The grey fog over the Yokohama harbor filled with tainted memories and stale regret. As the Kashima Maru moved into the shadow of the distorted salt-ruins of Shinjuku, the air seemed to thicken. The ship's engines hummed with a strained, low throb, as if the water had turned into a thick, gelatinous blood.
Ren Hanshin stood at the edge of the cargo deck. The crimson cracks on his skin, the Weaver's Mark pulsed with a dull, rhythmic light that matched the heartbeat of the ocean. He looked down at the skiff bobbing against the hull.
Sato was a walking corpse of brine. His porter's jacket, once a symbol of his petty authority in the D-Rank dungeons, was now a tattered rag of grey kelp. His eyeless sockets leaked a constant stream of silver saltwater that pooled at his feet.
"Ren..." Sato's voice was a gurgling rasp, like air escaping a punctured lung. "You... you always thought... you were different. You carried the Master's favor... while we carried... the dirt."
