The amusement park had become a slaughterhouse under the winter sky.
Snow fell in thick, silent flakes, blanketing the colorful attractions and turning the festive lights into soft, blurred glows. Dreamland Amusement Park, usually filled with laughter and screams of delight during the holiday season, had descended into pure chaos. The roller coaster area was the epicenter. People ran in every direction, their panicked cries mixing with the cheerful holiday music that still played mockingly from the speakers. Security guards tried to restore order, flashlights cutting through the falling snow, but they were too slow.
Haruto Nakamura moved through the chaos like a ghost.
He had slipped the simple white mask over his face in a quiet corner, becoming just another blurred figure among the panicked crowd. His hoodie was pulled up, dark jeans blending into the shadows. He struck with calm, terrifying efficiency. A young couple waiting in line for the Ferris wheel never saw him coming. Haruto stepped behind the boy first, driving the knife upward under his ribs in one smooth motion. The boy gasped, eyes widening in shock as blood bubbled from his mouth. Haruto twisted the blade, then slashed across the throat in a clean arc. Blood sprayed hot and dark across the snow. The girl screamed and tried to run, but Haruto was faster. He caught her by the hair, pulled her back, and opened her throat with one precise cut. She collapsed to her knees, gurgling, hands clutching at the wound as blood poured down her front. Haruto knelt beside her and continued his work — stabbing methodically into her abdomen, opening it wide. Intestines spilled out in wet, steaming loops onto the snowy path. The girl's hands scrabbled weakly at her own guts, trying to push them back inside, but they slipped through her fingers like slick ropes. Haruto watched her face the entire time, his expression blank and serene behind the mask, as if he were simply observing the falling snow.
At the same time, on the opposite side of the park near the haunted house, the Kyo wearing Ren Fushiwara's face was doing its own work.
It moved with the same calm, mechanical precision. A group of teenagers trying to hide behind a concession stand were found moments later — throats opened with surgical cleanliness, abdomens torn wide, viscera left glistening in the snow like grotesque decorations. The Kyo didn't rush. It didn't enjoy it. It simply fed the hollow. When two police officers Hikaru had sent as backup arrived, the Kyo met them with cold efficiency. One officer managed to draw his gun, but the blade was faster — slicing across the throat before the shot could be fired. The second officer lasted only seconds longer, gutted and left twitching on the ground as blood soaked into the snow.
Both killers worked separately, never crossing paths, yet their actions created a perfect storm of terror. The park's security system collapsed within minutes. Screams echoed from every corner. Snow turned red wherever they passed.
The friend group heard the screams while they were near the food court. People started running. Security guards rushed past them. Vey's face hardened. "Something's wrong."
They ran toward the noise.
When they reached the main plaza, the horror was already unfolding. Bodies lay scattered near the rides, blood staining the snow red. Haruto — still masked — was visible in the distance, moving with calm efficiency toward another group of panicked visitors. The Kyo Ren stood at the edge of the plaza, watching with empty eyes.
Vey pulled out their phone and dialed emergency services. "There's a massacre at Dreamland Amusement Park! Multiple victims! There are two killers — one in a white mask, another that looks like our teacher Ren!"
The park descended into full chaos. More screams. More running. Security tried to intervene, but both killers were too skilled. Haruto dispatched two guards with brutal efficiency — one stabbed in the throat, the other gutted in seconds. The Kyo Ren did the same on the other side, leaving bodies with throats opened and abdomens torn wide.
Kairo had been acting traumatized ever since the killings started. The nightmares about the masked observers had never stopped. He had barely slept, jumping at every shadow, avoiding mirrors because he sometimes saw white masks in the reflection. Today, seeing the dead bodies scattered across the snow — throats slashed, guts spilled in steaming loops — triggered everything at once.
Kairo dropped to his knees in the snow, hands clutching his head. Tears streamed down his face as memories Index had erased flooded back in vivid, nauseating detail: the white masks in his room, the voice saying "the hollow is growing," the night he had jerked off to Mimo's picture after waking from those same nightmares, the guilt over Tsubaki, the shame of his own body's betrayal.
"No… no, I remember… I saw them… the masked ones… they were in my room… they took my father's face…"
The trauma crashed over him in waves. His breathing became ragged, vision blurring. Something deep inside him cracked open — not just fear, but a raw, burning power he had never felt before.
Shugiin.
The birth and destruction of Kyo.
Kairo's eyes glowed with a faint, ethereal light for a split second. The air around him rippled violently, as if reality itself was bending to his will. The snowflakes near him froze mid-air, suspended in time, before shattering into tiny sparks of light that danced like fireflies. For one brief, terrifying moment, the space around him distorted — the screams of the crowd warped, the falling snow reversed direction, and a faint outline of a white mask flickered in the air before vanishing.
Then the power faded as quickly as it had come.
Kairo collapsed forward into the snow, unconscious.
Vey and Sorine rushed to his side. "Kairo!"
Mimo helped lift him, her face calm but her eyes sharp. "He needs a hospital. Now."
They carried him toward the ambulance waiting at the gate, snow crunching under their feet, while behind them the park continued to burn with panic and blood.
Hikaru arrived on the scene twenty minutes later, sirens wailing behind him. He stepped out of the car into the blood-stained snow, face grim. His officers — people he had worked with for years — lay dead near the haunted house entrance. One had his throat opened so cleanly it looked surgical. The other had been torn open from sternum to pelvis, intestines spread across the ground like grotesque decorations.
Hikaru knelt beside the second body for a long moment, gloved hand hovering over the wound. There was almost no sadness in his eyes — only a cold, focused resolve.
"I'll avenge you," he said quietly, voice steady. "All of you."
He stood up, brushing snow from his coat, and turned to the surviving officers.
"Seal every exit. They're still here. Find them."
Then he looked toward the small group of survivors huddled near the entrance — Vey, Sorine, Mimo, and the unconscious Kairo, who had been caught in the chaos while trying to escape.
"You four should go home," Hikaru said, his tone firm but not unkind. "Try to stay away from danger. You kids are really danger-prone."
Vey opened their mouth to argue, but Hikaru raised a hand.
"Go. Now."
As the group turned to leave, carrying the unconscious Kairo toward the ambulance, the snow kept falling, silent and cold, turning red where it touched the ground.
Three times the trouble, less the relief. It was just beginning to get worse.