Takeda stood in the training hall, arms crossed, eyes fixed on the Ikazuchi-dan trainees sparring in front of him. Wooden swords clacked in rhythm, shouts of exertion echoed, and the faint smell of sweat hung in the air, but none of it truly registered. His mind was elsewhere—back in the alley two nights ago, where blood met fire and death wore a human face.
"He is mine!"
Those words still burned in his memory, scorching like a brand against his skull. The fury in that man's voice hadn't been ordinary rage; it was unhinged, raw, and primal—yet laced with something deeper. Pain. Loss. A bottomless pit of it. Takeda remembered the eyes—dark, yet glinting with a murderous light. He had faced demons who looked at him with less malice.
And the strength… gods, the strength. Takeda had seen the stranger tear a demon in half like it was paper. The image played on repeat in his mind: black blood spraying in an arc, the crunch of bone under those swords. Rank B-level strength, easily. But there was something off about him.
The technique he used—Kokuryūkai, without question. The stance, the strikes—they screamed of the dragon's shadow. But no Kokuryūkai master Takeda knew fought like that. It lacked the elegance, the flowing precision of the style. It was… brutal. Wild. Improvised.
Takeda frowned, brows knitting. A brute with Rank B strength but none of the finesse? Impossible.
To reach Rank B required years of training, control, and understanding—qualities Takeda himself, a mere Rank C, was still struggling to attain. The man had power but fought like an animal.
An anomaly, Takeda thought. And dangerous.
And then there was the eye. That damned eye. For one split second, when the flames lit up his face, Takeda had seen it—a crimson glow, swirling like a vortex of malice. Was it… a Demon's Eye? Impossible. Those were myths, cursed remnants of ancient hellspawn. But what if it wasn't a myth?
Takeda hadn't reported any of this to his guild superiors. Not yet. Not until he was certain. But one thing was clear—he needed to see that man again.
A hard slap on his back jolted him from his thoughts.
"Hey, Takeda!" A voice, far too cheerful for his mood.
Takeda glanced over his shoulder at Junpei, his long-time comrade.
"It's a little early to be daydreaming about your mom's ramen, don't you think?" Junpei's grin was wide, teasing.
Takeda had aging parents who ran a small restaurant outside the base, despite being a son of parents who loved to cook he'd unfortunately inherited none of their culinary skills.
Takeda blinked, then forced a chuckle. "What can I say? She uses a secret ingredient."
Junpei laughed. "Or maybe you've finally decided to learn how to cook, yourself?"
Takeda smirked. "Sure. If you've got a death wish, I'll make you a bowl tonight."
Junpei howled with laughter. "Fair enough, fair enough. Remind me never to let you near a kitchen."
Takeda laughed along, but his heart wasn't in it. Beneath his calm exterior, his mind still burned with questions
---
Meanwhile, across the city, in a dimly lit apartment…
Renji lay sprawled on his bed, eyes half-lidded as the ticking of his bedside clock filled the silence. Tick. Tick. Tick. Each second a reminder of how close midnight crept.
He stared at the ceiling, one arm draped lazily over his chest. The day's work was done, but his true work—the only thing that gave him a twisted sense of purpose—was just beginning.
Lately, he had started to feel it again. That gnawing in his gut. The itch under his skin. The insatiable, unholy hunger for demon blood.
He sat up slowly, a small, humorless smile curling his lips. "Guess I'm developing a hobby," he muttered to himself. His voice carried a dark amusement, dripping sarcasm like venom. "Other people collect stamps. I collect corpses."
Pushing to his feet, Renji crossed the cramped room to a battered bedside drawer. He slid it open, the squeal of old wood breaking the silence. Inside lay the pieces of his obsession: cold metal fragments of death.
He laid them out on the desk—gun barrels, triggers, springs, slides. With deliberate calm, he began to assemble them, fingers moving with an almost mechanical precision. Click. Snap. Slide. The room filled with the soothing rhythm of creation.
His hands didn't hesitate; they knew what to do. This wasn't practice—it was instinct. As the final piece locked into place, Renji held the pistol up to the dim light. Sleek, deadly, perfect.
A shard of memory surfaced, unbidden a vision of him reading in the Kokuryūkai base library, in his previous life. What came back wasn't the man he once was. He liked to think of that life as a "previous one," discarded like a worn-out skin.
A small fraction of those books he'd read dealt with the topic of weaponry, so he decided to help the police neutralize an arms dealer gang leaving no traces while naturally saving some of the weapons for himself.
"Second life, second chances," he whispered, loading bullets into the chamber with a satisfying click. "Lucky me."
Then a sudden burst of pictures rushed through his head each showing a clip of an avoidable devastation to come. A demon was coming another number in a line of demons that had been neutralized.
Renji's grin turned feral. "Showtime."