Tokyo No. 2 Colony. Day one of the Culling Game.

The streets were empty. Cars sat abandoned in the middle of intersections, doors hanging open, windows shattered. The silence was wrong. Not the quiet of nature reclaiming space—this was the silence of something waiting.

Y/N stood at the edge of the dead zone, where the city transitioned from ordinary to cursed. The night air smelled of ozone and old blood.

Somewhere beyond the shops and the gutted train station, a bell chimed. Once. Twice.

Just for a split second.

The star-shaped pupils in Y/N's eyes rotated. Slow. Deliberate. Like they were reading something in him he hadn't even written yet.

Hakari's smile didn't return fully. It hung crooked, uncertain.