The encounter with Aoi left a bitter taste of self-loathing in Yuki's mouth, sharper than the phantom taste of consumed souls. He avoided her with renewed determination, the guilt a cold stone in his gut. The scars on his forearms pulsed with a constant, insistent hunger, a reminder of the debt he owed Kage and the power he craved. He needed more souls. More fuel to feed the fire and maybe, just maybe, burn away the gnawing emptiness.
Two nights later, drawn by an instinct that felt both alien and undeniable, Yuki found himself in the sprawling maze of the city's condemned warehouse district. Rusting corrugated iron loomed under a sickle moon, casting jagged shadows. The air hung thick with the scent of decay, rust, and something else – the acrid tang of ozone and burnt sugar that heralded supernatural activity.
He found it near a collapsed loading dock. A hulking brute of a creature, easily eight feet tall, its body a nightmarish fusion of shattered concrete and twisted rebar. Glowing, terrified eyes – dozens of them – were embedded randomly across its surface, blinking and weeping thick, black tears. It moved with a slow, grinding inevitability, crushing discarded machinery and debris under its massive, stone-like feet. A low, guttural rumble vibrated from its core, a sound of mindless rage and endless hunger.
The scars on Yuki's forearms flared in response, the hum in his bones crescendoing into a roar. Kage's presence coiled tightly, a serpent sensing prey. There, the demon's whisper hissed, cold and eager. The next payment. Strong. Fearful. Rich fuel. Reap it.
Yuki didn't hesitate. He stepped out from behind a stack of rusted drums, his presence instantly drawing the creature's attention. The multitude of glowing eyes swiveled towards him, fixing him with a collective gaze of primal terror and fury. The creature bellowed, a sound like grinding rock and tearing metal, and charged.
Yuki met the charge head-on. He thrust his hands forward, and the crimson energy erupted. Not just tendrils this time, but solid, jagged spears of shadow and red light. They slammed into the concrete brute's chest with the force of a battering ram. Concrete exploded outwards. The creature roared in pain and surprise, staggering back.
It swung a massive, rebar-reinforced arm. Yuki dodged, the air whistling past his head, and lashed out with whips of crimson energy that cracked against the creature's limbs, chipping concrete and snapping rebar. The fight was brutal, visceral. Dust filled the air. The creature's roars shook the ground. Yuki moved with a speed and strength that wasn't his own, fueled by rage, grief, and the dark power coursing through him.
He saw an opening – a cluster of weeping eyes near what might have been the creature's neck. He poured all his fury, all his hollow ache, into one final, concentrated blast of crimson energy. It struck true.
The concrete brute didn't just fall. It exploded. A shower of rock, rebar, and thick black ichor rained down. At the epicenter of the blast, a swirling vortex of dark energy coalesced, revealing the creature's soul – a large, pulsating mass of sickly green light, writhing with the trapped terror of the embedded eyes.
Now! Kage's command echoed. Consume!
The crimson energy surged forward, enveloping the soul like a hungry shroud. Yuki felt the jolt – a psychic tsunami of the creature's sensations: the crushing weight of its form, the mindless rage that drove it, the constant, agonizing terror of the trapped eyes, the final, shattering moment of dissolution. It was overwhelming, nauseating. Then, just as quickly, it was absorbed. The green light vanished, drawn completely into the swirling crimson.
The energy recoiled, flowing back into Yuki's arms, into the scars. A wave of dark, heady power washed over him – strength, fullness, a temporary filling of the hollow ache. He stood panting amidst the rubble, the scent of ozone, burnt sugar, and wet concrete thick in the air.
Then, he felt it.
A gaze.
Not the creature's. Something else. Watching.
Yuki spun around, crimson energy still flickering around his fists like dying embers.
At the far end of the warehouse, silhouetted against the moonlight filtering through a broken skylight, stood a figure. Tall, lean, wrapped in a long, dark coat that seemed to drink the faint light, rendering its edges indistinct. It stood perfectly still, exuding an aura of absolute, focused intensity that was utterly different from the mindless hunger of the monsters he'd fought.
Yuki couldn't see its face clearly in the gloom, but he felt its attention. It wasn't hungry like Kage. It wasn't driven by blind rage like the concrete brute. It was… analytical. Measuring. Judging. And it was fixed entirely on him.
The figure took a single step forward. The movement was silent, fluid, unnatural. Moonlight caught its face for a fraction of a second.
Eyes. Not the voids of crimson light that marked Kage. These were hard, flinty, and utterly devoid of warmth or mercy. They were the eyes of a predator, but not one driven by hunger. Driven by purpose. By conviction. And they burned with a cold, righteous fury directed squarely at Yuki.
The figure raised a hand. Not to attack, but to reveal what it held. A long, slender rod of polished, dark wood, etched from end to end with intricate, glowing symbols that pulsed with a pure, clean energy. It was the antithesis of Yuki's crimson power – light against shadow, purity against corruption. The energy it radiated wasn't hostile in the same way as a monster's; it was repellent. It felt like a physical force pushing against Yuki's aura, trying to scour it clean.
An exorcist.
The realization hit Yuki like a physical blow, colder than any frost he'd radiated. Not a monster. A hunter. And from the look in those flinty eyes, from the pure, burning energy of the rod, Yuki wasn't the prey. He was the monster.
The exorcist took another deliberate step forward, its gaze never leaving Yuki's glowing scars, the lingering traces of crimson energy around his fists. The air grew thick, charged with the conflicting energies – Yuki's corrupt, shadowy crimson and the exorcist's pure, burning light. The very air seemed to vibrate with tension.
The exorcist's glare was a physical weight, a condemnation that cut deeper than any claw or tooth. It saw the power. It saw the corruption. It saw the consumed soul's lingering stain. And it saw Yuki. Not as a victim, not as a grieving brother, but as an abomination. A blight to be cleansed.
The hunt was on. And Yuki, for the first time since making the pact, felt the chilling, undeniable terror of being the prey.