The sky was bleeding.
Not rain—no. The heavens themselves wept with slow, heavy tears, turning the earth into a black sludge that sucked at boots and buried bones alike.
Thunder rumbled like a beast waking from centuries of slumber.
Above the city's neon glow, forgotten by time and erased from maps, an ancient shrine crouched on the edge of a forested ridge. Its gates were split with rot. Ivy strangled the bell tower. Wind howled through broken slats like a dirge for the dead.
And deep beneath it, in a hidden chamber carved into the belly of the earth—
Six shadows gathered.
They didn't speak but the expressions etched on their faces resembled thirst for blood
Each step they took was weighted with decades of silence, of exile, of watching everything they'd bled for get ground into dust.
The room responded to them—walls lined with teeth-shaped etchings throbbed like veins. Torches burst into blue flame, lighting the dark. In the center lay a ritual circle—etched not with chalk, but scarred into volcanic rock, like a curse tattooed into the skin of the world.
The old ways were coming back tonight.
A figure stepped forward. Not tall. Not armored. But the kind of presence that made air retreat and silence kneel.
Renjiro. Last of the black wolves.
He carried a box wrapped in silk. Inside it, the key to the final pact: a horn of bone polished white, carved with symbols no scholar dared translate.
When he spoke, his voice cracked the stillness like a blade across glass.
> "We gather not to reclaim power—
but to bury it where only blood can find it again."
The others nodded.
Togo stood to his left—arms folded, expression cold. A beast in human skin. Even without a weapon, he felt like a ticking time bomb.
To the right, Ayaka. White mask. Sleeves like funeral banners. Inked runes slid across her exposed wrist like restless spirits. She hadn't spoken in three years—not since the massacre.
Behind them, the Oni Twins loomed. Kenta and Koji. Bare-chested despite the cold. Glyphs burned faintly beneath their skin like molten scars.
And leaning against the wall with his eyes half-lidded, muttering alchemic equations to himself, was Kazuya. The "Grave Architect." Part man, part machine, part regret.
Together, they were all that remained of what the world once feared.
Onikawa.
A name buried beneath modern crime syndicates. Not just a clan, but a legacy that predated the Yakuza. They didn't deal in drugs or politics. They dealt in balance—ensuring the line between life and death never blurred.
But thirty years ago, that line was broken.
Betrayal. Blood. Fire.
Tonight, they would stitch it shut again.
Ayaka stepped forward. With her came the boy. He looked at him with an expression of pity, no matter what happened he was innocent but what had to be done had to be done no matter who it is.
Renjiro glanced at him once.
Bloodline of the betrayer. Let him see what his ancestor sold, today you will be the last symbol representing the yakuza. Feel pride and pain.
The circle flared to life. Symbols began to glow, pulsing red, then black, then red again—like the rhythm of a dying heart.
The chamber seemed to shudder in anticipation.
The air turned black.
Not dark. Not dim.
Black.
As if the chamber itself had fallen into a void.
The boy was dragged into the circle—limbs thrashing, throat torn from screaming. His voice broke, but no one listened.
Kazuya pushed him down.
Ayaka drew a binding mark on his chest with blood.
The circle came alive, pulsing with an ancient rhythm—deep, like a heartbeat buried beneath the earth.
Boom... boom... boom.
The stone groaned.
Steam hissed from the cracks.
And then—
Renjiro stepped forward.
We gather where the wind has no shadow, our homes sewn shut with fire and oath.
Now open the throat of death, And speak the shape of our last promise.
He reached into his robe... and pulled out his heart.
A wet, red thing still beating in his palm.
No hesitation.
He crushed it.
BOOM.
A shockwave rippled through the chamber. His body dropped, lifeless. From the crack in the floor beneath him, blood poured out—not dripping, not flowing, but surging forward like it had a will.
Togo followed.
With a grunt, he plunged two fingers into his own chest, tore through ribs, and yanked free his heart.
Crack.
He held it up, whispering a name no human should speak.
BOOM.
The heart exploded into light. Blood surged. Another crack opened, another river of red snaked toward the boy.
Ayaka was next.
She didn't flinch.
Just slid a blade between her ribs, pulled out her heart like she was plucking a flower.
BOOM.
Her body collapsed gently, her white mask still on.
Last came Kazuya.
He laughed, then took one last glance at the twins who nodded reassuringly.
And crushed his heart between metal fingers.
BOOM.
Four bodies. Four hearts. Four eruptions of power.
Blood spilled into the cracks—seeking, crawling, alive. It slithered along the engraved lines of the ritual circle, soaking deep into the stone.
The boy screamed again—but this time, the sound was wrong.
It echoed twice.
Once in a child's voice.
Once in something far, far older.
The blood reached him.
And he caught fire.
But the flames were black. Shadowfire.
They roared over his body, consuming him but what he didn't seem to be burned by the scorching flames
Levitating, arms stretched out, body limp like a puppet suspended by invisible strings.
His skin cracked revealing black flesh
His eyes burst, replaced by six rotating black orbs, each one shaped like a blade, swirling constantly.
Then came the voice, emanating from all directions like thunder
"Four hearts. Four keys. The gate... opens."
The Oni Twins dropped to their knees.
The hour has no face tonight, paint the sky with forgotten screams.
Six nails for the spine of time.
Echo the dream that never slept.
We beg the crow that guards the sunless gate, hear our cry.
He vanished.
And reappeared between them.
"Unworthy," the voice said.
Crack.
One of the twin's skull imploded like glass.
The fire around the boy shrank to a halo.
But it wasn't the boy anymore.
When it spoke, the walls wept.
> "You summon me, remnants of rot. Why?"
The last one knelt. "Not for vengeance. For memory. For continuity."
> "You are broken."
"We are not yet erased."
> "To forge a legacy... one must be forgotten. One must give not life—but self."
"I will be unmade."
"I walked with death longer than any of you. Let me become its memory."
The god reached forward.
A tendril touched his chest.
His tattoos peeled off.
His hair greyed, then vanished.
His soul screamed—but made no sound.
Then—he was gone.
Only an obsidian lotus remained, floating and pulsing mid air
The Ketsugan.
The Blood Eye.
The last relic of the Onikawa.
The god spoke once more.
> "When the child of silence awakens this eye,
I shall return.
And so shall you."