"Who the hell are you?"
My voice didn't shake. It was flat, empty. My hand was locked on the hilt of Kū-on.
The man with the lantern didn't even blink. He looked at me like I was a piece of rotting garbage stuck to his boot. Face full of scars, eyes like dead, cold glass. He held the lantern steady; the flame inside flickered, casting harsh, jumping shadows against the snow.
"Names are just noise, kid," the man growled. His voice was like gravel in a grinder. "And you're leaking enough noise to wake every creature within five miles. You've been tracking us for three hundred meters. You don't walk like a hunter, you don't fight like a soldier. You're a total amateur. It's pathetic."
The demon standing behind him—a wiry, grey thing covered in black geometric ink—snorted. A wet, rattling sound. Its skin was stretched too tight over bone. Its eyes were flat, soulless pits of yellow.
"Can I kill him, Master?" the demon hissed. It didn't look at me like a person; it looked at me like a cut of meat left out in the heat. "He smells like chemicals. I bet his blood tastes like copper and trash. He's ruining the air."
The man didn't stop the demon. Didn't care. He walked right up, jammed a calloused finger into my chest. Hard. Bruise-level hard.
"You're a civilian," the man said, eyes flicking to the leather wraps over my ears. "You're soft. You're playing with a sword too heavy for your weak hands, hiding your head like a scared animal. You think you can survive out here just by twitching at every sound? This isn't a game."
"I killed the thing in the forge," I barked. Tried to wrench my arm away. My lungs were burning, breathing the cold air like it was liquid nitrogen.
"You got lucky," the demon sneered. Jaw unhinged, needle-teeth on display. "The blacksmith did the work. You were just there. Don't mistake luck for skill."
The man leaned in. Smelled like stale tobacco and iron. "I used to be one of those idiots who hunted these things. Quit because they're all delusional. Stuck in their own heads, convinced that if they follow the right rules, the world will stop being a slaughterhouse. They talk about 'duty' while their own necks get snapped like dry twigs. I'm the guy who realized those codes are just a fancy way to die."
He let go. Shoved me back. I stumbled, boots sliding on the frozen mud. "I'm nothing you need to know about. And you? You're a liability. Noisy, clumsy kid. You're going to get yourself killed before sunrise. You're not a hunter. You're bait."
The demon moved. Faster than I could track. Hand slammed against my throat, pinned me against a tree. The pressure was insane—it wasn't talking, it was trying to crush my windpipe just to see the spray. Bark dug into my spine.
"Waste of space," the demon hissed in my ear. Teeth grazing my skin, hot, smelling of rot. "Stumble around like a blind dog. Making noise. Getting in the way. You want to survive the night? Stop being a nuisance and get out of my sight before I decide to see how much you scream. I've heard plenty of human screams. Yours would be the most boring of them all."
The man turned his back. Signaled the demon to follow. Didn't look back once. "If I see you on this mountain again, I'll kill you myself. I don't care who you are or what you're doing. Consider this your only warning. Walk away, or stop breathing."
They vanished into the dark. No tracks. No sound. Nothing. As if the forest just swallowed them.
I stood there. Gasping. Clutching my throat where the demon's claws had left deep, stinging marks. My hands were shaking, but not from fear. It was a raw, ugly anger burning in my chest.
I looked down at Kū-on. The blade reflected the moonlight. Didn't feel like a holy relic anymore. Didn't feel like a weight. It felt like a tool. And tools are meant to be used to break things. Tear through flesh. End the noise.
Wasn't looking for help. Wasn't looking for some noble path. I was looking for something to kill. Just to see if I could make it stop moving. To see if I could be faster than the next thing that crawled out of the dark.
The man wanted me gone? Fine. Let him think I was a liability. Let him think I was weak. I didn't need his permission to stay alive, and I didn't need his rules to justify my existence. Done being the victim of my own senses. Done being the hare that ran every time a twig snapped.
I gripped the hilt. Cold metal against my palm. I was going to be the one doing the hunting. Find every pathetic creature on this mountain. Silence them, one by one, until the only sound left was my own heartbeat.
The woods felt different. The wind, the groaning branches, the distant, wet clicks—didn't make me cringe. Made me focus. I was tuning into the frequency of violence.
If this world was a mess of agony, I was going to be the thing that ended it. Turned away from the path they had taken, headed deeper into the pines, into the absolute, suffocating dark. No lantern. No guide.
Had a sword. Had a target. Finally had a reason to stop covering my ears. Hunt until there was nothing left to fear, or until I was the only thing standing in the snow.
The night stretched out like a hungry mouth. I took my first step. No hesitation. I wasn't just a boy from Shibuya anymore. I was something else. And I was hungry.
Moved through the trees. Ears picked up everything. A snap of a branch forty yards left. A wet, rhythmic breathing from a hollow log. Another one.
Didn't try to hide my own sound. Walked with purpose. Every footfall was heavy. Deliberate. Let them hear me. Let them come out. I was holding Kū-on in a reverse grip. Ready to move. Ready to carve.
Saw a shape shifting in the shadows of a boulder. Not the man. Not the demon. Something else. Smaller, faster, twitching. Eyes like glass beads.
It saw me and hissed. A sound that would have sent me into a panic an hour ago. Now, it just sounded like a loose screw that needed to be tightened.
Didn't wait for it to make the first move. Didn't wait for a dramatic opening. Lunged. Closed the distance in a single, fluid motion. Creature tried to scramble up the rock, but I was already there. Slammed my shoulder into its side, knocked it off balance, drove the blade down.
Steel punched through its ribcage. Wasn't pretty. Wasn't a hero's strike. It was a messy, brutal puncture. Creature gurgled, black blood spraying across my face. Hot, metallic. Didn't blink. Pulled the sword free, twisted, buried it again.
Didn't stop until it stopped moving.
Stood over the corpse. Breathing hard. Clothes stained with the black sludge of its insides. The world was still loud. The mountain was still screaming. But for the first time, I wasn't just hearing the noise. I was starting to understand how to cut it out.
Wiped the blade on the creature's mangled remains. Man with the lantern thought I was a liability? Good. I'd prove him right. I'd be the biggest, deadliest liability this mountain had ever seen.
Looked at the moon. Cold. Indifferent. Didn't care if I lived or died. Neither did the man. Neither did the demons.
That was fine. Didn't want them to care. Just wanted them out of my way.
Turned back to the forest. More sounds out there. Clicking. Hissing. Breathing.
Bring them on. I was ready.