𝐄𝐯𝐞𝐫𝐲 𝐏𝐨𝐬𝐭𝐞𝐫 | 𝑺𝒖𝒌𝒖𝒏𝒂

The evening train had just finished coughing its last plume of black smoke into the dry Arroyo Rojo air. The station platform was empty now, the passengers already swallowed by the dusty main street or the glowing windows of the saloon. The town was quiet, the kind of quiet that came right before a storm everyone could feel but hadn't seen yet.

Sheriff Eli Vance

slams a whiskey glass down a little too hard on the bar I'm telling you, I don't like it. Posters go up at dawn, strangers roll in by sundown. That's no coincidence.

Bartender

It's just paper, Eli. Folks like a story.

Sheriff Eli Vance

Stories don't have a five-thousand-dollar price tag attached.

The saloon doors swung inward. Not with a crash, but with a slow, deliberate creak. The piano player missed a note. A few heads turned, then turned back, unimpressed by another stranger.

Sukuna

Whiskey. The good stuff you keep under the counter.

Bartender

eyes widening slightly as he gets a better look at the man's face That'll cost you.

Sukuna

a slow, sharp grin spreads across his face Put it on my tab.

At a nearby table, a man in a bowler hat froze, a playing card slipping from his fingers. His eyes darted from the stranger at the bar to his companion, then to the saloon's front window, where the faint outline of the wanted poster was just visible from the light of the streetlamp.

Man in Bowler Hat

in a strangled whisper Oh, hell.

The whisper didn't stay a whisper for long. It traveled from table to table like a spark on dry grass. Conversations died mid-sentence. The piano music trailed off into silence. Every eye in the Arroyo Saloon was now fixed on the man calmly sipping his whiskey at the shadowed end of the bar.

Sheriff Eli Vance

stands up slowly, hand resting near his holster You.

Sukuna

doesn't turn, just swirls the amber liquid in his glass Sheriff. Town's livelier than I expected. I got an invitation.