Hollow Bridges.

The shrine was quiet except for the rain that was still dripping from the eaves. Lanterns swayed on their frayed strings, throwing halos of blue light and shadows across the cracked stones. The air smelled of cedar smoke.

Raven stood inside the gate, her pulse still running high. Takumi hadn’t moved since she found him. He crouched near the offertory box. Next to him, incense burned in a chipped bowl, its smoke curling upward like handwriting she couldn’t read.

“You shouldn’t be alive after last night,” he said again in a calm, almost academic voice.

Raven tried to sound steady and confident. “Yeah, that makes two of us.”

He gave her a small, measured glance over his shoulder. It wasn’t unkind, just analytical. Takumi looked like he belonged in two worlds at once, with his incorrectly buttoned school uniform jacket and his muddy shoes.

“Last night, you burned something you shouldn’t have,” he said, turning his attention back to the fox statue. “The air still smells of it.”

“You mean the thing that attacked me?”

“It used to be a man.”

Raven stopped cold. Her throat tightened; her fingers embracing the warm metal of her pendant as if it could explain anything. The smoke of the incense drifted towards her, carrying with it a sweet odor with an undertone of copper.

Takumi placed the incense at the fox’s paws, giving a slight bow. “We burn these for the lost,” he said. “It is polite, even when they deserve it.”

A gust of wind slipped through the courtyard, rocking the lanterns on their lines. The light shuddered across the stones. For a moment, everything, the statues, the air, even the silence, seemed to breathe with him.

Raven watched the faint glow from the incense twist and thought, not for the first time, that this conversation did not start tonight. It had waited for her, same as the boy, same as whatever lived under the shrine.

Takumi reached into his jacket and pulled out a folded strip of paper. It wasn’t clean like the ones she had seen around the shrine. This one was creased; Its edges were yellowed and slightly frayed. Brushstrokes ran down it in black loops that reminded her of veins. The wind caught the edges making it twitch in his hand like a moth wanting to fly away.

“What are you doing?” Raven asked, her eyes narrowing with distrust.

“Measuring,” he replied in a matter-of-fact tone. “You’ve never had your frequency mapped?”

She crossed her arms. “I don’t like tests.”

“Too bad,” he said, stepping closer. “The city has been testing you since you arrived.”

Before she could move, he pressed the paper against the inside of her wrist. The surface felt soft, almost warm. For a brief moment, nothing happened.Then the ink began to glow. Faint turquoise lines threaded along the fibers like lightning under the skin. Sparks shimmered across the paper the moment before it burst into a puff of blue smoke that smelled of ozone.

Raven jerked back her hand. “What the hell—”

Takumi took a step back, putting a little distance between them. He studied her like a lab result that he didn’t fully trust. His expression was all calculation, but his voice dropped to something quieter.

“Spirtit-blood,” he whispered. “Unstable, but alive.”

She glared at him. “English please?”

He looked at her, then at the skyline beyond the trees focusing on the red lights of airplanes blinking like slow heartbeats. “You register like a corrupted signal,” he said. “Neither human nor void. I can best explain it as static with a pulse.”

“I’m not some piece of tech,” she shot back.

“Neither am I. But the city reads us both.” He pointed toward the towers that rose beyond the gate, their glass faces flickering with reflections of the world around them. “Every light in this ward hums to a frequency. You just made yours visible.”

She swallowed hard, trying not to show it, but her pulse matched the rhythm of those tower lights. The air felt thinner now. Her pendant throbbed against her chest, heat rolling off it in waves that had nothing to do with the night.

Takumi’s eyes flicked toward her hand. “You’re hot on the sensors now,” he said quietly. “Every veil-reader in Tokyo just felt that pulse.”

Raven stared at him. She was unsure if she was scared more by what he said, or how certain he sounded. Beneath the fear was curiosity. She was drawn to him. She didn’t trust him, but she couldn’t bring herself to leave.

The shrine felt even smaller as they walked though the courtyard. Raven felt uneasy. She felt the eyes of the fox statues watching her as if she didn’t belong. Even the trees leaned inward like they wanted to listen.

For a while, neither of them spoke. It was Takumi that broke the silence. “What you burned was not a monster,” he said. “It was a courier.”

She stopped walking. “Courier for who?”

“Oni. Yakuza. Politicians. These days, the names all bleed together.” He flicked his coin across the dirt. It spun before settling in the gravel. The sigil he had drawn glowed faintly blue.

“You’re telling me gangsters are using magic?”

“Spiritual tech,” he corrected. “Those tattoos they wear? Loaded seals. Protection charms. Bits of demon ink. You destroyed one of their messengers.”

Her mouth went dry.

Takumi pointed at the skyline beyond the torii. The neon signs flickered in uneven pulses that rippled across the district.

“Everyone calls that electricity,” he continued. “It isn’t. It’s resonance. Power bleeding from the Gate.”

Raven hugged her arms to her chest. “This is insane.”

“Maybe, but insanity’s usually what we call it when magic works for someone else"

Takumi squats and draws a small sigil in the dirt with a coin. The lines vibrate faintly blue. “See that?” He asked.

“It’s just light,” she replied, unimpressed.

“It’s a bridge. You tore one open last night. We call them Hollow Bridges.”

Raven crosses her arms. “You make it sound like a plumbing problem.”

Takumi half-smiled at her reaction. “It is. Only the pipes are full of ghosts.”

Raven was overcome with emotion. Tears fell from her eyes before she could stop them. All the fear she thought she buried in the desert six months ago broke loose. Before she realized what was happening, she blurted out her story. She told him of things she never told anyone else. She told him about the desert, the crash, Hannah, the chant. Her voice was trembling by the end.

Takumi listened. When she was finished, he quietly repeated her chant, shaping the Navajo words like a prayer. “Walk in beauty, walk in fire, walk unseen…”

“Kagutsuchi Protocol…” he murmured. “That chant’s not from here. It’s from the U.S. Onmyōji experiments. Post-war.”

"You’re saying my mom worked for them?”

“Or tried to stop them. Depends on what side she stood on when they built the first Gate.”

Raven’s hands curl into fists. “You talk like this is all just history. But she died because of it.”

“Then maybe you should find out why.”

The wind picked up again. The lanterns swayed in the wind, their blue-white light flickering on the rocks. The crow landed between them on the offertory box, its eyes reflecting turquoise light. The incense burned out, a final curl of smoke rising.

“That crow,” she says quietly. “It has followed me since the crash.”

“Then it’s not following. It’s waiting.” He stepped closer, offering her a small, cream-colored card. “Blue Gate – Jazz & Coffee. Ask for Rei.”

“A café?”

“Among other things. The people there won’t think you’re crazy.”

Raven hesitated, studying the card. The letters shimmered faintly blue under the moonlight.

“Why are you helping me?”

“Because you already stepped into the current. And currents only go one way.”

As if weighing into the conversation, the crow croaked once with a harsh, metallic cry.

“And if I don’t go?” Raven asked

“Then next time, the fire won’t stop at just the one alley.”

With that, he turned and walked through the torii gate. The lanterns dimmed as he left. Raven stood there alone under the gate and watched him disappear into the city haze.

The crow remains perched on the offertory box, head tilted, watching her. She looked down at the card. It felt heavy in her hand, pulsing faintly like a heartbeat.