Hayabusa wasn't supposed to be late.
He had promised his mother he would come straight home, no detours, no stopping to watch the older boys practice kendo near the shrine. But today was different. Today he had something worth carrying carefully.
The test paper trembled in his hand as he ran. The red score at the top looked brighter than it had in the classroom, like it might glow if he stared at it long enough.
Perfect.
He had checked three times before leaving school. The number hadn't changed.
He imagined his mother's quiet gasp, the way she would press the paper flat against the table as if it were fragile. His father would sit across from him, arms folded, pretending to examine it critically before giving a short nod.
"Good," he would say.
His father never said more than that.
Hayabusa turned onto his street, breath uneven but happy. Evening had settled in soft and familiar. Windows glowed. A dog barked somewhere in the distance. The world felt steady.
Their front door was open.
He slowed.
It wasn't wide — just slightly ajar. Enough to show darkness inside.
His mother hated wasted heat. She would never leave it like that.
"Mom?" he called as he stepped onto the porch.
No answer.
He pushed the door open further. The hinges made a low sound that felt too loud in the quiet house.
The smell hit him first.
Metallic. Thick. Wrong.
He stepped inside.
His backpack slid from his shoulder and thumped softly against the wall. He didn't notice.
"Dad?"
Something shifted in the dining room.
A sound followed — wet, slow, deliberate.
His body moved forward even though something deep in his chest was tightening. He told himself it was nothing. He told himself he was imagining things.
He turned the corner.
His father was crouched on the floor.
For a moment, the scene refused to arrange itself into something understandable. The floor was dark and shining. The table had been knocked aside. Chairs lay on their sides.
Then he saw his mother's hand.
It lay palm-up near the table leg, fingers slightly curled.
His grandparents were slumped against the wall. His cousin's small shoe was twisted at an unnatural angle.
His father's shoulders moved as he chewed.
Slowly.
Carefully.
Hayabusa's thoughts emptied. They didn't shatter — they simply drained away. He felt light, almost detached, as if he were watching someone else standing in that doorway.
His father lifted his head.
Blood streaked his mouth and chin. It soaked into his shirt. But it was still his father's face. The same lines near his eyes. The same shape of his jaw.
"Hayabusa," he said.
The voice was deeper than usual. Layered. As though something beneath it was speaking too.
Hayabusa did not scream.
He couldn't.
His fingers tightened around the paper in his hand until it crumpled. His legs refused to move. Even blinking felt impossible.
His father rose slowly to his feet.
They stared at each other.
For one terrible second, Hayabusa thought his father might walk toward him.
Instead, the air behind his father distorted.
It wavered like heat above asphalt. Then it split open with a thin, cracking sound. A vertical tear formed in the space behind him, revealing something that was not lightless but depthless. A darkness that did not reflect.
Wind spilled from it, but nothing in the room moved.
His father's expression changed.
The hunger receded. His jaw trembled slightly. His eyes — still his eyes — flickered with something Hayabusa recognized.
Shame.
"I…" his father began.
The word died between them.
He stepped backward into the tear.
The darkness folded around him and sealed shut without a trace.
Silence fell so completely that Hayabusa could hear his own breathing — shallow and uneven.
The test paper slipped from his hand.
It landed face-up in blood.
The red ink blurred into something darker.
He stared at his mother's unmoving face. He waited for her chest to rise. He waited for her to sit up and laugh and tell him it was all a misunderstanding.
Nothing changed.
Time passed without shape. His knees trembled, but he remained standing. Tears slid down his face without sound. He did not wipe them away.
Eventually, there were footsteps outside.
The door opened fully this time.
Several figures entered wearing long white coats. Clean. Structured. Not a stain on them. They moved quickly but without panic, scanning the room with trained eyes.
One of them stopped when he saw Hayabusa.
"He's alive," the man said quietly.
Another figure stepped in behind them.
Black.
The coat was too large for its wearer. The sleeves extended past his wrists, the hem nearly brushing the floor. It swallowed his small frame, turning him into a narrow column of shadow amid the white.
He was only slightly taller than Hayabusa.
He had one eye.
It sat centered in his face, steady and dark. There was no scar where another should have been. Just smooth skin, as if he had been born unfinished.
The white-coated exorcists shifted subtly when he entered. Not dramatically. Just enough to clear a path.
He walked toward Hayabusa.
The coat dragged faintly against the floor.
He stopped a few steps away and looked at the bodies only briefly before turning his eye to the boy.
"You're still conscious," he said.
His voice was light. Almost young.
Hayabusa swallowed. His throat felt scraped raw. "Is this… real?"
"Yes."
No hesitation.
Behind him, the figures in white were already working. Covering bodies. Photographing. Cleaning. Efficient and silent.
Hayabusa's gaze drifted to the empty space where the darkness had opened.
"That was my dad," he whispered.
The man in black crouched down so they were nearly the same height.
"It wore your father," he replied calmly.
The words were simple. Final.
Hayabusa's legs gave out then. He would have fallen if the small man hadn't caught him easily. The oversized sleeve slipped back just enough to reveal a scarred hand gripping his shoulder with surprising strength.
"There are things that consume souls," the man continued quietly. "And when they do, what remains is not the person you knew."
Hayabusa shook his head weakly. "He looked at me."
The single eye softened — barely.
"They often do."
A white-coated exorcist approached and spoke in a low voice. The man in black nodded once.
"It will be handled," he said. "The neighbors will hear something ordinary."
Hayabusa clutched at the black fabric. It felt heavy. Solid. Real.
"I don't have anywhere else," he said, the words breaking apart as they left him.
The man studied him for a long moment.
"You do now."
He extended his hand.
The white-coated exorcists stepped back slightly, forming a quiet boundary around them.
After several seconds, Hayabusa lifted his shaking hand and placed it into the man's oversized sleeve. The grip that closed around him was firm, grounding.
They walked out of the house together.
Night had settled fully. Unmarked vehicles lined the street. Other houses glowed with warm light, untouched by what had happened only meters away.
Hayabusa looked back once as someone in white shut the door.
"Where are we going?" he asked.
"To headquarters."
"Why?"
The man paused beside one of the vehicles.
"Because you can't remain where the memory will eat you alive."
Hayabusa looked up at him. Up at the single steady eye.
"Who are you?" he asked.
The man opened the car door.
"Only the strongest are permitted to wear black," he said simply.
Hayabusa glanced at the white coats, then back at the oversized black one that swallowed the small figure whole.
"And me?"
The man's eye held his.
"You'll stay with us," he said. "With me."
A small pause.
"I will adopt you. From tonight on, you are under my protection."
Hayabusa felt something inside him shift. Not relief. Not comfort.
Direction.
He climbed into the vehicle.
As it began to move, he pressed his forehead to the window and watched his home disappear behind them, the image blurring through tears he no longer tried to stop.
The man in black sat beside him, silent and steady.