The morning after the slaughter came quietly. No wind, no birds — just the broken rhythm of feet dragging through ash and wet stone. The city had no color left, only rust and smoke. Every step the survivors took sounded like walking through someone's grave.
Shitsubo led them — or perhaps, the curse did. The thing under his skin pulsed in lazy waves, glowing faintly through his veins like molten ore cooling beneath the flesh. He didn't look back. He didn't need to. They followed anyway.
Behind him, Genji counted the dwindling supplies under her breath. Beside her, Diago muttered small curses, eyes darting at every ruined window. And then there were them — the zealots, the ones who called themselves "The Sanctified." They had multiplied in whispers. Out of the fifteen survivors who'd left the temple, nine now bore the black marks of ash across their foreheads, symbols of devotion to the "Prophet of Ruin."
They walked barefoot. They murmured hymns.
