"You don't have a car?" Yamasaki asked, hands stuffed in his pockets. "You're kidding, right?"
He pulled the same crumpled pack of mints from his coat, tossed the last one in the air and caught it in his mouth like some trick he'd been doing since he was a kid.
The sharp minty taste cut through the bitterness building inside him.
It wasn't the darkness around him that bothered him.
It was the other one.
The one inside.
"No… Well, since I don't take paid jobs, I never have money for luxuries like that…" he muttered, scratching the back of his neck, visibly embarrassed. "Yeah, maybe I'm being an idiot, but—"
"Maybe?"
"Jeez… you really take this whole cause seriously," the redhead cut in, no delicacy whatsoever, shooting him a sideways glance.
Yeah. Yami hadn't had parents around long enough to teach him manners… rough luck.
But… there was something in her tone.
Something even he could pick up on.
Too warm to be just curiosity.
Her eyes always locked onto his sourness… like always.
She'd bite her wrist and smile out of nowhere, like she was trying to hold something in that slipped through anyway.
She's so into him…
He just shrugged. In silence, he started walking, eyes already fixed on the tunnel stretching ahead. Suddenly, he scrunched his nose.
"Tsk… my allergies… must be a truckload of dust in this damn place," he grumbled, sniffling. "But that's the deal, right? Takes determination to be a hero."
"In other words, you're screwed!"
Yeah… dealing with Chatosaki wouldn't be easy.
She stopped. Shot him a dry look over her shoulder, the kind that disciplines dogs without saying a word.
"YAMASAKI!" she scolded, flustered, covering her face with her hand.
But the blond just watched, smirking crookedly. He didn't see any harm in it.
"Yeah, that's about right. Anyway," he went on, straightening up, "if you guys don't mind my being late sometimes, then I won't mind your quirks either, you know? I just wanna be part of a group that gets me… or at least tolerates me. You do, right?"
"Y-yeah… sure!"
"Hell yeah…"
She nudged his shoulder lightly, like saying: "Come on, answer properly!"
"Yeah, man… no problem!" he said, awkwardly throwing up a half-hearted thumbs-up.
"Heh…" she laughed, not even pretending to hide it.
It'd be a natural cycle—annoy each other endlessly.
Damn her… he thought, glaring at her like a killer.
Then, without warning, the heroic exorcist whistled.
But the sound… didn't echo.
Nothing.
It was like the air itself was dead.
The wind rustled the leaves, dust danced on the ground… but no sound followed.
It was like shouting into a vacuum.
"There's something here…"
"Terror zone," she muttered.
It was obvious to all three of them: inside a hunting domain, reality split in two.
On one side, the lucid, solid world. On the other, the apparition zone where sound was the only reliable compass, revealing the outlines of the supernatural.
"The entity's still in a limited state," she went on, stepping forward with a leader's air. "Which means this should be an easy mission, right boys?"
She strode ahead, lifting her hand to chest height as if blessing her own path.
"Hold up!" Yami cut in suddenly. "Don't you think it's weird?"
The mood shifted.
"It's a terror zone… but there hasn't been an accident here for months. With this level of distortion… and this feeling in the air… This place should be crawling with manifestations. Or worse—housing a unique entity. High rank. Something powerful."
Silence.
And… damn. He knew what he was talking about.
He wasn't just the poser exorcist everyone thought he was. He had an eye for it. Intuition. Experience maybe—or just instincts too sharp to ignore.
"True, man…" Arthur murmured almost without thinking. Even he was impressed.
"Makes sense, right?" Yami pressed, holding firm. "Normally, a terror entity doesn't go more than a week without committing atrocities. It's in their nature. They have to manifest to exist. If not… it's just a ghost."
Her aura was the first to flare—sudden, controlled, almost rehearsed. A reflex of what she'd been taught to be: a leader before any doubt.
"Yeah, I considered that," she said, turning to him. "But… we need certainty. We can't stand around debating what is or isn't, sweeties."
Her recklessness sounded like reason.
They exchanged a sulky glance, tension still humming as the girl stepped forward and drew her blade in one smooth motion.
"Expando potentiam: facit ut gladium gerere possim, qui uno ictu exorcizare valeat."
The phrase left her lips urgently, as if to silence any more questions with action.
"Yeah, maybe… but I like you, Shirasaki!" the blond said, slapping his fist into his open palm.
A navy-blue aura flared around him, pulsing in steady waves, filling the air with that youthful determination… that almost convinced even the silence.
But then…
"Achoo!"
The sneeze cut through the mood like a knife.
The girl couldn't hold back her laughter this time—real, honest.
"Hm…" the sour one grumbled, watching the show. His aura still barely there, almost bored. "You two get excited over so little…"
But before he could finish, the other two had already jumped into the tunnel, swallowed up by adrenaline and shadows.
He just sighed. And, with the same calm as always, walked up to the entrance. The darkness swallowed him, slowly.
Inside, he saw their backs.
Frozen.
Silent.
Without a word, he kept walking until he reached them and rested a hand on each shoulder.
"What are you two doing? See a ghost?"
But the joke died in his throat.
Before his eyes, the universe… expanded.
No beginning.
No middle.
No end.
He stood in a void, stepping on the lights of the sky, like the stars had come down just to hold him up.
And in front of him… someone was clapping.
Hair red as embers.
White gloves, spotless.
A suit so elegant it was almost insulting.
And horns. Horns gleaming like the sharp teeth that flashed when they smiled.
"I've been waiting for you, Yamasaki Yami… and for my good old brother, Azaael," the figure said, walking toward him.
The young man tried to step back, but his feet felt stuck in an unreal calm.
Still, his eyes stayed sharp, trying to look indifferent.
Asmael raised a hand.
His eyes… swirled.
Like spirals.
A dense black, yet somehow comforting.
Like falling into a forgotten memory.
"Who are you? What the hell is going on?"
No answer.
The two beside him were still frozen, trapped in time.
And then…
Everything shook.
The figure before him flickered like a badly made illusion.
The ground lost its meaning.
He stepped on nothing and fell.
Straight onto the tracks.
"Answer me!!!" he screamed just as reality snapped back.
The sound echoed through the tunnel. He gasped on the cold floor, eyes wide.
"What's happening?!" Amai ran to him, hand outstretched.
They were back in the dark, damp tunnel—now with normal noises too normal to be comforting. Rats, insects, the steady drip of water from somewhere unseen.
The blond watched from afar, hands on his hips, like he was already at the end of the tunnel.
"Found nothing! Ugh…" he scoffed. "The farther we go, the more the energy fades. This place feels more like a mechanism than an entity itself…"
"A tunnel… negative energy… none of this makes sense!" the girl snapped, hauling him up roughly. "A mechanism? For what?!"
She stomped her foot, frustrated.
"So… there's no way to exorcise it?" he asked, still dazed, brushing dirt off his clothes.
His mind foggy.
Body cold.
He had no idea what had just happened.
He only knew… something had pulled him out. And then thrown him back in.
"There would be if you hadn't backed off!" she grumbled, already starting to walk. "Ugh… that killed my mood! Let's go."
"What a disappointment!" Arthur added, shooting him a side-eye. He stepped closer and grabbed the boy by the shoulders. "Did you see a ghost or what?"
Way too smug.
"What? Huh… I just… I dunno, expected more, I guess…" he muttered, brushing it off. With a shrug, he slipped from Arthur's grip and caught up to his "leader," who was already near the tunnel's exit.
"Got it…"
He scrunched his nose, fighting back another sneeze, and then dragged his feet to follow.
This was just the beginning.
The first whisper that something huge and terrible was coming.
After that day, Yami would spend hours wondering about that vision.
And the newest recruit would understand, clearly, what drove Amai up the wall.
The unknown.
Failure.
Not knowing…
And not fixing it.
Two things that directly challenged her prodigy nature, no matter how unshakable she seemed.
That night came to an end.
Finally.
Knock knock!
The door of an old trailer creaked open in the middle of an abandoned amusement park lot.
Kazuki Tanaka.
Outside were Milk and Kwawe, both exhausted, defeated after another failed day trying to recruit believers for the cult. When the door opened, they breathed out, relieved.
But it wasn't quite who they expected.
A middle-aged man with deep eye bags and a faded brown coat.
He reeked of exhaustion—physical and moral.
"What the hell do you want with me?" he grunted, slapping a hand to his face before letting out a belch. "I gotta work tomorrow, dammit…"
"You're Antônio de Almeida? The Illuminated sympathizer?" Kwawe asked, straight to the point.
The man scowled.
"Oh, now you show up?! I waited for you all damn afternoon yesterday! That son of a bitch boss of mine docked my lunch break!"
Muttering, he stomped through the trailer kitchen, where empty bottles, leftover takeout, and snack wrappers piled up, and flopped onto the messy bed.
"Get in already, for fuck's sake!"
The two exchanged incredulous looks.
But they obeyed.