The battlefield was never still. Smoke curled upward in sickly plumes, blotting out the fractured skyline. The earth shook with every fresh rupture of the veil. One after another, gashes split the fabric of reality, vomiting demons into the streets of Akakaze.
The first Enzura had been terrifying. What followed was worse.
Dozens. Scores. Hulking shapes tore through the dark clouds above, some spiderlike with claws that scraped against skyscraper glass, others serpentine, slithering over the asphalt with scales that burned like coal. Their howls created a nightmarish chorus, a symphony of chaos that swallowed the cries of fleeing civilians.
Renji's shadow-forged katanas trembled in his grip as he took in the sight. His jaw clenched. "They're… multiplying."
Hikari strode to his side, shadows still bleeding from her fingertips as she reinforced her chains around one of the creatures. Sweat beaded her forehead, her lips pale. "This isn't a veil breach. It's a tear. Someone—or something—is feeding it. We're not fighting a pack. We're fighting an invasion."
Ayaka, still catching her breath from Renji's earlier rescue, pressed against the wall of a shattered storefront. She tried to stand, but her legs betrayed her. Her flame-forged sword sputtered with dwindling energy. "My squad… all gone. Damn it… if I can just—"
" She's been poisoned with some sort of paralytic venom" Hikari diagnosed.
Ayaka lurched forward, nearly collapsing. Renji caught her again, steadying her with one hand. His demon eye flared, casting her face in sickly emerald. "Don't. You'll get yourself killed."
Her lips parted, as if to argue, but no sound came. The defeat in her eyes cut through Renji worse than any wound.
Then the second veil cracked open, unleashing a tidal wave of shrieking Nyvaris—winged horrors with batlike forms and blades of bone for wings. They swooped down, slicing the air, scattering rubble in their wake.
Renji's instincts screamed at him. He swung his blades, carving two from the sky, shadows erupting like black fireworks. But for every one that fell, five more descended.
A claw the size of a carriage smashed into the ground where Ayaka had been seconds earlier, the impact sending Renji skidding backward. Dust blinded him. When it cleared, he saw both Hikari and Ayaka cornered, demons tightening in.
Something inside him snapped.
The shadows under his feet writhed wildly, untamed, hungry. His pulse thundered in his ears. The chains around his chest—the ones that had always held his abyss in check—snapped one after another.
His vision narrowed until all he could see were Hikari and Ayaka, standing between life and death.
"Kurogami…"
The word left his lips like a vow.
Darkness erupted from his body.
It wasn't the smooth, tempered shadow he wielded before. This was older, heavier, infinite. It poured from him in torrents, drowning the street in pitch black. Buildings groaned under the pressure, glass cracked and shattered as if the city itself were suffocating.
The demons froze mid-charge, their instincts screaming.
Renji's silhouette was swallowed whole by the abyss, until only the gleam of his eyes—one human, one cursed—remained. Transformed into the Kurogami, he was no longer merely a hunter. He was a horned calamity wrapped in flesh.
Hikari shielded her face, her voice shaking as she called to him. "Renji—stop! You'll burn yourself alive if you—"
But the rest of her words drowned in the roar of his aura.
The first wave of demons lunged. Kurogami moved, a blur of black lightning. His cleaver formed within the abyssal shroud, jagged and longer, vibrating with raw destruction. He swung once, and an entire cluster of Nyvaris disintegrated into mist, their bodies torn apart by an arc of void that scarred the night sky.
The ground split. Asphalt peeled back like paper as tendrils of the Kurogami lashed outward, skewering a spiderlike beast, lifting it into the air, and crushing it with a wet, final crack.
Ayaka's eyes widened in horror and awe. "That's… not human."
Kurogami's voice echoed, layered with the abyss, deeper than his own. "Stay behind me."
The wave didn't end. The veil pulsed, opening wider. More Enzura lumbered forth, their howls shattering what was left of windows. Their claws gleamed with malice, their eyes reflecting the abyss itself.
Renji's aura surged, darkness coiling into wings at his back, jagged and unnatural. He raised his blade high. Shadows flooded the battlefield, twisting into a vortex.
"Eclipse Fang: Shadow Annihilation!"
The strike wasn't a slash—it was a cataclysm. The city block lit with abyssal light as a tidal wave of black energy erupted outward. Dozens of demons screamed, torn apart mid-charge, reduced to ash and whispers. Buildings toppled, their foundations ripped apart by the backlash. The very air tasted of iron and fire.
Hikari clutched Ayaka close, shielding her eyes from the blast. The heatless void burned across their skin, crawling beneath their bones.
When the darkness receded, silence reigned for the first time that night.
Renji stood in the crater of his destruction, his demon form flickering, tatters of shadow peeling off his frame. He was breathing raggedly, sweat running down his temples, but his eyes still burned—untamed, unyielding.
All around him, the streets were carpeted in demon corpses, most already evaporating into foul mist. The veil's tear sputtered, its edges unstable, retreating as though afraid of him.
Then—the distant sound of boots.
The Hono no Sheshi reinforcements poured into the street, dozens of soldiers in crimson armor. Their leader's voice boomed above the chaos: "Secure the perimeter!"
But when they saw him—Renji, human head still demon body, standing atop a graveyard of demons—their steps faltered. Weapons raised, but hands trembled.
Hikari stood quickly, placing herself between Renji and the reinforcements, shadows still curling around her arms in warning. "Wait! He saved us. He saved all of you."
Ayaka staggered forward too, though her voice wavered. "Father… he—he protected me."
Master Arashi himself emerged from the ranks, his iron-gray hair stark under the glow of fires. His gaze locked on Renji, eyes narrowing at the abyss leaking from his body.
The silence stretched, heavy with judgment.
Renji's chest heaved, his katana dissolving into smoke. His gaze flicked between Hikari, Ayaka, and Arashi. The abyss pulsed inside him, still hungry, still whispering.
But he said nothing.
Because he knew this wasn't victory. This was revelation.
And the war it would spark had only just begun.