olds shouldn't be killing people, and they shouldn't be alone through murder, and they shouldn't think the world is just games and death." She took a step closer. "What's your name?"
"Devil," Katzugari said automatically. "Red-Eyed Devil. Laughing Death. That's what people call me." "That's what people call you," Yumeko agreed. "But what's your name? The one your parents gave you?"
Something in Katzugari's heart cracked. Just a little. Just enough to hurt. "Katzugari," he whispered, and saying his own name felt like lifting something impossibly heavy. "Katzugari Mizuhara."
"Hello, Katzugari Mizuhara," Yumeko said, and smiled—not with fear or disgust or horror, but with something he'd almost forgotten existed. Kindness. "Would you like to have dinner with me? I found some canned peaches. We could share them."
Katzugari stared at her. His red eyes flickered, the glow dimming slightly. His sharp-toothed smile wavered.
"Why?" he asked, and his voice was suddenly small. Suddenly six years old. "Why would you want to eat with me? I'm a devil. Everyone knows. Everyone runs or fights or dies."
"Because," Yumeko said gently, "devils are just people who forgot they're human. And sometimes they need someone to remind them." For the first time in eight months, Katzugari didn't know what to say. Didn't know what game this was. Didn't know the rules.
So he did the only thing that made sense: he started to follow her. Slowly. Carefully. Ready to run or attack if this was a trap. But she just walked, not looking back, trusting he would follow.
And above them, the sunset painted Tokyo in shades of orange and red, and for just a moment—barely a heartbeat—Katzugari wondered what it would feel like to be human again.
Then the moment passed. The red glow returned to his eyes. The sharp-toothed smile fixed back in place.
But he kept following. Because even devils get lonely. And loneliness, he was learning, hurt worse than any trauma the voltage could make him remember.
The game continued. But maybe, just maybe, the rules were about to change.
TO BE CONTINUED... [Next Episode: "The Teacher and The Devil"]