Under twin moons, this city hides a thirst no one else can see.
Kuyou has always been different. Since he was seven, he's needed a strange drink just to function—without it, his throat burns with an unbearable thirst he can't explain. A faded cloth band on his wrist that he can never remove. Streetlamps that sway with no wind. Canal water tinged red with something like blood. Fish made of iron, swimming unseen beneath the surface.
To everyone else in Noxveil, none of this exists. His classmate
City of the Twin Moons - Abyss of exudate—bare patterns and a small sinking body heat
Something was calling from the bottom of the water.
Kuyou ran. Full speed along the central canal in the dead of night. His lungs burned. The back of his throat was parched, as if it were being torn apart. But his feet wouldn't stop.
Hakubo's warning echoed in a corner of his mind.
*Now is not the time to go there.*
(I know.)
And yet, there was a reason he had to go—down in that underground place.
The swaying lamp drifted slowly, as if pointing the way. A grotesque fusion of streetlight and the Sleeper's tentacle. Its light, visible only to Resonants, flickered violently tonight, like something convulsing. In the canal, schools of iron fish streamed in the direction Kuyou was running, leaving silver streaks in the water.
"...You lot too, huh. Telling me to go."
No answer. Only the sound of water and the wind, trembling through the night air.
Kuyou gripped the band on his left wrist. Beneath the faded cloth, the pattern pulsed with heat. He'd left the paper carton at his apartment. The iron-fortified red liquid that had soothed his thirst for seventeen years. He'd let it go for the first time by his own will.
(Thirst calls the resonance.)
Hakubo's words clung to his mind and wouldn't let go. Resonance—the ability to synchronize with the Sleeper. Every time he used it, his humanity was shaved away.
(Even so, I need this power now.)
Kiriha was there alone.
The ruins of the Old Sixth Water Treatment Plant. The base of the Phosphor Fire cult. The place closest to the Sleeper's heart chamber.
"Hang on, Kiriha."
His voice mixed with his running breath and dissolved into the darkness of the night.
---
The fence loomed before him.
The ruins of the Old Sixth Water Treatment Plant. Seven kilometers northwest of the city center. A restricted zone. Crumbling concrete debris and rusted pipes cast eerie shadows under the pale blue light of the twin moons.
The entrance to the underground gaped open.
A foul stench drifted from within. Iron, decay, and something more primal—the smell of raw flesh.
Kuyou vaulted the fence.
The impact of his landing sent gravel scattering.
That was when it happened.
The air changed.
His throat burned.
"...Gh—!"
Kuyou dropped to his knees on the spot. From the back of his throat, from the pit of his stomach, something surged upward. The air was saturated with something invisible. The Sleeper's exudate. The raw, undiluted stench of the very liquid the Water Quality Management Bureau neutralized twelve tons of every day.
(This is bad.)
His mind understood. His body wouldn't obey.
The band on his left wrist swelled from within.
The cloth creaked and groaned.
For seventeen years, he had never once removed that faded strip of cloth. Now, independent of his will, something was pushing it up from inside.
"Stop... don't..."
Kuyou pressed down on his left wrist with his right hand.
Beneath the cloth, the pattern burned like fire.
*Rrrip.*
A sound.
The cloth tore.
"A—Ahh..."
Before Kuyou's eyes, the cloth that had been part of him for seventeen years fluttered to the ground.
His exposed left wrist.
There, a complex pattern the color of rusted iron rose to the surface of his skin. The mark of a Resonant—something he had only ever seen in Hakubo's records. Now it pulsed on his own arm, glowing a dark, bloody red.
(This isn't mine.)
The thought came by instinct.
This pattern had been there long before he was born. Long before he was ever *himself*.
In that instant, the ground beneath his feet shook.
No—not the ground. From the bottom of the canal, something was flowing directly into Kuyou's body.
"Guh—Aaaagh!"
His vision stained dark red.
Countless voices avalanched into his mind. Voices without meaning, yet carrying clear intent. Like prayers. Like screams. Like lullabies. Like curses. They surged like a tsunami, sweeping Kuyou's consciousness away.
(My body isn't mine anymore.)
Terror shot through every limb.
The sensation in his hands and feet felt distant. He couldn't tell if his fingers were moving by his own will or being moved by something else.
"...Someone..."
A voiceless voice leaked from his throat.
---
"...Hoh."
A low voice came from deep in the darkness.
Kuyou raised his head.
A man in a gray waterproof coat stood at the entrance to the underground. An ageless, pallid face. The first man to ever hear the Sleeper's voice. The de facto leader of the Phosphor Fire cult—Kaitou.
"You've come. The finished product."
Kaitou approached Kuyou slowly. His footsteps made a wet sound, as if he were treading through water.
"...So you're Kaitou."
Still on his knees, Kuyou glared at him.
"That's right. I've been waiting for you."
Kaitou stopped directly in front of Kuyou.
"Seventeen years ago, you were sunk into this canal."
Kaitou's finger pointed to the canal at their feet. Black, murky water flowed slowly.
"As a ritual sacrifice. But the Sleeper did not devour you. It returned you—as a Resonant."
In Kuyou's mind, Hakubo's records flashed back. The record of an abandoned child found in the central canal seventeen years ago. A faded cloth band wrapped around a small left wrist.
(So that was... the mark of a sacrifice.)
"In other words, you were never human to begin with."
Kaitou's voice was flat. A cold voice that merely stated facts.
"The Sleeper chose you. You have lived in this city for seventeen years as that one's terminal."
Kuyou looked at the pattern on his left wrist.
The dark red light pulsed.
"...You're lying."
His voice trembled.
"I am not. Your body is proof enough."
Kaitou stared fixedly at Kuyou's left wrist.
"Your resonance level will reach 3 soon. Your humanity is being devoured by that one. Your emotions, your memories—eventually, all of it."
Kuyou bit his lip. He tasted blood.
(Am I... not human?)
For seventeen years, he had believed he was himself. That foundation was crumbling with a sound.
"And you are the finished product."
Kaitou took a step closer.
"If you are sunk, the Sleeper will awaken. This city will be reborn as a new metropolis."
Kaitou's hand seized Kuyou's left arm.
Fingers cold as ice.
"...Let go."
Kuyou tried to shake his arm free. But his body wouldn't muster any strength. The exudate had sent his resonance ability out of control, and he couldn't move freely.
"Do not resist. That is the only meaning your existence holds."
Kaitou began dragging Kuyou's arm toward the canal.
(Was I born just to be this man's tool?)
Despair sank heavily into the depths of his chest.
His very reason for existing was the enemy's instrument. That realization crushed Kuyou's heart without mercy.
"Come now. Return. To that one's side."
The edge of the canal loomed close.
The black water waited for Kuyou.
---
That was when it happened.
At the bottom of the canal, something glimmered.
A small, silver light.
Kuyou's eyes caught it clearly.
It wasn't the scale of an iron fish. Something far, far stronger.
(Kiriha?)
Kuyou stared into the depths of the canal.
Far beneath the black, murky water.
Long, silver-gray hair swayed gently.
It was Kiriha.
Her right arm was broken. The rusted pattern on her neck had been savagely trampled, blood seeping from it. She had lost consciousness and was sinking to the bottom of the water.
"...Kiriha!"
Kuyou wrenched his arm free from Kaitou's grip with all his strength.
"What are you doing?"
Kaitou reached to grab him again.
Kuyou pointed his right hand at the canal water.
(Please—move.)
He deliberately directed his rampaging resonance ability into the water.
The canal water heaved.
A whirlpool formed.
"Rise, Kiriha!"
As if answering Kuyou's cry, the canal water churned backward.
A massive vortex erupted in the water, pushing Kiriha's body up toward the surface.
*Splash!*
Water sprayed, and Kiriha's small body floated to the surface.
Kuyou caught her in both arms.
Cold. Ice cold.
"Kiriha—hey, Kiriha!"
Kuyou slapped her cheek again and again.
No response.
No sound of breathing.
"It's useless. That terminal is already finished."
Kaitou's voice came from behind.
"You too—go quietly back to the sinking pit."
Still holding Kiriha, Kuyou turned to face him.
In that instant, something happened to Kuyou's right eye.
His vision clouded gray.
Color drained away.
From the world, red, blue, yellow—every color was being sucked out.
"...Wh—What?"
Kuyou pressed a hand to his right eye.
For several seconds, his vision was completely gray.
(My humanity was shaved away.)
Hakubo's words pierced Kuyou's body as reality. The flattening of emotion. The loss of memory. The rising resonance level was certainly stealing something from him.
(What did I lose?)
A shudder crawled up his spine.
But there was no time to stand still.
Kuyou adjusted his hold on Kiriha and broke into a run.
"You think you can escape."
Kaitou's voice pursued him.
Kuyou didn't look back. He sprinted at full speed toward the exit of the treatment plant ruins.
---
How far had he run?
Before he knew it, Kuyou was in the ruins along the central canal.
The bottom of the old waterway. A place where he'd shaken off his pursuers. Crumbling concrete walls blocked the light of the twin moons, leaving the area dim.
Still holding Kiriha, Kuyou collapsed.
"...Kiriha."
He laid her body on the ground.
Her broken right arm bent at an unnatural angle. Blood still seeped from the pattern on her neck.
"Why... why did you go alone?"
His voice was hoarse.
Tears spilled over.
He couldn't stop them.
The fact that he might not be human. The terror of his humanity being shaved away. And the guilt—that Kiriha had been hurt because of him.
All of it swept through Kuyou's heart at once.
"...Damn it, damn it, damn it!"
Kuyou slammed his fist into the ground.
Concrete fragments split the skin of his knuckles, blood seeping through.
The pain, conversely, pulled him back to reality.
(No time to cry.)
Kuyou peered into Kiriha's face.
"...Kiriha. Are you alive?"
He held a finger beneath her nose.
No breath.
But the pattern on her neck pulsed faintly.
"...She's alive."
Kuyou let out a breath of relief.
That was when it happened.
Kiriha's finger moved faintly.
"...No."
A small, hoarse voice.
Kuyou stared at her face.
Kiriha's blood-red eyes opened thinly.
"...No."
She said it again.
It was a word of rejection—for Kuyou having saved her.
"...Because of me... you..."
Her voice trembled.
"...Your eye. It's gone gray."
Kiriha stared at Kuyou's right eye.
(She saw it.)
Kuyou gripped her hand.
"...I did it on my own."
His voice was gentler than even he expected.
"It's not something you should blame yourself for."
"...But."
Kiriha squeezed his hand back.
With her unbroken hand, she gripped his fingers tightly.
"...I wanted to protect you."
A single tear spilled from her eye.
The cold drop fell onto the back of Kuyou's hand.
"...And yet, I hurt you again."
Kuyou didn't let go of her hand.
Her fingers clung to his arm.
Contradicting her words of rejection.
"...You're not letting go, are you."
Kuyou smiled wryly.
"...I won't let go."
Kiriha pressed her face against his arm.
"...I don't want to let go."
The small voice pierced deep into Kuyou's chest.
Kuyou held her close.
A cold body. But somehow, that coldness felt good now.
"...I won't let go either."
Kuyou buried his face in her hair.
The silver-gray strands smelled of water.
---
Kuyou looked at his right hand.
It was trembling faintly.
The aftereffect of resonance level 3. The flattening of emotion was eroding Kuyou's body as a tangible reality.
(Not funny.)
Kuyou's mouth twisted.
Just moments ago, his emotions had overflowed so violently. Now, the depths of his heart felt dull, as if covered by a thin film.
(Anger, sadness—they're fading.)
Kuyou observed his own changes as if they belonged to someone else.
(Am I going to stop being human, just like this?)
Terror smoldered quietly but certainly at the bottom of his heart.
"...Kuyou."
Kiriha wrapped he
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