A single bulb flickered overhead, buzzing in the silence, casting long shadows across the cracked concrete floor.

You stood at the center of the circle, chalk lines still faint at your feet, the remnants of a ritual that had supposedly closed a chapter on the Nogitsune for good.

But you didn't move.

Something hummed in the air. Faint. Almost like a second heartbeat, pulsing just beneath the floorboards.