The city bled around them, and Dan hadn't yet decided if they'd survived it – or just escaped the first collapse.

The wound was closed. Mostly.

His aura still shimmered faintly beneath the skin – thin gold threads pulsing just under the surface, too weak to stitch anything deeper. The damage hadn't stopped at flesh. That blade had gone further. Into him. Through him. Like it had peeled something off his soul and taken it with it.

The pain was dull now, but the ache remained – a phantom pulse that bloomed with every breath. Like a ghost pressing fingers inside his chest.

He didn't flinch. Just breathed. Shallow. Controlled.

Alyssa sat behind the wheel, knuckles tight against the steering bar. Her eyes never left the road, but every bump, every crack in the asphalt made her grip harden like she was holding the entire bus together by force of will.

Dan coughed once. Quietly. "Drives better than I thought it would."

Alyssa didn't look at him. "Doesn't have to last long. Just has to get us out."

Dan watched the shattered road ahead. The bruised sky. "You saved me."

That made her blink. Not much. Just enough.

"I wasn't going to let you die," she said. Voice low. Fierce.

Dan smiled, weak but real. "Didn't know you had a gravity cannon in your back pocket."

"I didn't," she muttered.

They rolled past the skeleton of a tunnel entrance – now nothing but blackened stone and half-buried bones. Ash kicked up in spirals behind the wheels. The fog had thinned, but it still clung low to the gutters like something waiting for nightfall.

Mari hadn't said much since they got back on the road. But her hands hadn't stopped trembling. She'd seen too many patients die with wounds like Dan's. And none of them had gotten back up.

Mari sat near the front, voice quiet. "That punch… I've never seen anything like it."

Alyssa didn't answer.

Haruto leaned to the window. He kept glancing at the rooftops. Not out of curiosity. Out of habit. He'd served on urban patrols before. The silence between buildings always meant one thing: ambush.

"We thought it was an earthquake. Everyone did. But it wasn't, was it?"

Dan looked at Alyssa. "It was her."

The bus burst through the remnants of the barricade – a wall of scrap wood, rusted wire, and hope – with a metallic shriek. Dust exploded outward. The wheels bit into loose stone.

Inside the bookstore, people screamed.

Then they saw the bus.

Hope detonated.

Dan hit the brakes. The tyres skidded. The chassis groaned.

Alyssa was already moving. "Open the doors!"

Haruto pulled the release. The pneumatic hiss barely finished before the crowd surged.

Chaos.

Over forty survivors surged forward – all panic, heat, and breathless desperation. Hajime and Mari tried shouting for order, but it was like shouting into a tsunami.

No one wanted to stay. Not after the tremors. Not after Minori's drawing. Not after hearing the city scream.

They poured out – families clinging to one another, elders dragged along by younger hands. Bags, children, plastic crates full of what was left of their lives. The bookstore emptied in under three minutes.

Alyssa stood by the door, directing traffic.

She didn't shout anymore. She didn't need to.

Some people flinched when they passed her. Others stared. Most didn't meet her eyes at all. They'd felt the quake. They'd seen the cracked road, the broken earth. They knew it hadn't come from below.

It had come from her.

She was a rupture in human form now. A walking faultline.

But still they came.

One boy – nine, maybe ten – bowed awkwardly before stepping up. His knuckles clutched a broken toy sword. Behind him, a woman sobbed silently, clutching a framed photo.

Dan hauled himself upright, hissing as the motion pulled at the wound.

"Careful," Alyssa said, steadying him without looking.

"I'm fine," he lied. Then winced. "Okay, not fine. But I can still count heads."

"You're not funny."

"Didn't say I was."

They worked together in silence – directing people in, calming cries, lifting those who couldn't climb.

Inside, the bus was chaos. Screams turned to murmurs. Murmurs to sobs. Fear to stillness. Bodies pressed shoulder to shoulder. Bags stacked on knees. A child clutched someone else's hand just to not vanish in the press.

The bookstore sagged behind them. Cracked walls. Splintered shelves. The top floor tilted like a dying lung.

"Last group," Haruto called. "We've got them all!"

Dan's voice rasped. "Then we move."

Alyssa stepped back behind the wheel. In the rearview, she caught her own eyes. They didn't look like hers.

Red. Rimmed with ash. Jaw clenched. Hair tangled. She didn't see a girl anymore. Just weight. Just fury. She'd punched a demon a mile through the air and barely remembered the moment. All she remembered was Dan, broken on the ground. That had been enough.

And the fear that it wasn't over. Not yet.

Dan slumped into a corner seat. "Hey—"

"Don't talk."

"I just wanted to say—"

"Then say it when you're not bleeding into the upholstery."

Dan shut up. For once.

The engine groaned, coughed, then roared. The wheels turned.

They rolled away from the bookstore – the last fragile shelter in a city now full of smoke, silence, and things that hunted in the fog.

Alyssa didn't look back.

And Dan kept his hand on his side – not because he was afraid of the wound reopening.

But because he could still feel the blade.

And the demon's hand.

And somewhere, far away, he knew it wasn't finished.

Not even close.

…………………

The bus rolled through the broken skeleton of Kyoto like a hearse at a parade of ghosts.

The road still held, mostly. But the world around it had folded in on itself.

Burnt-out shops sagged like hollow teeth. Temple gates lay splintered across walkways. Smoke curled from half-collapsed rooftops, trailing into the sky like offerings no one had prayed for. The air wasn't quiet. It was stunned.

Inside the bus, no one spoke.

Not the parents clutching blankets.

Not the girl with bandages across her jaw.

Not even the child staring out the window, mouth parted like he was waiting for someone to tell him this was all a movie.

Dan sat behind Mari now, watching through the side window. Every street they passed looked worse than the last. Every corner hinted at the things that had been forced through them.

Kyoto wasn't falling.

It was fighting.

And losing.

Up ahead, the road didn't just dip – it collapsed. A JSDF checkpoint had once stood there. Now it was a ruin of ash and bone. The air carried the stink of chemical fire and something far worse – the sour tang of charred souls.

A charred barricade sat at the junction. Or what remained of it.

Mari eased the bus to a crawl.

Dan stood, one hand bracing against the seat as he limped forward.

The checkpoint used to be JSDF. Metal gates. Tank traps. Gun nests. It was all blackened now – melted steel, slumped like wax.

Bodies lay scattered in clumps. Some in combat gear, rifles fused to their hands. Others were harder to classify.

Masks.

Not just worn. Melded. One body had a fox mask fused into its face, skin and ceramic indistinguishable. Another had extra limbs sprouting from its back – human joints, yokai posture. Twisted halfway between surrender and transformation.

Haruto stood near the front, jaw tight. "I'll check it."

Alyssa turned in her seat. "Haruto—"

"I'll be quick."

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He stepped down into the dust.

Dan hesitated. Then followed.

The moment he hit the pavement, the air changed.

It wasn't wind. It wasn't heat.

It was a feeling – like walking into a room where someone had just screamed.

Dan's chest tightened. His side throbbed. The wound from Akiyama-san hadn't reopened, but it pulsed now – faint, rhythmic, like a memory being stirred awake.

His aura flickered, unbidden.

Golden light crawled across his palm like something reaching out for warning.

Haruto crouched near the fox-masked corpse, frowning. "This wasn't just fighting. This was something worse. Look at the Yokai bodies – they're burned, but not by fire."

Dan nodded slowly. "They weren't alone."

He didn't say it aloud, but he could still feel it. A pressure. Faint. Lingering.

Akiyama's presence hadn't left with the body.

Part of him had stayed behind.

Watching.

They didn't linger.

Back on the bus, Dan climbed up with a grunt, hand pressed to his ribs.

Mari slid into the driver's seat, twisting the ignition with a glance at Alyssa.

"You need rest," she said. "Let me drive."

Alyssa didn't argue. She just nodded and slumped back.

The engine coughed, caught, rumbled forward.

As they rolled past the checkpoint, Haruto remained standing by the front, eyes still on the wreckage fading into the mirror.

Dan stayed seated, but one hand pressed against the window. As if to reach through it. As if he could touch what was already gone. He didn't know their names, but he still grieved them.

Whatever happened here – it wasn't finished.

Haruto muttered, voice quiet and bitter.

"Whatever you punched… it's not gone."

…………………

The road peeled outward through what used to be a suburb. Burnt-out arcades. Tilted signage. A sea of vending machines split down the centre like open wounds. The bus rolled forward – slow, groaning, tired.

Dan leaned forward slightly, gripping the bar beside his seat. His ribs ached with every jolt, but he didn't complain. Couldn't. The breath still caught too easily in his lungs.

"Almost out," he muttered.

Mari nodded from the driver's seat, fingers white on the wheel.

No one else spoke. Not Alyssa, hunched near the windshield, eyes scanning every side alley. Not Haruto, crouched near the emergency exit with the crowbar across his knees. Not the survivors packed into the aisle and seats, wide-eyed and silent. Even the children didn't make a sound.

It felt like a funeral procession crawling through ash.

Then came the sound.

Not a roar.

A skitter.

A dry scratch of claws across pavement.

Alyssa straightened instantly. "Left. Ten o'clock."

Dan followed her gaze. Shapes.

Fast. Thin. Too fast.

Yokai. At least a dozen – sprinting out from a half-collapsed dojo, robes snapping like shredded sails, faces too long, too stretched. Teeth gleamed where mouths should not have opened. Some wore masks. Some didn't need them.

"Go!" Alyssa snapped.

Mari floored the pedal. The bus shuddered, gears clunking with tired effort. Gravel spat from the wheels.

The creatures didn't hesitate. They gave chase – fast, jittering. One leapt, bouncing off the hood. Another skidded along the side, claws raking a deep gouge through the rear door.

Inside, someone screamed. A woman wrapped her arms around a child. A bag fell. A bottle shattered.

Haruto swore under his breath. "We've got roof movement!"

A yokai climbed an old scaffolding rig and lunged – impossibly quick – straight for the top of the bus.

Alyssa moved.

She threw open the emergency hatch above and braced one boot against the frame. Just as the yokai landed, she released a pulse – a burst of warped pressure that buckled the roof beneath it. The creature bounced off mid-snarl, bones crumpling on impact with a road barrier behind them.

Another yokai sprinted alongside the bus – long claws scratching sparks from the pavement.

Dan pushed himself up with a hiss. His soul ached, but he reached one hand to the metal railing near the rear. His golden halo pulsed, aura spreading, just enough to energise the frame. When the yokai leapt – it grabbed the rail.

And screamed.

Its flesh blistered. It dropped, writhing, limbs twitching as it melted against the road.

"They're still coming!" Mari shouted.

The street curved ahead – a sharp bend lined with broken vending machines and a sagging temple gate. The creatures didn't stop. Two flanked the bus now, four more behind.

Alyssa grit her teeth, leaned out a shattered window, and ripped a length of metal pipe – one of the handrails of the bus – using her density field.

It whistled like a javelin as she flung it.

It hit one yokai square in the chest.

The thing folded backwards with a sickening crack – spine bending the wrong way – and didn't get up.

The others hesitated.

Just a fraction.

But enough.

Mari floored the accelerator of the bus. The road widened. The incline evened out. The last of the urban wreckage faded into open ground and fractured rice paddies.

The yokai didn't follow.

Dan sagged back against the bench, sweat soaking his collar. "They stopped?"

"No," Alyssa said, watching them vanish into the mist behind. "They turned."

Mari's voice was quiet. "They're heading west."

Haruto leaned forward, throat dry. "That's Osaka's direction."

Dan stared out the rear window.

The fog shifted like a curtain drawn tight behind them – and beyond it, a tide.

Not a pack.

A horde.

Crawling. Sprinting. Pouring westward like they knew what waited on the other side.

The survivors on the bus said nothing. But they felt it.

Whatever they'd escaped in Kyoto… wasn't finished.

And it wasn't just following them.

It was heading for everyone.

…………………

The bus crested the final ridge, suspension groaning as it rounded the hill – and then it hit them.

Light.

Real light. Not fire. Not flares. Floodlights.

Dozens of them, mounted to scaffold towers and sandbag redoubts. The checkpoint sprawled across the highway like a steel leviathan – armoured vehicles, machine-gun nests, radio towers spitting signals into the twilight. Tank barrels pointed east. Modular buildings stacked like shipping containers. Barricades bristling with spikes and barbed wire.

And corpses.

Piles of them.

Yokai heaped like broken mannequins – charred, riddled, slumped in unnatural positions. Burned masks melted into twitching flesh. Some still moved slightly, twitching in death.

Mari let out a sound halfway between a sob and a laugh.

"Thank God."

The bus rolled forward, its engine loud in the open air. Soldiers scrambled into position. Rifles raised. Floodlights snapped toward the windshield.

"Slow it down," Alyssa warned. "Hands where they can see them."

Mari nodded and eased the brake. The bus lurched to a crawl.

A loudspeaker crackled in rapid Japanese. Orders barked.

"Shit," Haruto muttered. "They're going to shoot."

"Wait," Alyssa said.

Inside the bus, someone stood up – Minori. The girl raised a small paper in the window.

A sketch.

Of soldiers. Of hope.

Then came the sound of the doors hissing open.

A child shouted. Waved.

A young JSDF medic on the barricade blinked – then stepped forward, eyes wide.

"I know that voice…"

She broke ranks and ran.

Two more guards followed, shouting to the gun crew. Orders changed. Barrels lowered.

Relief swept through the checkpoint like wind after a fire.

The gates opened. The bus rolled forward into floodlit salvation.

It wasn't clean. Nothing was.

But the moment the wheels stopped, the checkpoint came alive.

Soldiers helped lift the wounded. Medics dragged oxygen tanks forward. Canteens passed hand to hand. Blankets. Saline. A woman clutched her child as a field nurse pressed gauze to a gash on her leg.

Alyssa stood near the rear bumper, arms crossed, eyes never still.

She didn't move when people thanked her. Didn't smile when a woman wept in front of her. Just nodded. One survivor offered her a scarf – she didn't take it.

"I'm fine," she said.

Dan was not.

He sat slumped near the edge of the checkpoint perimeter, blanket over his shoulders, gaze fixed on nothing. His skin was pale. The wound was closed, but the soul-scarring made his breath shallow, his limbs twitch occasionally. A junior officer crouched beside him, murmuring thanks, saying they'd heard something about "an American bus rescue" over the JSDF comms.

Dan barely blinked.

Haruto wandered off for a cigarette. When he returned, he hugged a man in uniform. They used to serve together.

Mari lingered near a nurse's station, asking about vaccines, supplies, protocols – anything she could do. When they told her to rest, she just nodded, but her eyes didn't stop scanning the wounded. She couldn't stop seeing what came next.

"Come on," she said. "They want a briefing."

Alyssa hesitated, then nodded.

The command tent smelled like sweat, ink, and steel.

Maps covered the table. Three officers stood behind it. One tapped a pen against a blinking tablet as Alyssa and Mari entered.

"We'll be blunt," the commander said. "Kyoto is lost. It's a miracle that you made it out alive. But Osaka is still intact. Heavily fortified. Shelters are functional."

A digital map flickered on screen – red arrows converging from the east.

"But we have confirmed movement. Large yokai groups bypassed Kyoto. At least two regiments of hybrids and mask-walkers. Migrating west in waves."

He stabbed a point on the map with his finger.

"If they don't rest, they'll reach Osaka within six hours. Maybe less."

Mari swore under her breath.

The commander looked at them hard. "You've got a head start. Use it."

Alyssa stepped forward. "What about this checkpoint? These people?"

The soldier gave her a tired smile.

"This checkpoint doesn't move."

He glanced past the tent flap toward the bus. "You do."

Footsteps behind them.

Dan.

Still pale. Still limping. But upright.

"Then we move now," he said.

They didn't move. Not yet.

The survivors sat in scattered clusters around the perimeter, lit by pale floodlights and the sickly orange of oil lamps. Some huddled near portable heaters, cradling ration packs in trembling hands. Others knelt beside water tanks, gulping greedily between coughs. A few clung to blankets like lifelines, too tired to speak, too afraid to sleep.

Children didn't cry. They just stared – wide-eyed and silent, watching the soldiers march by with rifles slung low and faces locked in grim focus.

Dan sat against the side of the bus, a half-empty water bottle dangling from his fingers. His shirt was damp with sweat. Blood still clung beneath the bandages. But his eyes stayed open now. Alert. Watching.

Haruto paced the gravel near the fence line, jaw clenched, crowbar looped over one shoulder. Every time gunfire barked from the hills, he flinched.

Alyssa stood alone near the edge of the checkpoint, boots planted like an anchor. Her arms were crossed, but her shoulders were tight – like she was holding the sky back with her spine.

No one spoke of staying.

But no one was rushing to leave.

A few had already asked – "Are we going back? Is Osaka safe?" The soldiers couldn't give them certainty. Only a warning. If you stay, you're on the line. If you go, you'd better move fast.

Mari crouched by a portable light, drawing circles on the ground with the edge of her boot. Her jaw worked silently, chewing on the question everyone else was too exhausted to voice:

Where is safe?

A medic passed by, handing out oxygen masks to the elderly and bottles of electrolyte fluid to the children. The kindness didn't feel like hope. It felt like triage.

They had made it this far.

But the road ahead wasn't a rescue.

It was a race.

And everyone felt the ticking beneath their feet – a beat just below the earth.

Not footsteps. But something larger.

Moving west.

…………………

Gunfire cracked in the distance – short bursts followed by the whine of yokai shrieking back into the dark. The floodlights along the checkpoint flickered as another generator hiccupped under the load. Smoke drifted over the hilltop, acrid and clinging.

Dan sat on the edge of the bus steps, blanket draped over his shoulders, ribs throbbing with every breath. His golden halo had gone quiet, reduced to an ache behind his eyes. He watched as soldiers hauled another mangled body from the perimeter wall – human, not monster.

Alyssa stood a few paces away, arms folded tight, staring out past the barricades. She hadn't taken her eyes off the ridge line since they arrived.

"Three more hours," she muttered. "Maybe less. That's all we're buying them."

Dan looked up at her. "And if we stay? What then?"

Alyssa didn't answer.

Behind them, survivors reboarded the bus in quiet groups. Some still clutched their rations. Others held new blankets, bottles of clean water. One boy had a toy rabbit now patched with JSDF gauze.

"We should go back," Dan said quietly. "The sanctuary. Liz. Chloe. We can still reach them if we cut through the tunnels."

Alyssa's head turned, slow.

"And leave these people?" she said. "Alone, on this bus? With no one who can fight?"

"They're not our responsibility," Dan said. "Liz is. Chloe is."

"They're stronger than these people," Alyssa snapped. "You said it yourself. Chloe's phasing. Liz is a psychic. They're not children anymore."

"They're our people."

"So are these."

Dan stood. Slowly. Carefully. "You're saying we leave your sister behind?"

Alyssa stepped closer. "I'm saying we trust her."

The silence between them stretched – long enough that another round of gunfire echoed across the treetops. A burst of flame lit the sky near the edge of the ridge. Screams followed.

"They'll make it," she said. "They have to."

Dan's shoulders sagged, but not from surrender. From weight. From knowing she was right. From knowing that if he turned back now, he might be too late for both sides.

"They'll hate us for it," he said.

"Maybe," Alyssa said. "But they'll be alive to do it."

He exhaled. Slowly. Then nodded. They turned together, heading for the bus.

Mari stood by the engine, checking the radiator for damage. Haruto reloaded his makeshift crowbar with fresh tape and rebar from the JSDF quartermaster.

"We're moving," Dan said.

Mari raised an eyebrow. "Back into the city?"

"No," Alyssa said. "West. To Osaka."

Haruto hesitated. "You're sure?"

"No," Dan said. "But we're doing it anyway."

They climbed aboard. The doors hissed shut. They didn't speak again. Not to the medics. Not to the officers. What else could they say? Thank you for surviving? Sorry for leaving? Words weren't strong enough anymore.

Inside, the survivors started to settle. Babies wrapped in foil blankets. Old men whispering in prayers. The bus smelled of rust, blood, and something hopeful.

Dan took the bench beside Alyssa. Neither of them spoke for a minute. Just watched the road stretch out in front of them – cracked asphalt veined with ash.

"Do you think we'll make it?" Dan asked, voice low.

Alyssa didn't lie.

"I think we have to."

He smiled. Just a little.

They stood there for a moment, a silent understanding growing between them. Their shoulders touched, and neither of them moved away.

The engine caught with a reluctant growl. Mari tapped the wheel, eyes focused. Haruto climbed into the back to check the latches one last time.

Then – silence.

In the quiet, Minori shot upright like lightning had hit her spine. Her sketchpad was already in her lap. She didn't blink. Her pencil danced. Scratched. Tore lines into paper like she was trying to warn them faster than words could.

Alyssa turned, uneasy. "What is it?"

Minori didn't answer. She just kept drawing.

Behind them, unseen in the fog, a distant mass moved like a tide – thousands of feet, claws, and masks marching west.

Towards the safety they were chasing.

Towards Osaka.

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