The days that followed passed like an unending nightmare.
Masaru did not return to school. He did not return to the village either. He vanished deep into the ancient forests of Nozawa Onsen, where only the sound of wind and the bubbling hiss of year-round hot springs could be heard. He lived in abandoned tourist shacks, in old, rotting hunting lodges decayed by time, or simply curled up beneath a large boulder when night fell.
Hunger was the thing he felt most acutely. It gnawed at his stomach hour by hour, minute by minute, keeping him from sleep, from thought. At first, he only dared to sneak down to the village at night, stealing a few vegetables from someone's garden, or a handful of cold rice left forgotten on a kitchen table. But then, as the hunger grew more maddening, as winter turned harsher, he had no other choice.
He killed someone.
The first time was a drunken tourist who had lost his way in the forest. The man carried a backpack full of food and a thick wallet. Masaru used a rock, smashing it into the back of his head. He didn't remember how many times he struck. He only remembered that when he stopped, the rock was drenched in blood, and the tourist's eyes had rolled back, white and vacant.
He vomited violently. He cried. He asked himself if he truly was the "demon" people always said he was.
But still, he took the food. Still, he took the money. And still, he lived.
The second time was easier. By the third time, he no longer vomited.
Masaru found the sword on a grey, overcast afternoon, about two weeks after that fateful night. He had returned to the ashes of his home, digging through them in futility, searching for anything that might remind him of his grandmother. And then, beneath the charred wooden floorboards, he discovered a small cellar he had never known existed.
Down there, in a rotting wooden chest, lay an old katana.
The sword rested there, silent and majestic, as if it had been waiting for him for hundreds of years. Its scabbard was polished black ebony, traced with faint golden veins shimmering like firelight. The hilt was wrapped in ray skin, aged by time but still impossibly firm. When he drew the sword from its sheath, the steel blade flashed a cold gleam, reflecting his face—disfigured by burn scars.
On the blade, near the hilt, two elegant yet commanding Kanji characters were engraved:
"Toyotomi."
Masaru didn't know much about history. He only knew this was the sword of his ancestors, of the forgotten Toyotomi clan. He didn't know what power it held, or why people like CHINSU wanted it. But he knew one thing: this sword was all that remained of his family.
He wore it at his hip and never let it leave his side again.
He decided to wrap himself in bandages. White, coarse strips of cloth that embraced his horribly disfigured body.
---
And then.
The thought of death came to Masaru as naturally as breathing.
He had no reason left to live. His grandmother was gone. Misaki—the only ray of light in his life—had also gone far away, and perhaps would never return. He was a monster, a murderer, a piece of trash cast out by the entire world.
But he didn't want to die easily. He wanted a meaningful death. Or at least, a death that wasn't too painful.
And then he heard the story of the "Dream Apple" from a wandering old man in the forest.
"It's the fruit of the devil," the old man said, his murky eyes gleaming with both fear and longing. "One bite, and you'll gain supernatural power. But... if your soul doesn't match its symbol, you'll die. One year. Exactly one year from the day you bite into that apple, you'll die. And the survival rate... one in a hundred thousand."
One in a hundred thousand.
To Masaru, that wasn't a gamble. It was an invitation. A way to end it all, yet still hold a sliver of hope—no matter how impossibly small—that he might gain power. Power to take revenge on those who had destroyed his life. Power to protect those who still remained.
He searched for Dream Apples for many long months. They weren't special, glittering fruits with bizarre shapes. They lay mixed among ordinary apple crates at the market, in the traveling carts of tourists, even on wild apple trees in the forest. No one could tell them apart. They had no special taste. They were just apples.
But Masaru didn't need to tell them apart. He just needed to eat. And he ate a lot.
Every day, he ate one apple. Then two. Then three. He ate apples instead of rice, instead of water, instead of the nightmares that haunted him every night. He didn't know how many he had eaten. He only knew that, somewhere among them, at least one had to be a Dream Apple.
And then, the miracle—or more precisely, the curse—happened.
One misty morning, when he woke up in an abandoned shack, he felt something different. His body, once covered in layers of burn scars and unhealed wounds, suddenly felt light. Not healthy. But... melting.
Literally.
Masaru stared down at his hands in horror. His fingers were gradually becoming hazy, as if made of mist. In fact, they truly were.
Then, from his palms, a thin wisp of steam began to rise. It was warm, soft, but carried a strange pressure.
He coughed. A dry cough, and a cloud of dense steam escaped his mouth.
He had not died.
A year passed, and he was still alive. His body was no longer entirely flesh and blood. It was something between solid and liquid, between human and vapor. He could turn parts of his body into steam, slipping through the narrowest cracks in doors, or erupt into a thick fog that blanketed an entire forest. His steam could be hot enough to scald human skin, or just warm enough to chase away the winter cold.
He didn't know the name of this ability. He didn't care. He only knew that, with it, stealing and robbing became easier than ever. He could melt into the night, sneak into tightly shut houses, take whatever he wanted without anyone knowing. Unfortunate tourists who strayed into the forest, if they were unlucky enough to encounter him in his ravenous hunger, would be "boiled alive" by scalding steam before they even understood what was happening.
And PINK PAIN—the power that had awakened on the night his grandmother died—still slept quietly within him, like a monster in deep slumber, waiting for the day it would be awakened once more.
But there was one thing Masaru never changed.
The blue charm pouch that Misaki had given him was still there, always hanging around his neck, pressed close to his chest—where his heart, now turned to mist, still beat the last remaining rhythms of a human being.
Every time he touched it, he remembered those large, round eyes and that radiant smile of the girl. He remembered the promise… The promise that still tightened his heart: "Next time we meet, you have to tell me about all the beautiful things that have come to you, okay?"
But he knew there would be no next time. He was no longer the Toyotomi Masaru of the past. He was the Mummy Specter, the curse of Nozawa Onsen, the serial killer whom police and Espers alike were powerless against.
And he would remain so forever. Forever alone. Forever a demon.
At least, that's what he thought.
Until he met Kuroda Kiyotaka in the present.
—End of Chapter 4—