The air in the underground bar "The Crack" was thick as tar and smelled of old wood, cheap sake, and something else — ozone of burnt-out Scars and despair.
It was a place for those the magical world had spat out but not finished off: for broken researchers, for Majutsushi whose techniques had gone out of control and left them crippled, for informants with empty eyes. The light here came not from magical crystals but from dim oil lamps, casting trembling shadows on walls covered in meaningless graffiti-spells.
It was into this hell of smells and quiet moans that Jibetsu brought his frail body.
His clay mask didn't seem alien here, just the grimmest of many masks. He slid between tables, looking at no one, and headed for the darkest corner of the establishment.
There, at a table by the wall, sat he. Kaito Fujisaki.
In the gloom, he seemed not a man but a congealed shadow reluctantly taking human form.
Light, loose hakama merged with the dirty floor. The dark indigo shirt, simple cut, absorbed what little light there was. Only the short haori vest of soft, worn fabric thrown over it stood out with its contrasting lining the color of dried blood — it flashed with his every slight movement, like a warning, like an open wound under modest clothing.
His posture was straight, disciplined — the posture of a soldier, not a drunkard. Straight black hair, trimmed neatly at ear level, framed a face with sharp, tired features. The gaze with which he watched the murky liquid spin in his glass was focused and empty at the same time.
And on his left cheek, almost hidden by a falling strand, stretched a thin vertical Scar — clean, precise, like a blade's blueprint. A mark from a strike that couldn't or wouldn't be fully parried.
Jibetsu sat down opposite him without waiting for an invitation. The sound of his creaky voice cut through the sticky silence of the table.
"Kaito Fujisaki. Hired hunter of Majutsushi. The strongest man I've ever seen."
Fujisaki didn't raise his eyes. He took a small sip, set the glass down with a quiet thud.
"Flattery is poor currency, Jibetsu. It has no smell. State your business."
The leader of Tsuchigumo leaned forward slightly, and his mask seemed to approach, filling the space between them.
"As long as Kagetori and that Musuhiro, Akira Kiriya, are alive, Tenmao-sama's plans are under threat. Not their power itself, but... the principle they represent. One is the embodiment of an outdated order, a shield for a rotten world. The other is an anomaly, a hole in the very fabric. They are stones in the boot of the new era."
Now Fujisaki looked at him. In his dark, tired eyes, a spark flashed for a second — not interest in politics, but pure, professional hunter's excitement, scenting difficult prey. But the spark died as quickly as it flared, drowning in the familiar, deep boredom.
"Renegade Kagetori," he drawled, as if tasting the words. "Who is considered the strongest Majutsushi of the modern era. A fight with a walking natural phenomenon. That would be... tricky."
"Is he truly beyond your strength?" a light, provocative note sounded in Jibetsu's voice, as if questioning the very essence of the man before him.
Kaito didn't change his expression. He simply raised a finger, as if marking a point on an invisible list.
"Everything has its price, spider. Especially suicide. Ten million yen. Seventy percent — now. Thirty — when I bring you their heads. No," he corrected himself, "when you verify it's their heads. I don't like it when clients bargain with ghosts."
Jibetsu froze for a second, assessing. Then nodded, once, sharply. From the folds of his hatōri, he produced a thick, sealed scroll and a dense pouch whose jingle was more eloquent than any words. He pushed them across the table.
"Five here. The rest — after. The new world will become reality. And in it... there will be a quiet place for a mercenary with a clean, albeit red, history."
Fujisaki took the pouch, not even weighing it in his hand. He tucked the scroll into his robe. His movements were economical, devoid of greed. This wasn't robbery; it was receiving tools.
"History is never clean," he stated, standing up. His soft waraji made no sound on the dirty floor. "It's simply finished or unfinished. Yours — not yet. Mine... we'll see."
Without a farewell, he turned and dissolved into the dark passage leading to the exit. Only for a moment did the bloody-burgundy lining of his vest flash in the movement — the last thing Jibetsu saw before being left alone with his webs.
Golden Dragon
The "Golden Dragon" was the complete opposite of "The Crack."
Here everything screamed: crystal chandeliers, gilding, thick carpet muffling footsteps, and the excited hum of luck hanging in the air, mixed with the smell of expensive perfume and sweat. Roulette wheels spun by themselves, controlled by the weak Kokurō of the staff, cards fell into the croupier's hands with a silk rustle.
Kaito Fujisaki stood at a baccarat table. Before him lay a stack of chips of unimaginable denomination. He wasn't smiling. His face wore the same mask of tired concentration. He placed bets. Big, reckless ones. And lost. Every single one. Consciously, methodically.
When the last chip vanished into the casino's abyss, the head croupier approached him — a young man with overly shiny eyes and unnaturally white teeth.
"Fujisaki-san," he whispered almost reverently, "you... just received a rather substantial advance. All of it... down to the last chip?"
Kaito turned to him, taking a glass of whiskey from the counter that someone had thoughtfully placed there an hour ago. He took a sip, and his gaze became distant for a second, as if looking through the walls, through the city, somewhere very far away.
"Money," he uttered, his voice low and calm, "is just energy. Concentrated human hope, greed, fear. It must be spent. Released. Otherwise, it rots in your pocket, poisons the soul." He set the empty glass down. "And my energy... I'll need it soon elsewhere. In a purer form."
He nodded to the croupier, turned, and walked towards the exit without looking back at the bright, barren hell he had just voluntarily left. Behind him, only whispers and shrugged shoulders remained.
To them, he was just another loser. To him, this was a ritual. Purification. Shedding everything earthly that could weigh him down in his last, mortal leap.
Apocalypse Casino
Where the Apocalypse Casino had raged hours before, now lay a sea of debris. Giant dice, split in half, jutted from the earth like tombstones to a mad god.
The air still rang with residual, wild energy, but the very structure of the Colony was cracking at the seams, distorting, threatening to collapse at any moment.
Amid this chaos, leaning against a chunk of a marble column carved with a joker, stood Reiden Kagetori. His black-and-gold jacket was torn, the golden lightning bolts on the sleeves had dimmed.
He stared into nothing, through the ruins, through time. In his golden eyes, there was no rage, no habitual mockery. There was an emptiness deeper than anything Akira could create.
Sorato's voice, long dead, sounded in his memory, fresh as yesterday: "Are you chosen because you are Kagetori Reiden, or are you Kagetori Reiden because you are chosen?"
And behind that question — another picture. Earlier, more wounding.
A rainy night.
A square on the city's outskirts. He and Sorato, both no older than twenty, stood breathing heavily, covered in mud and others' Scars. Their mission was complete. They had neutralized cultists using innocent blood for their rituals. The bodies of Majutsushi lay around. And in the center of the square, on a wet stone, lay she.
A girl. About eight years old.
Not a Majutsushi. Just a child who lived in the wrong house. Her small body was pale, life had left her even before their arrival, but they hadn't known. They fought to save... to save what was already dead.
A crowd of local Majutsushi, hiding behind barriers, poured onto the square. They didn't see the girl. They only saw victory. Their jubilant cries grated on the ears. "Kagetori-sama! Kuroi-sama! You did it! The city is saved!"
Reiden stood, not feeling the weight of his body. He looked at the small face that would never smile again. He slowly raised his head and met Sorato's gaze. In his friend's violet eyes was the same chilling emptiness, the same fracture. And then Reiden, his voice hoarse from fatigue and something darker, asked:
"Sorato... Should I just kill them all?"
The question hung in the air, heavy as lead. No answer followed. The scene broke off, leaving only the taste of ashes on the tongue and an all-consuming sense of meaninglessness.
A meaninglessness that had returned now, after meeting Akatsuki Magoro. He was a speck of dust.
His power, his title, his pain — all of it was nothing. A shield for a world that had chosen its own rot? He no longer felt even anger. Only fatigue. Infinite, cosmic fatigue.
And it was at this moment, when his internal barriers had crumbled and the will for anything other than self-destruction had evaporated, that he stepped from the shadow of a shattered roulette wheel.
Kaito Fujisaki appeared soundlessly. Not from a portal, not with a flash. He was simply there where he hadn't been a second before. He stood ten meters from Kagetori, his hands hanging loosely at his sides. He didn't assume a fighting stance. He simply watched. His tired eyes slid over the figure of the "strongest," assessing, scanning.
Reiden didn't even move. He slowly raised his gaze. Golden pupils met dark ones. Not a word was spoken. But something tightened in the air like a string before snapping.
And then Kaito moved.
It wasn't an attack. It was a demonstration. His body vanished from the spot. He didn't run — he moved, leaving behind a light whirlwind of dust. He cut circles around Kagetori and the pile of debris, his silhouette flickering here and there, always at the edge of perception. The soft waraji made no sound, only the burgundy lining of his vest flashed in the twilight light of the collapsing Colony like tongues of cold flame.
Fujisaki's thought, cold and clinical, raced through his head: "Reaction speed — on par. But gaze empty, no will. Fighting spirit suppressed. Trauma? Or... realization? Could he be stronger than Magoro in an unstable form?" He dismissed the thought as unnecessary. "No. That's not what to think about. Need to think about how quickly he'll die when I stop circling and strike. Seventy percent already spent. Time to earn the remaining thirty."
He stopped. Exactly where he started. Between him and Kagetori, there was neither fear nor hatred. There was only a quiet, merciless equation: client, target, and price.