Chapter 2: First Day as the Dead

Kouzaki couldn’t sleep.

Not that sleep was even a thing anymore. Stage 1 had no night or day—just floating buildings and skies dyed in burnt black. The city they were brought to felt endless, a ruined landscape of temples, cracked towers, and bridges that hung in the air like threads from a shattered tapestry.

He sat on a broken ledge, staring out at the view. The wind didn’t move. The silence wasn’t silence. It was pressure.

“So this is the afterlife,” he muttered, still gripping his sword by the handle.

Nakora lay on the edge of a roof nearby, arms behind her head, legs crossed, chain coiled beside her like a sleeping beast. “You talk too much for a dead guy.”

Kouzaki gave her a half-hearted look. “You think we’re gonna stay like this forever?”

“No idea. Not planning to find out.”

“...What does that mean?”

Nakora turned her head toward him, eyes half-lidded, her expression unreadable. “Means I’ll kill enough of those freaks until I disappear.”

From below, Itsuzo’s voice echoed up, calm as always. “If you disappear without finishing your repentance, you’ll end up worse than the Paramentals.”

Kouzaki stared down. “That’s a thing?”

“Yeah,” Itsuzo replied. “You become Hollow. Lost. Just another whisper in this broken place.”

He shivered.

The rest of the day passed in fragmented moments—learning their quarters (stone floors, no beds), being briefed on patrol routes, receiving their first ration of Special Pison. Kouzaki stared at the glowing vial before gulping it. Warmth surged through his hand again.

Red. Blue. Violet.

Three glows—three lives now bonded by a sin they couldn’t undo.

Their first assignment was simple: patrol the east wing ruins. Search and eliminate low-level Paramentals.

Simple.

Until Kouzaki saw his first real kill.

It was small. Child-like in shape, but with a face cracked open sideways. It charged at him, shrieking. He hesitated.

“Don’t stop!” Nakora yelled, chain already flying beside him.

He didn’t listen.

The thing pounced—only for Itsuzo to curse-bind it mid-air. Kouzaki’s blade reacted on its own, slashing through without him fully realizing.

Bloodless.

Silent.

Gone.

He stood there shaking.

Itsuzo placed a hand on his shoulder. “Don’t think about what it was. Think about what it wanted to do to you.”

Kouzaki stared at his glowing hand. “...How long do we stay like this?”

Nakora passed by him, swinging her chain back to her hip.

“As long as it takes.”