For a second, there was only silence.
Then—a soft, trembling sound.
A siren.
Still functioning. Still wailing from deeper in the building. Emergency lights flickered red through the dust-filled haze.
And then—
A child's cry.
Thin. Fragile. Terrified.
Ren blinked through the searing blur of pain and blood in his eyes. He tried to move—his arms wouldn't respond. His fingers twitched against the broken floorboards. Breathing hurt. Everything hurt.
The cry came again. Closer now.
He turned his head slowly.
There, half-buried beneath a fallen table, was a small girl. No older than six. Dirt streaked her face. Her hands trembled as she clutched a stuffed rabbit close to her chest. Her eyes locked on Ren's, wide with fear.
And then the shadows in the doorway shifted.
Trickstarr stepped inside, boots crunching against shattered glass and wood. His cloak of embered cards still shimmered like dying starlight, casting flickering shapes against the ruined walls.
"Everything," Trickstarr said softly, "is going to disappear."
And then it began.
A low hum.
A pulse of wrongness.
Ren felt it before he saw it—the air changing, thickening with invisible pressure. Outside, in the far distance, the corrupted Tree at the heart of Shibuya Sky pulsed again. Its influence spread like a stain through the city's Essence field.
And even here—blocks away—the effect was undeniable.
The child gasped, clutching her rabbit tighter. Her breathing turned sharp, shallow.
Then her skin began to shimmer.
"…Nn—no…" Ren rasped. His voice was barely there—more breath than sound, shredded by pain and blood. "P…please…"
He could barely raise his head. Every muscle in his body screamed. His lungs burned. But his eyes—his eyes stayed fixed on her.
The girl whimpered, clutching her rabbit tighter—but it began to smoke in her grip. Essence surged violently beneath her skin. Glowing cracks split across her small arms like fault lines. Her pupils dissolved into flickering light. Her body seized once—then again—as something monstrous clawed its way to the surface of her soul.
Trickstarr knelt beside Ren, unaffected, immaculate. Calm. Patient.
"She never had a chance," he said softly. "Just like your mother. Just like your father."
Ren's body trembled. His fingers, bloody and splintered, dug into the broken floor.
He couldn't look away.
"And now?" Trickstarr continued, voice a whisper laced with venom. "You get to watch her become a monster."
The girl screamed.
The sound was sharp, jagged—unnatural. Her jaw cracked and stretched, distorting into a shape no human should wear. Tiny fingers gnarled into claws. Her skin split at the seams. Veins pulsed with red-black corruption, writhing like worms beneath the surface. Bones snapped. Wings began to tear their way free from her back.
"No—stop—" Ren choked out. The words tore from his throat, dry and broken. "She's… just a kid…"
He reached out, dragging himself forward inches at a time, leaving a smear of blood behind him.
Then Trickstarr's hand pressed down between his shoulder blades.
The pressure was effortless. Crushing.
"You fail everyone," Trickstarr whispered.
Ren's breath hitched. His vision blurred with tears—hot, heavy, searing down his cheeks.
The child—no longer a child—shrieked again. Her feet lifted from the ground, limbs contorted. Her eyes glowed brighter now, pulsing with unstable Essence. Her rabbit doll fell to the floor and instantly incinerated.
And then others around them began to change.
From deeper in the building, more cries echoed. Groans. Screams. Doors slammed. Walls cracked.
The Tree's influence had reached them too.
A woman stumbled from a nearby room, clutching her stomach. Her skin bubbled, her hair fell away in clumps. She collapsed as her spine twisted, and when she rose, her eyes were wrong.
Another man screamed as his arms turned to claws mid-reach.
It was spreading. Fast.
The monstrous child lunged toward Ren—mouth wide, claws raised, eyes glowing with ravenous hunger.
And Ren—shaking, bleeding, throat torn raw—reached instinctively for his blade.
But it wasn't there.
His right arm wasn't there either.
Just a torn, blood-crusted stump at the shoulder, cauterized at the edge, twitching uselessly. The realization hit him like another punch—he hadn't even processed the loss until now.
His breath stuttered.
His vision blurred again—grief and pain and exhaustion crowding him like a noose tightening around his skull.
But the monster that had been the little girl was lunging again.
No time.
Ren rolled sideways, gritting his teeth through the agony as he pushed himself up on one knee. His one remaining arm—his left—swept low and caught a broken steel rebar jutting from the rubble. Crude. Heavy. But sharp.
It would have to do.
He turned and drove it upward.
The bar pierced the creature's chest clean through. Black blood sprayed across his face. The monster shrieked, thrashing in midair—its claws raking the ceiling as it began to disintegrate from the core out.
A moment later, all that remained was ash.
Ren collapsed back, panting, the metal bar clattering from his grip.
From across the cracked floor, Trickstarr stood now—taller than before, his silhouette lengthening, shifting. A crown of glowing, jagged cards now hovered around his head, rotating like a corrupted halo. Red and black. Ember and void.
His grin stretched impossibly wide, a rictus of madness.
"Yes…" Trickstarr hissed. "Yes. That's it."
Ren didn't move.
Didn't speak.
He just stared at the small pile of ash where the girl had been.
His teeth clenched.
His body trembled.
Tears still streamed down his face, hot and silent, but something had changed.
Something had shifted in the center of his chest.
Not grief.
Not horror.
Not anymore.
A slow, steady burn began to rise—deeper than rage, sharper than despair.
"This… is what Trickstarr wants."
"To break me."
Ren exhaled once, slow and deliberate, letting the pain pool around him.
And then he let it go.
He emptied himself of fear, of grief, of guilt. He let it all burn down to a single blade's edge of focus—sharp, precise, cold.
But not calm.
"If I'm going to end this, I need to think properly before fighting him."
He looked up at Trickstarr. The cards shimmered behind him—familiar patterns now, burnt into memory from every exchange, every dodge, every loss.
"His essence ability includes a deck of cards. Black for defense. Red for offence. Spades, diamonds, hearts and clubs—each have different attacks."
"Aces are burst techniques. Freeze-frame shields and cleaving finishers."
"Jacks trigger monster transformations—Diamond and Club are already spent. Queens are realms related."
"Joker is active now. His transformation."
"That leaves the two remaining Jacks… and the Kings and the regular cards."
His gaze flicked to the spinning crown of cards. He couldn't tell which ones remained unspent—but he'd seen enough. Trickstarr wasn't invincible.
He was just... ahead.
And now he was running out of tools.
But Ren had one problem.
"I suck with fists."
He glanced down at his severed right side—just a ragged stub. His dominant arm. His blade-hand.
He grimaced. "I need to get him away from here. And I need my sword back."
Trickstarr cocked his head. "No comeback speech? I'm almost disappointed." He took a slow step forward, cards rippling behind him like dragonfly wings.
Ren didn't answer.
He moved.
A blur—his body surging forward with all the Essence he could channel in one burst. Not toward Trickstarr—
Past him.
Straight out through the wall behind.
The shockwave shattered stone and steel, debris raining down behind him. Dust exploded outward. Trickstarr blinked once.
Then grinned.
And followed.
The ground tore open beneath him as Trickstarr launched after Ren, a crimson blur lined with spiraling cards. With a sharp twist of his wrist, he flung his arm outward.
"You cannot run, Ren Kurose!"
A barrage of diamond-shaped slashes exploded from his sleeve—razor-thin cards whirling like shrapnel—slicing through buildings, vehicles, even the unlucky figures still caught in the street.
The street erupted in chaos. Civilians screamed and scattered—those who hadn't already turned into snarling, twisted monsters.
Ren gritted his teeth and ducked around a corner, legs burning, every nerve alight. His eyes scanned frantically—this alleyway's empty, turn left here, that building already evacuated—
He zigzagged through Tokyo's wreckage like a blade cutting air.
And behind him, Trickstarr followed—gleeful, relentless, theatrical chaos in human form.
Elsewhere in Shibuya—two blocks from the chaos—
The ground vibrated to a rhythm not its own.
A beat pulsed through the ruined street, erratic yet hypnotic. Lights flickered in time. Debris shifted to the tempo.
And in the middle of it all stood him—the Dancer.
He was a silhouette of fluid motion—jacket flaring behind him like wings, boots tapping with metronome precision as shockwaves bloomed from every step. His silver earrings sparkled in the dusk light, matching the glint of confidence in his eyes.
"Ohhh, come on now~" he crooned, striking a spin mid-air before landing on one foot and sliding into a smooth moonwalk. "Don't tell me that's all, Miss Yue? We just started our duet."
Jingli Yue exhaled, slow. Controlled. Her coat fluttered around her like ink in water, white hair slightly scorched at the tips. A thin line of blood trickled from her mouth. Her left arm trembled from the last impact, but her expression was unreadable.
"You're annoying," she said flatly.
"Oooh, cold~!" The Dancer pirouetted with a grin, then stomped down—sending another concussive shockwave rippling toward her. "That's alright. I warm up quick."
Jingli slid back from the force, boots skidding across glass and stone. Her armonia pulsed once—a soft, harmonic glow from the curved ruan strapped across her back. She caught herself mid-slide, eyes narrowing. No wasted motion.
Then—
An explosion tore through the sky behind them.
Both combatants paused. The earth shook. A building three blocks down erupted in flame and dust—shards of concrete spiraling upward like confetti.
The Dancer looked past her. "Ahhh... looks like your boy's in trouble."
The mask cracked.
"So will you."
The flatness in her voice shattered—like glass beneath a hammer.
Something changed.
A grin—small, twitching—curled up one side of Jingli's face. Her pupils dilated, breath growing shallow and fast. She let out a short laugh. Then another. A breathless, broken giggle that didn't stop.
"Ohhh, you have no idea how long I've been holding back," she said, her voice rising into a singsong pitch. "But it's fine now. It's all fine now. I can break you. Piece by piece. Chord by chord."
Her fingers curled around the ruan's neck.
"After I'm done killing you, I'll turn your screams into a remix. You like music, right? Let's make something beautiful."
The ruan sang.
A single pluck—and the air bent.
The ruined city warped, shimmered—light twisting at unnatural angles. Reflections danced where none should be. Buildings fragmented, multiplied. The Dancer's rhythm faltered.
"What—?" He stumbled, turning in tight circles, arms up defensively. Dozens of Jinglis shimmered around him, some mid-stride, others grinning, twitching, flickering like glitching holograms. Their movements were unsynced, chaotic, wrong.
"Okay, okay…" he muttered, swallowing. "This is new. Creepy, too. Kinda hot, but mostly creepy."
From behind him—
The real Jingli launched forward, ruan raised like a scythe. Its string hummed with a resonance so sharp it cut the air itself.
WHAM—
She struck.
Sound and steel crashed together in one brutal note.
The Dancer barely spun in time—his heel stomped hard, sending out a concussive echo-shield that clashed against her strike. The force cracked the street beneath them.
He was launched backward—skidding across the asphalt, slamming into a flipped car with a metallic crunch.
"Ahhh—goddamn!" he coughed, rolling to his feet, clutching his ribs. "Okay. Okay, that one hurt. You're really feeling yourself now, huh, psycho chick?"
Jingli advanced with a staggering, lilting gait—almost like she was drunk on fury.
"I'll play your bones like strings," she hissed, teeth bared, giggling again. "I'll make the whole city dance on your grave."
The Dancer straightened, shaking his arms loose, boots tapping the cracked pavement. A tempo. A comeback.
"Heh… alright. One crazy duet, huh?"
He snapped his fingers once—
The air rippled.
Beats dropped around him like rain.
He lunged.
She screamed—a note turned weapon—and met him in mid-air.
Steel strings met echo kicks.
Melody met rhythm.
Clash after clash, explosion after explosion.
Their battle became a storm—
And the city shook to their war song.