Chapter Text
Location: Suginami Ward, Tokyo
The platform was unbearably silent. Not serene, but ominous. There is an unsettling quiet as if the very air was diseased. It was suffocating to Megumi, a dense miasma that wrapped its clammy tendrils around his lungs like an acrid, toxic residue seeping deep within.
Megumi’s dark uniform clung uncomfortably to his skin, damp from the relentless mist that had invaded the Suginami Ward train station. Above him, a jittery, pale neon light flickered in agony, its sickly glow humming a dissonant tune as if trapped between worlds. Beneath his feet, the paint on the tracks crumbled away revealing raw rust, while the vibrating hum of vending machines screamed in the oppressive void of the night.
11:47 PM.
The directive was unmistakably clear:
A Grade 2 Cursed Spirit has been reported terrorizing the late-night express bound for Nagoya. Multiple sightings. Four disappearances. All from the same train line. Each incident occurring on the last train of the day.
All victims vanished without a trace between stations. Surveillance caught nothing. Doors never opened. The conductor claims the lights flickered and the next moment, the passengers were gone.
Your orders: Board the final train. Do not leave until the veil lifts. The curse is confirmed. Exorcise with discretion.
Civilian interaction: minimal.
No backup provided.
Without a second thought, he had accepted.
It wasn’t the cursed entity itself that chilled him. It was the mounting pressure, it was the timing. There has been relentless cascade of missions since Gojo had disappeared. In the wake of that loss, the senior sorcerers were overtaxed and the recruits, the raw, inexperienced ones barely held the line.
At sixteen, Megumi was thrust into this maelstrom without any real choice. He had to prove he could bear the weight of it all.
A piercing ding cut through the heavy atmosphere from the terminal speaker.
“The final express train will be arriving shortly. Please stand behind the yellow line.”
Megumi scanned the platform. Four strangers lingered there… ordinary people, their mundane lives eclipsed by the creeping dread. An elderly man clutched a paper bag and shuffled an umbrella, murmuring to himself. A woman in a gray coat furiously tapped her phone, her lipstick faded and eyes hollow. Two teenagers whispered nervously, oblivious to the malignant fear that slithered around them.
They remained blind to the malevolence that twisted the shadows beneath the benches and the fog that clung desperately to the ceiling tiles, imitating the rhythm of human breath.
But Megumi felt it.
There was a scent, familiar and rancid, a sour tang of burnt hair mixed with iron-rich blood. The curse had left its mark here before.
He knelt beside a cracked floor tile, his fingers tracing its surface. Beneath him, a shadow convulsed, alive and wary. It hadn’t stirred this vigorously since the Yasohachi Bridge mission.
A flicker of light.
A magnetic pull.
The cursed energy was concentrated within the impending train.
Whatever sinister force lurked didn’t roam the city… it was tethered to that steel beast like a specter to its ancient haunted lair, hurtling at a relentless 80 kilometers per hour.
Megumi’s mind replayed the case file description:
Spirit Manifest: Appears between Cars 4 and 5. Reptilian in movement. Bone-like body. Crawling. Skinless arms. Has been seen entering and exiting the windows of moving cars, despite sealed glass. Victims were all seated in that zone.
He glanced at his phone one final time—no signal. Naturally.
Then, the train’s light slashed through the suffocating fog. Faint at first, a low growl on the tracks. Then brighter. Louder. Shrill in the way it screeched through steel. A gust of wind roared past as the metallic beast reluctantly ground to a halt, as though dragging itself from some forsaken realm.
The civilians inched forward, drawn by the inevitability of fate and Megumi followed suit.
Car 5. That was his destination.
A Divine Dog lay coiled within his shadow, waiting, poised for the call to action.
As Megumi stepped toward the train doors, they groaned open with a tortured hiss. For a fleeting second, in the reflection on the train’s glass, he caught sight of something… a silhouette that stretched unnaturally long, joints twisting in impossible configurations. In the blink of an eye, it vanished.
He exhaled sharply.
“Alright. Let’s finish this before sunrise.”
Stepping into the maw of the train, the doors slid shut behind him with a finality that echoed into the abyss. Somewhere, deep within the metal corridors, something stirred in the darkness… a sinister shift promising no reprieve.
The train let out a deep, mechanical groan as it began its laborious departure from the station. Its engine protesting, dragging its massive tired body along the tracks. The overhead ceiling lights, haphazard and pale, flickered in slow, stuttering pulses that threw weak, uneven glows.
A cold, disembodied voice, unnervingly calm for the late hour, reverberated through the car’s speakers:
"This is the final express to Nagoya. Next stop: Mitaka. Please enjoy your ride."
Megumi remained standing. He did not choose the comfort of a seat. Instead, he strode slowly down the narrow aisle, his worn leather boots barely a whisper on the scuffed linoleum floor. The air has the scent of machine oil and aged metal intermingled with sulfur. This unsettling perfume clung to the walls, seeping into the fabric of the seats and the smooth plastic of the handles.
Every row came under his watchful eyes. He noted the tentative movements as shadows pooled around the ankles of passengers, each subtle shift captured in the dim, flickering light. Meanwhile, in the dark recesses of the train, the Divine Dog had already broken free from its confines. It slunk silently beneath seats, tail low and body melding with the darkness. With the focused determination of a well-trained wolf, it sniffed along every corner, its ears quivering and eyes glinting faintly whenever an abnormal draft stirred the stagnant air.
In one section, four civilians had settled into their chosen spots with unspoken resignation. Close to the front near the emergency exit door, an old man had slumped into a worn seat. His umbrella lay awkwardly across his lap like a substitute cane, and his murmured whispers were barely audible over the hum of the train. His eyes, half-closed in a futile attempt at sleep, fluttered as though dancing to the rhythm of the carriage.
Halfway down the car, a woman cloaked in a gray coat sat by the window. Her eyes were locked on the nighttime landscape outside, with her own reflection ghosting across the glass. Unmoved by the emptiness of her phone’s signal bar, her thumbs idly scrolled across the screen as a distraction.
Toward the rear, two teenagers sat side by side yet maintaining a palpable, nervous gap between them. They exchanged hushed jokes that fell flat, their wide eyes betraying a deep-seated restlessness as if they sensed something ominous that the others could not.
At 11:50 PM, the atmosphere shifted. A hush fell as if a heavy shroud had been cast over the train. The lights in Car 5 dimmed not with a sharp flicker but with a gradual fade. The once steady hum of the wheels and tracks stuttered into an eerie silence, punctuated only by the uneasy creaks of the aging metal.
Megumi’s eyes narrowed, assessing every subtle change in the gloom.
Then, without warning— CRACK!
The old man jerked violently upright. A paper bag clutched in his frail hands tore open, its contents scattering across the floor: glistening fruit, a neatly arranged bento, and a few several coins clinking on the hard linoleum.
Yet, he remained unresponsive, his movements stiff and jerky as if commanded by invisible puppet strings.
With one unsteady sway, he suddenly lurched forward and forcefully slammed his head against the emergency door. A sickening thud filled the air, followed by repetitive, harrowing thumps each blow sending a fresh spray of blood that spattered against the nearby glass.
His skull blossomed in a gruesome display of red, with splintered skin and thin drops of crimson trickling down his face.
At the sight, the woman in the gray coat jerked from her window seat, “S-sir—are you okay?” she stammered, rising halfway from her seat, her voice shaking with fear.
The teenagers froze in their seats. One leaned forward so close that his parted mouth almost formed a silent plea, “Is this a prank…?” he whispered, the uncertainty in his voice undeniable.
Low from the depths of the train, the Divine Dog emitted a menacing growl. Its ears lay flat against its head, and its eyes glimmered with an otherworldly light as it fixated on the seam between Cars 4 and 5.
Then, piercing the tension, the woman’s scream shattered the fragile calm—a raw, feral cry erupted, slicing through the silence like shards of glass splintering underwater. In a burst of panic, she clutched at her throat, her fingers leaving ragged, bloody trails as her nails tore through her delicate skin. Her body convulsed uncontrollably, as if something writhing and monstrous had burrowed its way inside her, ensnaring her windpipe.
“GET IT OFF ME!” she shrieked, a desperate, anguished sound. “It’s in me! It’s inside—GET IT OUT—!!”
At that moment, the teenagers leaped from their seats.
One bolted toward the aisle while the other cried out, “Stop! Please stop—someone help her!”
Instantly, Megumi’s hand shot out, his fingers curling tightly as if ready to grasp not just a shadow, but whatever dark force lurked in the periphery of the unfolding nightmare.
Something was crawling.
Megumi sensed it. It was a slithering presence beneath the train, possibly above it, weaving from one end of the car to the other like a serpent made of bones, threading through the very walls.
The air grew frigid, and his breath puffed out in visible clouds, a stark contrast against the darkening interior.
From the corner of his eye, the emergency lights flickered a sinister red, casting brief, eerie shadows across the seats before they abruptly extinguished, plunging the car into a suffocating blackness.
“Nue!”
His shadow undulated along the wall like dark water in motion.
Then came a sharp, resounding crack as a gust of wind burst upward from the inky darkness at his feet.
Out of that tempest, Nue erupted into existence… its electric wings snapping open with a piercing, high-pitched shriek. In that instant, the shikigami’s energy flared, igniting the space inside with bursts of strobe-light brilliance.
Veins of crackling electricity raced along the ceiling, their erratic patterns casting horrifying, flickering images across the scene.
A woman, her face contorted in pain, relentlessly clawing at her throat. Her fingernails were jagged, stained crimson, now reduced to mutilated stubs.
A teenager, stumbling desperately over a row of seats, his body trembling and eyes wet with uncontrolled sobs as his friend’s scream sliced through the chaotic noise. The friend, gripped by terror not from the unknown but from an unseen force in the shadows, lay half-consumed by the train floor as the cursed spirit tugged him relentlessly downward.
And then there was the old man, still upright, his frail body unable or unwilling to yield as he pounded on the compartment’s interior with frantic, hollow blows. Skull now was grotesquely deformed, caved in, yet his incessant clamor continued unabated.
“Damn it!” Megumi growled, his voice low and resolute as he flicked his hand in sharp command. “Toad help them!” he ordered without hesitation.
With a heavy, resonant thump, Toad materialized. Its slick, glistening form hit the floor between rows four and five with a sickening impact. Its long tongue shot out like a crushing whip, coiling around the struggling teenager’s leg with a wet, slapping sound as it yanked him from the clutches of the shadowy abyss.
The train car shuddered violently, a groan of metal and restrained fury accompanying the sudden shifting of weight.
Above, something immense crashed onto the roof, sending ripples across the metal frame of the carriage.
Nue’s cry split the air once more as it vaulted upward, its lightning-laden form slicing through the ceiling.
In a brief flash of light, a twisted silhouette was seen crouching near the roof window. It was a creature resembling a deformed gecko with grotesquely contorted limbs. Its arms arched backwards unnaturally, too long for its body, the tips of its appendages narrowing into sharpened, bony points.
It was watching him intently.
Then the creature let out a hideous scream… a warped blend of grating metal tearing and echoing, maniacal human laughter melding into one dreadful sound.
Without flinching, Megumi’s jaw set into a firm line. “Divine Dogs, both of you. Hunt,” he commanded.
In an instant, the (*) twin hounds burst forth from his shadow like wolves materializing from a thick, rolling fog as they launched in unison toward the upper compartment of the train. Their claws dug ferociously into the cold metal frame, their synchronized charge leaving no room for doubt or hesitation.
Caught mid-leap, the cursed spirit yanked its body aside, launching itself toward a side window. It skittered along the cold glass with the jerky movements like a spider desperate for escape, while Nue dove again.
The shikigami’s talons flashing like shards of broken glass aimed directly for the creature’s exposed spine.
But then the spirit twisted violently as it caught Nue, it elongated fingers piercing through Nue’s left wing and sparks of electricity burst forth at the contact, throwing the bird’s form into a final, shrieking disintegration of smoke and static.
“Nue!” Megumi roared, his voice echoing with raw anger as his hand slammed down in response and the dogs responded, jaws bared and vicious.
One of the hounds clamped its teeth onto the cursed entity’s shoulder while the other latched onto a flailing limb, its grip nearly unyielding.
The cursed spirit’s laugh was a piercing despite the attack, cackling as its body twisted around to face Megumi.
Its elongated neck contorted unnaturally, the head hanging upside down, while its ribs writhed independently as if dancing a macabre rhythm to its taunting words.
“Yooooouuuu smmmell like the wrong world… sorc'rer…” The voice dripped with a wet, mocking timbre, a voice so achingly familiar yet out of place, belonging to a realm far removed from here.
Megumi stepped forward, slow and deliberate. “You’re trapped on this train. You’ve rotted here far too long,” he declared, his tone laden with weary command.
In a grotesque display, the spirit arched its body as bones cracked in rapid succession, “Then diiiie with me in iiiit—” it lunged in a final, desperate attack.
In a blur of motion, Megumi raised his hand, summoning a whirlpool of swirling shadows.
“Toad—NOW!” Megumi barked.
From below, Toad’s enormous, slick tongue lashed out once more, coiling around the spirit’s midsection with a wet, decisive snap. It pulled the cursed spirit from forcefully against the side wall of the train car.
The impact shattered nearby windows, sending shards of glass spiraling in every direction like glinting, deadly confetti. And the entire car rocked violently along the rails… its clatter resounding with the force of the collision.
Overhead compartments burst open unexpectedly, releasing a rain of scattered baggage onto the trembling floor.
Pinned beneath the relentless assault, the cursed spirit’s body thrashed desperately, yet it remained trapped, suspended in a perilous balance.
Megumi’s breath came in heavy, measured gasps as his heart pounded like a war drum in his ears. Glancing back, he saw the teenagers huddled together in a far corner, their eyes swollen and their hands clasped tightly in mutual comfort as they sobbed in silent terror.
The woman, overcome by shock, had collapsed, her body limp with unconsciousness while blood continued to drip steadily from her broken fingertips.
And the old man… he had finally ceased his relentless pounding, his grotesquely altered face now eerily still.
Yet, the train surged onward without regard. No next station in sight, no comforting voice over the intercom to announce a pause. Outside the window, darkness pressed in, thick and unyielding.
“Why haven’t we stopped yet…?” Megumi muttered under his breath, his voice trembling with both exhaustion and frustration.
In answer, the cursed spirit twitched once more.
A disconcerting smile spread across its misshapen features, revealing a set of teeth that clearly belonged to something else.
The cursed spirit's body writhed like an eel, pinned by the combined might of Toad and the Divine Dogs, but it was far from exorcised. Megumi could feel it… the curse was resisting, growing heavier in the air with every second. Shadows stretched unnaturally along the windows, rippling like they were underwater. The pressure bore down on him, thick and pulsing, pressing at his ears until they rang.
But before anyone could react, the train’s floor shuddered violently as it collapsed beneath him, plunging everything into an uncertain, terrifying descent.
Megumi felt the sudden loss of solid footing as if the earth itself had vanished. Not in the physical sense, not visible to the eye, but his feet lost their grip on reality.
The oppressive pull of gravity seemed to pivot, twisting his balance and sense of direction.
He staggered, arms reaching out instinctively for something to hold on to, but found nothing.
The shadows around him flickered erratically, their presence unstable and flickering like a television signal on the fritz. Toad, his shikigami, disintegrated into a cloud of smoke, vanishing with a silent gasp. The white Divine Dog emitted a strangled, desperate yelp, while the other simply ceased to exist, as if snuffed out.
Then, an eerie silence enveloped him.
A sensation of weightlessness took over. Megumi’s arms flailed wildly in the void, searching for purchase. His stomach twisted and turned in a sickening drop as he plummeted into an abyss of unending blackness…free-falling through a shadowy void so complete it felt like sleep.
Or death.
.
.
.
.
And then…
He gasped.
His chest heaved as he gulped down air. The sudden intake forcing his body to lurch forward. It felt as though he had been ripped from the grip of a nightmare, suspended in a freefall. His lungs burned, desperate to fill themselves with the crisp air that seemed too harsh.
Megumi’s eyes snapped open, greeted by an overwhelming, searing brightness that made him squint and turn his head away. The light was an unrelenting glare that pierced through his vision.
The first thing he registered was sunlight pouring through the train windows, golden streams of warmth, bright and unobstructed. The second thing was the sound… an orchestra of voices. Laughter bubbled up in bursts, while dozens of people murmured, the clatter of typing on their phones mixed with soft sighs.
The train's interior looked the same as before—same car, same sleek design, the same number plates polished to a shine. But now, the fluorescent lights above glowed clean and white, instead of dim. Every seat was occupied, packed to the brim with a kaleidoscope of passengers.
Near the front, a man with curved horns protruding from his temples sat leisurely, eyes scanning the pages of a newspaper.
Across from him, a woman with skin the delicate shade of seafoam with fish scales scrolled through her phone with a casual swipe of her finger.
Further down, a small child with webbed hands pressed against the glass, blowing bubbles that glistened as they floated up toward the ceiling.
No blood smeared the floors.
No shattered windows let in the chill of night.
No cursed presence loomed over them.
Megumi's heart pounded fiercely, each thump resonating loudly in his ears.
He looked around, feeling a surge of confusion envelop him. His hand moved to his side, fingers grazing his shadows, they remained there, still and peaceful.
Yet, a part of him questioned if anything had happened at all.
His eyes flickered upward.
The train clock showed 12:00 PM. Noon… A time that felt both grounding and unsettling.
Unbelievable! It had been midnight, mere moments ago.
Suddenly, the overhead speaker chimed, with a tone too cheerful for his racing mind.
“Thank you for riding with us today. We will soon be arriving at Mitaka Station. Please ensure all personal belongings are with you as you prepare to disembark.”
The announcement was sharp, its warmth almost suburban in its familiarity.
Megumi stood rooted in the aisle, his arms quivering as he glanced at the speaker, the clock, the sunlight pouring in, and the oblivious people surrounding him.
They behaved as if everything was perfectly normal.
As if they had never felt pain. Or cried out in terror.
Or frantically scratched at their own necks.
What on earth is happening?!
He gazed down at his hands.
Still shaking.
Still gripping onto a battle that, it seemed, had never occurred.
“Now arriving at Mitaka. Thank you for choosing our express line.”
The train eased into Mitaka Station and as the hydraulic doors slid open, they released a long sigh into the crisp air.
Inside the car, the atmosphere shifted abruptly, leaving Megumi caught between the urge to move and the desire to stay still. Bodies surged forward, eager to escape onto the platform, while Megumi hesitated, knees trembling as he tried to process the sudden shift.
He felt torn, a silent witness to the chaos and unsure if he should join the rush or hold his ground. Until, in a rush, he was caught up in the tide, swept away by the force of indecision.
A firm shoulder grazed him, and a bag swished past his side. A muffled, “’Scuse me,” was barely audible before Megumi was swept along with the other commuters. The crowd enveloped him like a living current, shoving him through the gaping doors until he found himself standing on a concrete platform.
The scene that unfolded before him was vividly surreal. Everywhere he looked, people mingled with beings that defied expectations.
There was a man with skin as translucent and fluid as jelly, his network of pulsing veins visible beneath a shimmering surface.
Nearby, a teenage girl reclined casually against a metallic railing, her arms replaced by delicate, iridescent tentacles as she texted on a device.
A small child skipped past, sporting a goat-like face with curled horns and savoring the creamy delight of an ice cream cone.
…A woman with flowing, luminous hair held hands with her partner who appeared normal, and they both laughed as though sharing an embarrassing secret.
Elsewhere, a man with an extra eye, quietly pored over the words on a pamphlet.
And behind Megumi, someone sneezed, and the sound was synchronized with the rustle of scales along a sinuous, snake-like neck.
Megumi's heart sank as he grappled with the unsettling vision before him.
It was as if everything he knew was slipping away. Every fiber of his being screamed that things were off, but a whisper in his mind suggested that maybe this was how it was meant to be.
However, the absence of cursed energy, left an unnerving void that unsettled him deeply. Every instinct screamed that something was amiss, yet a part of him clung to the hope that it was just a temporary anomaly.
Megumi’s thoughts tumbled in a frantic rush, desperately grasping for any semblance of normalcy—a remnant of logic, the comforting presence of Gojo, a shadow of the Divine Dog, or the faint pull of cursed energy!
But all he found was this nightmare.
In his mind, every face in the crowd was a mere shell of humanity cloaked in cursed spirit energy.
Desperation surged through Megumi—he had to dispel this illusion, exorcise these beings, tear apart the veil that held him captive.
Something broke inside him as his hand plunged towards the floor, fingers twisting into a familiar gesture and in an instant, the pavement fractured beneath as the Divine Dogs burst forth, snarling fiercely. Its lithe body cut through the scene eyes glinting with a savage determination.
And then… panic exploded among the bystanders.
They screamed in terror, others recoiled in frozen disbelief.
Overhead, shouts erupted asking for heroes and the police.
Megumi’s mind was a blur of racing thoughts and shuddering breaths. He urged the advancing shadows to appear.
In response to his silent command, Nue burst into the sky with a soul-piercing shriek… Crackling bolts of lightning flared from its wings.
Next, Toad materialized. Its massive, sticky tongue lashed out, flinging a nearby bench aside with brutal force.
Amid the pandemonium, a goat-faced child squealed in terror, ducking behind a stubborn newsstand for cover.
“MAKE HIM STOP!” someone shouted in a desperate plea.
A panicked civilian cried as a stray lightning bolt shattered a snack machine into spark and shattered glass. Another onlooker questioned in disbelief, “Who is that kid?!”
Amidst the chaos, Megumi’s voice rang out, hoarse yet determined, “This is all fake! You’re all CURSES! Stop pretending!”
His eyes, wild and feverish, darted toward the jelly-skinned man as he snapped his fingers. In that split second, the black Divine Dog lunged with renewed ferocity.
Pandemonium erupted.
People flooded the platform, trampling over one another in a frantic bid to escape.
Security guards arrived, momentarily frozen in indecision at the sight of a boy whose eyes—dark blue, haunted, and smeared with sweat—conveyed a horror far beyond his calm, almost childlike exterior.
“Get him under control!” someone bellowed.
Some civilians stifled their panic, trying to record the unfolding madness with trembling hands, while others simply wept.
A woman with small, pointed horns pressed herself protectively against the station wall, clutching her child close as though to shield them both from the surging terror.
“Please stop,” she mouthed silently, her eyes pleading.
But Megumi was beyond noticing her plea. His gaze was fixed on a horrific vision… a cursed spirit cradling a defenseless child like bait for some unspeakable ritual!
In that heated moment, his thoughts twisted into a chilling mantra: Kill them all. Only then would this malignant domain shatter, and only then could he awaken from the relentless nightmare!
“Somebody call a pro-hero!”
Every beat of his heart thundered in his ears.
“There’s a kid, he’s out of control! He’s got a dangerous quirk!”
Fear hung heavy in the air, it was a blend of his own terror and that of the surrounding crowd. As the shadows coalesced into deeper darkness, they began to seep across the platform like ink spreading inexorably across white paper, threatening to engulf everything in their path.
“He’s attacking civilians!”
“Where are the heroes?!”
Panic exploded like a burst of shattered glass, each frantic shout fueling yet another desperate scream. The platform was now transformed into a maelstrom of chaos where there are discarded backpacks that lay abandoned, crushed snacks, and benches violently upended, their splintered wood clattering across the floor in the wake of the beasts summoned by Megumi.
Dark, twisting shadows slithered across the ground like living tendrils. Each one reached out, grasping and creeping with hunger.
The Divine Dogs, its fur bristling and eyes alight with feral intensity, lunged at a bystander with metallic body… and with a snarl, it clamped its teeth around the metal, shattering into a cascade of sparks.
Above, Nue’s presence was marked by a piercing screech as bolts of erratic lightning that forced everyone to dive for cover. Meanwhile, Toad crashed into a sturdy pillar, intent on bring the ceiling down.
At the center of this pandemonium stood Megumi, his dark hair whipping violently back in the swirling wind. His eyes were wide with confusion, seething grief, and an unmistakable, raw instinct to survive.
He appeared no older than ten, a small, haunted figure. His body crouched low, and his mouth pulled into a grim, feral snarl.
"They're not people," he tried to convince himself, yet doubt gnawed at him. "They're curses,"
If Megumi lets them live, what would that mean for him?
Would he ever wake up again?
As he gathered his power, his mind wavered, caught between the urgency of his fears and the uncertainty of his actions.
A sharp shift in the scene occurred when a uniformed police officer, stepped forward with arms raised in a plea for peace.
“Hey—kid. Listen to me. No one’s going to hurt you. We can help, okay?” he shouted, his voice a desperate attempt at calm amidst the chaos.
Megumi’s head snapped around to face him, eyes growing wider with shock. I
n that split second, Megumi took in the terrifying details: the officer's skin, riddled with raised, reptilian scales that seemed to shimmer menacingly and his hands, ending in thick, claw-like fingers that could tear through steel.
In that instant of horrifying recognition, the child’s eyes burned with a fierce sense of betrayal.
“Liar.”
Without hesitation, Megumi’s shadow surged forward like dark liquid prepared to engulf everything in its path.
The white Divine Dog barked fiercely and leaped and the officer barely managed to roll back, his side scraping mercilessly against the platform’s jagged edge. In that instant, the officer’s partner whipped out a stun baton in a hurried effort, panic quickly eclipsing any reason.
“Kid’s not listening! I’m calling in support now!” he shouted, his voice cracking under the weight of the unfolding disaster.
“Unit 14 requesting immediate hero response! We’ve got a minor with a dangerous quirk! He’s not responding! Needs containment! Send someone suited for restraint!”
Another officer swiftly fumbled with a barrier device, hastily flicking it to life in hopes of cordoning off Megumi from the terrified civilians.
The barrier pulsed with a buzzing blue light, but even that brief sanctuary was undone when Toad’s elongated, sticky tongue lashed out, yanking the device from his grasp before slamming it onto the ground.
Amidst the chaos, people pressed close behind station pillars, their screams intertwining with cries for help. Mothers clutched their frightened children tightly, and a being with delicate insect wings swooped in to rescue a sobbing girl from the maelstrom.
Through it all, Megumi advanced relentlessly.
His shadows rippled outward like inky tendrils, as if he were preparing to launch the entirety of his power to engulf the platform completely. And then, as if a switch had been flipped, the temperature plummeted.
The biting cold sliced through the warm air like a sharpened blade, frosting the concrete in a web of white, crystalline veins that spread like sinister spider webs.
Megumi took one determined step forward and suddenly his foot was stuck, unmoving.
His gaze dropped to meet his frozen limb. From his ankle to his thigh, his legs were being encased in a thick, unyielding block of ice that clung to him like armor.
His breath escaped in desperate, startled puffs, and even his trailing shadows quivered in hesitation. The Divine Dogs were also caught mid-leap, frozen, while Nue circled overhead in a state of bewilderment.
Then came a voice… cool and calm, steeped in familiarity despite its commanding undertone.
“That’s enough.”
The words were barely above a whisper, yet they carried an undeniable authority that halted everything in its wake. The ice thickened, curling around Megumi’s legs upward rooting him firmly in place and stifling the surge of his dark shadows.
“I don’t know what you’ve been through,” the voice continued, now closer and laced with measured caution, “but hurting people won’t bring you back from it.”
At these words, Megumi’s body trembled, his eyes darting toward the source of the voice.
Emerging through the frightened crowd was a towering figure: tall, broad-shouldered, and clad in navy attire. The man’s hair is a striking mixture of white and red. He has a noticeable burn scar traced a path near his left eye, yet his gaze remained calm and steady.