The candlelight crawled up the stone walls, thin and sickly, bleeding shadows over the damp. Cracks latticed the ceiling, veins of darkness creeping through the rot. The air stank of mildew and something older, something metallic that clung to the throat like smoke.
Amatsu sat cross-legged on the cold floor, his back against the rough stone. Beside him, Eto flicked at a strand of hair clinging to her cheek, her fingers smeared with dirt and old blood.
"Those ghouls," Amatsu began, his voice low, deliberate. "The Vultures. How dangerous are they?"
Eto snorted, her grin crooked and lazy. "Depends who you ask. To most? They're nightmares. Organized, vicious, the sort that likes to leave little gifts of bones and shredded guts wherever they pass." She shrugged, like the words themselves were weightless.
She let the silence settle, her gaze wandering somewhere distant, fingers tracing spirals into the dirt. Then, her eyes snapped back, gleaming with something close to delight. "And when they finally decide you're worth the effort? They'll bury you."
Amatsu's gaze narrowed. His expression remained unchanged, but the words seeped into him like needles. The Maw's cruelty was a flood—blunt force, endless hunger. But the Vultures... they picked at the edges, patient, methodical. Even the strongest were only meat when the blades came from every angle.
"They'll come for me eventually, then."
"Oh, definitely." Eto said it like she was commenting on the weather. "But don't worry, it's not just them you have to worry about."
"What do you mean?"
Eto's smile twisted, a smirk cut from something darker. "The Vultures aren't the only ones watching. There's The Watchers, too. Information brokers. Not exactly a gang, more like... a hidden community. They sell knowledge for whatever price they feel like asking. And if you're interesting enough? You'll have their eyes on you before you even realize it."
"The Watchers." The name coiled through his mind, knotting itself into something cold. If they sold knowledge, then it meant his actions weren't buried. Every fight, every kill, every moment the Famine Serpent devoured and tore—it could all be seen. Cataloged. Sold.
But that couldn't be right. He made sure there was nothing to see. No bones, no flesh, no lingering corpses left to rot. He swallowed them whole, ground them down to scraps and essence, the Famine Serpent's maw reducing everything to power or pulp. Only blood and broken stone marked where the battles had happened—slick stains left to seep into the earth. And the scrawls of violence he carved into those who tried to carve him first.
"I made sure there's nothing left," Amatsu said, his words cutting through the dark. "No bodies. Nothing to find."
Eto giggled, her fingers drawing nonsense patterns in the dirt. "Ah, but you're thinking too small." Her voice slid into a singsong lilt, light and mocking. "The Watchers aren't just eyes, Amatsu. They're like maggots wriggling into everything—nestling deep where the rot's richest. They feast on secrets like spoiled meat, squirming through cracks and veins and all the little broken pieces you leave behind."
She swayed as she spoke, her grin widening, eyes glinting with a feverish glee. "They listen to the scuttle of insects, the scrape of claws, the secrets crawling through the dark. And when they decide they've heard something sweet? They spin it tight, tight, tight—until you're all tangled up and bleeding."
Her voice dropped, almost a whisper, but still threaded with that taunting melody. "And the best part? You never even feel the threads until you're choking."
Something cracked beneath his calm. A hairline fracture, swift and bitter.
Amatsu's fingers twitched, curling inwards until his nails bit into his palms. It wasn't anger. It wasn't even fear. Just the sharp, metallic sting of wrongness, like a blade's edge pressed to his skin. He'd been meticulous—every enemy shredded to nothing, every trace devoured until only silence remained.
But silence didn't matter, did it? Not to The Watchers. They didn't need his corpses. They needed his mistakes. The ones he hadn't noticed.
Had the watcher already sold him? Were his actions already mapped out, his violence a ledger read by eyes he couldn't see?
He forced the breath from his lungs, slow, deliberate. The crack sealed itself, ice locking tight over the sudden tremor. Control restored. Focus regained.
"So I haven't been hiding as well as I thought."
Eto laughed, the sound light and airy, like bells jingling over a pit of knives. "No one's truly hidden down here, Amatsu. It's all just a game of who notices first."
Her fingers continued their idle tracing, drawing intricate shapes that never quite made sense. "The Watchers don't care about strength or territory. They're parasites. They feed on secrets, twist them, sell them to whoever pays the right price—or something even stranger."
"What do they want, then?" Amatsu asked, eyes sharp beneath the dim light.
"That's the thing." Eto grinned, her gaze turning playful, as if this was all some grand joke only she understood. "No one knows. Sometimes they ask for food, or weapons, or protection. Other times... favors. Games. Maybe just a conversation to keep themselves amused."
Her hand stopped its idle tracing, fingers pressing into the dirt. "They aren't predictable. They aren't reasonable. But what they do know? That's real power down here."
Amatsu absorbed her words, his expression calm but his mind coiling through the implications. Power. It all returned to that. The Maw claimed it through brute force, the Vultures through precision and terror. But The Watchers... they held power like a blade pressed just below the surface. Bloodless, but sharp.
Rumors drifted through his thoughts, stories of the Watchers stitching together madness from stray words, tormenting those who tried to hide. They bartered in information like ghouls bartered in flesh, drawing profit from the secrets left unguarded.
If information could be bought, it could be controlled. Weaponized. And if the Watchers sold secrets, then they could be starved, robbed of their own currency.
But that would require strength beyond devouring stragglers and scavengers. Strength to eclipse their reach, to make their whispers irrelevant.
"Power is all that matters, then." Amatsu's voice came steady, the words weighted with something cold and calculating. "Knowledge, strength, hunger. It's all the same currency."
Eto raised an eyebrow, amusement glittering in her eyes. "Getting philosophical on me now?"
"Just thinking." He looked past her, into the darkness winding beyond their hideout. A maze of tunnels and prey. Of voices he hadn't silenced. The Watchers were only another obstacle. The Maw, the Vultures, all of them—just pieces to be torn down and consumed.
Amatsu's fingers clenched, nails biting into his palm. The hunger stirred, but it wasn't a ravenous itch—it was a focus. A clarity.
"I'll grow stronger," he said, more to himself than Eto. "Strong enough that their influence doesn't matter. That their whispers are nothing but noise."
Eto laughed, airy and bright. "You sound like a villain from one of those old books. But hey, I like the ambition. Just don't forget..." Her grin widened, eyes glinting with something sharp. "They're always watching."
Amatsu's gaze slid over the dark. "How long do you think I have?"
Eto tilted her head, eyes glittering with something between curiosity and delight. "Until what?"
"Until the Vultures figure out it was me. That I killed their member. Ate him." His voice was calm, each word deliberate. Like laying out pieces on a board.
Eto hummed, fingers trailing over the dirt, tracing shapes that twisted into nonsense. "Hmm... Maybe a month?" She grinned, a glint of sharpness hidden beneath the smile. "Give or take a few days. Depends how hungry they are for revenge."
Amatsu's eyes narrowed. "A month."
"Unless you get their attention sooner," Eto added, her tone light, casual, as if she were talking about the weather. "They like to poke at things that bite. The more blood you spill, the quicker they'll come sniffing."
"hahahaha if I keep killing, they'll notice faster."
"Yup. But hey, maybe that's what you want." Eto's smile widened, a child's grin twisted with something far more dangerous. "After all, what's the point of strength if no one's there to test it?"
Amatsu let the silence stretch, mind already coiling around the possibilities. One month. A window of time he could manipulate. Expand. Shrink. Make them come when he was ready, not before.
"Then I'll give them something worth dying for."