Dawn refused to come.
The outer district had become a slaughterhouse lit only by violet lightning—KRRAK-THRUM—each flash revealing another tableau of ruin. Broken bodies drifted face-down in black floodwater. A severed arm bobbed gently, fingers locked around a rusted pipe like a child's forgotten toy. The air stank of copper and ghoul bile, thick enough to scrape the throat.
Rain 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, sssshhk, slithering across the ground like spilled ink before melting into the darkness coiled around his ankles.
Twenty-three new silhouettes followed him now—faceless, obedient, hungry.
He stopped at the central plaza where the last survivors had made their stand.
Six remained alive.
The burn-scar 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 turning glassy.
A college boy with a rebar spear trembled beside her, teeth chattering loud enough to wake the dead.
Two deserters from the inner wall—men who'd snuck out to hunt "easy kills"—laughed as they carved souvenirs from a dying man's brand.
And one more.
A silver-haired girl stood in the center of the plaza, untouched.
White cloak. Crimson cross.
The mark of the Saintess Order.
Cecilia.
Seven hundred years younger. Still pure. Still carrying the face that once whispered love while sliding divine steel between his ribs.
She had arrived early this cycle.
Zero's heart lurched—one violent, treacherous beat. The first emotion he'd allowed since returning.
Then the mask slid back into place.
He stepped into the plaza, deliberately splashing water.
SPLASH.
Every head snapped toward him.
The college boy blurted, voice cracking.
"Impossible. You were dragged away!"
The deserters grinned, raising their swords.
"Fresh meat came back for seconds."
The burn-scar girl only stared.
Cecilia tilted her head, silver hair sliding across her cheek. Something ancient flickered in those snow-blue eyes—recognition that had no business existing yet.
Rain lowered his gaze, shoulders curling inward. A perfect, fragile imitation of a 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.
Rain took one stumbling step backward, trembling.
Perfect bait.
The burn-scar girl suddenly screamed and lunged at the deserters, claw raised.
The college boy followed, shouting something heroic and idiotic.
The deserters turned, amused.
Cecilia never moved.
She only watched Rain.
And in the half-second every eye left him—
—the world went dark.
Not metaphorically.
Every torch.
Every arc of lightning.
Every reflection trembling in the water.
FWUP— extinguished.
Absolute night swallowed the plaza.
Two wet thumps.
THMP.
THMP.
When light returned, the deserters stood rigid, mouths frozen in silent screams. Black hands erupted from their own shadows, wrapped around their throats, and twisted.
Their bodies dropped like marionettes with severed strings.
From each corpse rose a perfect shadow copy, kneeling before Rain.
The college boy pissed himself.
The burn-scar girl collapsed, claw clattering across the stone.
Cecilia finally spoke, voice soft as falling ash.
"You are not what the altar said."
Rain met her gaze with exhausted, harmless eyes.
"I don't know what you mean. I just… got lucky again."
He stepped toward her.
Five meters.
Three.
One.
Close enough to smell lilies—her eternal scent, even in hell.
Cecilia reached out, fingers brushing a strand of wet hair from his cheek.
The same gesture she used the night she killed him.
Her voice dropped to a murmur.
"You feel… familiar."
Rain smiled. Small. Sad. Empty.
"I get that a lot."
Behind him, twenty-five shadows rose silently, forming a perfect circle around the plaza.
The college boy finally screamed.
Rain didn't look away from Cecilia.
"Please," he whispered. "I'm scared. Can you… protect me until the inner gate opens?"
Cecilia's fingers lingered one second longer.
Then she nodded.
"Of course."
She turned to the two survivors.
"Come. The Saintess Order takes in the lost."
The burn-scar girl crawled toward her.
The college boy stumbled after, sobbing.
Rain walked at the back of the group, head bowed.
No one saw the shadows beneath his feet stretch impossibly far behind him, dragging silent trenches through the water.
No one saw 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 the wall counted them, shrugged, wrote in their log:
Outer district survivors: 4 (including one miracle F-rank pretty boy).
They never noticed the fifty-second body that simply… wasn't there.
Rain stepped into the morning light, Cecilia's white cloak draped over his shoulders like a claim.
He inhaled lilies and old betrayal.
Soon, he promised the darkness curled beneath 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 shadows settled.
All fifty-three graves filled.
Except one.
The empty grave waited.
It had a name once.
It would again.