The stone in his pocket was hot.
It wasn't the heat of a fever. It was a rhythmic, pulsing warmth. It felt like a small, scorched heart beating against his thigh.
Jin stood behind the counter of the convenience store. The fluorescent lights flickered. A steady, dying hum. Outside, the rain had turned into a thick, gray deluge that blurred the world beyond the glass.
Uchiha.
The word was a jagged glass shard in his mind. It cut whenever he tried to touch it. He didn't know the language. He didn't know the history. But every time the word surfaced, his left eye throbbed with a hollow, agonizing hunger.
"Kurosawa. You're staring again."
Tanaka was standing by the magazine rack. He was holding a stack of plastic-wrapped journals. He looked at Jin with a mixture of irritation and genuine concern.
"I'm fine." Jin said.
His voice sounded distant. As if he were listening to a recording of himself from another room.
"You've been standing there for ten minutes." Tanaka said. He walked over to the register. He peered at Jin's face. "Your eye is red, kid. Go to the breakroom. Wash your face. You're creeping out the customers."
Jin looked at the store. It was empty. There were no customers.
"Yes." Jin said.
He walked to the back. Every step felt like wading through deep, cold water. His coordination was slipping. The neural degradation was no longer a number on a screen. It was a physical wall.
He reached the breakroom. He didn't turn on the light.
He sat on the floor, leaning his back against the cold metal lockers. He pulled the black stone from his pocket.
In the dark, the carved letters seemed to glow. A faint, bruised purple light.
Link progress: 7%.Synchronization: Unstable.User heritage: Awakened.Action: Initialize Protocol: Great Fire.
Jin's jaw locked.
The heat from the stone exploded. It raced up his arm like liquid lead. He tried to drop the stone, but his fingers were frozen. His muscles were no longer his own. They were being rewired.
A spike of white-hot iron drove into his left eye.
Jin bit his tongue. He didn't scream. He couldn't. His throat had closed up.
Inside his head, the white static turned into a roar of flames. He saw a forest at night. He saw a man with a long sword. He saw a fan-shaped crest on a high wall.
What is my name.
He reached for the memory.
Jin.
No. Something else.
The static ate the answer.
His left eye flared. The crimson light flooded the dark breakroom. The black comma began to spin. Faster. Faster. Until it blurred into a circle.
He felt his consciousness begin to drift. He was a passenger in his own body, watching through a fogged-up window as his hands began to move.
His right hand reached into his bag. He pulled out the small, dull scissors.
He stood up.
He didn't walk. He moved with a predatory, silent grace. His knees didn't creak. His breath was a long, slow draw of air.
He walked out of the breakroom.
He passed Tanaka. The manager was still at the magazine rack.
Tanaka didn't look up. He didn't even notice Jin walking past. It was as if Jin had become a shadow. A ripple in the air.
Jin pushed the glass door open. The chime didn't ring.
He stepped into the rain.
The water didn't feel cold. It felt like silk.
He walked down the street. He turned into the old commercial district. Toward the park.
The heavy, sweet pressure of demonic energy was everywhere. It was a scent. A trail of rotted roses in the air.
He stopped in front of a small, abandoned shrine at the edge of the park.
Two figures stood in the clearing.
They weren't devils. They wore long, gray robes. They held silver crosses that hummed with a sharp, holy light. Exorcists. Renegades.
They were standing over something.
Jin saw a yellow umbrella lying in the mud.
Asia Argento was on her knees. Her hands were tied with a glowing, silver rope. She was weeping. Her golden light was dim, flickering like a candle in a storm.
The taller exorcist raised a jagged blade.
"The vessel must be cleansed." The man said. His voice was filled with a frantic, holy madness. "The light belongs to the Lord. Not to a girl who walks with monsters."
The parasite in Jin's head didn't scream. It didn't offer a transaction.
It simply took control.
Jin felt his left eye burn with a cold, absolute power.
He took a step forward.
The two exorcists turned. Their eyes widened. They saw a boy in a blue store vest, drenched in rain, with a bleeding red eye that looked like a portal to hell.
"A devil?" The tall one hissed. He raised his cross. "No. There is no aura. What is this... this void?"
Jin didn't speak.
He raised the dull scissors in his right hand.
In his mind, he saw a different weapon. A long, elegant blade.
He moved.
It wasn't a human movement. It was a blur of black and red.
The shorter exorcist tried to swing his blade. Jin was already under his guard. He drove the scissors into the man's throat.
The sound was a wet, sickening crunch.
Blood sprayed. It was hot against Jin's face.
The tall exorcist screamed a prayer. He thrust his silver cross forward. A beam of white, holy light exploded from the metal.
Jin didn't dodge.
He looked at the light.
His left eye spun.
The world slowed. The light was a series of vibrating particles. He saw the gaps. He saw the flaws.
He tilted his head by a fraction of an inch. The light grazed his ear, scorching the skin.
He was inside the exorcist's reach.
He grabbed the man's wrist. He twisted. The sound of snapping bone was loud in the quiet park. The silver cross fell into the mud.
Jin plunged the scissors into the man's chest. Once. Twice. Five times.
He didn't feel anger. He didn't feel justice. He was a machine performing a calculation.
The tall exorcist fell. He clutched his chest, his eyes filled with a primal, soul-deep terror. He looked at Jin's eye.
"The... Uchiha..." The man gasped. A bubble of blood popped on his lips. "The cursed... line..."
Jin stood over him. He watched the light fade from the man's eyes.
He turned to Asia.
She was staring at him. Her face was white. She saw the blood on his vest. She saw the crimson eye. She saw the two dead men in the mud.
"Jin-san?" She whispered.
Jin reached out. He touched the silver rope.
The holy energy burned his fingers. His skin hissed. Smoke rose from his palm.
He didn't flinch.
He gripped the rope and pulled.
The Sharingan flared. The raw pressure of his killing intent shattered the silver energy. The rope fell away, turning into dust.
Asia collapsed forward. She grabbed his wet vest. She was shaking.
"You saved me." She sobbed. "You saved me again."
Jin looked down at her.
He saw her face. The green eyes. The tears.
He felt a sudden, violent spasm in his brain.
Toll initiated.Action: Memory Purge. Tier 3.Cost: The event. The motive. The faces.
White static rushed in. It was a physical blow.
Jin's knees hit the mud.
The world turned into a screaming, white void.
What is this place.
Why am I wet.
He felt a girl clutching his shirt. He felt the smell of iron.
Then, everything went black.
Jin opened his eyes.
He was sitting on a bench in the park.
The rain had stopped. The sun was starting to peek through the gray clouds. The sky was the color of a fading bruise.
He felt a sharp pain in his right hand.
He looked down.
His hand was covered in blood. It was drying, turning into a dark, rusty crust. He was holding a pair of dull store scissors. They were bent. Broken.
Jin stared at the scissors.
What happened.
He searched his mind.
He found the convenience store. He found Tanaka. He remembered going to the breakroom because his eye hurt.
Then, there was a gap.
A massive, terrifying hole in his memory.
He looked around. He was alone in the park.
Near his feet, he saw a yellow umbrella lying in the mud. It was crushed.
He stood up. His legs were shaking. His left eye was blind, clouded with a thick, warm liquid. He reached up and touched his cheek.
His hand came away red.
I got into a fight.
That was the only logical conclusion. But he couldn't remember who he fought. He couldn't remember why he left the store.
He reached into his pocket.
The black stone was there. It was cold now. Dead.
He looked at his store vest. It was ruined. Soaked in rain and blood.
"Kurosawa!"
He turned his head.
Issei Hyoudou was running across the grass. He looked frantic. Behind him, Rias Gremory and Akeno Himejima were walking. Their faces were grim.
"Jin!" Issei reached him first. He stopped, his eyes widening as he saw the blood. "What the hell happened to you? We heard the energy spike from the school. It was... it was insane."
Rias stepped forward. She didn't look at his injuries. She looked at the ground.
She saw the mud. She saw the faint, scorched marks of holy light. She saw the umbrella.
She looked at Jin. Her blue-green eyes were filled with a cold, terrifying intensity.
"Where is she, Jin?" Rias asked.
Jin looked at her.
"Where is who?"
Rias's jaw tightened. The air around her began to vibrate with power.
"Asia Argento. She was taken by renegade exorcists. We tracked them here. The energy we felt... it wasn't them."
Jin blinked.
Asia.
He remembered the name. He remembered the yellow ribbon.
But he couldn't see her face. The space where her face should be was filled with white static.
"I don't know." Jin said.
His voice was hollow.
"You're covered in blood, Jin." Akeno said. Her voice was uncharacteristically serious. She stepped closer, her eyes scanning the area. "And there are two bodies in the bushes behind you. They've been... slaughtered."
Jin turned around.
He saw the gray robes. He saw the mud.
He felt a cold, sinking sensation in his stomach.
"I don't remember." Jin said.
He looked at the scissors in his hand. He dropped them. They hit the gravel with a dull clink.
"I was at the store." Jin whispered. "I went to the breakroom. My eye hurt."
Rias walked up to him. She grabbed his chin and forced him to look at her.
She saw his left eye. It was still bleeding. The pupil was blown, dark and empty.
"You're lying." Rias said.
"I'm not." Jin said. His voice broke. "I don't know how I got here. I don't know whose blood this is."
He looked at the yellow umbrella.
He felt a single, phantom memory flare and die.
A girl crying. A silver rope.
Then it was gone.
Rias let go of his chin. She looked at Akeno.
"Call the council. We need to sweep the district. If those exorcists were killed, someone did it. Someone with a power we don't understand."
She looked back at Jin.
"Go home, Jin. You're a mess."
Jin didn't wait. He turned and started walking.
He walked through the park. He walked past the dead men he didn't remember killing. He walked past the girl's umbrella.
He reached the street.
He looked at his hands. The blood was starting to flake off in the wind.
He reached into his mind, trying to find a reason. A motive. A spark of humanity.
Nothing.
He was a ghost.
He was a vessel.
He was an Uchiha.
And he was empty.