The silence of the three years was not a presence; it was a lack of noise. The sirens had stopped. The red sky had faded back into a dull, smog-heavy grey. People walked the streets of Kyoto without looking up, their necks no longer stiff from checking the clouds for falling gods.
Peace was a thin coat of paint over a scarred landscape.
Inside the Kurozawa residence, the air smelled of stale tea and floor wax. Hikari stood by the entryway, her school bag slung over one shoulder. She looked older, the soft edges of her face gone, replaced by a stillness that didn't belong on a girl her age.
"Brother Shinjo. I'm ready. Take me to school."
Shinjo was a heap of limbs on the worn sofa. He didn't move at first. He stared at the ceiling as if counting the water stains. Then, he let out a long, hollow yawn—a sound more like a sigh than a stretch. He pushed himself upright, the springs of the couch groaning.
"Yeah," Shinjo muttered, rubbing his face with palms that felt too heavy. "Let's go."
Outside, the city was a masterpiece of reconstruction. The obsidian craters had been filled with fresh asphalt. The glass towers were back, reflecting the December sun. It was 2025. The holiday lights were being strung across the shopping districts, red and green bulbs that flickered with a festive, mindless energy.
They walked in silence. Shinjo didn't talk about the guild. He hadn't touched his Hunter license in eighteen months. There were no Gates. There were no monsters. Just the rhythmic clack of their shoes on the sidewalk.
A sharp, metallic crack shattered the morning routine.
Two men burst out of the Kyoto National Bank, masks pulled tight over their faces, heavy bags sagging in their grip. Adrenaline was a visible heat coming off them. They scrambled into a black sedan idling at the curb. The tires screamed, leaving black streaks on the pristine new road.
Shinjo didn't think. He didn't feel the weight of the peace. He felt the familiar, jagged spike of a threat.
He lunged toward a delivery scooter parked near the curb. The engine was still humming, the driver halfway through a phone call. Shinjo shoved the man aside, twisted the throttle until it clicked, and tore after the black car.
"Brother! Get back here!" Hikari's voice was a thin, terrified needle in the wind.
"Five minutes!" Shinjo shouted back. He didn't look at her. He leaned into the turn, the scooter's small frame vibrating under his A-Rank weight.
He knew these alleys. He knew where the traffic would bottleneck. He cut through a narrow gap between two brick buildings, the smell of damp garbage hitting his nostrils, and skidded to a halt in the center of the main intersection.
He didn't stay on the bike. He let it tip over, the engine dying with a pathetic sputter. He stood in the middle of the lane, his feet planted, his hands hanging loose at his sides.
The sedan rounded the corner. The driver's eyes widened behind his mask. He slammed the brakes, the car fishtailing as the tires smoked and howled.
"Get out of the way!" the passenger screamed, leaning out the window with a pistol.
Shinjo didn't wait for the trigger pull. He moved.
He wasn't using the Abyss, but the speed was still inhuman. He was at the driver's door before the car had fully stopped. One punch shattered the glass. Another dragged the driver through the window. He moved to the passenger, a blur of practiced, cold efficiency.
Thud. Crack. Thud.
The robbery ended in thirty seconds. Three men lay on the asphalt, one clutching a shattered ribcage, the other gasping for air that wouldn't come. Shinjo stood over them, his breath steady, his knuckles barely pink.
The ground vibrated.
It wasn't the car engine. It was a deep, tectonic hum that started in the soles of his feet and traveled up his spine.
In the center of the road, the air tore open.
A red gate, jagged and bleeding heat, manifested three feet above the ground. The wind that spilled out of it didn't smell like the city. It smelled of sulfur, old blood, and a dry, ancient hunger.
"Brother!" Hikari arrived, her chest heaving, her face pale. She skidded to a stop behind him, her eyes fixed on the pulsating tear in reality. "What... what is that?"
Shinjo didn't answer. He felt the cold sweat break across his neck. He knew that smell. He had spent three years trying to forget it.
Far beyond the reach of human satellites, in a dimension where the stars were made of cold, violet fire, a figure sat on a throne of hammered gold.
The entity didn't breathe. Its aura was a physical weight, pressing against the pillars of its palace. It looked down at a pool of shifting mercury at its feet, watching the red gate open in Kyoto.
A smile, slow and thick with malice, spread across its face.
"Let us get this done," the figure said. The voice was the sound of grinding glaciers.
In the Null. In the place where time was a circle and light was a memory.
The earth didn't just crack; it pulverized.
A hand burst through the grey, decaying soil of the void. It wasn't the pale, scarred hand that had fallen into the abyss three years ago. The skin was etched with swirling patterns of blue and yellow power, glowing with the intensity of a dying sun.
The ground exploded outward.
A figure rose. He didn't climb; he floated, suspended by a gravity he now owned. His hair, once black and matted with blood, was now the color of a furnace, white-hot and shifting like flames. His frame was broader, his muscles carved with a geometric perfection that transcended the human.
He opened his eyes. They weren't black or purple. They were two pits of absolute, stabilized authority.
"Three years," he whispered. The voice didn't echo; it simply occupied the silence. "Meditation and reincarnation. I have the vessel now."
He looked at his hand, watching the blue and yellow energy dance across his knuckles. He thought of Hikari. He thought of Kaelith. He thought of the debt he still owed to the dirt.
He raised his arm toward the empty, black sky of the Null.
"Arise."
The word wasn't a command. It was a law.
In the dark behind him, a thousand eyes snapped open. The King was back. And he wasn't alone.
NECROMANCER: THE MORTAL KING.
[END OF SEASON 1]