Hikari’s pulse hammered in her ears as she locked eyes with the creature—a thing so monstrous, so incomprehensible, that her very mind recoiled in disbelief. Its gaze was not just cold; it was an abyss, a void that stretched into infinity, threatening to swallow her sanity whole. Her breath hitched, her body refusing to obey as every instinct screamed at her to run, but her legs refused to move. The alley before her twisted, elongating into an infinite tunnel, the walls bending and warping as if the very space itself was alive and toying with her.
She stumbled back, her mind shattering into fragments, every rational thought drowning under the weight of the creature’s presence. Its eyes were hollow pits, pulling at her, like they saw everything—every fear, every weakness, every secret she had ever hidden from herself. The air turned thick, suffocating, as though it was being sucked into that terrifying gaze. Her chest ached, her heart pounding so loudly it felt like it might burst.
A low, rumbling laugh slithered out of the darkness, deep and guttural. It wasn’t just a sound—it sank into her skin, crawling under it like a parasite, gnawing at her insides. The laugh reverberated through the air, sending violent tremors through her very bones. It was the kind of laugh that left no room for hope, only the knowledge that her terror amused it. It scratched at her thoughts, gnawing at her sanity, a blade against steel. Each note of that laugh twisted the world around her, turning the alley into a prison where there was no escape.
Her body froze, caught in its grip, and she spun around, gasping for any semblance of reality. “This… this can’t be real,” Hikari whispered to herself, her voice a trembling thread of disbelief. She pressed her hands against the cold, unforgiving walls, but they felt wrong. Too solid. Too still. Everything felt wrong. She couldn’t move. She couldn’t breathe. The walls were closing in, suffocating her.
The creature’s voice slithered through the air like a snake, thick with malice and cruel amusement. “Oh, mortals always make this so entertaining,” it purred, the sound like oily fingers creeping through her skull. It took a slow step forward, its grotesque form shifting and breathing, its flesh warping unnaturally as if it didn’t belong to any body at all. Each crack of bone and shift of muscle was a violation of the laws of nature, the very essence of the world itself distorting under its influence. Every movement sent a wave of nausea through her as her mind desperately tried to categorize it, to understand it, but the demon’s very existence defied all logic.
Her legs trembled, betraying her. “S-Stop! Don’t come any closer!” she cried, her voice cracking under the weight of her terror. The sound echoed, ringing through the alley, but it felt hollow, like her words were swallowed by the black void around her before they could even reach the demon. The silence that followed was worse than the laugh—waiting, anticipating, as if it were savoring the moment of her helplessness.
It grinned—grinned—its mouth splitting wider than anything a human face could. The smile was not one of humor, but of predatory hunger, a cruel satisfaction glinting in the emptiness of its eyes. “Oh, but I love when you beg,” it cooed, the words dripping with a sickening, venomous pleasure. “Such delicious fear…”
Without warning, the demon lunged—its speed impossible. There was no time to react, no time to think. A clawed hand shot out and seized her ankle, its grip like iron, crushing her bones. The pain was instantaneous, searing. Her scream was torn from her throat, ragged, desperate, as she was yanked off her feet and flung through the air. Her body slammed into the cold, unforgiving wall with a sickening thud. Stars exploded behind her eyes. She couldn’t breathe. Her body was a heap of twisted limbs, every inch of her skin feeling like it was on fire.
The demon hovered over her like a living nightmare, its form blotting out everything else. Its face was not one face, but many, twisted and stitched together in a grotesque patchwork of nightmarish features. Eyes—too many eyes—stared down at her with a hunger that went beyond the physical, beyond the need for sustenance. It was a hunger for her soul, for the essence of her being. Its mouth opened, revealing rows upon rows of jagged, glistening teeth—teeth that dripped with thick, dark saliva, each drop sizzling on the ground as it neared her.
“Mmm… you smell delightful,” it hissed, its breath like decay and rot, as if the very act of inhaling was a perverse pleasure to it. “So much life, so much spirit… all for me to consume…”
A cold, unfeeling hand clamped around her throat, lifting her effortlessly from the ground, her feet dangling uselessly beneath her. She couldn’t fight back—her hands clawed at its grip, but it was like trying to break stone. Her vision blurred, the world spinning in and out of focus, each breath she fought for an eternity. The pressure in her chest grew unbearable, and all that filled her mind was the knowledge that she was a plaything—nothing more than a morsel to this thing, this monster.
“P-Please…” Hikari gasped, her voice barely more than a broken whisper. Tears, cold and relentless, streaked down her cheeks, her chest heaving with desperate sobs as she trembled beneath the suffocating weight of the demon’s gaze. The air around her felt heavy, thick with the stench of death, every breath a laborious struggle against the crushing pressure. Her throat constricted, and the words she managed to choke out were soaked in terror. “I… I don’t want to die…”
The demon’s laughter reverberated through the alley, its cruel chuckles sinking deep into her bones like cold steel, gnawing away at the remnants of her sanity. Each mocking sound twisted through her like a dagger, leaving a trail of despair in its wake. “Beg all you like,” it sneered, its voice dripping with venom. The creature’s mouth stretched unnaturally wide, revealing the cavernous black abyss of its throat. Its rows of jagged teeth glistened with malevolent hunger, each one sharp enough to tear through her flesh in a single brutal snap. “I’ll savor every moment.”
Hikari’s body trembled, unable to look away from the nightmare before her. Her hands instinctively reached out, but they found no purchase, grasping at the empty air as if hoping to hold onto something that might save her. The monster’s unholy grin only widened, its foul breath washing over her like a wave of rot. The heat of its proximity was suffocating, its presence an inescapable trap. Every inch closer it moved, the more it felt like her very soul was being consumed by the abyss that stared back at her.
Then, as though the universe itself had finally been torn apart, a shockwave of energy exploded through the alley. The sound was deafening, like the sky itself was cracking open, and the silence that had clung to the street shattered into a thousand shards. The demon shrieked in agony, its body recoiling as a dark, otherworldly force slammed into it from across the alley. The force of it was so immense that even Hikari could feel it reverberating through her chest.
Stolen novel; please report.
And then, as the dust began to settle, a figure emerged from the shadows.
He moved with an eerie, controlled grace, every step calculated and deliberate, as if he was the calm center of a storm that would consume everything in its path. His presence was unmistakable, a stark contrast to the chaos that had enveloped her. Hikari blinked through her tears, her heart stuttering in disbelief as her mind struggled to comprehend what she was seeing. Standing there, like a specter from her past, was Sutaro.
The quiet, unassuming new student from school… only now, he was unrecognizable.
His eyes burned with a primal, unyielding intensity. Purple lightning crackled through his hair, dark strands of it twisting and writhing as though alive with raw, destructive energy. Jagged black marks traced down his face like veins of shadow, framing his gaze with a ferocity that sent a chill skittering down Hikari’s spine. His lips curled into a cold, predatory smirk, one that carried the weight of something far more dangerous than anything she had ever seen.
“S-Sutaro?” she whispered, her voice cracking under the strain of her disbelief. Her heart raced, but it wasn’t from fear alone now. The boy she had known, quiet and reserved, was now someone entirely different. His aura, dark and pulsating with the energy of the unknown, radiated with a power that seemed to stretch beyond the limits of this world. A jagged mask had fused with his jaw, its monstrous teeth gleaming with an unsettling hunger. The Sutaro she had known had been swallowed by something far darker, something that she couldn’t yet understand. Something that now terrified her beyond measure.
“Yep,” he said, his voice low and smooth, tinged with the icy confidence of someone who knew exactly what he was capable of. “It’s me.” His gaze flicked back to the demon, his smirk widening into something predatory. “And as for you—” He took a step forward, his body coiled with lethal intent, his voice dropping into a growl that made the air around him tremble. “I’ve been looking for you for a long time.”
The demon hissed, its malformed eyes narrowing, its malice palpable as it spoke, its voice thick with venom. “You… You’re an exorcist, aren’t you?” it spat, its form bristling with fury.
Sutaro’s chuckle was dark, almost amused. “That’s right. And I’m here to make sure you never bother anyone again.”
In a blink, Sutaro was no longer standing where he had been. Hikari’s vision blurred, her mind struggling to track his movements as he dashed forward with a speed that shouldn’t have been possible. A single punch landed with a sickening crack, and the demon’s massive form was sent flying backward, its body slamming into the wall with such force that the ground trembled beneath them. The sound of bones breaking, of flesh meeting stone, echoed in the alley like the final toll of a bell.
Hikari stumbled backward, her body still trembling from the chaos unfolding before her. She forced herself to her feet, heart thundering in her chest as she watched Sutaro fight with a grace and precision that seemed almost… otherworldly. Each strike he made was calculated, brutal. The demon recoiled with each blow, its form writhing in agony, but Sutaro remained relentless, his every movement a terrifying dance of destruction.
Hope flickered in Hikari’s chest, but before she could fully grasp it, the demon pulled itself from the wall with an unnatural sound, the tendons in its twisted body stretching and snapping as it rose. Its eyes burned with an insatiable rage, filling with a dark, malevolent fire that sent shivers of terror through her. Its form shifted again, bulging with unnatural strength, its muscles straining beneath its grotesque skin.
“You think you can defeat me?” The demon snarled, its voice dripping with venomous satisfaction. “I have feasted on the souls of humans for centuries. I have tasted their despair, devoured their hope. You—” It sneered, its voice growing darker, “—are nothing.”
Sutaro’s expression hardened, a dark amusement flickering in his eyes as the demon’s taunts echoed through the alley. He cracked his knuckles, his jagged smile stretching wider. “Yeah, I’ve heard that one before,” he muttered, flames licking along the edges of his body, dancing in the night air with an eerie purple glow. “Let’s see how cocky you are after this.”
Hikari’s breath caught in her throat as Sutaro moved, a blur of motion that seemed to ignite the very air around him. His fists, wreathed in purple flames, cut through the darkness, each strike landing with the force of a thunderclap. The demon staggered, recoiling with every punch, but Sutaro pressed on, relentless. Each blow was a blur of brutal precision, sending shockwaves of power that cracked the ground beneath them. Hikari watched in a mixture of awe and terror as Sutaro unleashed his fury on the creature, his every move an explosion of raw, destructive force.
But something began to shift in the air—a creeping cold that threaded its way through the heat of battle. The temperature dropped, the oppressive stillness growing heavier, thicker. Hikari shivered, her heart racing, and then, a voice—low, guttural, and impossibly dark—reverberated through the alley, so chilling it seemed to freeze the very blood in her veins.
“You dare play in my domain?”
The words tore through the tension like a blade, and Sutaro, mid-strike, froze. His eyes narrowed, his expression faltering for the first time since the fight had begun. His flames flickered, hesitated, then roared back to life with renewed fury, but it was clear—the voice had shaken him. Hikari’s breath caught as she watched Sutaro’s gaze snap toward the source of the voice, her own body frozen in terror.
The demon’s arrogant stance crumbled, its confident sneer fading into something raw, something terrified. “No…” it whispered, the tremor in its voice betraying the fear it tried so desperately to suppress. “It can’t be you…”
And then, from the shadows, it appeared. A figure that seemed to materialize from the very darkness itself. The air thickened, swirling, as though the figure itself was draining the light from the alley. Hikari’s stomach churned with dread as she caught sight of its face—familiar, but twisted, an unnatural blend of shadow and flesh that seemed to writhe and shift with every blink. It was a face she recognized, yet it was something entirely different now, something monstrous.
Sutaro’s usual bravado faltered, the flicker of unease crossing his face for the first time. His fists, still burning with purple flame, now looked strangely small, almost insignificant, in comparison to this new presence. His eyes burned with the same defiance as before, but there was a grim resolve that made Hikari’s blood run cold. Whoever—or whatever—this was, it wasn’t something Sutaro could easily face.
The newcomer’s gaze slid over Sutaro, and a cruel smile stretched across their features. “Foolish exorcist,” they purred, the words dripping with disdain. “Did you truly believe you were the hunter in this place?”
The darkness deepened around them, an unnatural chill settling over the alley as the shadows thickened, crowding in on them like a living entity. Hikari’s chest tightened, her breath quick and shallow, the air suddenly too heavy to breathe. The sense of danger was suffocating, pressing in on her from every direction. She could feel her heart racing, panic bubbling up in her throat as the oppressive darkness closed in.
Sutaro turned his head slightly, catching her gaze, and for the briefest moment, their eyes locked. Then, he stepped in front of her, his posture hardening, his voice low and filled with unwavering resolve. “I don’t care who you are,” he growled, his fists raised in defiance. “I’ll protect her, no matter what.”
The figure’s lips curled into a dark, mocking smile, their voice a cold whisper that made Hikari’s skin crawl. “How quaint,” they mused. Then, with a slow, deliberate motion, they raised a hand, fingers curling in an almost casual gesture.
And then, it happened.
The shadows erupted like a tidal wave, surging forward with a force that seemed to twist the very fabric of reality itself. The alleyway was consumed in an instant, swallowed by an inky blackness that seemed to claw at their skin, pulling them into its depths. Hikari’s scream died in her throat as the world around her disintegrated into darkness.
The last thing she saw before the light vanished completely was Sutaro, standing his ground, his eyes blazing with a fierce, unyielding fire, even as the shadows threatened to consume him whole.
And then, there was nothing.
Hikari was left in the suffocating, unrelenting darkness, her breath echoing in her chest, the weight of terror pressing down on her like a vice.
The true horror of the shadows had only just begun.