Solar Year 185 – Asakusa
Night had fallen fully over Asakusa.
Lanterns still swayed above the streets. Laughter still rang between the old wooden buildings. Drums still beat somewhere deeper in the district, rough and lively, as if the celebration itself refused to tire.
The people of Asakusa were still drinking and shouting.
And from the rooftops above them—
Death looked down and smiled.
Haumea stood at the ledge with one hand on her hip, eyes glowing faintly beneath her bangs as she looked over the district below.
Beside her, Charon stood like a silent wall.
Ritsu stood a step behind, her expression blank, her eyes fixed on the streets beneath them.
Haumea's smile widened.
"Go on, Ritsu."
Ritsu lowered her gaze.
"As you wish."
She lifted one pale hand.
Below them, in alleyways and shadowed corners, in old storehouses and behind half-forgotten walls, in places where ash had settled and remains had been abandoned long ago—
Something moved.
Then moved again.
A twitch.
A scrape.
A crack of brittle bone.
One corpse-made Infernal pulled itself upright from a blackened pile of remains.
Then another.
Then another.
And another.
Burned flesh.
Sunken, hollow eyes.
Bodies held together by heat, ash, and malice.
Some rose from old funeral ash. Some from scorched remains hidden in forgotten places. Others dragged themselves up from heaps of ruin, animated by Ritsu's grotesque control.
In one alley, a hunched Infernal raised its head and let out a warped, choking cry.
In another, three more rose together.
Across the district, the dead stood up and began to walk.
Ritsu's hand slowly curled.
And the corpse-made Infernals obeyed.
The first scream cut through the celebration like a blade.
People turned.
A woman dropped her tray.
A man near the western lane stumbled back as an Infernal burst from a side street, flames spilling from its ribs, its limbs jerking unnaturally as it lunged.
"What the hell?!"
"It's an Infernal!"
"Another one there!" "There too!"
The festival broke instantly.
"Move, idiots!" "Get the civilians back!" "Where are the fire agents?!"
Lanterns shook as people ran. Stalls overturned. Drums stopped mid-beat. The warmth of celebration twisted into the heat of battle in a matter of seconds.
At the center of it all, Hibachi's voice boomed over the uproar.
"ASAKUSA FIRE AGENTS!"
Heads turned at once.
Hibachi stood in the street, sake gone from his hand, his entire presence transformed.
"Split up!" he barked. "Contain the spread! Protect the civilians first! Put every damn Infernal you see to rest!"
Around him, the local fire agents straightened instantly.
"Yes, boss Hibachi!"
Konro landed beside him a moment later, cloak shifting in the wind, eyes already scanning the rooftops.
"This isn't normal," Konro said.
Hibachi's face darkened.
"I know."
The Infernal attacks in Asakusa had always been brutal.
But this?
This felt arranged.
He could feel it in his bones.
"Someone's doing this," Hibachi growled.
Konro nodded.
"I'll help clear the streets and search."
Hibachi cracked his neck.
"I'll bulldoze the rest."
Then both vanished into motion.
Benimaru and Kidan were already moving.
The first Infernal rushed from the side, body warped and thin, one arm dragging a trail of flame across the street.
Kidan's eyes sharpened.
"Big brother."
"I see it."
The creature lunged.
Benimaru stepped in first.
His palm ignited.
"Fire Moon."
A crescent slash tore through the air and struck the Infernal across the chest, sending it crashing through a wooden stand in an explosion of sparks.
Before it could rise again, Kidan thrust out his hand.
The scattered flames from the broken stall twisted around his arm.
He bent the existing fire, pulled it tight, and wrapped it around the Infernal's body like burning chains.
The creature shrieked as it struggled.
Benimaru was already there.
His hand-sword chop came down cleanly.
The Infernal split apart and collapsed into dying embers.
Kidan exhaled sharply.
"That's one."
Benimaru looked down the street.
"There are more."
And there were.
The district had become a battlefield.
Infernals climbed over rooftops.
Crawled from alleys.
Burst through shutters and doors.
Some were malformed and slow. Others moved in jagged, aggressive bursts, like puppets yanked on invisible strings.
The people of Asakusa fought too.
Some dragged civilians away.
Some used hooked poles and extinguishing gear.
Others struck with brute force and fearless timing.
But it was the Shinmons, and the two boys among them who began turning the tide.
At the eastern lane, two corpse-made Infernals cornered an elderly shopkeeper against a collapsed food stand.
One came from the front.
The other from above.
The old man raised his arms uselessly.
Then—
A blur of black shot past.
Benimaru drove a burning elbow into the first Infernal's jaw and snapped its head sideways. The thing flew through a wall in a shower of splinters.
The second dropped from above.
Kidan stepped in with surprising speed, raising one hand.
The lantern flames above the street bent downward instantly, spiraling around the Infernal's limbs and throwing off its balance in midair.
It hit the ground badly.
Benimaru finished it with a brutal descending chop.
The old shopkeeper stared.
Then stared harder.
"...Those are Hibachi-sama's boys?"
Kidan turned, offering a quick smile.
"Are you okay?"
The man blinked, then barked out a rough laugh.
"Yeah. Thanks, kid."
Benimaru had already turned away.
"Move somewhere safer."
The old man grinned wider.
"They've got the Shinmon attitude already."
At the southern bridge, Konro bulldozed through three Infernals in a row.
His flames burned hot and controlled, his movements far more disciplined than the local agents around him.
One Infernal swung wildly.
Konro sidestepped and drove a flaming strike into its sternum.
A second came from behind.
Without even turning fully, he redirected the nearby fire, caught its advance, and then finished it with a short, economical blow.
A third tried to leap from the railing.
Konro's eyes narrowed.
"Pathetic."
The creature vanished in a burst of orange-white flame.
A nearby fire agent let out a breath.
"Vice-chief Konro is terrifying."
Another nodded.
"Good. Let the Infernals think so too."
But even while fighting, Konro kept scanning.
Rooflines.
Alleys.
High points.
'Too organized,' he thought. 'These things are not moving like random Infernals.'
He looked up toward the rooftops.
'Someone is directing this.'
Meanwhile, Hibachi was not fighting.
He was erasing.
At the western quarter, five corpse-made Infernals poured into the same street, shrieking as they came.
Hibachi walked straight toward them.
The first launched itself.
He caught it by the face.
The second reached for him.
He blasted through it with raw flame.
The third and fourth barely got close before his hand-sword style reduced them to collapsing masses of embers and broken remains.
The fifth tried to retreat.
Hibachi's grin turned savage.
"You don't get to run now."
He closed the distance in an instant and carved it down.
The street fell still.
A group of locals stared from behind an overturned cart.
One of them swallowed.
"Boss Hibachi..."
Another muttered, awe plain in his voice, "He really is a monster."
Hibachi clicked his tongue and looked around.
"Where the hell are you, you coward?"
Elsewhere, Benimaru and Kidan were still clearing.
And now people were starting to see them properly.
Not as two boys.
Not as orphans.
Not as Hibachi's charity.
But as power.
One Infernal crashed through a second-story balcony and dropped into the street below, flames bursting from its back in crooked wings of fire.
Kidan looked up first.
"Above!"
Benimaru didn't hesitate.
"Take the ground flames!"
Kidan thrust both hands out.
The scattered fire from nearby lanterns, grills, and shattered stalls surged toward him. He bent them upward in a spiraling current, striking the Infernal mid-fall and throwing off its descent.
The creature landed hard—
Right in front of Benimaru.
Benimaru's palms ignited.
Then, seamlessly, he seized the other surrounding flames too, folding them into his own attack.
His strike hit like a hammer.
The Infernal exploded apart.
Nearby civilians stared in disbelief.
"They're kids..." "No, that's not kid stuff." "They're strong." "Really strong."
A burly man who had doubted them during the announcement folded his arms and grunted.
"Hibachi-sama wasn't exaggerating."
A woman beside him nodded as Kidan redirected a burst of fire away from a group of fleeing civilians with precise, controlled movement.
"They're protecting people."
Another man laughed roughly despite the danger.
"Then they're ours."
That was Asakusa.
Acceptance didn't come from words.
It came from battle.
The assault intensified.
Ritsu, from far above, tilted her hand again.
More corpse-made Infernals rose.
Some from beneath collapsed structures. Others from old ash sites and hidden remains. One even pulled itself together from a heap of char and bone in the middle of a ruined side lane.
Her expression did not change.
"Advance."
And they did.
Like a dead army.
Charon looked down with his usual heavy silence.
Haumea smiled, though faint irritation flickered at the edge of it.
"They're tougher than the reports made them sound."
Below, Benimaru tore through another pair of Infernals, while Kidan bent the flames of a shattered storefront into a wall to protect a group of children running across the street.
Charon spoke at last.
"The older brother is dangerous."
Haumea's smile sharpened.
"I know."
Her eyes rested on Kidan.
"But we didn't come for him."
Back in the streets, Hibachi and Konro crossed paths briefly in the midst of battle.
Konro landed beside him as embers drifted around them.
"I still can't find the source."
Hibachi's gaze swept upward.
"They're hiding high."
Konro nodded once.
"The boys are handling themselves."
Hibachi snorted.
"They better."
Then his eyes shifted toward the eastern district, where Benimaru and Kidan were fighting back-to-back against three more corpse-made Infernals.
Kidan bent one creature's fire off course while Benimaru split another down the middle. The third tried to flank them and got hit by both brothers at once. One controlling the existing flames, the other generating his own.
The Infernal didn't last two seconds.
Even Hibachi paused.
Then grinned.
"Those brats."
Konro allowed himself a small smile.
"The people are seeing it too."
Indeed they were.
But above the district—
The White-Clad had not come merely to stir trouble.
A fourth figure stepped out from the darkness behind Haumea, Charon, and Ritsu.
He had remained quiet until now, watching the battle below with a zealot's stillness.
Haumea glanced at him.
He bowed his head slightly.
"Lady Haumea."
"What."
The man stepped forward, eyes burning with fanatic devotion.
"The corpse-made Infernals are buying time..."
He smiled.
"...but not enough."
Haumea's expression didn't change.
He reached into his robe.
From within, he produced a small container.
Inside it—
An Infernal Bug.
It writhed.
Charon's gaze shifted toward him.
Ritsu watched without comment.
The man looked down at the battle-swept Asakusa below, at Hibachi and Konro bulldozing through his allies' fodder, at the two boys winning the hearts of the district in fire and blood.
Then he laughed softly.
A broken, devoted sound.
"For the Great Cataclysm."
Without hesitation—
He drove the bug into himself.
His body convulsed instantly.
Heat burst from his skin.
Flames erupted from his mouth and eyes.
His limbs twisted, expanded, warped.
Bones cracked.
Flesh swelled.
The rooftop trembled beneath the pressure of the transformation.
Haumea's smile returned.
Below, the streets of Asakusa still burned with battle—
Unaware that something far worse had just been born.
The man's scream became a roar.
And from the fire—
A Demon Infernal emerged.
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