Kamon Kai has stopped waiting for death—he simply hasn't gotten there yet. Six months behind on rent, out of pills, and buried beneath the garbage of a life he no longer wants, he exists in a rotting six-mat room in the forgotten corner of Tokyo known as Haigami Ward. Every morning is the same: the stain on the ceiling, the ache of hunger he refuses to answer, the quiet hope that today might finally be the day his heart stops on its own.
Then the ceiling tears open.
A girl falls from nowhere—g
Impurity - An Ominous Shadow and the Value of Death
After work, Kai broke one of his fifteen-thousand-yen daily bills and bought a prepared bento, a sweet juice for Melissa, and the bare minimum of food for himself before heading back to the room.
Melissa sat at the edge of the tatami with the hood of the black parka he'd given her pulled low, quietly sipping from the juice's straw.
"Hey, servant."
She pulled her lips from the straw and murmured softly.
"...What."
"That hand of yours—it's gotten a little darker again."
At her words, Kai looked at his left hand. The skin on the back was drawn tight over old burn scars. Nothing was on it. Just his own flesh.
"You're imagining things."
"I am not. At today's site, you took in Impurity."
Melissa didn't take her eyes off his left hand.
Under the light of her gold and silver eyes, the outline of the scars looked darker than usual. It wasn't that the scars themselves had turned black. But something seemed to be settling deep beneath them.
"When you clean, the Impurity thins. But have you never wondered where the stuff you erase actually goes?"
"...The way you put it, sounds like it's going into me."
"Exactly. You're taking on a portion of the Impurity you purify through your cleaning. The reason my existence can remain here at all is because you purify Impurity. That's why I'm telling you to keep at it."
"Want me to quit if I don't like it? If I stop cleaning, you disappear, right?"
"That's right."
Melissa lifted her chin slightly.
"That's why I'm telling you to continue. 'Where there's a will, there's a way,' isn't that the saying? Stop complaining and apply yourself as my vessel."
(...Whatever.)
Kai spat the thought out internally and flopped down onto the tatami.
The next day.
His second day of work at Misogi Service had arrived. Kiryu Koichi, as always, wasted no words, silently gripping the wheel in the driver's seat of the light van.
"Kamon Kai."
"...What now."
"Today's site is a bit unusual. It's not a request from a landlord—it came in from a certain 'broker.'"
Kai kept his eyes out the window, listening to Kiryu's quiet voice.
"A broker?"
"The kind of accident property that doesn't need disclosure... in other words, the sort who muddy up the fact that someone died, buy the place cheap, and flip it. We get cleanup jobs for those kinds of problem sites from time to time."
Kai looked outside.
At the base of a roadside tree, a thin black stain was spreading. As the car passed, the stain rippled like a wave for just an instant, then returned to its original shape.
"...Shady real estate, huh."
"There are folks in this world who're good at turning death into money. ...You keep your nose out of it, you hear."
Letting Kiryu's warning slide past him, Kai tracked the streets of Haigami Ward through the window. Faint black stains rose from the cracks in the asphalt. The whole city looked like a corpse, slowly rotting.
The car stopped in front of an old mixed-use building tucked deep in the ward.
The site was a second-floor space that had apparently once been an office. Even before climbing the stairs, Kai's skin was prickling with an unpleasant sting.
The Impurity drifting here was different from yesterday's lonely-death site. This wasn't sorrow or resignation. It was malice and terror—and the traces of violence.
"Let's go."
The moment Kiryu opened the door, a lukewarm gust of air rushed out—iron and rot mixed together.
In the center of the room, a black liquid laced with blood had made a huge stain on the floor carpet.
"Stabbing, apparently," Kiryu said shortly. "The police forensics are done, but the blood drain and deodorizing were sloppy. We strip the wallpaper, pull the carpet, and shave down the floor."
"...Got it."
"Double up your masks. Gloves too. Don't use the chemicals until I tell you."
Kai nodded, rolled up his work-suit sleeves, pulled on a second pair of gloves, and pressed down the edges of his mask. The rubber bit into his cheeks, and his breath pooled inside.
He picked up his tools.
A brush. A scraper. Bottles of chemicals.
Kai was staring at the black shadow.
The shadow's outline wavered. It looked like it was screaming something. He shouldn't have been able to hear it, and yet a dull ache throbbed deep in his ears.
"Kamon Kai. Wallpaper first."
At Kiryu's instruction, Kai moved.
He reached out and slid the scraper under the edge of the wallpaper. The thin paper peeled away with a wet rip. On the underside, a red-black stain spread wide.
He gathered the wallpaper and bagged it. He cut the floor carpet into sections, peeling away the stained parts.
Kiryu was already preparing the next step with practiced hands. Checking chemical concentrations, lining up the necessary tools in order. Few words, but not a single motion was hesitant.
Kai applied the chemical to the stain left on the floor.
"Don't scrub yet. Wait for it to soak in."
At Kiryu's words, Kai stopped with the brush still in hand.
The smell of the chemical crept inside his mask. It mixed with the iron stench and stung the back of his throat.
The black shadow writhed atop the floor stain.
(Disappear.)
He waited for the chemical to seep in.
(Disappear...)
Kiryu nodded.
Kai pressed the brush to the floor.
Scrub.
Once, twice.
The sound of stiff bristles scraping the floor beneath the carpet.
With each pass, the black shadow's shape crumbled.
Kai put strength into his arms. He worked the brush. Added more chemical, wiped away the grime. Following Kiryu's directions, he changed the spots he scrubbed and the tools he used.
The more he threw himself into the work, the further the unnecessary sounds receded.
The hint of rain, Kiryu's footsteps, the cars running outside—all of it vanished.
In his vision, only the black stain and the writhing shadow remained.
He immersed himself in the work. His consciousness went white, every nerve focused solely on erasing the black mass before him.
(Disappear... disappear... let me clean...)
The black shadow let out a shrill scream.
Not a sound heard through the ears. A voice that rang directly in the back of his skull.
With every stroke of the brush, the shadow thinned.
In its place, something heavy dropped into the depths of Kai's chest.
The murdered man's final hatred.
The terror of being unable to escape.
The despair of hating his killer while being able to do nothing but hate.
They pooled at the bottom of his stomach.
Kai's hand stopped for a moment.
"—Hoh. Every bit as skilled as the rumors say, Kiryu-san."
From behind him came a low, rasping voice—and yet it clung to the ear strangely.
Kai glanced back. A man stood in the office doorway.
Tall. Must have been over six feet. Gaunt, as if the flesh had been carved away, like a black stake. A white leather glove showed from the sleeve of his long black coat. Beneath short-cropped black hair, narrow, sharply slanted black eyes looked down at Kai as if appraising him.
Kabuse Mamoru.
The man entered the room without a sound, a thin smile on his dark-skinned face. At his chest, a worn old leather wallet that looked like a police badge case peeked out.
"Introduce me, Kiryu-san. This young, spirited newcomer of yours."
"...Kabuse."
Kiryu's tone hardened, just slightly.
"This is Kamon Kai. Our new hire. If you've got no business here, leave. You're in the way of our work."
"Cold, aren't you. I'm the legitimate broker who requested the handling of this property, you know?"
Kabuse paid Kiryu's words no mind and slowly closed the distance toward Kai.
The fingertip of his leather glove touched Kai's shoulder.
The next instant—Kai's vision warped sickeningly.
(...What the hell is this guy...?)
From around Kabuse's body seeped an Impurity denser than anywhere else in the city—a pitch-black, viscous ooze. It wasn't the Impurity of the dead. It was the "poison" of a living man—a man who had lived by devouring others as his prey.
Kabuse brought his face close to Kai's, peering deep into his eyes with black irises that reflected no light.
"You... you can see it, can't you?"
"...See what."
Kai kept his voice low and glared back, making no effort to hide his disgust.
"No need to play dumb."
Kabuse's hand seized Kai's arm with brutal strength. A pressure that made the bones creak. Even if he tried to flee, the man had complete control of the distance between them. That violent way of moving told him the former-cop title was no decoration.
"The grudges of the dead, the filth of the room, I don't care what you call it... what you're wiping away isn't just blood and bodily fluids. It's this room's 'creepiness' itself. Wherever you touch, the nasty presence fades."
Kabuse's mouth twisted up like a warped crescent moon.
"Marvelous talent. It's a waste, you being used at Misogi Service's pitiful wages. How about working under me? Purifying 'accident properties' that still carry disclosure obligations, dressing them up as though nothing ever happened... it's a business where hundreds of millions change hands."
"...I refuse."
Kai spat it out coldly.
"Hoh?"
"I just... want to clean. I've got no intention of playing along with the money games of a rotten human being like you."
Kabuse's eyes took on a ruthless glint in an instant. The pain in Kai's seized arm intensified.
"Feisty, aren't you, boy. But listen—those who don't know their own worth get used up and die fast. ...Just like that burn on your left hand."
Kabuse's gaze dropped to Kai's left hand.
"...Let go."
From Kai's throat leaked a low, rumbling voice unlike any he'd ever produced. His sharp cleaning-work eyes pierced through Kabuse's black irises.
A hair-trigger tension ran between the two of them.
"That's enough, Kabuse."
Kiryu cut in with a quiet but weighty voice. In his hand he gripped a large crowbar.
"Keep your hands off my young one. The work won't get done. Get out."
Kabuse glared at Kai for a while, but eventually a "kuku" chuckle rose in his throat, and he slowly released his grip.
"My apologies, Kiryu-san. ...Kamon Kai, was it. We'll meet again. Sooner or later, you'll come to me."
Kabuse spun his black coat around and left the room without a sound.
As he went, the thick stench of Impurity he left behind sent Kai into a violent fit of coughing.
"You all right, Kamon Kai?" Kiryu said.
"...Yeah. What a sickening bastard."
"Don't get involved with him. He was a detective in the organized crime division once. After he got canned over a scandal, he's been running a business behind the scenes, making accident properties disappear. ...A man who sees people as nothing but money."
Kai rubbed his arm, glaring at the afterimage of the man who'd left.
Deep in his chest, the Impurity he'd inhaled and his fierce hostility toward Kabuse mixed and churned in a black vortex.
That evening.
When he returned to the apartment after finishing work, there was a familiar figure in front of the stairs at Corp Haigami.
Hiyama Sumire.
Still in her care-worker tracksuit, she was leaning against the handrail with a sigh, but when she noticed Kai's footsteps, she jerked her head up.
"Ah... Kai-kun!"
Sumire hurriedly straightened up, but her face showed a fatigue she couldn't hide. There were faint dark circles around her slightly drooping eyes.
"...What're you doing."
When Kai spoke in a low voice, Sumire squeezed both hands together in front of her chest. It was a habit of hers.
"N-nothing, really! Just... a lot happened at work, that's all. ...Um, Kai-kun, did you go to work again today?"
"...Yeah."
"I see. Good... Did you eat your bento properly?"
"I ate it."
"...Then that's fine."
Sumire flashed a quick grin that showed her snaggletooth, but the smile was somehow painful to look at. Something hard must have happened at her home-visit care site. Her nature—unable to keep from sticking her nose into other people's troubles and misfortunes—was clearly wearing her down.
"...You're the one who looks pale."
When Kai muttered it with a touch of sarcasm, Sumire's eyes went wide
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