The barricade creaked shut behind him.

Dan stood still, just outside the emergency exit of the bookstore. Concrete pressed cold beneath his boots. The fog was thicker than it had been earlier – rolling low across the ruined street, soaked in smoke and something sourer. Like rot trying to hide behind rain.

Alyssa stood beside him, arms crossed, brow furrowed.

"You sure you've got everything?" she asked. Her voice was low. Tired, but steady.

Dan nodded, adjusting the backpack slung across one shoulder. "Tools. Flare. Rope. Worst case, I use the map as a bandage."

"Don't joke."

He offered a small smile. "I'll be back before you finish rationing the biscuits."

A beat. Then she stepped forward, closed the distance between them just enough to press her forehead lightly against his shoulder. Just for a moment. No words. Just that look – tired, furious, terrified – and a quick nod. He'd held her gaze a second longer than was smart.

He stepped forward.

The stairwell creaked under Dan's boots.

"Don't make me lie to Chloe," she said. "Don't die."

Dan's hand brushed her elbow. "Not planning on it."

From behind them, Mari called gently, "Good luck."

Haruto gave a quiet nod. Hajime handed Dan a bent umbrella handle sharpened to a point.

A tourist – the American, Mitch – made the sign of the cross. "Godspeed, brother."

Dan said nothing. Just nodded once.

Then he slipped through the door.

The metal shut behind him with a clunk that echoed too long.

Outside – the city had changed.

The fog wasn't just thick. It was wet. Heavy. Like breathing through a damp cloth soaked in vinegar. Shapes warped at the edges of vision – corners bent subtly wrong, streets stretching longer than they should.

Dan moved low, staying close to the storefronts. His boots crunched over broken glass and loose gravel. The map fluttered slightly in his hand, though the air was still.

No traffic. No sirens. Just the ghost-rattle of wind through rusted shutters.

He passed an overturned taxi, the back seat door clawed open. Nearby, a burnt shrine still smoked faintly – offerings blackened to ash. Someone had spray-painted a kanji on the wall beside it. The paint had run, but Dan could still read the word:

"Curse".

He pressed forward, steps cautious. Every alley looked like a mouth. Every window – an eye.

Then – movement. Not loud. Not close.

But something shifted behind a shattered bus stop across the intersection. Just enough to make him drop to a crouch.

He reached for the blade at his belt – not drawn yet. Not unless it came closer.

The fog swirled. Settled.

Nothing emerged.

Still, his pulse didn't settle. It climbed. Slowly. Steadily.

Don't freeze, he told himself. Keep moving. You've done worse.

Except he hadn't. Not like this.

And still the memories came.

The hospital corridor after the fire. Carrying April's body. The ambulance ride where the girl bled out mid-rescue. The triage line in Kobe when the floods hit.

The faces didn't fade. They just stopped screaming.

Dan gripped the map tighter, letting the edge bite into his palm.

"I'll save them," he whispered. "This time, I will."

Then he stood. Eyes on the broken road ahead.

The fog stirred again. And somewhere – not close, but not far – something breathed.

…………………

The rooftop air felt thinner than it should've been. Dry. Ash-laced. Too still for a city that used to pulse with life.

Alyssa stepped over a coil of frayed cabling and leaned against the rusting ledge, arms folded tight across her chest. The skyline sprawled before her – a ruined silhouette of Kyoto bathed in dying red.

Chloe… Liz… Are you safe?

She hated this part. The waiting. The not knowing.

Chloe had always been the calm one. The one who read instructions while Alyssa threw punches. But now Chloe was out there – with monsters, with demons – and Alyssa was stuck here, playing sentry to people who barely spoke above a whisper.

And Liz… Liz was still in that damn pod. Max hadn't come back. No one had. The sanctuary could've fallen for all they knew.

Alyssa bit the inside of her cheek. The pain grounded her – just enough to stop the spiral.

Dan's gone.

And you let him go.

She didn't expect the ache. Not like this. He'd barely walked out the door, but already the rooftop felt colder.

She trusted him. But that didn't mean she wasn't scared. Not of him failing. Of what might be waiting for him.

She didn't know what kind of yokai the city still held. Didn't know if it was demons. Didn't know if they were evolving. All she knew was—

She wasn't ready to lose anyone else.

Footsteps creaked behind her.

Haruto joined her wordlessly, carrying a set of battered binoculars and a crowbar slung on a makeshift leather strap. He leaned over the ledge, eyes narrowing.

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"Still nothing moving," he said. "No howls. No footsteps. Just fog."

"That's not better," Alyssa muttered.

He adjusted the focus and scanned the main road.

"You feel it too, don't you?" he asked.

She didn't answer.

But yes. She felt it.

That skin-crawling sensation that something was watching them. From the rooftops. The sewers. The cracks between silence and shadow. There was no sound, but that didn't mean they were alone.

Alyssa reached for the binoculars and swept west.

Ash spiralled slowly through the air – thick, grey snowflakes. Too heavy to be natural. Too soft to be safe.

Then she saw them.

Three figures. Standing at a crosswalk.

They didn't move. Didn't shift. Just stood perfectly still, draped in loose robes, masks stretched tight over long faces. No features. No motion. Just three mask-children watching the street.

Not guarding. Not patrolling. Watching.

Haruto caught her tension.

"What is it?" he asked.

"Mask-children," she said quietly. "Three of them. Watching the way Dan went."

She lowered the binoculars, breath caught somewhere behind her teeth.

Down below, in the far corner of the store, Minori was sketching again. Alyssa tracked the movement through the rooftop skylight – the girl curled cross-legged beside a stack of broken crates, graphite moving in steady, eerie rhythm.

Mari was beside her. Whispering. Watching the page.

Alyssa climbed down the ladder and crossed the room.

Minori didn't look up as she approached. Her eyes stayed locked on the lines forming across the paper. Haruto joined them a moment later, crouching low.

The sketch was of the bus.

Same shape. Same markings. Drawn with rough, heavy lines. A looming shadow filled the interior – something sitting in the driver's seat. Thin. Too tall. Waiting.

Alyssa's chest tightened.

"Why did you draw this?" she asked.

Minori didn't stop drawing. "It's already there."

"Dan hasn't reached it yet," Alyssa said.

Minori finally looked up. Her voice was even.

"But it saw him first."

…………………

The alley reeked of scorched plastic and blood-drenched concrete.

Dan moved low, careful. Every step between collapsed vending machines and shattered road signs felt like threading a needle. This part of Kyoto had once been a tourist maze – cafés, shops, street stalls. Now it looked like a film set after the explosion, everything scorched, overturned, and emptied of life.

He passed a toppled taxi, roof caved in, its fare meter still blinking. Cracked ceramic tanuki figures lay in a gutter, their painted grins chipped away.

Now, only stillness.

No sound except his own breath.

Then – movement. Half a block up.

Dan dropped to a crouch, ducking behind a splintered postbox. Four yokai knelt in the intersection. Not patrolling. Feeding.

Their spines curved wrong. Limbs twitched in slow, mechanical bursts. What they were chewing on had once worn body armour – JSDF, judging by the shredded flak vest and bent rifle pinned beneath the gore.

Dan's fists clenched. His legs didn't move. He couldn't help them. Not anymore.

He held his breath and moved back, heart pounding so loud he was sure it would echo.

He cut left, deeper into the maze of alleys. This was too close. Too exposed. He needed to move faster—

His foot hovered mid-step.

A thin glint stretched between two poles.

Almost invisible in the fog.

He dropped to one knee. Traced the thread with his eyes.

It wasn't a tripwire. Not exactly.

It pulsed.

Flesh? Sinew? Veins stretched like spider silk. Anchored between the lampposts. Hooked into the concrete.

Dan followed the glisten to a fleshy node halfway up the pole. Inside, something twitched.

He forced himself to stay steady. Reached into his pack and pulled out a pair of wire cutters. One slow breath. Then another.

Snip.

The tension dropped. No noise. No flare. Just silence.

For half a second, Dan thought he'd done it.

Then— A pulse.

The node contracted, once. A faint tremor passed through the alley.

And from somewhere beyond the buildings… something moved.

Fast. Rasping.

Dan dropped, rolled behind a steel skip as a shriek split the air. A yokai zipped past the mouth of the alley – long and eyeless, with frills where ears should've been. It paused mid-flight. Tilted. Listening.

Dan didn't move. Didn't breathe.

Seconds passed like hours.

Then the thing zipped on, trailing static in its wake.

Dan stayed frozen until the echoes faded. Then rose, teeth gritted. Sweat slicked the back of his neck.

He pushed forward.

Twenty metres later, the alley emptied into the rotary.

There it was.

The bus.

Still upright. No broken glass. No smashed doors. No burn marks. Its pale yellow body glowed faintly in the low light – dust-covered but whole.

Dan's breath caught in his chest.

The tyres weren't flat. The mirrors weren't torn off. The engine casing hadn't been ripped open or chewed through. It looked… untouched.

Which made it worse.

He took two steps forward – then stopped.

That same feeling again.

Same as the night shifts. The wrecks. When you rolled up to a crash site and the car looked almost too fine – like it had been posed. Sometimes, the worst ones didn't look bad at all. Just quiet. Still. Like they were waiting.

Dan's hands trembled. He swallowed against the bile rising in his throat.

He remembered peeling open a minivan's door once – thinking the driver had made it, just unconscious. But inside had been a child, face turned just wrong, blood soaked into the plush seats.

He remembered the weight of the stretcher. The silence of the mother.

He remembered what it cost to hope.

Now, that same cold dread coiled in his gut.

Dan stepped toward the bus, exhaling slow.

"Please," he whispered.

"Let this work."

…………………

The walls felt closer now.

Alyssa moved through the first floor like someone walking inside a pressure chamber. Every sound – the scrape of a chair leg, the soft hiss of the generator – felt louder than it should. More final.

Minori's sketchpad sat open on a stack of books near the corner lamp. She had not moved in ten minutes. Just kept drawing. Alyssa did not want to look – but she did.

The bus again.

Only now… the door was open. The shadow inside had shape.

Long arms. A curve of bone. Teeth not quite drawn.

Alyssa's stomach flipped.

"He's not back," Natsuki said from behind her. Her voice was not loud, but it carried.

Alyssa turned. "It hasn't even been half an hour."

Natsuki stepped closer. "You sent him out there alone. Into that fog. Into that— whatever that is."

Mari stood up. "Enough."

"No," Natsuki said. "Someone has to say it. That kid—" she pointed at Minori "—draws nightmares, and that man walked straight into one. What if she knew?"

"She's not the problem," Haruto said quietly from the window. "She's sensitive to spirits. That's all."

Alyssa stayed still. Her pulse pounded, but her hands did not shake.

"Dan volunteered," she said. "You think I wanted to let him go?"

Natsuki folded her arms. "Then why didn't you go?"

Alyssa stepped forward. "Because someone has to protect all of you while he's gone. And right now, you're making that harder."

The room went quiet. Not from victory – just fatigue.

Mari moved to the curtains, double-checked the boards. Haruto reinforced the side entrance with a second bar.

The silence was brittle.

Alyssa stood still for a beat longer, then turned back to the generator. It sputtered once. The light dimmed, flickered, came back weak.

Then—

Kkkkkkssssshhh—

The radio hissed from the supply shelf. A hum crackled through the speaker – low, modulated. Not a voice. Not words. Just static shaped like breath.

Minori's lips moved. Barely a whisper.

Alyssa's skin prickled. She did not understand the pattern, the tone, but something inside her – the part that trained with Max, that stood in tunnels filled with blood – recognised it.

Her mouth moved before her thoughts caught up.

"Something's already in the bus."

She did not know how she knew.

She just did.

And everyone heard it.

…………………

The bus door gave way with a metallic gasp – a pneumatic hiss that echoed too loudly in the dead street. Dan winced. Froze. Waited.

Nothing.

No charge. No scream. No claws.

Only silence. And the stink of old blood.

He climbed inside slowly, gripping the handle with one hand and his makeshift blade with the other. The interior was dim but intact – no signs of fire, no shattered glass. The front seats were empty. One of the mid-row benches had a dark smear across the vinyl. Not much. Just a thin trail – like someone had bled quietly.

A JSDF pack sat under the seat.

Dan crouched and pulled it free. Heavy. A rifle inside. Two full mags. Water, gauze, a ration bar gone half-soft. The ID badge clipped to the strap read: Sergeant N. Hirota.

He checked the aisle again. No movement. The rear seats were dark. Still.

Dan leaned forward. Keys.

They dangled beneath the ignition switch, a faded cartoon keychain swinging gently in the stale air.

He reached out.

The door hissed shut behind him.

Dan spun. Staff raised.

There – in the far back of the bus – sat a man.

Dark suit. Thin tie. Legs crossed like he was enjoying a delayed train. Pale hands rested on a leather briefcase. His face was bland, forgettable – except the eyes. Too wide. Too calm. Like someone who had never blinked in his life.

Dan's breath caught. His muscles tensed – but something in the air had changed. The pressure. The weight.

The man smiled. Unhurried. Then reached down into the seat beside him and, with theatrical ease, plucked up a faded conductor's cap.

He placed it on his head.

"Ah," he said pleasantly. "Another anomaly."

His Japanese was crisp. Old-fashioned. Polite in the way poisoned tea might be.

"Let me guess," he continued, standing slowly, brushing the lapels of his jacket. "You're Daniel-san."

Dan said nothing. He didn't move.

The man tilted his head.

"You may call me Akiyama-san."

He smiled wider – just enough to show the neat line of teeth behind his lips.

Too neat.

Too many.

The bus hummed. Locked.

And the compliance demon took a step forward.

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