Dawn refused to come.
The outer district had become a slaughterhouse lit only by violet lightning
SFX:CRACK−THRUM.
Broken bodies floated face-down in black floodwater. A severed arm still clutched a rusted pipe like a child's toy.
The air stank of copper, wet iron, and ghoul bile.
Zero walked barefoot through the carnage.
Robe torn to ribbons.
Skin untouched.
Every corpse he passed left something behind.
A shadow peeled away from cooling flesh — shrrrk — slithering across pavement like spilled ink.
One by one, they melted into the darkness coiling around his ankles.
Twenty-three new silhouettes now followed him.
Faceless.
Obedient.
Hungry.
He reached the central plaza, where the last survivors had made their stand.
Six people remained.
A burn-scarred girl crouched behind an overturned statue, clutching a ghoul's severed claw like a dagger.
Blood poured from the gash across her ribs. Her eyes were already half-glass.
A college boy with a rebar spear trembled beside her, teeth chattering loud enough to wake the dead.
*tik-tik-tik-tik*
Two deserter soldiers from the inner wall laughed over a dying man, carving souvenirs from his branded skin.
And one more.
A girl stood alone in the center of the plaza, untouched.
Silver hair.
Snow-blue eyes.
White cloak with a crimson cross.
The mark of the Saintess Order.
Cecilia.
Seven hundred years younger.
Still pure.
Still carrying the face that once whispered love as she slid divine steel between his ribs.
She had arrived early this cycle.
Zero's heart gave one violent lurch —
THUMP.
the first real emotion he had allowed himself since returning.
Then the mask slid back into place.
He stepped into the plaza, deliberately splashing water — SPLSH.
Every head snapped toward him.
The college boy blurted first.
"Impossible… You were dragged away!"
The deserters grinned.
"Fresh meat came back for seconds."
The burn-scar girl only stared.
Cecilia tilted her head slightly, silver hair sliding across her cheek.
Something unreadable flickered in those snow-blue eyes.
Zero lowered his gaze.
Shoulders curled inward.
The perfect picture of a trembling, broken doll.
"I… got lucky. The ghoul dropped me in a basement. I hid until it left."
He let his voice crack on the last word.
The deserters laughed harder.
"Lucky trash is still trash. Kneel. We'll make it quick."
They advanced.
Zero took one stumbling step backward.
Eyes wide.
Breath shaking.
Perfect bait.
The burn-scar girl screamed and charged, claw raised.
The college boy followed an instant later, roaring something heroic and stupid.
The deserters turned, amused.
Cecilia did not move.
She only watched Zero.
In the half-second every eye left him—
The world went dark.
Not dim.
Not shadowed.
Dark.
Every torch.
Every crack of violet lightning.
Every reflection in the water.
Extinguished.
SFX:FWMP
Two wet thumps echoed through the void.
thk.
thk.
When light returned, the deserters stood frozen, mouths open in silent screams.
Black hands erupted from their own shadows — SKRRRCH — wrapped around their throats, and twisted.
The bodies dropped like marionettes with cut strings.
From each corpse rose a perfect shadow copy.
Both kneeled before Zero.
The college boy pissed himself.
The burn-scar girl collapsed, the claw clattering away — clink-clink-clnk.
Cecilia finally spoke, voice soft as falling ash.
"You are not what the altar said you'd be."
Zero lifted his gaze, exhausted and harmless.
"I don't know what you mean. I just… got lucky again."
He stepped toward her.
Then another.
Five meters.
Three.
One.
Close enough to smell the faint lilies that always clung to her skin, even in hell.
Cecilia reached out, brushing a wet strand of hair from his cheek —
the same gesture she'd used the night she killed him.
"You feel… familiar," she murmured.
Zero smiled.
Small.
Sad.
Empty.
"I get that a lot."
Behind him, twenty-five shadows rose, forming a perfect ring around the plaza.
The college boy finally managed to scream.
Zero didn't look away from Cecilia.
"Please… I'm scared. Can you protect me until the inner gate opens?"
Her fingers lingered on his cheek for a heartbeat.
Then she nodded.
"Of course."
She turned to the surviving pair.
"Come. The Saintess Order takes in the lost."
The burn-scar girl crawled toward her.
The college boy stumbled after, sobbing.
Zero walked at the back, head bowed.
None of them noticed the shadows stretching impossibly far behind him, dragging silent lines through the water.
None of them noticed them dig.
Fifty-three shallow graves —
one for every reject who entered the outer district tonight.
Fifty-two received bodies.
One remained empty.
When the inner gate finally groaned open at dawn, four living souls walked through.
The soldiers on duty counted them, shrugged, and wrote in the log:
Outer district survivors: 4
(including one miracle F-rank pretty boy)
They never noticed the fifty-second corpse that should've been there simply… wasn't.
Zero stepped into morning light, Cecilia's white cloak draped over his shoulders like a quiet claim.
He inhaled the scent of lilies.
And old betrayal.
Soon, he promised the darkness curled under his ribs.
Soon.
For now, he kept his head down and followed the Saintess into the city of the living.
Behind him, the outer district's shadows settled into place.
All fifty-three graves now perfectly filled.
Except one.
The empty grave waited.
It had a name once.
It would again.