The city had long stopped breathing. Its steel veins lay exposed, humming a mechanical requiem under the weight of ruin.
Shin Arata stepped lightly on broken concrete, each footfall echoing across hollow alleyways. Above him, the sky twisted into colors that didn't belong — purples that bled into green, clouds stitched with static.
"Something's wrong," he muttered.
He wasn't alone — not truly. The city whispered now. It spoke in pulses, in sparks, in blood dried on shattered walls. And Shin listened.
A flicker. A shape.
Then—
The Bleeding Blade called to him.
It wasn't a scream. It was a memory.
"You remember it too," Shin said to the hilt wrapped in black cloth on his back. His fingers slid across the bandage, still soaked faintly red.
Let it go, something urged within. Bleed the silence.
He unwrapped it slowly.
The sword wasn't whole. It wasn't clean.
It was jagged. As if torn from the ribcage of a forgotten god.
A shadow lunged from the corner — monstrous, malformed, a predator shaped by screams.
Shin didn't flinch.
One step. One swing.
The blade howled.
And so did the city.
A crimson arc tore through buildings like butter. Glass didn't shatter — it evaporated. The creature split in two before it even registered the strike.
Everything fell silent.
Except the sword. It pulsed. Hungrier now.
Shin dropped to one knee. Blood trickled from his nose. His veins lit up like burning circuits.
"I'm not ready," he breathed.
But the city didn't care. It had chosen him.
—
Far across the city's shattered veins, beneath a sky torn by static, Kai stood still.
Something crawled through the fog — a shape with no face, a memory that bled.
His breath frosted. His hands trembled, not from fear, but from restraint.
"I see you," Kai whispered.
The creature didn't reply. It simply existed — and that was enough.
His blade hummed against his back. Not yet. But close.
The fracture within him deepened. And somewhere inside, the Warden stirred.
Ryuu laughed in the distance. Not mocking. Not cruel. Just… knowing.
The storm hadn't begun.
But it was awake now.
And nothing would sleep again.