The metal creaked like a wounded animal. Every gust of stale wind down the tunnel made it groan again.

Dan ducked through the narrow rear entrance of the train carriage and surveyed the space. It was long, narrow, and ugly but it was steel, and steel could hold.

"Best shot we've got," he muttered.

Alyssa was already inside, pulling down the emergency seats and barking orders like she'd grown up in war zones.

"Mari-san, start clearing the aisle. Hajime-san, get the luggage racks emptied – we'll need them to barricade the front. Kenji-san, help me with this window."

Kenji grunted and moved to assist. His crowbar made short work of a bent seat hinge, and Alyssa shoved a huge chunk of debris into the gap like it was a sandbag in a trench.

Outside, the platform was quieter now. The bloodstains hadn't dried yet, but the screaming had stopped. That counted for something.

Dan leaned against the doorframe, rotating his shoulder. His glow was gone. Spent. But not forgotten – his hands still tingled like they wanted to do more.

Inside the carriage, people settled. Slowly. Uneasily.

An older woman with a bandaged leg limped to the rear corner. A cluster of teens took the centre row, one of them holding a broken gaming console like a rosary. A toddler clutched a worn stuffed dog and stared at the flickering emergency lights.

A man in a business suit stood watch near the door. He didn't speak much, but he watched everything.

Alyssa knelt beside a woman shaking in the aisle.

"Name?" she asked softly.

"Minori," the woman said.

Alyssa glanced down. A small notebook sat in her lap, covered in pencil sketches – yokai, mostly. Some detailed. Some crude. All too accurate.

"You draw these?"

Minori nodded. "They were outside. I see them before they come."

Alyssa looked closer. One of the sketches showed a fox mask – smiling too wide. Another had something with hands growing out of its back.

"Keep drawing," she said. "If you see something new, tell me first."

Minori nodded, clutching the notebook to her chest.

Hajime ducked through the front. "We've sealed one side. Chain's tight. Welding's not happening, but it's holding."

Dan joined him. "We've got more survivors than space. You think this'll hold if they hit it hard?"

"Steel frame. Old construction. Stronger than it looks. Might bend. Won't break easy."

Dan nodded. "Good. Get the back reinforced too. Nothing gets in without our say-so."

A voice cut across the cabin. Natsuki – middle-aged, sharp-featured, arms crossed like she was daring someone to prove her wrong.

"Great. Now we're locked in a tin can. What happens when they start peeling us out like fruit?"

Alyssa turned. "Then we buy time. Or we run. But if you've got a better idea, Natsuki-san, I'm listening."

The woman said nothing.

Dan moved beside Alyssa. "She's not wrong."

"I know," Alyssa said, voice low. "But if we let them panic, we don't get a second fight."

They stood together near the centre of the carriage, watching the survivors settle into something that wasn't rest but wasn't terror either.

Dan exhaled. "You're good at this."

Alyssa gave him a look. "At what?"

"Keeping people together."

She snorted. "I used to be the girl who punched lockers for fun. Guess fear's a better motivator than discipline."

He smiled, just briefly.

"You're different now."

Alyssa didn't answer. But her gaze softened – just a little – as she looked over the people huddled inside the makeshift steel sanctuary.

Then the train groaned again. Not from pressure. From memory.

Because outside, in the tunnels, something was getting closer.

…………………

The train car creaked gently as someone shifted in their seat. For a moment, it almost felt normal.

Alyssa leaned against the back wall, arms crossed, watching as someone passed out cans of barley tea and protein bars from a scavenged vending machine stash. A toddler giggled at the way his mother pretended to open an imaginary book. An older man used a roll of gauze to bind a cracked window shut, humming something off-key.

It wasn't peace. But it was something close to stillness.

The air was stale with recycled breath and faint antiseptic from Dan's healing work, but it beat the sour stink of the tunnel outside. Metal groaned with each subtle shift of weight, but it was clean. Contained. Defensible.

They'd closed the carriage doors and barricaded the open ones with luggage racks, bent handrails, and whatever loose debris they could find. One of the station's folding barricades had been bolted across the outer exit, braced by Alyssa herself until the bolts gave way and locked.

Inside, people sat closer than they would've liked but no one complained. The silence was the kind people didn't want to break. As if words might invite the world back in.

It wouldn't hold forever. But for a single hour, they weren't running. That counted for something.

Dan crouched over a half-unfolded subway map on a fold-out seat. The lines were faded, smudged by someone's blood. Beside him, Alyssa tapped a pencil against the page – click, click, click – narrowing in on a set of red emergency exits.

"We get above ground here," she said, pointing near a symbol marked 'Kitaōji Street Exit.' "It's five hundred meters north."

"Through three forks and one collapsed section," Dan muttered. "Maybe four."

She sighed. "Better odds than waiting for another one of them to turn in here."

Someone cleared their throat.

It was Natsuki – the sharp-featured woman who'd spoken earlier. She leaned against a pole near the front of the carriage, arms crossed.

"We should go back," she said. "That place you came from. The safehouse you mentioned."

Dan looked up. He didn't answer at first.

Alyssa straightened. "It's kilometers away. And between here and there? More of them. Maybe worse."

"So, we're just trapped here?" Natsuki snapped. "Waiting for the next one to smile wrong and rip someone open?"

Dan rubbed a palm across his temple. "It's not a route. It's too dangerous – a death march."

"She's not wrong," said Hajime, crouched near one of the windows. "They'll come again."

Mari pointed toward the subway map. "Some of the street exits are still open. We could go up."

"No," said another voice. A man in a tour guide vest – Yamamoto, maybe. "The streets are worse. I saw one of them leap over a car. I saw it smiling as it landed."

Silence took hold again.

Stolen content warning: this tale belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences elsewhere.

Alyssa leaned over the map, brow furrowed. "There," she said finally. "Two blocks east of the Kitaōji exit. This building – looks like a commercial zone. Could be the old Tsutaya Bookstore. I remember the signs from the road."

Dan studied the faded marking. "It'll have shutter grates. Thick walls."

"It's boarded up," Mari added. "My older sister worked near there. Said they closed it last year."

"So, no foot traffic," Dan said. "No panicked crowds. Just one entrance to fortify."

Alyssa nodded. "It's a fallback."

"And if the shutters are down?" Kenji asked.

Alyssa cracked her knuckles. "Then we lift them."

Someone near the rear of the carriage – one of the teenage boys – leaned forward, staring at Dan.

"You're not... normal, are you?" he asked. Not accusatory. Just wondering. "The way you glowed. That wasn't a flashlight."

Dan looked up. The warmth in his hands had long since burned out. But the memory lingered. The mark.

Another voice: "And her—" a woman pointed at Alyssa. "She punched that thing through a wall."

More whispers now. Uneasy. Low.

"She's too strong."

"They're one of them."

"Are they infected?"

Alyssa's spine straightened, eyes narrowing.

Dan stepped forward, palms raised slightly. "We're not demons. We're not monsters. We're people."

"With strange powers," Natsuki said flatly.

Alyssa lost patience. "Oh no, he glows now – quick, better throw him in the demon pile!"

Silence. Then:

"He saved my son," a young mother said, standing. "He sealed his wound. I saw it."

"They pulled us from the wreckage," Mari added. "We'd all be dead without them."

A tourist in a hoodie, maybe American, raised a hand. "They fight for us. That's what matters."

Dan nodded slowly. "We didn't choose this. But we're choosing what to do with it. Right now, that means getting all of you out alive."

Another silence. This one softer. Less judgment. More weight.

Dan looked back at the map, finger hovering over the subway line like it could still mean something.

"Either we move on our terms…" he said.

His voice was steady.

"…or we die on theirs."

…………………

They moved up from the train carriage in silence.

Dan led the way through the long subway corridor – flickering lights casting warped shadows across the tiled walls. His glow was faint now, just enough to let the group see his silhouette. Behind him, Alyssa walked tight-lipped, flashlight cutting through the gloom. The narrow hallway reeked of mildew, urine, and something older – like damp plaster rotting from the inside.

They climbed the first flight of cracked stairs into the upper platform corridor. Not far from Matsugasaki Station's public exit, but far enough that the air already felt different. Tighter. Unwatched – but only because whatever was watching hadn't reached them yet.

Their scouting group moved in a V-formation. Kenji, hunched and grim, kept his crowbar ready. Mari stayed close to Alyssa, knuckles white on her flashlight. Haruto brought up the rear, steel pipe across his shoulder, eyes unreadable.

None of them spoke.

The corridor stretched on, grim and littered. Emergency signage flickered above shuttered exits. Broken phones lay shattered in the dust. A purse, unzipped. A child's scarf clung to the edge of a stairwell railing, as if someone had been yanked away mid-step.

Dan stopped at the first junction. He knelt beside the wall, fingers brushing something on the ground.

"School papers," he murmured. "Still fresh."

Mari shined her light ahead.

The corridor bent sharply left – and there, on the inside wall, was a mural.

Not paint. Charcoal. Smeared into shapes.

Fox masks. Dozens of them. Scrawled with frantic repetition, overlapping, grinning. Some were small and childish. Others were detailed – too detailed. Open mouths. Sharp teeth. Blank eyes.

Alyssa swallowed. "They weren't just walking through. They were waiting here."

Kenji tapped the wall with his crowbar. "Someone tried to fight them here. There's drag marks."

Then Dan looked up.

Something shifted above the corridor lights. Something small. Fast.

A grate hung loose near the ceiling. And behind it—

A face.

Small. White. Fox-masked.

The child-like thing crouched in the vent, upside down. Its limbs were too thin. Its mask too perfect. It tilted its head slowly, like a curious dog.

Alyssa's flashlight hit it dead-on.

It didn't flinch.

Then it was gone.

Dan was already moving. "Back. Now."

They turned as one, feet pounding the tiles as they moved back through the corridor toward the stairs. They didn't run but they moved fast.

A low sound followed them. Scraping.

Then silence.

Then – impact.

From the side corridor, three shapes exploded forward. Fast. Crooked. Human-shaped but twisted – yokai. Their skin sagged in places, teeth visible where cheeks should have been. Hands clawed like tools.

One lunged for Mari.

Alyssa met it mid-charge. Her gauntlet slammed into its ribs – bone cracked and the thing folded sideways, choking on its own breath.

Dan grabbed the second mid-leap. He locked arms with it, glow flaring. The thing spasmed as soul-purification surged through its frame. Steam rose from its eyes. It screamed.

The third yokai slammed into Kenji. The older man fell, but didn't drop the crowbar. He swung from the ground, jamming it into the creature's knee. It screeched and reeled back.

Mari screamed – flat on the tiles now. The fourth yokai – smaller, thinner – was already leaping for her.

Haruto stepped in.

He tackled the creature out of the air and drove his steel pipe into its skull with a sickening crack. Blood sprayed the tiles. The thing twitched once. Then went still.

Breathing hard, they staggered back toward the stairwell. Dan was already healing Mari – glow flickering through her jacket sleeve. Haruto leaned against the wall, blood trickling from his temple. Kenji was limping but upright.

Dan reached for Haruto next. "Hold still."

He poured the glow into him. Haruto's wound closed. The man said nothing. Just nodded once.

Mari clutched her jacket with both hands. "Are… are we okay?"

Alyssa looked back down the corridor. It was quiet.

Too quiet.

Dan stared at the ceiling vent again.

It wasn't empty anymore.

Half a dozen mask-child faces stared down. Silent. Still. Watching.

Behind them… movement. More. Dozens.

Too many.

Dan swallowed. "That was a scout group."

Alyssa raised her gauntlet again, more instinct than plan. "And next time?"

Dan's voice was low. Final.

"Next time it's not four. It's forty."

…………………

The train car echoed with whispers – nervous, breathless, waiting. When the scouting party returned, every face turned toward the opening hatch like it held a miracle or a death sentence.

Dan stepped in first, blood smeared along his jaw. Alyssa followed close behind, gauntlets scorched, dragging the duffel bag with the shattered mask.

"They're coming," Dan said simply. "We don't have time."

Murmurs surged. Some stood. Others just clutched their children tighter.

"Four of them found us," Alyssa added. "And those were just scouts. Vents are full of whispering now. If we stay, we die."

No one argued.

Dan pointed toward the back stairwell. "We need to move. Now."

The survivors moved fast – bags half-zipped, shoes half-tied. Kenji helped an elderly woman to her feet. Hajime, the former high school baseball coach, hoisted a toddler onto his shoulders. Mari clutched a flashlight in one hand and a fire extinguisher in the other.

They ascended the cracked stairwell in single file, breath shallow, eyes wide.

The first scream came near the mid-level landing.

A blur of movement – something pale, too fast. One of the younger survivors, a man named Jun, vanished into the dark below with a wet sound and a dragged breath. The next was Emiko. She slipped trying to grab him. Her scream stopped halfway.

Dan yelled, "Keep going! Don't look back!"

They burst onto the street.

It was worse than they remembered.

The sky was a bruised orange – half-sunset, half-wrong. Ash drifted through the air. Somewhere in the distance, a building burned.

The road was wreckage. An overturned delivery truck leaked oil into the gutter. A taxi lay crumpled against a vending machine, its horn still honking in short, mechanical gasps.

"Move!" Alyssa shouted, leading the way.

They passed a wedding venue with doors wide open. Inside: no bodies, just formalwear pinned to the walls – suits and dresses nailed up like trophies. One of the tuxedos was still smoking.

They didn't stop.

Dan kept scanning the rooftops. Shadows moved, just out of range. Not following. Not yet. But watching.

Mari stumbled. Haruto caught her.

Hajime called, "There! Bookstore!"

The TSUTAYA sign loomed ahead – faded blue, half of it flickering. Boards covered the windows. Metal shutters were still halfway down.

Alyssa sprinted ahead and pounded on the side shutter. "Hajime – now!"

He slammed his shoulder into the release bar. Once. Twice.

It gave.

The shutter rolled upward with a teeth-gritting shriek. They poured in. Children first. Then the wounded. Then everyone else.

Inside: old shelves. Dust. Abandoned registers. A plastic Pikachu toy sat behind the counter, smiling like nothing had happened.

Dan slid the shutter down behind them with a grunt.

It locked.

Silence.

Everyone gasped for air. Some wept. Others collapsed to the floor. Even Haruto leaned against the counter, breathless.

Alyssa looked out the cracked glass at the ruined street beyond. Her reflection stared back – soot-streaked, wide-eyed, gauntlet still raised.

She didn't lower it. She simply braced for what was coming next.

…………………

The shutters slammed shut behind them with a groan of metal on metal.

Inside, the air was thick with dust and the smell of old ink. Fluorescent tubes overhead blinked once, then gave up. What little light they had came from emergency torches and the glow of Dan's aura, faint but steady, like a candle refusing to die.

The ground floor stretched in two long aisles. Shelves still stood, many collapsed or looted, but some held their stock – manga, light novels, half-torn magazines, sticker pads, and bent postcards. Toward the back, a narrow staircase led to the second floor.

Mari stared at the manga shelves, tears suddenly falling. "I used to read these with my sister."

Alyssa knelt beside her. She didn't say anything. She just sat there until Mari stopped shaking.

Haruto leaned against the wall, bleeding from the shoulder. "Used to come here as a kid," he said quietly. "First floor was books and stationery. Upstairs was rentals. DVDs, CDs... back when people still did that."

Alyssa brushed dust from a checkout counter. "What happened?"

"Streaming. No new stock. It just… faded out."

Dan glanced at the shutter, then the upper balcony. "But it's intact. No breach. No blood."

Kenji coughed. "A miracle."

"No," Dan said. "An opportunity."

They moved fast.

Shelves were dragged across the main entrance. The checkout counters formed a barricade. Torn posters were taped over windows to block light. They found thick rope in a janitor closet and used it to reinforce the doors. Mari and Natsuki helped haul steel signage from upstairs to wedge the side shutter closed.

By the time they finished, the place looked like a forgotten bunker buried in pulp fiction.

Water was the next priority.

Dan found an old wash basin behind the staff desk. To everyone's astonishment, it still worked – cold water sputtering out in coughing spurts. He let it run until clear, then filled a scavenged drink cooler.

"Still gotta eat," Alyssa muttered.

They'd packed what rations they could: instant noodles, vending machine snacks, a dozen canned coffees. It wasn't enough.

Dan looked toward the cracked glass doors. "Tomorrow, we send a team. Quiet. In and out."

"For food?" someone asked.

Dan nodded. "And intel. We're blind in here."

The room fell quiet.

Some of the survivors found seats on the carpeted floor. Others curled beside the manga shelves, too tired to care. A toddler slept on a cushion of light novels. Someone found a CD player upstairs that still worked, and low music crackled from a corner – barely audible, but enough.

Alyssa stood by the glass entrance, arms crossed. The street outside was dark. Firelight flickered somewhere deeper in the city. The air smelled of ash and ozone.

Dan stepped beside her.

"Not bad, huh?" he said.

She didn't smile, but her voice was softer than usual. "We're not safe. But we're together."

Dan nodded.

And for now, that was enough.

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