It started with a tremor. A ripple in the air. A flicker in the dark.
Rei had tried to live normally after meeting Aira. He told himself it was all in his head. Just a delusion. Just fear.
But deep inside, he knew something was changing.
He hadn't slept in days.Not because he couldn't… but because the darkness kept calling him back.
"Let go," the voice would whisper. "Let me wear you."
He resisted.Until he couldn't.
It happened in the alley behind the train station.
Two older students — delinquents — had cornered him. They smelled fear. Thought he was easy prey.
"Hey, pretty boy. You been seeing ghosts lately?"
Rei tried to walk past. They shoved him.
"You gonna cry? Maybe you should smile a little—"
That word.That smile.
Something snapped.
Rei's eyes rolled back. His body trembled. And from behind his spine, the Shadow emerged.
It wasn't visible at first — just heat. Weight. A presence so thick the air curdled. The delinquents choked, their laughter dying in their throats.
And then — it smiled.
A second mouth opened on Rei's face.Not his lips.Beneath them.
And from that impossible grin, a wave of malice exploded outward like a psychic scream.
Far across the city, in a mirror sealed under a shrine, a pair of golden eyes snapped open.
"So… the Laughing One stirs."
In an abandoned church, a child with no shadow began crying black tears.
In a desert temple long buried by time, a cracked monolith trembled for the first time in centuries.
Six different places. Six different vessels. Six different nightmares.
All of them turned their heads.All of them felt him.
The Smiling Shadow had awakened.
Back in the alley, Rei collapsed. His body steamed. His heartbeat raced like thunder.
The two bullies lay on the ground, weeping, unable to speak. One had torn off his own fingernails. The other kept muttering: "It saw me… it saw me… it saw me…"
Aira arrived too late — but what she saw froze her cold.
Rei's body was still. But his shadow was no longer his.
It moved on its own, grinning wide beneath the flickering streetlight.
Aira's voice was shaky.
"No… no, this is too soon…"
She stepped closer.
"Rei, if you can hear me… hold on."
The shadow turned to her. Smiled.And spoke in his voice.
"It's already too late."