Dawn found Yuki huddled in the cavernous, echoing emptiness of an abandoned subway tunnel deep beneath the city. The air was thick with the smell of damp concrete, dust, and decay. Weak light filtered down from grates high above, casting long, distorted shadows. It was a place of forgotten things, a perfect refuge for the forgotten.
But he wasn't alone. The hum in his bones was a constant reminder of Kage's coiled presence. The scars on his arms pulsed with a dull, aching throb, the dark tracery now creeping towards his shoulders. The exorcist's judgment – Filth. Abomination. – echoed in the hollow spaces inside him. He felt stained, inside and out.
He needed to rest, to think. But fear was a cold serpent coiled in his gut. The exorcist was out there. Hunting. It wouldn't stop. It couldn't stop. Not until he was purified. Destroyed.
He leaned his head back against the cold concrete wall, closing his eyes. He saw Hana's ghost, her empty sockets weeping shadow, her silent scream a constant torment. He saw the gym creature's maw, the doll-creature's cracked face, the concrete brute's glowing eyes. He saw the exorcist's flinty eyes, burning with righteous fury. He saw his own reflection, the hollow boy with the spreading scars.
You cannot hide forever, Kage's whisper slithered into his mind. The zealot's light is persistent. It will find you. And when it does, it will bind you. It will flay the corruption from your bones. It will hurt.
The thought of being captured, of being subjected to the exorcist's "purification," sent a fresh wave of terror through him. He remembered the scouring light of the circle, the way it had revealed every stain, every corruption. He imagined what the exorcist would do to him. Rituals. Torture. The slow, agonizing removal of the demonic taint… and likely, his life along with it.
He needed to be ready. He needed to understand the power he wielded, not just as a weapon, but as a shield. He focused on the scars, on the hum in his bones. He reached for the rage, the grief, the hollow ache – the fuel Kage had taught him to use. He poured it into the scars.
Burn.
Crimson energy erupted, more controlled this time, coiling around his arms like writhing serpents of shadow and red light. It hummed with destructive potential. The air crackled. He felt the familiar surge of strength, the dark satisfaction. He also felt the faint, chilling echo of consumed souls – the doll-creature's fear, the concrete brute's rage. They were part of the fire now.
He held the energy for a moment, then willed it to recede. It flowed back into the scars reluctantly, leaving him feeling slightly hollowed, slightly colder. The price. Always the price.
He was practicing, focusing, when he felt it.
A shift in the air. Not the natural dampness of the tunnel. Something else. A sudden, profound drop in temperature. The scent of ozone, sharp and clean, cutting through the decay.
Yuki's eyes snapped open.
The exorcist stood at the far end of the tunnel, silhouetted against the faint light from a distant grate. It hadn't made a sound. It was just… there. Its flinty eyes fixed on Yuki, burning with cold, unwavering purpose. In its hands, it held not just the etched rod, but something else.
Chains.
They weren't ordinary chains. They were made of a material that seemed to absorb the weak light, rendered in shifting shades of grey and deepest black. They pulsed with a faint, internal luminescence, and as the exorcist raised them, Yuki heard them. Not the clink of metal, but a chorus of faint, agonized whispers. Thousands of voices, crying out in endless torment.
Purification Chains, Kage's voice hissed, laced with something akin to respect, but colder. Forged in the fires of righteous zeal, tempered with the souls of the damned they bind. They hunger for corruption.
The exorcist took a step forward, the chains whispering against the concrete. It raised one hand, not pointing, but focusing its will.
The chains moved.
Not thrown, but flowing through the air like liquid shadow, leaving trails of faint, whispering light in their wake. They moved with impossible speed and silent grace, homing in on Yuki.
Yuki reacted instantly, crimson energy erupting from his palms, forming a shield of writhing shadow and red light.
The chains struck.
The impact wasn't physical. It was spiritual. A wave of pure, cleansing energy crashed against Yuki's shield. It felt like being plunged into acid. The crimson energy sputtered and screamed. The scars on Yuki's arms ignited with agony – not the cold burn of power, but a searing, holy pain that felt like his flesh was being flayed from his bones.
He screamed, the sound echoing down the tunnel. The shield shattered.
The chains wrapped around him.
They weren't cold. They burned. A deep, penetrating heat that seemed to sear into his very soul. The whispers intensified, becoming a cacophony of damned voices in his mind – Impure! Tainted! Cleanse! Purge! – each word a psychic hammer blow. The chains tightened, digging into his flesh, not cutting, but burning. He smelled his own skin burning, saw black smoke rising from where the chains made contact.
The exorcist walked forward slowly, deliberately, its face a mask of cold concentration. It raised the etched rod, the symbols blazing. It began to chant, the words low, resonant, and utterly incomprehensible, but vibrating with power that made the air thrum.
Yuki thrashed against the chains, but it was useless. They burned hotter with every movement, the whispers louder. The crimson energy wouldn't come. The scars felt like they were being melted, the dark tracery sizzling under the chains' touch. He felt his connection to Kage weakening, the demon's presence recoiling from the chains' holy fire.
This is purification, the exorcist's voice echoed, not in his ears, but in the roar of the chains and the chant. This is the scouring of the stain.
Agony beyond anything he'd ever known consumed him. It wasn't just physical pain; it was the unmaking of his corrupted self. He felt the demonic taint being ripped away, layer by layer, and with it, pieces of himself – the rage, the grief, the power, the hollow ache. It felt like his soul was being flayed alive.
He looked at the exorcist, at the burning conviction in its eyes, at the pure, terrible light of the rod. He saw not a savior, but a torturer. A monster wielding light as a weapon. The chains burned, the whispers screamed, and in that moment of utter agony and revelation, Yuki understood. The exorcist wasn't just hunting a monster. It was creating one through its own brutal, unforgiving methods.
With a surge of desperate fury born of that understanding, Yuki threw his head back and screamed, not in pain, but in defiance. He poured every shred of his remaining will, every ounce of his corrupted rage, not into the scars, but into the chains themselves. He focused on the whispers, on the souls trapped within, and pushed.
SEE ME!
The effect was instantaneous and violent.
The Purification Chains flared with blinding white light. The chorus of whispers rose to a deafening shriek, then abruptly cut off. The chains went rigid, then shattered.
Not broke. Shattered.
They exploded into fragments of whispering light and dissipating shadow, like glass struck by a hammer. The shockwave threw the exorcist backwards, the chant breaking off in a gasp of surprise. The etched rod clattered to the concrete, its symbols dimming.
Yuki collapsed to the tunnel floor, smoke rising from the angry, weeping burns marring his arms where the chains had been. The scars were raw, exposed, pulsing with a sickly, uneven light. He was gasping, trembling, the echoes of the whispers still screaming in his mind. But he was free.
He looked up at the exorcist, who was staring at the remnants of its shattered chains, its expression for the first time not just cold fury, but a flicker of disbelief… and perhaps, a dawning, wary respect.
Yuki didn't wait for it to recover. He scrambled to his feet and ran, deeper into the darkness of the abandoned tunnels, the burns on his arms throbbing with each ragged breath, the taste of his own scorched flesh and the phantom screams of the damned filling his mouth. He had escaped the purification, but the cost was etched into his skin and his soul.