Oliver leapt from rooftop to rooftop, pausing only to confirm what each glance told him: the city was locked in that same breathless stillness. No people. No lights. The edges of his world felt dulled, like everything had been painted over in a thin gray wash—familiar outlines of buildings, signage, power lines, but none of the life behind them.
Eventually, he descended.
Landing lightly in an alley, he checked the address plaque on a utility pole.
Tenjin Alleyway.
That was right—just a few streets away from the love hotel. From the yakisoba shop.
He set off again, boots clicking softly against the wet pavement. No echoes followed.
As he turned the corner, a faint sense of déjà vu stirred. His eye caught the edge of something familiar.
The vending machine.
The ramen stall.
The flickering neon sign above the yakisoba shop—except it wasn't flickering. It was dead.
He stopped. Slowly turned.
His footsteps had brought him full circle.
Back to the same street.
Impossible.
He spun on his heel and picked a different direction this time, weaving between tighter alleys, ducking through fences, crossing into a different commercial stretch. He kept walking. Counting the steps. Watching the small signs on poles, on windows, on rusted mailboxes.
Until he turned a final corner—heart still steady, jaw tight—and found himself standing before the vending machine again.
Tenjin Alleyway.
The same half-lit sign.
The same blocked drain bubbling faintly beneath a warped sewer grate.
"...Fuck."
He took a slow breath. Reached into his pocket again. The scissors remained quiet—utterly useless.
Oliver pressed a hand to the side of his head, trying to calm the rising tension crackling behind his eyes.
"This isn't an illusion," he muttered. "No qi signature. No physical distortions. I'd feel it if someone was puppeting this."
He walked again. Slower this time. Less about escape—more about observation. He moved like a hunter now, a blade drawn in his thoughts even if his hands stayed empty.
He passed by the yakisoba shop. Again
Passed the vending machine. Again.
And again.
And again.
Sometimes he'd take a different turn just before the corner. Sometimes he'd double back two or three times before rounding.
It didn't matter.
The loop was perfect. Seamless. Like the street itself had grown teeth, a maw of familiar facades waiting to swallow him no matter how fast or clever he moved.
And then he noticed something new.
Aiko's scent.
It struck him as he crossed the drain again—that faint trace of citrus and rainwater, it was the perfume she wore.
It clung to the windless air for just a moment. A thread.
He turned sharply. Eyes narrowed.
Nothing ahead but the yakisoba shop's shuttered front and that cursed alleyway. Yet the scent lingered—just enough to suggest movement. A trail.
He followed. Silent. Alert. Unaware of the faint glow pulsing from the lipstick shaped mark on his neck.
Each step slower now. His body tensed, not from fear but calculation—like a fighter stepping into a ring where the opponent was unseen. Every bit of his qi stayed coiled within, undisturbed.
The scent led him to the alley behind the ramen stand.
And stopped.
The space ended in a high brick wall, broken only by an iron drainage pipe leaking water into a moss-stained barrel.
No door. No crack in the wall. No magic circle etched into the stones.
Just… wall.
And her scent, thick in the air like she'd been there just seconds ago.
Oliver approached the wall and placed a hand against it.
Cold.
He narrowed his eyes—and pressed his palm harder.
For a moment, something pushed back.
Like the wall was not just brick, but listening.
The chill returned.
Then—
A sound. So faint it might've been imagined.
A whisper. Not from the scissors. Not from the wind.
"what are you doing, pedo-kun"
Oliver turned his head, slowly.
There was no one behind him.
No footfalls. No shift in shadow. No flick of movement on the edge of his vision.
But the scent was gone now.
And the loop had stilled.
Even the vending machine's broken glow had vanished completely.
Only that voice remained. And the wall before him. Cold. Waiting.
He didn't move.
Not at first.
The voice had come from behind, but not through air. It had slid into his ears like breathless static, brushing the base of his spine. Not a sound—but a suggestion of one.
And it was her voice.
Aiko's voice. Crooked, wrong. The pitch was right, but the rhythm—too slow, the vowels hanging like meat on a hook. Each word had rot in its bones.
"what are you doing, pedo-kun"
His expression didn't change.
But his hand twitched.
"Sick trick," he muttered.
And then he moved.
With one smooth step, he slid back from the wall, pulling his weight low—ready to pivot, dodge, kill.
Nothing behind him. Nothing yet.
But the air felt different.
No breeze. Still cold. Still damp.
But now the alley had a texture, like the inside of a throat—wet brick, breathless stone. The fog began to pulse at the edges of his vision, slow as a heartbeat.
"Olliiiiiivvvver…"
The voice again. Not hers this time.
His.
Drawn out, drunk on its own echo.
He didn't hesitate.
"Ten Sacred Sword Technique."
The words struck the air like nails through silk.
His Qi snapped into motion, golden light surging from his dantian. He drew it up fast, without flourish, knowing full well the cost. One tenth. Gone. Poured into a single act of defiance.
Above his open palm, a sword of pure golden Qi formed—straight-edged and glimmering, its edge so thin the air whined around it.
A Qi sword—so sharp it could sever steel, if not dreams.
It hovered an inch above his fingers, humming like a string pulled taut across dimensions.
He didn't grip it yet.
Instead, his other hand reached into the blazer pocket—and closed around cold iron.
He drew the scissors.
They didn't shine.
They throbbed, faintly, like something alive and sleeping.
Twin blades of curved violet metal. Cold. Violent. They didn't cut light. They ignored it.
Oliver raised the scissors to eye level.
And the air split.
Not a scream. Not a hiss.
But a crack, as though reality had tried to blink and failed.
The monster stepped through.
It had no entrance. No portal. It simply was—oozing into being like a smear of oil across the alley's far wall. Still human-sized. Still vaguely shaped. But its limbs coiled where joints shouldn't exist, and its surface shimmered faintly—like polished skin stretched too thin.
It didn't walk.
It leaned forward, and the alley bent with it.
The voice came again. Not aloud. Not from the mouth it didn't have.
"Why'd you leave?."
Aiko's voice again. But closer. Crawling inside his thoughts, painting pictures he didn't want to see.
Oliver's jaw flexed.
He didn't speak.
Instead, he took one step forward—Qi sword now in hand, held low like a butcher's blade—and slashed cleanly through the air.
The golden arc split the fog.
The monster didn't dodge.
It simply opened.
Its chest parted, not like flesh, but like cloth soaked in oil and set alight. Behind the rift: eyes. Dozens. Maybe hundreds. Each one hers.
"That hurt, Oli-kun. Are you gonna do it again?"
The scissors twitched in his other hand.
Oliver didn't respond to the voice, though it gnawed at the edges of his mind, pulling at him with its sickened version of Aiko's tone. The air around him was thick, but he didn't flinch.
The scissors in his hand thrummed with violent anticipation, their violet blades pulling at the very fabric of the moment, demanding to be used.
He stepped forward.
The monster—still writhing with countless eyes and twisting limbs—loomed in front of him, oozing in and out of itself like a malformed thing that shouldn't exist.
It tilted its head, as if aware of his approach, its grotesque limbs curling and uncurling in a grotesque dance. Its eyes shimmered in that unnatural light, hundreds of them, all staring at him, blinking in unison.
But it didn't move to strike first. It waited.
And in that breath, Oliver made the first cut.
The scissors sliced through the monster's malformed chest with a sickening crunch. Flesh—if it could even be called that—folded in upon itself, oozing thick, black ichor as the blades parted the unnatural skin. The air thickened, pressure building as the rippling wound expanded.
For a moment, it seemed like the monster was going to stay still, but then—then—it snapped.
The pain didn't register immediately. Instead, a horrifying sound vibrated through Oliver's bones, a shriek that didn't belong to the creature, but seemed to reverberate in every fiber of his body.
The wound in its chest began to close rapidly, the edges of its body stitching together with impossible speed.
And then the monster ripped at the air with its twisted limbs, launching itself at him with an animal-like fury.
Oliver barely had time to react.
Its limbs lashed out, and he had to throw himself back, avoiding the first strike by mere inches. The air where his head had been shuddered with the force of the blow. He could see the heat radiating off its limbs, the sickly shimmer of dark, twisted energy—a force that seemed unnatural, even for a creature like this.
Before he could retreat further, another limb reached for him, and this time, he wasn't fast enough.
The tendril of dark flesh wrapped around his wrist, squeezing with crushing force.
Oliver gritted his teeth, feeling the pressure build, but instead of struggling, he centered himself, drawing Qi from deep within his dantian. The pain in his arm didn't matter. The hunger from the scissors didn't matter. What mattered was that this thing needed to die.
"White Crane's Counter," he muttered under his breath.
His Qi surged in a ripple of cold white light, flowing through his limbs and transforming his body into a shield of controlled power. His arms glowed with the ethereal radiance of the technique, the white Qi illuminating the alley in stark contrast to the monster's sickly hues.
He yanked his arm back with a snap, twisting and deflecting the creature's next strike, the white glow of his Qi meeting the dark mass of the creature's form. The blow was deflected with a hiss, the white Qi pushing against the oncoming attack, turning the monster's limb aside with unnatural ease.
But the creature wasn't done.
It reared back, its massive body shifting like a massive wave, its skin shifting as though it had a mind of its own. It screeched—no longer Aiko's voice, but a cacophony of rage and hunger—and swiped again, aiming for his throat.
Oliver's sword still hovered, but he dropped the blade in favor of the scissors. His hands tightened, the scissors vibrating with a low hum.
He slashed again.
The scissors cut through the air with brutal efficiency. They dug into the monster's neck, right where the ugly black veins bulged. The edge of the scissors dug deep, sinking into the foul, oily flesh, and for a moment—just a moment—Oliver felt a rush of relief.
But it didn't last.
The monster's form writhed, and the wound screeched in agony, but the wound didn't stay. The monster pulled back, its body twisting violently, trying to throw him off.
With a guttural roar, the creature stretched and cracked, shifting in on itself, faster than before.
It lunged again, but this time, Oliver was ready. He swung his arm forward, the white Qi swirling around his limbs, a gust of power that deflected the next strike with force. The blow was deflected with such precision that it sent the monster staggering back, its form flickering from solid to translucent, like an illusion struggling to hold onto reality.
Oliver didn't hesitate.
With the creature thrown off balance, he moved with savage precision, stepping into the gap and slashing the scissors across its chest again.
This time, the scissors didn't just cut through flesh.
They tore through the essence of the thing, cutting through more than just its body. The cut felt like a deep, ripping wound in the fabric of reality itself. The very air seemed to crackle as the scissors sank deeper into the creature's chest.
It screeched again, a shrill cry of pain, but it didn't stop. It thrashed in agony, but its limbs reached out again, aiming to crush him.
He didn't flinch.
He couldn't.
His grip on the scissors tightened, his body shuddering with the strange, addictive craving that came with the blade's contact. There was a sense of need buried deep in his chest—an overwhelming, twisted desire to keep cutting.
But there was something else in that desire, something darker, sharper.
Oliver felt the urge to push farther. He felt the white Qi still running through him, felt the weight of it in his limbs. But the scissors were heavier than the Qi. The scissors wanted more.
The creature lunged again, but this time, Oliver was faster. He swung his scissors, slicing cleanly through its arm before it could touch him. The blade dug deep into the monster's appendage, tearing through the ichor that leaked from it, and the creature's body flickered once more, its form flickering as if it were coming undone.
But Oliver didn't stop.
With a savage twist, he plunged the scissors into the creature's side, watching as the blade sliced into the heart of the mass of flesh and ichor. He felt the monster's tremble beneath him, but it wasn't enough.
Not enough.
With a sharp yank, he wrenched the scissors free and slashed again, cutting across the thing's throat, its neck breaking open as its body spasmed.
Finally, the creature shrieked, its form breaking down in a wash of black sludge. The scent of death filled the alley, the thickening air tasting of decay and blood.
The fight was over.
Oliver stood panting, his body trembling with the weight of the battle. His hand still clutched the scissors, the metal slick with the monster's foul ichor.
His heart was still pounding.
But in the pit of his chest, the desire—the hunger—still burned.