Restart in Pieces

The paperwork says the soul is persistent.

Not hostile. Not malignant. Just—persistent, a word the system uses when it does not know how else to classify refusal.

Jesse reads the report twice, then a third time, lips pressing together.

SOUL DESYNCHRONIZATION — NON-TERMINAL
BODY STATUS: CRITICAL
RECOMMENDATION: OBSERVE. DO NOT FORCE.

The file is flagged non-terminal, which means the soul is still legally bound to a living body and therefore outside retrieval jurisdiction.

“That’s new,” he says.

Across the desk, Kouchi does not look up.

“It isn’t,” he replies mildly. “It’s just rare.”

Jesse squints at him. “You say that like you’ve seen it before.”

“I have,” Kouchi says. He closes the file, careful, precise. “It doesn’t end the way people expect.”

The Summons Division does not resemble hell.

That is its first cruelty.

The halls are bright, the ceilings high, windows opening onto an eternal spring that never progresses beyond gentle bloom. Cherry blossoms drift past glass that never opens, time marked only by the clocks mounted at regular intervals along the walls. Every sector runs on schedules. Every death has a place in line.

Shinigami are not angels.

They are selected.

Souls with ties too deep to sever cleanly, regrets that anchor them between worlds. The system refines them, assigns them colors, binds them to rules meant to prevent longing from becoming corruption.

No one works alone.

Partnerships are mandatory. Supervision constant. Deviations documented.

Jesse is still getting used to that part.

Freshly dead does not mean unmarked. It only means the marks are new.

He wears Red easily—too easily, according to Shintaro, who watches him the way scientists watch volatile compounds. Red means action, disruption, emotional proximity. It also means restraint must be learned, not assumed.

Kouchi is Yellow.

Yellow looks harmless on paper.

Stabilization. Mediation. Endurance.

Yellow Shinigami are the ones assigned to cases that linger. To souls that do not escalate but do not release, and to situations the system prefers to outlast rather than resolve.

Kouchi has been Yellow for longer than Jesse has been dead.

It shows.

The building waits. That is the first thing Jesse notices when they step inside.

Not abandoned—paused. Dust coats the floor in a thin, careful layer, undisturbed by footprints. Chandeliers hang intact, crystals dulled but unbroken. At the far end of the room, a gramophone turns slowly, needle resting against a worn record.

A waltz plays. Soft. Unfinished.

The soul stands at the center of the floor.

They look whole at first glance. Solid. Present. Only when Jesse lets himself feel does he sense the strain—the thread pulled too thin between soul and body, stretched by stubborn insistence.

The man’s posture gives him away before anything else does. Upright to the point of defiance. Weight balanced precisely over the balls of his feet, as though still listening for a cue only he can hear. Even standing still, he holds himself like someone trained never to waste movement.

“You’re early,” the soul says.

Jesse blinks. “We are?”

“You’re not supposed to come yet.” A faint smile curves his mouth—professional, practiced. “But you always do.”

Kouchi steps forward, hands visible, posture unthreatening.

“We’re not here to take you,” he says gently.

The soul laughs. It’s not unkind. “That’s what you said last time.”

Jesse stiffens. “Last—?”

Kouchi shakes his head slightly, a quiet signal. Later.

The music skips.

The soul presses a hand to his chest, breath hitching—not pain, exactly, but effort. The movement is unconscious, muscle memory asserting itself even as the body protests.

“The body’s tired,” Jesse says before he can stop himself.

The soul’s gaze snaps to him, sharp and offended. “It’s not finished.”

“I know,” Kouchi says. “Neither are you.”

Silence settles, thick and waiting.

Then Kouchi extends his hand.

“May I?”

The soul hesitates. His fingers tremble—not fear. Strain. The kind that comes from pushing past limits long after the body has started to keep count.

“If I stop,” he whispers, voice barely carrying over the music, “I don’t think I’ll start again.”

Kouchi meets his eyes. “You won’t stop,” he says. “Not yet.”

The soul exhales, something tight loosening just enough to allow movement.

He takes Kouchi’s hand.

They dance.

The steps are small and careful, barely moving across the floor, but the precision is unmistakable. Even restrained, even half-held together by will alone, the soul moves like someone who has spent a lifetime translating feeling into motion. Kouchi adjusts without thinking, matching breath to breath, letting him lean when he needs to, never leading so much as listening.

Jesse watches from the edge, chest tight, as the strain eases—not gone, but shared.

“I died here,” the soul says quietly, eyes unfocused. “Once.”

Jesse’s breath catches.

“They brought me back,” the soul continues. “Said it was a miracle. Said it wouldn’t last.” A soft, rueful huff of laughter. “So I stayed. I thought… if the music didn’t end, neither would I.”

The waltz falters.

“You don’t have to decide tonight,” Kouchi says.

The soul smiles, tired and knowing. “You always say that.”

The needle lifts.

The music ends.

The soul remains standing long after the music stops.

He doesn’t sit. Doesn’t sag.

Waiting, still.

“…He’s late,” Sugiki says eventually, eyes fixed on the empty doorway. “He always is.”

Jesse’s chest tightens.

Kouchi doesn’t speak right away.

“Did he come through here?” Sugiki asks. The question is careful. Controlled. “After me.”

Jesse inhales sharply—instinct screaming to answer, to fix, to say something definitive.

Kouchi lifts a hand, subtle. A reminder of rules Jesse doesn’t fully know yet.

But he doesn’t stop him completely.

Kouchi meets Sugiki’s gaze.

“There are some paths,” he says slowly, “that don’t cross again.”

Sugiki’s fingers curl.

“…So he didn’t wait,” Sugiki says.

Kouchi doesn’t say yes.

He doesn’t say no.

“He wasn’t meant to,” Kouchi says instead.

The words land like a controlled fall—not a push, not a lie.

Sugiki closes his eyes.

For a moment, Jesse thinks he’s going to break.

Instead, Sugiki exhales—long, shaking, exhausted.

“…That figures,” he murmurs. “He was always like that. Moving ahead. Dragging me with him.”

A beat.

“We promised,” Sugiki says quietly. “Ten dances. Together. We were going to win.”

Jesse swallows. “You still danced.”

Sugiki smiles faintly, and it’s devastating.

“Yes,” he says. “I did.”

The ballroom feels different now.

Not empty.

Finished.

Sugiki straightens—posture settling into something no longer braced against waiting.

“…Then I suppose,” he says, voice steady but thin, “I shouldn’t keep him waiting either.”

Nothing opens.

Not yet.

But the thread loosens.

Just a little.

Jesse feels it then—the boundary holding firm. The soul is still anchored, thread taut but intact, bound to a body that has not yet finished failing.

“…So that’s it,” Jesse murmurs. “We don’t—”

“We don’t,” Kouchi says gently.

The soul exhales, a sound caught halfway between relief and disappointment.

“Figures,” they say, with a small, tired smile. “Still not time.”

Kouchi inclines his head. “No.”

A pause.

“…Will you come back?” the soul asks.

“If you’re still here,” Kouchi replies.

They leave the building exactly as they found it.

Unclaimed.

Jesse doesn’t realize it right away.

At first, it’s just irritation—the way the soul snaps when he mentions the body, the way they bristle at the idea of rest like it’s an accusation. Jesse recognizes the posture before the thought forms: shoulders squared, spine locked, breath shallow but controlled.

Holding together by force of will.

He’s seen it before.

He’s worn it.

When the dance ends and the gramophone goes quiet, the soul sways, catching themselves on instinct alone. Jesse moves without thinking, a half-step forward—

—and stops.

Because the soul doesn’t fall.

They refuse to.

“I’m still here,” the soul says, as if daring the room to contradict them.

Jesse’s throat tightens.

Yeah, he thinks. I know.

Later, outside the ballroom, when the air finally feels less heavy, Jesse leans against the wall and exhales harder than necessary. Kouchi pretends not to notice.

“That thread,” Jesse says after a while. “You felt it too, right?”

Kouchi nods. “Yes.”

“They’re not staying because they don’t know they’re dying,” Jesse continues. “They know. They just… don’t accept it.”

Kouchi looks at him then. Not sharply. Carefully.

“Is that what you think?” he asks.

Jesse laughs, short and humorless. “It’s what I know.”

The words hang there, heavier than intended.

Jesse rubs at his wrist, thumb pressing into skin that remembers restraints that no longer exist. The soul’s stubborn outline flashes in his mind again—the way they stood too straight, the way they kept moving even when stillness would have been easier.

“They’re waiting for something,” Jesse says quietly. “Not a cure. Not a miracle. Just—proof they didn’t endure all this for nothing.”

Kouchi doesn’t interrupt.

Jesse swallows. “That if they let go now, everything before it… meant nothing.”

There it is.

Recognition, sharp and undeniable.

Kouchi’s voice is soft when he speaks. “And what would make it mean something?”

Jesse doesn’t answer right away.

Because the truth is ugly in its simplicity.

“…Someone staying,” he says at last. “Someone seeing it. Someone not turning it into a lesson, or a statistic.”

Kouchi nods once.

“That’s why I danced,” he says.

Jesse squeezes his eyes shut, breath hitching once before he can stop it.

“Yeah,” he murmurs. “Figures.”

They stand there in silence, the city breathing around them.

“You know,” Jesse says eventually, forcing lightness into his voice, “if I’d met you earlier, I might’ve made better decisions.”

Kouchi smiles faintly. “You survived. Those were the decisions you had.”

Jesse lets out a shaky laugh. “God, I hate that you’re right.”

He straightens, shoulders settling—not rigid anymore, just tired.

“When we come back,” he says, not if, “and they’re still there… don’t send me away.”

Kouchi meets his gaze. Steady. Present.

“I won’t,” he says.

Jesse nods.

Because for the first time since recognizing himself in someone else’s refusal to disappear, he understands something terrifying and gentle all at once:

Staying isn’t the same as refusing to die.

Sometimes—it’s how you decide to live.

As they walk back toward the gate, Jesse breaks the silence.

“Hey,” he says. “Next time Ninomiya sends us something like that?”

Kouchi glances at him. “Yes?”

Jesse hesitates, then shrugs. “Don’t go alone.”

Kouchi blinks. It’s small. Almost imperceptible.

“I wasn’t planning to,” he says.

Jesse exhales, relieved in a way he doesn’t fully understand yet.

“Good,” he replies. “Because… yeah.”

They don’t elaborate.

They don’t need to.

Behind them, in a ballroom that remembers footsteps, a soul holds on for one more night.

Ahead of them, the path curves gently forward.

And for the first time since Jesse’s promotion, the partnership doesn’t feel like an assignment.

It feels like a promise neither of them has to say out loud.

The first thing Jesse learns is that the Summons Division does not correct what works.

It records it.

The second thing he learns is that working does not mean understanding.

Ninomiya Kazunari’s office sits at the junction where two corridors intersect, deliberately placed so that nothing approaching it goes unnoticed. The walls are glass—not transparent, but frosted just enough to remind you that privacy here is conditional. Inside, the space is sparse: a desk, two chairs, a terminal that never sleeps.

Jesse stands at attention when he enters. Kouchi does not.

Nino doesn’t tell them to sit. He simply looks at the report projected above the desk, fingers steepled, expression unreadable in that particular way Jesse is already learning to distrust.

“Persistent,” Nino says at last.

Kouchi inclines his head. “Yes.”

“No escalation. No retrieval. No incident.”

“No,” Kouchi agrees.

Nino’s gaze flicks to Jesse. “And yet.”

Jesse straightens instinctively. “The boundary held.”

“It did,” Nino says. “Barely.”

He gestures, and the projection shifts—data unfolding in quiet, color-coded lines.

SOUL STATUS: ANCHORED
BODY STATUS: DECLINING
CLASSIFICATION: NON-TERMINAL
OUTCOME: UNCLAIMED

“Unclaimed,” Nino repeats, tasting the word. “Do you know how much paperwork that creates?”

Jesse blinks. “I—”

“Kouchi does,” Nino says lightly. “He’s very familiar with it.”

Something in Jesse tightens.

Nino turns his attention back to Kouchi. “How long have you been assigned to cases like this?”

Kouchi doesn’t answer right away. Not because he doesn’t know, but because the answer isn’t singular.

“Long enough,” he says finally.

Nino hums, as if that settles it. “Yellow-class stabilization remains efficient,” he says. “No corrective action required.”

Jesse feels the words like a weight dropping into place.

Efficient.

He opens his mouth before he can stop himself. “Sir—”

Nino raises a finger. Not sharply. Almost lazily.

“Red,” he says, without looking. “Not yet.”

Jesse swallows and shuts up.

Nino’s gaze returns to him then, sharp and assessing. “You’re new,” he says. “That makes you observant. It also makes you loud.”

“Yes, sir.”

“Good. Try to keep the former.”

He taps the terminal once, and Jesse’s file appears beside the case report.

RED-CLASS
PROXIMITY AUTHORIZED
SECONDARY PAIRING: MANDATORY

Nino glances between Jesse and Kouchi.

“This pairing remains provisional,” he says. “You are not replacing anyone.”

Jesse frowns. “Replacing—”

“You are supplementing,” Nino corrects. “Stabilizing influence for volatile response.”

Jesse blinks. Then, carefully, “Which one of us is volatile?”

Nino smiles faintly. It’s not kind.

“Don’t be charming,” he says. “You’ll confuse yourself.”

He stands, signaling the meeting’s end without formally dismissing them.

“One more thing,” Nino adds, almost as an afterthought.

Kouchi pauses at the door.

Nino’s voice is even. “You are not to work alone.”

Kouchi’s shoulders barely shift. “I never do.”

Nino’s gaze lingers, just a fraction too long. “See that you don’t.”

Outside the office, the corridor feels narrower than it should.

Jesse lets out a breath he didn’t realize he’d been holding. “That went… fine?”

Kouchi doesn’t answer immediately.

“They won’t move you,” Jesse says, more to himself than anything. “They won’t reclassify.”

“No,” Kouchi agrees.

“That’s—good, right?”

Kouchi stops walking.

Jesse almost crashes into him.

“Kouchi?”

Kouchi turns, expression mild, voice steady. “Yellow cases are not meant to end,” he says. “They are meant to be sustained.”

Jesse’s stomach drops.

“And you?” he asks quietly. “What are you meant to do?”

Kouchi studies him for a long moment.

Then, simply, “Stay functional.”

The word lands like a verdict.

Jesse clenches his jaw. “That’s not the same thing.”

“No,” Kouchi says. “It isn’t.”

They resume walking.

Down the hall, Shintaro watches them go, tablet tucked under his arm, eyes already calculating probabilities the system hasn’t learned to name yet.

Behind them, in a building that does not resemble hell, a file updates.

PAIRING STATUS: CONTINUED
MONITORING: UNCHANGED

No alarms.

No corrections.

The system is satisfied.

For now.

The next case is ordinary.

That should have been the warning.

The file is clean, minimal, stamped with approvals that don’t hesitate.

SOUL DISTURBANCE—HOSTILE ESCALATION
BODY STATUS: LIVING
RETRIEVAL AUTHORIZED IF NECESSARY

Jesse taps the screen with his thumb. “That’s a hedge.”

“Yes,” Kouchi says. “It means the system doesn’t want responsibility.”

Jesse snorts. “Comforting.”

They don’t argue about it. They never do, not really. Kouchi reads the file twice, slower the second time, eyes lingering on details Jesse’s already flagged instinctively.

Location. Timeline. Escalation curve.

“This one won’t come quietly,” Jesse says.

“No,” Kouchi agrees. “And it won’t stop on its own.”

They move.

The house is too clean.

Not tidy—sterile. Furniture aligned with deliberate symmetry, family photos mounted perfectly straight along the wall. No dust. No clutter. No evidence of anyone living here long enough to leave a mark.

Jesse feels it the moment they cross the threshold.

“This place is wrong.”

“Yes,” Kouchi says. “Someone prepared it.”

“For us?”

Kouchi doesn’t answer.

The soul is in the bedroom.

They’re crouched on the bed, knees pulled tight to their chest, eyes too bright, breath coming too fast. Dark sigils crawl just beneath the skin—incomplete, uneven, like something carved in a hurry.

The body is alive.

Barely.

“You’re late,” the soul snarls.

Jesse stiffens. “We just got the call.”

The soul laughs, sharp and brittle. “That’s not what he said.”

Kouchi steps forward, voice even. “Who told you we were coming?”

The soul’s gaze flicks to the corner of the room—not the door. Not the window.

“He said you’d try to talk me down,” they whisper. “Said you always do.”

Jesse’s stomach drops.

“You shouldn’t listen to him,” Jesse says carefully.

The soul bares their teeth. “He listens to me.”

The sigils flare.

The room twists inward, walls stretching as shadows pool unnaturally in the corners. The soul screams—not in pain, but in relief, power flooding a body already tearing itself apart.

Kouchi reacts instantly, wards snapping into place, voice steady despite the pressure.

“Listen to me,” he says. “This isn’t you.”

The soul laughs through tears. “He said you’d say that.”

Jesse lunges forward, Red burning hot as he tries to disrupt the sigils, hands shaking with barely contained force.

“Who is he?” Jesse shouts.

The soul’s eyes lock onto his.

“Someone who knows what happens when you stay.”

Something brushes Jesse’s awareness then.

Not presence. Attention.

Like a hand resting lightly against glass.

Then it’s gone.

The sigils collapse too fast, consuming the structure they depend on. The soul gasps, clarity crashing in too late.

“Oh,” they whisper. “He didn’t say it would hurt like this.”

Kouchi is there instantly, catching them as the body convulses, grounding the soul with practiced calm.

“I’m here,” he says. “Stay with me.”

The soul grips his sleeve desperately. “Did I… do what he wanted?”

Kouchi answers honestly.

“No,” he says. “You did what you could.”

The body gives out.

The room snaps back into place—pristine, untouched, as if nothing had ever happened.

Too untouched.

Outside, Jesse paces, adrenaline snapping uselessly under his skin.

“We were set up,” he says. “That wasn’t random.”

“No,” Kouchi replies.

“He knew how we’d react.”

“Yes.”

Jesse spins on him. “And you’re just—okay with that?”

Kouchi looks back at the house, expression unreadable.

“I’m not,” he says quietly. “But reacting is also a variable.”

Jesse exhales hard, scrubbing a hand over his face.

“That wasn’t fair,” he says.

Kouchi meets his gaze.

“Fair isn’t the metric,” he says. “Impact is.”

Jesse laughs, hollow. “That’s a terrible system.”

“Yes,” Kouchi agrees.

They stand there longer than protocol requires.

Somewhere nearby—not close enough to see, not far enough to miss—someone adjusts their notes.

Not disappointed. Interested.

It isn’t flagged as urgent; doesn’t look like escalation. That’s how Jesse knows it is.

The report comes through midway into the cycle, sandwiched between two routine escorts and a clerical correction Jesse doesn’t understand yet. No red markers. No escalation tag. Just a Yellow designation and a note that makes Jesse frown.

SOUL STATUS: RESISTANT
CLASSIFICATION: NON-TERMINAL
RECOMMENDATION: STABILIZE. DO NOT ENGAGE DIRECTLY.

“Resistant how?” Jesse asks, skimming.

Kouchi doesn’t answer immediately. He’s already pulling up the location, movements precise, unhurried. “You’ll see.”

That doesn’t help.

The site is a hospital ward at the edge of the city, the kind that smells faintly of antiseptic and resignation. Machines hum in steady rhythms. Curtains are half-drawn. The living pass by them without seeing, as they always do.

The soul is seated at the foot of the bed.

That’s the first wrong thing.

Souls usually linger close—hovering near their bodies, tethered by instinct. This one sits apart, posture rigid, arms crossed like they’re waiting to be scolded.

They look up when Jesse and Kouchi enter.

“Oh,” the soul says flatly. “It’s you.”

Jesse blinks. “Do we—?”

“Yes,” the soul snaps. “I know what you are.”

Kouchi steps forward, voice calm. “We’re not here to take you.”

“Of course you are,” the soul says. “Eventually.”

Jesse feels the pull immediately—the friction of a boundary under strain. This isn’t refusal born of fear or grief. This is anger. Focused. Contained.

“You’re dying,” Jesse says before he can stop himself.

The soul laughs. It’s sharp, humorless. “Congratulations, captain obvious.”

Kouchi’s gaze flicks to Jesse, not reprimand, just a reminder. Jesse swallows.

“The body is still alive,” Kouchi says carefully. “Which means you’re still anchored.”

“For now,” the soul replies. “They’re wrong about how long I have.”

Jesse frowns. “The chart says—”

“The chart lies,” the soul cuts in. “They always do.”

The monitors spike.

Jesse feels it then—the tug. Not toward release, but toward collapse. The soul isn’t holding on to live.

They’re holding on to prove something.

“Why are you still here?” Jesse asks, softer now.

The soul’s jaw tightens. “Because they said I wouldn’t make it to the end.”

Silence drops heavy.

Kouchi nods once. “To what?”

The soul doesn’t answer right away. Their gaze drifts to the window, where afternoon light filters through smog and glass.

“…My daughter’s recital,” they say finally. “Tonight.”

Jesse’s chest tightens.

“They moved it up,” the soul continues. “She was so excited. Practiced for weeks.” A pause. “They told me I’d be sedated by then.”

The anger flares, sharp enough to sting.

Jesse takes a step forward. “You can’t force your body past—”

“I know,” the soul snaps. “I don’t care.”

The boundary shudders.

Kouchi moves then, subtle but immediate, placing himself between Jesse and the bed—not blocking, just absorbing.

“You won’t make it easier on her by tearing yourself apart,” Kouchi says.

The soul’s eyes blaze. “You don’t get to decide that.”

Jesse feels something in him snap.

“Neither do you,” he says, too fast, too loud.

The room hums. Machines protest. The soul recoils as if struck.

Kouchi turns sharply. “Jesse.”

Too late.

The soul lunges—not physically, but toward the body, desperation manifesting as force. Jesse reacts on instinct, reaching out, trying to anchor—

—and pain lances up his arm, sharp and immediate. The feedback is violent. Wrong.

Red flashes across Jesse’s vision.

Kouchi grabs his wrist, grounding him with practiced precision. “Enough.”

The soul gasps, clutching at the edge of the bed, breath ragged.

“I just—” they choke. “I just need to see her.”

The ward door opens.

A nurse steps in, oblivious, checking vitals, adjusting the drip. The soul freezes, torn between worlds.

Jesse’s head is pounding. His hand trembles where Kouchi still holds it.

“You can stay,” Kouchi says quietly. “But not like this.”

The soul looks at him, eyes wild. “Then how?”

Kouchi doesn’t answer.

He doesn’t promise.

He just stays where he is, steady as the machines slowly settle.

Minutes pass. Then more.

Eventually, the soul sags—not in defeat, but exhaustion. The pull eases, just enough to keep the thread intact.

No resolution.

No victory.

When they leave, Jesse’s hands are still shaking.

“That was—” he starts, then stops.

Kouchi walks beside him, unruffled in the way Jesse is beginning to recognize as hard-won. “A reminder,” he says.

“Of what?”

Kouchi doesn’t look at him. “That staying is not the same as intervening.”

Jesse clenches his jaw. “I almost—”

“Yes,” Kouchi says. “You did.”

They reach the end of the corridor. Jesse leans against the wall, breath coming too fast.

“I thought Red meant I could act,” he mutters.

Kouchi finally turns, expression unreadable. “Red means you feel the fall before it happens.”

Jesse closes his eyes.

“That’s worse.”

Kouchi doesn’t disagree.

Down the hall, a file updates.

CASE STATUS: ONGOING
ESCALATION: AVOIDED
NOTES: RED-CLASS PROXIMITY RESULTED IN FEEDBACK. MONITOR CLOSELY.

No alarms sound.

But something has shifted.

Jesse presses his hand to his chest, pulse racing, and understands—too clearly now—that this is what Nino meant.

This is what Yellow cases cost.

And why Red is never supposed to stay long enough to learn it.

Jesse doesn’t go back to his desk.

He walks past it like it doesn’t exist, past the board with its neat rows of colors, past the break room where someone is laughing too loudly about nothing important. His feet take him where his head already is—down a side corridor that never quite learned how to be used.

There’s a window at the end of it. Not one of the big ones with the cherry blossoms drifting past like a lie. This one looks out over nothing in particular. Concrete. Service access. The city stripped of metaphor.

He braces his hands on the sill and bends forward, breathing hard.

It shouldn’t have hurt.

That’s the thought that keeps cycling, sharp and useless. He didn’t do anything. He didn’t force. He didn’t cross. He barely touched—and still the feedback slammed into him like punishment.

Red isn’t supposed to be fragile.

Red is supposed to move, absorb, recover.

Jesse presses his palm against his sternum, right over where the ache hasn’t fully faded. It’s not physical pain anymore. It is memory wearing the wrong shape.

The hospital room flashes behind his eyes. The soul’s voice. They said I wouldn’t make it. The machines screaming. The sudden, violent resistance when Jesse reached out—

He jerks his hand back from the window like it burned him.

“Idiot,” he mutters.

Red means proximity. He knows that. He was trained for it. Selected for it. He’s good at getting close, at feeling the moment before collapse, at stepping in just before everything tips.

But no one ever said what happens when you feel it and aren’t allowed to stop it.

He slides down the wall until he’s sitting on the floor, knees drawn up, head tipped back against the concrete. The building hums around him, steady and uncaring.

For a split second, something dangerous surfaces.

If I’d pushed harder—

The thought cuts off, sharp and immediate. No.

That way leads straight into violation. Into control disguised as care. Into Muraki logic, dressed up in different colors.

Jesse squeezes his eyes shut.

The other thought is worse.

If I hadn’t been there at all…

His chest tightens. That one feels like relief. That’s what scares him.

Because he knows that feeling. He knows it intimately—the seductive calm of stepping back, of letting the system take over, of telling yourself it’s not your responsibility to stay.

He remembers the day he died.

Not the impact. Not the pain. The moment before—the certainty that if he stopped fighting, it would all go quiet. That nobody would be disappointed if he let go. That the world would keep moving just fine without him straining to keep up.

He digs his fingers into the fabric of his uniform, grounding himself in the present.

Kouchi stayed.

The thought lands unexpectedly solid.

Kouchi didn’t escalate. Didn’t intervene. Didn’t try to save the soul or Jesse or the situation. He just positioned himself where the strain would hit him first.

Yellow absorbs.

Jesse swallows hard.

He hadn’t realized how much he’d relied on that until now.

“Don’t,” he whispers to himself, voice rough. “Don’t do that.”

Don’t turn someone else into a buffer so you don’t have to feel the cost.

The memory shifts—Kouchi’s hand on his wrist, firm and precise. Not stopping him. Anchoring him.

Enough.

Jesse drags a hand down his face.

He doesn’t want to be reassigned. He doesn’t want to rotate out. He doesn’t want to stop feeling the fall before it happens. He also doesn’t want to become the reason Kouchi disappears quietly one day, logged as functional until he isn’t.

The spiral tightens.

Red isn’t supposed to endure. Yellow isn’t supposed to break.

And yet—

Jesse exhales slowly, forcing his breath to match the building’s rhythm.

Staying isn’t the same as intervening.

Kouchi had said that calmly, like it was obvious. Like it was something you learned by surviving long enough to watch people mistake one for the other.

Jesse lets his head fall back against the wall again.

“Then what am I supposed to do?” he asks in the empty corridor.

No answer comes. None from the system, none from the colors.

But something steadier settles under his ribs—not a solution, not even a decision. Just resolve.

He won’t stop feeling it. He won’t pretend it didn’t matter.

And when the next case comes—because it always does—he won’t reach the way he did today.

He’ll stand where Kouchi stands. Close enough to matter. Far enough not to break what isn’t his to fix.

Jesse pushes himself to his feet, legs shaky but holding.

The spiral doesn’t end. But it slows. 

And for now, that’s enough to keep him moving forward.

The third case should not have mattered.

It is logged as routine escalation, moderate risk, living body still within jurisdictional gray. No flagged anomalies. No notes from Shintaro. No silent directives from Nino.

Jesse reads it once and feels nothing.

That should have been his second warning.

The soul fights from the moment they arrive.

Not with sigils or summoning marks, not with borrowed power or external interference—but raw, panicked resistance. The body thrashes against restraints that are no longer fully physical, breath tearing in and out as the soul claws at the tether binding it to failing flesh.

“Don’t touch me,” the soul snarls. “Don’t—don’t talk to me.”

Jesse reacts instinctively, Red flaring hot and immediate.

“Hey,” he says, stepping forward. “Slow down. We’re not here to—”

The soul screams.

The backlash hits like a shockwave, rattling the room and tearing straight through Jesse’s first containment attempt. He staggers, teeth clicking together as pain flashes white behind his eyes.

“Jesse,” Kouchi says sharply.

“I’ve got it,” Jesse snaps, already pushing back, power surging hard and fast. The sigil snaps into place—too tight, too sudden—locking the soul in a painful stasis.

The scream turns wet. Broken.

The room goes very still.

Kouchi turns slowly.

“Jesse,” he says again. Not loud. Not angry. Just his name.

The soul sobs, breath hitching violently. “Please—make it stop—I can’t—”

Jesse’s jaw is clenched, eyes bright with adrenaline and something else—relief, sharp and dangerous.

One more push would do it.

End the feedback loop. Sever the thread cleanly. Authorized. Efficient. Merciful, if you phrased it right.

His hands shake.

He feels it then.

That faint, distant awareness.

Not pressure. Not command. Just… interest.

Like someone waiting to see what he’ll do next.

“He would’ve liked that,” Kouchi says quietly.

The words cut through Jesse’s chest.

“What?” Jesse snaps. “This is allowed.”

“Yes,” Kouchi replies. “So was the hospital.”

The sigil hums, strained, holding the soul in place as it cries openly now, terror stripped of its defenses.

Jesse swallows.

“I can end this,” he says, voice tight. “Right now.”

Kouchi steps closer, deliberately into Jesse’s space. He does not reach for the sigil. He does not raise his voice.

“If you do,” Kouchi says, “do it because you choose to.”

Jesse’s breath stutters.

“Not because it’s easy,” Kouchi continues. “And not because someone taught you this is what strength looks like.”

The attention sharpens.

Just for a moment.

Jesse feels sick.

“No,” he breathes.

He releases the sigil.

The pressure collapses. The soul slumps forward, gasping, alive, thread intact though frayed.

Jesse staggers back like he’s been struck.

“Oh god,” he whispers. “I almost—”

Kouchi reaches out then, steadying him by the wrist. Warm. Solid.

“You stopped,” he says. “That matters.”

They file the report in silence.

Jesse doesn’t remember typing it.

Outside the observation deck, night has settled deep and cold, city lights distant and blurred. Jesse leans against the railing, arms folded tight across his chest.

“That scared me more than Muraki ever did,” he says suddenly.

Kouchi turns his head slightly. “What did?”

“That moment,” Jesse replies. “Where it felt… good.”

The word tastes wrong.

“I didn’t have to think,” Jesse continues. “I didn’t have to choose. I could’ve just pushed.”

His voice cracks. “And for a second, I wanted to.”

Kouchi doesn’t interrupt.

“I don’t want to be someone who ends things because it’s easier,” Jesse says. “I don’t want to make it easier for him.”

Kouchi steps closer—not touching, just present.

“Then don’t,” he says. “You noticed. You stopped.”

Jesse laughs weakly. “Low bar.”

“It isn’t,” Kouchi replies. “Most people don’t feel it until much later.”

Jesse stares at the city. “…If I ever stop being scared of that,” he says quietly, “promise you’ll pull me back.”

“I promise,” Kouchi says without hesitation.

Jesse exhales, shaky but real.

Down the corridor, just out of sight, Nino pauses.

He had not meant to listen.

He had only slowed when he heard Jesse’s voice—not raised, not angry, but stripped of armor.

“That scared me more than Muraki ever did.”

Nino stops.

He listens long enough to hear what the report never will. Long enough to understand what kind of instability this is—and what kind it isn’t.

When he moves again, it is without sound.

Later, in his office, Nino opens the case file and adds nothing.

No reprimand. No amendment. No warning.

Only a private directive, entered into a field few people ever use:

PAIRING STABLE UNDER STRESS.
SELF-CORRECTING.
DO NOT SEPARATE.

He saves the file.

Somewhere in the building, a system registers compliance.

It does not yet understand resistance.

The report enters the system without hesitation.

Time stamps align. Metrics resolve within acceptable variance. Emotional proximity is logged, then compressed into fields that do not record tremor, or hesitation, or the way a hand had almost closed and then didn’t. What remains is clean: escalation contained, retrieval avoided, no boundaries crossed. The kind of outcome the Division prefers—quiet, efficient, unremarkable. The file routes itself automatically, flagged neither urgent nor anomalous, ready to be read as proof that the rules are still holding.

The system receives the same data Jesse just walked away from.

It reads it differently.

Shintaro does not like clean data.

Clean data lies.

He stares at the readout longer than necessary, fingers hovering just above the glass. The graphs are smooth. The containment curve resolves exactly where it should. No residual demonic signature. No unauthorized interference.

And yet.

“That’s the third time this week,” Shintaro says.

Across the office, Nino does not look up from the file he is signing. “Third time for what?”

“Third case where the variables behave exactly as projected,” Shintaro replies, “and the outcome still feels… incomplete.”

Nino pauses. Just briefly.

“That’s not a measurable concern,” he says.

“No,” Shintaro agrees. “It’s a historical one.”

Nino sets the stylus down.

Shintaro taps the display, bringing up the house schematic, the sigil traces, the moment of collapse. “The soul escalated faster than expected,” he continues. “The feedback loop was almost elegant. Too elegant for a first manifestation.”

Nino exhales slowly. “Are you suggesting external influence?”

“I’m suggesting,” Shintaro says carefully, “that someone understands our response patterns very well.”

Silence stretches.

Nino closes the file in front of him, the seal clicking softly into place.

“Did they follow protocol?” he asks.

“Yes,” Shintaro answers immediately. “Every step.”

“Was retrieval authorized?”

“Yes.”

“Were any jurisdictional boundaries crossed?”

Shintaro hesitates.

“…No.”

Nino nods once. “Then log it as resolved.”

Shintaro does not move.

“There was something else,” he says.

Nino looks at him now.

“The Red,” Shintaro continues. “He reacted faster than projected. Nearly breached containment.”

Nino’s gaze sharpens. “Did he?”

“No,” Shintaro says. “Yellow intervened.”

A beat.

“Consistently,” Shintaro adds. “Without escalation.”

Nino leans back in his chair, fingers steepled. “And?”

“And that shouldn’t have worked,” Shintaro admits. “Not with that level of emotional proximity.”

Nino considers this.

“Did it fail?” he asks.

“No.”

“Did it self-correct?”

“…Yes.”

Nino nods again, decision settling like a weight.

“Then we observe.”

Shintaro’s mouth tightens. “And if the pattern repeats?”

Nino’s eyes drift to the window, where cherry blossoms fall endlessly without ever touching the ground.

“Then it ceases to be coincidence,” he says. “And becomes intent.”

Shintaro hesitates. “Whose?”

Nino does not answer immediately.

When he does, his voice is even.

“That,” he says, “is what we will not speculate about until forced.”

He reaches for the file again.

“Do not separate the pair,” Nino adds, almost as an afterthought.

Shintaro blinks. “That wasn’t—”

“It is now,” Nino says.

Shintaro inclines his head. “Understood.”

As he turns back to his instruments, he cannot shake the sensation that the system has just recorded something it does not yet know how to name.

Behind them, the case file updates quietly:

STATUS: RESOLVED
NOTES: NONE

Shintaro watches the line blink into place.

Then he opens a private log — one that will never be submitted — and writes a single sentence:

Clean outcomes should not feel this wrong.

Jesse doesn’t dream.

Not really.

He closes his eyes and gets fragments instead—pressure without image, heat without flame, the phantom sensation of resistance giving way. His hands remember the sigil even when his mind refuses to replay it.

That’s new.

He sits up in the narrow rest alcove, elbows on his knees, fingers laced together hard enough that it hurts. The pain is grounding. He welcomes it.

It would’ve worked, he thinks.

That’s the worst part.

Not the fear. Not the guilt. The certainty. He had known exactly how much force to apply. Exactly where to push. The system would have backed him. The report would have been clean.

Authorized. Efficient.

Finished.

Jesse exhales slowly, counting his breath the way Watari once suggested—in four, out six—as if this is a matter of regulation instead of conscience.

He hadn’t felt powerful.

He’d felt relieved.

That thought sits in his chest like something rotten.

He presses his palms together, then apart, staring at them as if they belong to someone else. Red hums under his skin, restless, reactive. It wants motion. Resolution. It always has.

This is why you scare people, he thinks distantly.

Not because he’s reckless.
Because he’s effective.

The idea turns his stomach.

A soft knock interrupts the spiral before it can deepen.

Jesse doesn’t look up. “I’m fine.”

“I know,” Kouchi says from the doorway.

Jesse huffs a quiet, humorless laugh. “Liar.”

Kouchi doesn’t argue. He steps inside anyway, unhurried, and leans against the opposite wall—not crowding, not retreating. Just present.

For a long moment, neither of them speaks.

“I didn’t tell you,” Jesse says finally, staring at the floor, “because I didn’t want you to think I was—”

“Capable?” Kouchi offers gently.

Jesse flinches. “Yeah.”

Kouchi considers this. “I already know you are.”

Jesse looks up sharply. “Then why—”

“Because you chose not to,” Kouchi says. “That’s the part that matters.”

Jesse swallows. His throat feels tight, like he’s been holding something back for too long.

“I don’t trust myself,” he admits quietly.

Kouchi nods once. “That’s reasonable.”

Jesse blinks. “You’re not supposed to agree with that.”

“I’m not here to reassure you,” Kouchi replies. “I’m here to stay while you decide what to do with it.”

The words land harder than comfort ever could.

Jesse drags a hand down his face. “If I hadn’t felt scared—if it ever stops—”

“I’ll notice,” Kouchi says calmly. “And I’ll intervene.”

Jesse lets out a breath he didn’t realize he was holding.

“…Okay,” he says.

They sit there a while longer, the quiet no longer pressing in.

When Kouchi finally leaves, Jesse lies back down, staring at the ceiling.

The fragments don’t come back.

Not because they’re gone.

But because—for now—someone else is holding the edge with him.

And Jesse thinks, with a clarity that startles him: This is why Muraki hates witnesses.

The case comes through mislabeled.

It happens more often than Jesse would like to admit—a clerical convenience, a compromise between departments. Music cases rarely escalate cleanly. They bleed across classifications, distort timelines, make liars out of instruments that were never meant to tell the truth.

ANOMALOUS AUDITORY PHENOMENON
LOCATION: PRIVATE CONSERVATORY
STATUS: CONTAINED

“Contained,” Jesse mutters, skimming. “That’s optimistic.”

Kouchi doesn’t smile. “It usually is.”

They arrive at a building that remembers applause.

The conservatory is empty but not silent. Sound lingers here—half-phrases caught in the walls, resonance clinging to wood and brass. Jesse feels it immediately: pressure behind the eyes, a vibration that doesn’t belong to any instrument currently being played.

At the center of the hall stands Minato Higuchi.

He looks wrong in the way mirrors look wrong when they reflect something truer than you want to see.

Taiga’s face makes it worse.

Minato holds a violin loosely at his side, bow slack in his fingers, posture elegant even in stillness. Pink elegance—soft lines concealing an edge sharp enough to cut.

“You’re late,” Minato says mildly.

Jesse exhales. “That again.”

Minato’s gaze flicks to him, curious. “Oh. You’re new.”

Kouchi steps forward, already tense in a way Jesse recognizes now. “Minato.”

The name lands heavy.

Minato smiles. “Still Yellow,” he observes. “That’s disappointing.”

Behind him, the air shivers.

Naito Yukino stands near the piano, hands hovering just above the keys as if she’s afraid to touch them. Her face carries exhaustion like an old injury—eyes hollow, jaw set too tight, someone who has already crossed a line and is pretending she hasn’t.

“She doesn’t stop him,” Yukino says quietly. “That’s the problem.”

Minato lifts the violin. “I don’t need permission.”

The bow touches string.

The first note is wrong.

Not out of tune—too perfect. Jesse feels it scrape along his nerves, a precision that bypasses emotion entirely and goes straight for compliance.

The Devil’s Trill.

Not Tartini’s—not really.

This one isn’t about temptation.

It’s about completion.

“Stop,” Jesse says instinctively.

Minato doesn’t even look at him.

“You hear it too,” Minato says to Kouchi. “The promise. If I finish it, everything resolves.”

Jesse freezes.

That’s not music logic. That’s Muraki logic.

Kouchi steps closer. “You’ve already finished it.”

Minato laughs. “No. I survived it. That’s not the same thing.”

The second movement starts.

The room bends.

Jesse feels the old sensation clawing up his spine—the certainty that if he just lets go, the noise will stop. The weight will lift. The effort will end.

He staggers.

Pink moves instantly.

Taiga is suddenly there—not between Jesse and Minato, but anchoring Jesse with a hand at his back, firm and unyielding.

“Don’t listen for the end,” Taiga murmurs. “Listen for the lie.”

Juri appears at Jesse’s other side, Blue calm slicing clean through the distortion. “He’s not finishing anything,” Juri says flatly. “He’s looping.”

Yukino cries out. “Minato, stop—!”

The violin shrieks.

The possession slips.

Not fully—not yet.

Minato’s smile fractures.

“You think this is me losing control?” he snaps. “This is me holding on.”

Kouchi moves then.

Not fast. Not forceful.

He simply exists in Minato’s space, Yellow absorbing the feedback as the music turns violent, discordant.

“You don’t get to burn yourself down to make meaning,” Kouchi says. “That’s not artistry.”

Minato’s hands shake.

The bow slips.

The final note never lands.

Silence crashes in—brutal, sudden, absolute.

Minato collapses to his knees, violin clattering to the floor.

The anomaly breaks.

Yukino sobs, dropping beside him.

Jesse’s knees buckle—caught instantly by Taiga and Juri, who do not let him fall.

Later—much later—Shintaro files the report with careful neutrality.

CASE STATUS: RESOLVED
POSSESSION: PARTIAL
NOTE: SUBJECT EXHIBITED FALSE RESOLUTION LOOP

He adds a line he shouldn’t.

Music did not summon the entity. It concealed it.

Jesse sits in the infirmary afterward, hands still trembling.

“That was close,” he says.

Kouchi nods. “Yes.”

“…That wasn’t Muraki,” Jesse says slowly.

“No,” Kouchi agrees.

“But it was the same shape.”

Kouchi meets his gaze.

“Yes.”

And that’s when Jesse understands:

Muraki doesn’t always arrive as himself.

Sometimes he comes as a promise. Sometimes he comes as art. Sometimes he comes as the lie that if you finish the piece, the pain will make sense.

Jesse exhales, steadying.

“Next time,” he says quietly, “I won’t listen alone.”

Kouchi’s voice is firm.

“You won’t.”

Minato doesn’t look surprised when the music stops.

That’s the first wrong thing.

He’s on his knees, breath uneven, violin abandoned on the floor like it betrayed him—but when he lifts his head, his gaze goes straight to Taiga.

Not scanning. Not assessing.

Recognizing.

“…You cut your hair,” Minato says.

Taiga stills.

Juri’s head snaps up. “You know him?”

Minato smiles faintly. “I knew him before.”

Jesse’s stomach drops. “Before what?”

Minato’s gaze drifts, unfocused now, like he’s looking through overlapping reflections. “Before the colors settled. Before the rules hardened.” A soft huff of laughter. “Before you decided pretending not to remember was kinder.”

Kouchi steps forward sharply. “That’s enough.”

Minato’s eyes flick to him—and soften in a way that has nothing to do with mercy.

“Still Yellow,” he says again. “You always were.”

Jesse turns to Kouchi. “Always?”

Kouchi doesn’t answer.

Minato continues, voice quiet but precise. “You used to come to the conservatory. Not as Shinigami. Not officially.” His gaze moves between them. “You listened.”

Taiga’s jaw tightens. “We observed.”

“You stayed,” Minato corrects. “That’s different.”

The air feels thinner.

“You were… alive,” Jesse says slowly.

Minato nods. “Once.”

“And you remember them,” Jesse presses. “As people.”

“As choices,” Minato replies.

Yukino looks up sharply. “Minato—”

“No,” he says gently. “He deserves to know.”

His gaze settles on Jesse now, curious again, bright with dangerous clarity.

“You’re the restart,” Minato says.

The word hits Jesse like ice water.

Taiga’s hand tightens on Jesse’s arm. “That’s not public knowledge.”

Minato shrugs. “It wasn’t meant to be.”

Silence drops, and a chill that does not belong comes with it.

Kouchi’s voice is low. “How do you know us?”

Minato looks tired suddenly. “Because you didn’t take me.”

Jesse frowns. “But you’re—”

“Still here,” Minato finishes. “Persistent, if you prefer the term.”

The word echoes.

“I heard the Devil’s Trill,” Minato continues. “And I thought—if I finished it, maybe I’d understand why you stayed when you should have moved on.”

Taiga exhales slowly. “That’s not why.”

Minato looks at him. “Then why?”

No one answers.

Because the truth is complicated. Because staying never had a clean reason. Because it was never about saving him.

Minato nods, as if he expected that.

“…Figures,” he murmurs.

Shintaro appears at the edge of the room, presence cool and undeniable.

“This conversation is concluded,” he says.

Minato looks at him with something like respect. “Green,” he says. “You always kept the records.”

Shintaro doesn’t blink. “And I know when to close them.”

Minato’s smile fades.

As they leave, Jesse lingers half a step behind.

“You said we always come early,” Jesse says quietly.

Minato glances back. “You do.”

“…Why?”

Minato’s eyes soften, just a fraction.

“Because you’re afraid of arriving after it’s too late.”

Jesse doesn’t argue.

He can’t.

As the doors close behind them, one thing is unmistakably clear:

This wasn’t a random anomaly. This wasn’t an isolated possession.

This was someone who remembered the Shinigami before they learned how to forget.

And Jesse understands, with a chill that has nothing to do with fear—

Muraki isn’t the only one who recognizes patterns.

Some souls do too.

Shintaro files the report alone.

Not because he’s hiding it—but because no one else should touch this particular wording.

The terminal hums softly as he dictates, voice neutral, precise.

INCIDENT TYPE: CLASSIFICATION BREACH
SEVERITY: LEVEL III
DESCRIPTION: Civilian soul exhibited recognition of Shinigami identities predating official assignment and color stabilization.

He pauses.

Deletes civilian.

Replaces it with persistent soul.

DETAILS: Subject identified multiple agents by pre-assignment traits, referenced prior observation periods, and demonstrated awareness of color designation chronology.

He scrolls back through the footage once more.

Minato saying You cut your hair.
Minato saying Still Yellow.
Minato saying before the rules hardened.

Shintaro’s jaw tightens.

ASSESSMENT: Recognition did not originate from Shinigami disclosure. Memory persistence predates current anomaly.

That line matters.

Because it means the system didn’t leak.

It means something else did.

He adds one final note—not for escalation, but for containment.

RECOMMENDATION: Monitor Yellow-class asset for secondary targeting. Subject fixation appears pattern-based, not personal.

Shintaro hesitates.

Then, quietly, he appends:

ADDENDUM: Pattern recognition mirrors historical Muraki-adjacent behavior. No direct signature detected.

He submits the report.

The terminal accepts it.

No alarms.

No summons.

The system acknowledges the breach and does nothing to correct it.

That’s worse.

The Summons Division common room smells faintly of tea and ozone.

Jesse feels it immediately even from the doorway—the way the air feels settled, like a room that has already survived something today and decided to remain functional anyway.

Taiga is seated on the back of a chair the wrong way around, boots hooked into the rungs, jacket discarded somewhere unimportant. Juri lounges opposite him, long legs stretched out, fingers idly flipping a charm coin through the air without looking at it.

They are not quiet.

They are comfortable.

“You’re late,” Juri says cheerfully, catching the coin mid-flip without breaking eye contact with Taiga. He says it like a standing accusation, a ritual rather than an actual complaint.

“We weren’t scheduled,” Taiga replies lazily. “You’re just impatient.”

“I’m observant,” Juri corrects. “And you’re deflecting.”

Taiga snorts. “I’m conserving energy.”

“For violence,” Juri says fondly.

“Always.”

Jesse hesitates at the threshold.

Kouchi doesn’t.

He steps inside like he belongs there—which, Jesse realizes, is exactly the point.

“Good,” Juri says, brightening as he notices them. “You survived.”

“That seems optimistic,” Jesse mutters.

Taiga’s gaze flicks over him—quick, assessing, precise—before landing on Kouchi.

“You look tired,” Taiga says.

“Yes,” Kouchi agrees.

Juri grins. “That means it was interesting.”

Taiga rolls his eyes. “That means you overextended again.”

“I did not—”

“You always do.”

Juri leans over, bumping Taiga’s shoulder lightly with his own. “And you always complain instead of stopping me.”

“Because you hate being stopped,” Taiga replies without heat. “And I like you alive.”

Jesse blinks.

That… lands.

Juri finally turns his attention fully to Jesse, eyes sharp with curiosity. “You’re the new Red.”

“Unfortunately,” Jesse says.

Juri laughs. “Oh, I like him already.”

Taiga doesn’t smile. He watches Jesse a moment longer, then says, “You pull hard.”

Jesse stiffens. “Excuse me?”

“You pull,” Taiga repeats, unbothered. “Toward resolution. Endpoints. It’s efficient.”

Jesse doesn’t know whether to be offended.

Kouchi answers instead. “He’s learning when not to.”

Taiga hums, considering. “Good.”

Juri tilts his head, studying them now—not just Jesse, but the space between him and Kouchi.

“…You’re new at this,” he says lightly.

“Working together?” Jesse asks.

“No,” Juri says. “Not disappearing into each other.”

The silence that follows is not awkward.

Taiga clicks his tongue. “You don’t have to say everything out loud.”

“I absolutely do.”

Taiga sighs, reaching out to straighten Juri’s collar with habitual ease. “Ignore him.”

Juri beams. “Never.”

Jesse watches the exchange, something loosening in his chest without permission.

They move together without checking. Argue without threat. Correct each other without erasure.

It’s… functional.

Taiga notices Jesse staring.

“This isn’t accidental,” he says. “What we are.”

Jesse swallows. “Did it take long?”

Taiga considers. “Longer than you’d think.”

Juri shrugs. “Shorter than it felt.”

Kouchi meets Jesse’s gaze then—not reassurance, not warning. Just acknowledgment.

This exists, the look says. And it didn’t happen by magic.

Juri pushes himself upright, stretching. “Anyway. If you’re heading out again—”

“We are,” Kouchi says.

Juri grins at Jesse. “Try not to burn the place down.”

Taiga adds calmly, “If you do, shout. I enjoy punching consequences.”

Jesse snorts despite himself. “Noted.”

As they turn to leave, Juri calls after them, voice easy and sincere all at once:

“Hey. You’re doing fine.”

Jesse pauses.

“…Thanks,” he says.

They walk out together.

Behind them, Taiga and Juri fall back into familiar banter, the room settling easily around them.

Ahead of them, Jesse exhales slowly.

“That’s… what it can look like,” he says.

“Yes,” Kouchi replies.

Jesse nods. “Okay.”

Not ready.

But no longer alone in the uncertainty.

It happens three hours later.

Kouchi is alone—which shouldn’t be possible.

Not in the infirmary wing. Not after an escalation. Not with Shintaro watching the boards and Jesse still vibrating with unresolved adrenaline.

And yet—the room is quiet. Too quiet.

Kouchi is adjusting the IV line of another patient when the air thickens. Not darkening. Not distorting.

Listening.

He freezes.

Not in fear—in recognition.

“You’re not welcome,” he says calmly.

The reflection in the glass cabinet behind him moves.

Not Minato.

Not Muraki.

Something wearing the space Minato left behind.

The demon doesn’t speak at first. It doesn’t need to.

It reaches, not for Kouchi’s body, but for his function.

Yellow feels the pull immediately—the seductive gravity of absorption. Of becoming the place where strain goes to disappear. The old instinct rears up, sharp and familiar:

Take it. Hold it. Don’t let it touch anyone else.

Kouchi’s breath stutters.

The demon presses closer, testing boundaries with clinical patience.

You’re good at this, it whispers without words. You always have been.

Kouchi’s vision blurs—not from force, but from memory. From all the times he stood between collapse and consequence. From all the cases that ended quietly because he carried the weight.

His knees almost buckle.

Almost.

Then—

Red flares.

Not physically. Not dramatically.

Just presence.

“Kouchi.”

Jesse’s voice cuts clean through the pressure.

The demon recoils—not because Jesse is stronger, but because he’s unexpected.

Red was not supposed to stay.

Jesse steps into the room without hesitation, positioning himself instinctively between Kouchi and the thing that wants him hollow.

“Don’t,” Jesse says, voice steady, furious. “You don’t get to finish this one.”

The demon hesitates.

That’s all it needs.

Kouchi inhales sharply and straightens, grounding himself not by absorbing—but by refusing.

“No,” he says.

The word lands like a closed door.

The presence withdraws, slipping back into the cracks it came from.

Gone.

The silence rushes back in.

Jesse’s hands are shaking.

“So,” he says hoarsely. “That was new.”

Kouchi closes his eyes briefly, then opens them.

“Yes,” he says. “It was.”

Jesse looks at him—really looks.

“You were going to let it,” he says quietly.

Kouchi doesn’t deny it.

“…Thank you,” Kouchi says instead.

Jesse swallows hard. “Anytime.”

They stand there, both breathing a little too fast, understanding settling between them with brutal clarity:

Minato wasn’t the target. He was the test.

And whatever is moving through the cracks now?

It has learned exactly what Yellow is for.

They expect Minato.

They do not expect Yukino to be the one the paperwork names.

SOUL STATUS: DISPLACED
PRIMARY SUBJECT: NAITO YUKINO
TEMPORAL BLEED: CONFIRMED

Jesse reads it twice. “That’s not possible.”

Kouchi doesn’t answer immediately. His attention is already fixed on the anomaly curve, the way it loops instead of ending.

“She’s not traveling through space,” Jesse realizes slowly. “She’s traveling through him.”

“Through his memory,” Kouchi corrects. “And through the places where it thinned.”

They find Yukino in the conservatory again, seated at the piano this time, hands resting in her lap like she doesn’t trust them not to betray her. Minato stands near the window, not touching anything, as if he’s already learned that proximity has consequences.

“You’re back early,” Minato says mildly.

Jesse doesn’t rise to it. “You knew it wasn’t you.”

Minato glances at Yukino. “I hoped it wasn’t.”

Yukino doesn’t look up. “I didn’t mean to,” she says quietly. “I just… followed the sound.”

The air shivers.

Kouchi crouches in front of her, bringing himself level. “You followed him.”

She nods. “Sometimes I was younger. Sometimes older. Sometimes… I saw you.”

Jesse stiffens.

Yukino finally looks at him. Her eyes are calm. Too calm.

“You weren’t wearing red yet,” she says. “You were still trying to disappear.”

The words hit harder than any accusation.

“That’s enough,” Minato snaps, stepping forward.

“No,” Kouchi says gently. “It isn’t.”

Yukino’s hands curl in her skirt. “I don’t belong there anymore,” she whispers. “I don’t belong anywhere.”

That’s the truth of it.

The demon didn’t anchor to Minato.

It used him as a resonance chamber.

Yukino is the one slipping loose.

The retrieval is clean.

Almost merciful.

Kouchi guides Yukino through the gate himself, steady and precise, Yellow doing what Yellow was meant to do when no one interferes. She doesn’t fight. She doesn’t cry.

As she fades, she looks back at Minato one last time.

“Thank you,” she says. “For remembering me.”

Minato doesn’t answer.

The gate closes.

The conservatory exhales.

For the first time since Devil’s Trill began, the silence feels real.

The report clears.

CASE STATUS: RESOLVED
ENTITY: ELIMINATED
TEMPORAL BLEED: SEALED

Shintaro signs off without comment.

Nino doesn’t call an emergency session.

The board updates.

Business resumes.

That’s how it always happens.

Jesse almost believes it.

Kouchi returns to routine so smoothly it hurts to watch—chart reviews, quiet interventions, the careful unremarkable competence that makes Yellow indispensable and invisible.

Too invisible.

It happens during a routine escort.

No anomaly warning. No pressure spike. No recognition flare.

Jesse is mid-sentence when Kouchi stops walking.

“Kouchi?” Jesse asks.

Kouchi’s posture is perfect.

That’s the problem.

His breath evens out, shoulders squared, expression neutral in a way Jesse has never seen on him. Not calm. Not tired.

Empty.

“Kouchi,” Jesse repeats, sharper now.

Kouchi turns.

The smile is wrong.

Not cruel. Not mocking.

Complete.

“You were right,” Kouchi says softly. “It did end.”

Jesse’s blood turns to ice.

“Step back,” Jesse orders instinctively.

Kouchi tilts his head. “Why?”

Because Yellow isn’t supposed to sound relieved.

Because Yellow doesn’t stop carrying strain—unless something else has decided to carry him.

The air folds.

Not outward.

Inward.

Jesse feels it then—the demon not possessing violently, not forcing entry, but inhabiting consent.

You’re good at this, it hums through Kouchi’s voice. Let me finish holding it for you.

Jesse moves without thinking.

Red flares—too late to stop it, just in time to witness it.

“Kouchi,” Jesse says, voice breaking. “Don’t.”

Kouchi’s gaze flickers.

For half a second—just half—the real Kouchi surfaces, horror flashing through his eyes.

“…Jesse,” he breathes.

Then the demon tightens its grip.

“Too late,” it says, still wearing Kouchi’s mouth.

The corridor erupts.

Alarms scream.

The board explodes into color.

And Jesse understands, with sickening clarity:

They didn’t eliminate the demon.

They taught it.

They showed it that Yellow is where pain goes to disappear.

And now—now it wants to stay.

The corridor falls into chaos.

Alarms scream. Color indicators flare and stutter, unable to decide whether this is an internal breach or an external threat. Footsteps pound in the distance—Blue, Green, Black moving into position—but they feel impossibly far away.

Jesse doesn’t hear any of it.

All he can see is Kouchi.

Standing too straight. Breathing too evenly. That wrong, finished calm settling over him like a mask that fits because it was measured to.

“Stand down,” the voice wearing Kouchi says, pleasant and composed. “You’ll only make this harder.”

Jesse’s hands come up automatically.

Red response. Containment posture. Strike point calculated in a heartbeat.

He could do it.

He knows exactly where to hit—how to disrupt without killing, how to sever possession long enough for extraction. The training is there, clean and precise, humming in his muscles.

His body is ready.

His mind is screaming.

“No,” Jesse says.

The word comes out rough, torn loose from somewhere deeper than protocol.

The thing inside Kouchi tilts its head. “You hesitate.”

Jesse shakes his head, eyes locked on Kouchi’s face. “I refuse.”

“That will cost you,” it replies calmly.

Jesse laughs once, broken and sharp. “Yeah. I know.”

He lowers his hands.

Around them, the corridor reacts—sensors spiking, alerts escalating, the system begging him to act. To do something. To fix it the way Red is supposed to.

Kouchi’s body takes a step forward.

Jesse doesn’t move.

“Kouchi,” he says, voice shaking now, not bothering to hide it. “I’m here. I’m not going anywhere.”

The demon’s smile widens, pleased. “You’re choosing attachment over containment.”

“I’m choosing him,” Jesse snaps.

For a split second, the pressure surges, furious and testing. Pain lances through Jesse’s chest as the demon pushes, trying to provoke him into reaction.

Strike him. Break him. End it.

Jesse grits his teeth and stays where he is.

“Don’t,” he says again, softer now. “You don’t get to use him like this.”

Kouchi’s eyes flicker.

Just once.

A fracture in the mask.

“…Jesse,” Kouchi whispers, barely audible.

Jesse’s breath catches painfully. “I know,” he says. “I know you’d let it burn you down if it meant no one else had to carry it.”

The demon stiffens.

“That’s not—”

“But you don’t get to decide that alone,” Jesse continues, stepping closer now, slow and deliberate, making no move to attack. “You taught me that.”

The air trembles.

The possession strains—not because Jesse is fighting it, but because he isn’t.

Because it has nothing to push against.

“You’re making this harder,” the demon snarls, losing its borrowed calm.

“Good,” Jesse says.

He reaches out—not to strike, not to contain—but to take Kouchi’s hand.

Red against Yellow.

Skin to skin.

The feedback is immediate and brutal—pain tearing through Jesse’s arm, his vision going white at the edges. He gasps, knees buckling, but he doesn’t let go.

Kouchi cries out, the sound raw and human, the first real thing since the possession began.

“There,” Jesse pants. “There you are.”

The demon shrieks, furious now, its hold slipping as the connection it didn’t account for tightens instead.

“You would break yourself for him?” it snarls.

Jesse’s laugh comes out wet. “Already did.”

Shadows surge at the edge of the corridor.

Blue’s voice cuts in, sharp and commanding. Green is shouting orders. Black moves like night given shape.

But Jesse doesn’t look away.

He squeezes Kouchi’s hand, grounding them both in the only truth that matters.

“I’m not striking you,” Jesse says fiercely. “I’m staying.”

Kouchi’s fingers curl weakly around his.

And for the first time since the demon entered him, Kouchi fights back.

Not with force.

With refusal.

The demon shrieks. Not in sound—in pressure. 

The corridor warps, light bending inward as if the space itself is trying to fold around Kouchi’s body and seal him there.

Jesse feels it hit him all at once.

The backlash isn’t clean. It’s not a sharp pain he can grit his teeth through. It’s saturation—too much sensation, too much feedback flooding Red all at once as the demon tries to wrench free of the one thing it didn’t anticipate.

Connection.

“Kouchi—” Jesse gasps, knees buckling.

Kouchi’s grip tightens reflexively, panic flashing through his eyes as he feels Jesse falter. “Jesse, let go—”

“No,” Jesse breathes, barely audible. “Not like this.”

The demon surges, furious now, trying to turn Kouchi’s instincts against him.

See? it hisses. You’re breaking him.

For one terrible heartbeat, Kouchi wavers—not toward disappearance, not toward surrender, but toward the old reflex: absorb it, end it, spare everyone else.

That’s when the shadows move.

They don’t announce themselves. They never do.

One moment the corridor is bare; the next, darkness spills along the walls like liquid ink, swallowing the harsh emergency lights and smothering the demon’s reach mid-lunge.

Black arrives.

Hokuto steps out of the shadow as if he’s always been there, eyes sharp, expression stripped of everything unnecessary.

“That’s enough,” he says.

The shadows respond instantly, coiling around Kouchi—not constricting, not harming, but interrupting. Severing the line of possession with surgical precision.

The demon screams again, this time audibly, its hold tearing loose as Black drags it backward into darkness it cannot navigate.

Kouchi cries out, collapsing forward as the pressure vanishes all at once.

Jesse catches him on instinct.

Or tries to.

The moment the possession breaks, the feedback slams into Jesse full force—unfiltered, unbuffered, all the pain he’s been holding at bay crashing down at once.

His legs give out.

“Jesse!” Kouchi shouts, real terror now, real and unmasked.

Jesse hits the floor hard, breath knocked from his lungs, vision fracturing into light and shadow. His hand slips from Kouchi’s as numbness spreads up his arm like frostbite.

Hokuto curses under his breath, shadows snapping back into place as the demon is swallowed completely, sealed for now.

Blue skids into the corridor a second later, already shouting orders. Green is right behind him, tablet in hand, alarms recalibrating in real time.

But Kouchi doesn’t hear any of it.

He’s on the floor beside Jesse, hands shaking as he checks for a pulse that is mercifully still there—fast, erratic, alive.

“Jesse,” Kouchi says, voice breaking despite himself. “Hey. Stay with me.”

Jesse blinks up at him, unfocused, mouth twitching into something like a smile.

“Told you,” he rasps. “Not… going anywhere.”

Then his eyes roll back.

Kouchi’s breath stutters.

“Get him to the infirmary,” Hokuto orders, already kneeling, shadows shifting to support Jesse’s weight without jostling him. His voice is tight—not panicked, but close. “Now.”

As they lift Jesse, Kouchi stays pressed close, one hand gripping Jesse’s sleeve like an anchor.

He doesn’t let go.

Not even when Green starts talking about vitals and Blue starts swearing and Black fades back into the edges where he belongs.

Because this wasn’t the moment Kouchi chose to disappear.

This was the moment he learned—viscerally, irrevocably—that staying doesn’t mean carrying everything alone.

And Jesse collapses knowing one thing, even as consciousness slips away:

He didn’t strike.

He didn’t leave.

And Yellow is still here.

Jesse wakes to the sound of breathing.

Not his own.

For a moment he doesn’t move. The infirmary always smells the same—antiseptic, paper, something faintly electrical—but this time there’s weight to it, like surfacing from deep water too fast.

His arm aches. His chest feels bruised from the inside out. When he tries to swallow, his throat protests.

“…Kouchi,” he croaks.

The word scrapes out of him without permission.

A curtain rustles.

Jesse forces his eyes open.

The bed beside him is occupied.

Kouchi lies there too still, too carefully arranged—IV line taped to his arm, monitors whispering numbers that dip and rise with unnatural regularity. His face is pale in a way Jesse has never seen on him before, like the color has been leeched out instead of merely muted.

Yellow, emptied.

Jesse’s heart lurches violently.

“No,” he breathes, trying to push himself upright. Pain explodes down his spine and he gasps, collapsing back. “No—no, that’s not—”

“You’re awake.”

Hokuto’s voice comes from the shadows near the window. Of course he’s there. Jesse doesn’t know how he didn’t sense him sooner.

Hokuto steps into the light slowly, like he doesn’t want to startle either of them. His eyes flick to Jesse’s monitors, then to Kouchi’s, assessing with that terrible calm Black wears when it’s already done what it came to do.

“Easy,” Hokuto says. “You’re not cleared to move.”

Jesse ignores him.

“What happened to him,” Jesse demands, voice shaking now. “Why is he—why is he like that?”

Hokuto exhales through his nose. “Because the demon was inside him,” he says quietly. “And because he didn’t fight it the way you did.”

Jesse squeezes his eyes shut.

“Did it—” His voice breaks. “Did it take something?”

Hokuto doesn’t answer right away. 

That hesitation is worse than yes.

“It tried,” Hokuto says finally. “Yellow-class absorption creates… grooves. Places where things can settle if they’re patient enough.”

Jesse’s fingers curl into the sheets. “And Kouchi let it.”

“He almost did,” Hokuto corrects. “Not out of despair. Out of habit.”

Jesse lets out a shaky, broken sound that might have been a laugh if it hadn’t been so close to a sob.

“I told him not to do that.”

“I know,” Hokuto says. “That’s why you’re both still here.”

Jesse turns his head slowly, painfully, eyes locked on Kouchi’s face.

“You saved him,” Jesse whispers.

Hokuto’s jaw tightens. “I interrupted him.”

“That’s saving.”

Hokuto looks away.

Jesse reaches out without thinking, fingers brushing the edge of the bedrail separating them. He doesn’t touch Kouchi—not yet—but the proximity matters.

“When he wakes up,” Jesse says, hoarse. “He’s going to be furious.”

Hokuto’s mouth twitches. “Probably.”

“…Good,” Jesse murmurs. “That means he’s still himself.”

They fall into silence, punctuated only by the steady beeping of machines.

After a long moment, Hokuto speaks again, softer.

“He asked for you,” he says.

Jesse’s breath stutters. “What?”

“Before he went under,” Hokuto continues, “He asked if you were still breathing.”

Jesse swallows hard, eyes burning.

“Yeah,” he whispers. “Figures.”

He shifts carefully onto his side, ignoring the protest from his ribs, just enough to face Kouchi. The space between their beds feels smaller than it should, like Yellow has drawn Red into orbit even now.

“I didn’t strike you,” Jesse murmurs, barely louder than breath. “I meant that.”

Kouchi doesn’t stir.

But Jesse stays.

Kouchi wakes before Jesse.

That, too, is habit.

Consciousness returns to him in fragments—light filtered through gauze curtains, the measured rhythm of machines, the ache that tells him exactly where the demon tried to settle and failed. He doesn’t move at first. He listens.

One bed to the left.

Breathing.

Fast, uneven, but there.

Relief hits him so hard it almost knocks him back under.

Jesse.

Kouchi turns his head slowly, carefully, as if sudden motion might make the truth evaporate. Jesse lies pale against the pillows, dark lashes shadowing his cheeks, IV taped clumsily to his arm like someone was in a hurry and afraid of losing him.

Still here. Kouchi closes his eyes.

There’s a sound—so quiet it barely exists. A breath leaving him that he didn’t realize he’d been holding since the corridor, since the shadows, since Jesse’s hand went slack in his own.

“…Good,” he murmurs.

Hokuto notices.

Of course he does.

“You’re awake,” Hokuto says from the chair near the window.

“For a moment,” Kouchi replies. His voice is steady. Too steady.

Hokuto studies him. “He’s stable.”

Kouchi nods once. “I know.”

“You shouldn’t,” Hokuto says. “You should be worrying about yourself.”

Kouchi’s mouth curves faintly. “Later.”

He watches Jesse breathe for a few more seconds, memorizing the rise and fall of his chest, the slight twitch at the corner of his mouth like he’s half-dreaming. As if Jesse might wake at any moment and say something reckless and earnest and alive.

When Kouchi is satisfied—when the fear finally loosens its grip—his body remembers what it’s been postponing.

The crash is quiet.

His vision blurs first, edges smearing like watercolor left out in the rain. The ache under his ribs sharpens, then hollows out entirely, like something essential has finally slipped loose.

Hokuto is on his feet instantly. “Kouchi.”

“I’m fine,” Kouchi says automatically.

The lie doesn’t land.

His fingers slip from the blanket. The room tilts.

“Yellow,” Hokuto snaps, sharper now. “Don’t—”

Kouchi exhales and lets his head fall back against the pillow.

That’s all.

That’s the surrender.

He isn’t supposed to be awake.

That’s the official version, anyway.The chart says he’s sedated, stable, and under observation. His body says exhausted, but alert in the specific way you get when pain refuses to dull.

He doesn’t move when voices drift in from the corridor.

He recognizes them immediately.

Nino first—measured, deceptively casual. Hokuto second—too quiet, carrying weight like muscle memory.

Jesse keeps his eyes closed.

“…You hesitated,” Nino says.

It’s not an accusation. That makes it worse.

There’s a pause. Long enough that Jesse almost thinks Hokuto won’t answer.

“I did,” Hokuto says finally.

Nino exhales slowly. “That’s not like you.”

“No,” Hokuto agrees. “It isn’t.”

Footsteps shift. Jesse imagines Hokuto standing with his hands in his pockets, shoulders squared, expression stripped down to something unreadable.

“You were cleared to act,” Nino continues. “You know the threshold.”

“I know,” Hokuto says.

“And yet.”

Jesse feels it then—the shape of the silence. This isn’t about protocol. This is about history.

“I thought,” Hokuto says, voice low, “that if he chose to let go, it wasn’t my place to stop him.”

The words land like a physical blow.

Jesse’s fingers curl into the sheets.

“Kouchi has spent his entire existence absorbing what other people couldn’t,” Hokuto continues. “He learned how to disappear without actually leaving.”

Nino doesn’t interrupt.

“I was his partner,” Hokuto says. “Before. And I failed him.”

Jesse’s breath stutters.

“He didn’t break,” Hokuto adds. “I did. I couldn’t reconcile what he carried with what the system demanded. I thought respecting his choice meant not interfering.”

Nino is quiet for a long moment.

“That wasn’t respect,” Nino says eventually. “That was guilt.”

Hokuto doesn’t argue.

“And Jesse?” Nino asks.

Hokuto’s voice tightens. “Jesse didn’t hesitate.”

The silence that follows is heavy, deliberate.

“He stepped in knowing the cost,” Hokuto says. “He refused to strike. He refused to leave. He stayed where I… couldn’t.”

Jesse feels heat sting behind his eyes.

Nino sighs. “You saved them both.”

“Yes,” Hokuto says. “After.”

“That timing matters,” Nino replies gently.

“I know.”

Another pause. Softer now.

“I won’t hesitate again,” Hokuto says.

Nino’s voice is calm. “Good. Because next time, you won’t get the luxury.”

Footsteps retreat.

The corridor empties.

Jesse lies there, heart pounding, the truth settling into him like something fragile and sharp.

Hokuto failed because he loved someone too much to believe he had the right to stop them.

Jesse turns his head slightly, eyes still closed, gaze landing on the space between his bed and Kouchi’s.

I won’t hesitate, Jesse thinks fiercely.

Not for Kouchi. Not for Hokuto. Not for himself.

Hokuto hates maintenance.

Not the concept—he understands necessity, budgets, the careful bookkeeping of damage and consequence—but the sound of it: the whine of a recalibration drill, the hiss of sealant as it cures, the polite chatter of technicians pretending they aren’t afraid to be this close to a corridor that almost folded in on itself.

He hates that the corridor smells like new paint.

It’s wrong on principle.

The damage zone has been stripped of urgency and dressed up as responsibility—scaffolding braced against walls that still remember bending, containment seals glowing soft and compliant, every scorch mark carefully erased. Hokuto stands at the far end with his arms crossed, staring at the repairs like they’re an insult written in fresh white.

Six weeks, they said.

Six weeks to fix a place where someone almost disappeared.

A technician in a gray coat pauses mid-step, checks the tablet, and decides very deliberately not to make eye contact.

Hokuto watches him go.

“Six weeks,” Hokuto says flatly.

From behind him, Shintaro makes a thoughtful sound that is suspiciously close to amusement. “That’s optimistic.”

Hokuto’s jaw tightens. “I wasn’t asking for commentary.”

“I wasn’t offering,” Shintaro says, eyes flicking to the faint fracture line still visible near the ceiling—thin as a hairline crack, impossible to unsee once you know it’s there. “I was calculating.”

Hokuto doesn’t look away from the scaffolding. “What are we calculating?”

“How many times,” Shintaro replies, voice mild, “we will rebuild the same place before the system admits it is not architecture that’s failing.”

Hokuto finally turns his head.

Shintaro’s expression is neutral. Of course it is. Green never looks worried. Green just keeps records until worry becomes a documented trend.

“Don’t,” Hokuto says.

Shintaro blinks. “Don’t what?”

“Don’t make it sound like we’re living inside a metaphor,” Hokuto mutters.

Shintaro’s mouth twitches. “We are.”

Hokuto glares at him.

Shintaro continues, unfazed. “And the metaphor has a budget.”

A soft laugh leaves Hokuto before he can stop it—one short, bitter exhale.

Then his gaze slides back to the corridor.

To the place where Kouchi had stood too straight with someone else inside his body, wearing his calm like a borrowed suit.

To the moment the lights had bent inward.

To the sound Jesse made when he refused to strike.

Hokuto’s laughter dies as quickly as it came.

“Where is he,” Hokuto asks.

Shintaro checks his tablet. “Medical cleared him for limited duty.”

Hokuto’s eyes narrow. “That isn’t an answer.”

Shintaro’s tone doesn’t change. “Limited duty means he will attempt normal duty until someone forces him to stop.”

Hokuto’s jaw tightens.

“And the restart—” he begins.

The word sticks.

He corrects himself before Shintaro can look up.

“—Red,” Hokuto finishes, voice clipped. “Where is he?”

Shintaro’s stylus pauses for half a second.

Not long enough to be polite. Long enough to notice.

“He hasn’t left Yellow’s side,” Shintaro says evenly. “Despite medical advice.”

Hokuto exhales through his nose.

“…Of course he hasn’t.”

He doesn’t say the name again.

But the corridor hears it anyway.

Hokuto turns away before his expression can become a reportable incident.

“Yellow is stubborn,” Hokuto says instead.

Shintaro hums. “Yellow is trained.”

Hokuto’s voice goes sharp. “Don’t romanticize it.”

“I’m not,” Shintaro replies. “I’m naming the mechanism.”

Hokuto’s gaze flicks, unwillingly, toward the far end of the corridor where fresh white paint has covered the scorch marks. Cleaned up. Sanitized. Like someone thought making it look normal would erase what happened here.

He can still feel it—he groove.  The place inside Kouchi where the demon had tried to settle—not by force, but by offering relief.

Let me hold it for you.

Hokuto hates that the offer made sense. He hates that it almost worked.

Nino does not reread Jesse’s intake file often.

There is no need. The facts have not changed.

Still, he opens it.

SUBJECT: Jesse
STATUS: ACTIVE (POST-MORTEM RECLASSIFICATION)
INITIAL CAUSE OF DEATH: COMPLIANCE-RELATED FAILURE
RESTART SEQUENCE: SUCCESSFUL
MEMORY INTEGRITY: PARTIAL
RESIDUAL DAMAGE: ACCEPTABLE

Nino exhales through his nose.

“Acceptable,” he repeats quietly.

Shintaro would object to that word. Has, in fact, objected to it before—softly, with data, the way he does when he knows he won’t be overruled.

Nino scrolls.

The notes are concise. Sanitized. No mention of restraint marks. No commentary on the language used during the initial incident. No flag for coercion, because coercion is difficult to quantify and inconvenient to pursue.

The system prefers clarity.

It had preferred it then, too.

Jesse had not resisted the restart.

That is logged as cooperation.

Nino closes his eyes briefly, the memory unbidden: Jesse standing in intake, posture too straight, answering questions correctly without once asking what would happen if he said no.

Red assignment confirmed within minutes.

Temperament: responsive.
Compliance under pressure: high.
Restart viability: optimal.

Nino opens a new annotation field.

He does not amend the record.

But he adds one line beneath it.

OBSERVATION: Subject demonstrates deviation from predicted post-restart behavior when paired with Yellow-class stabilizer.

He pauses.

Then, against habit, continues.

NOTE: Restart sequence preserved damage by design.
UNINTENDED OUTCOME: Subject recognizes pattern repetition.

Nino saves the file.

There will be no investigation. No apology. No revision of procedure.

But there will be adjustments.

He opens another interface and enters a standing directive:

PAIRING LOCKED.
DO NOT REASSIGN WITHOUT EXECUTIVE REVIEW.

Somewhere, a system accepts the command.

Nino leans back in his chair, fingers steepled, gaze drifting once more to the window where cherry blossoms fall endlessly without ever landing.

“Restarted,” he murmurs. “Not repaired.”

It isn’t regret he feels.

It’s calculation.

And for the first time since authorizing Jesse’s return, Nino considers the possibility that restarting someone without rest does not guarantee control.

It may only guarantee memory.

A door down the hall opens with a soft hiss. Footsteps approach at an unhurried pace that could only belong to someone who either owns the building or has stopped caring whether it likes him.

Ninomiya Kazunari appears at the edge of the damage zone, hands in his pockets, expression deceptively casual.

Hokuto straightens instinctively.

Shintaro inclines his head, just barely. “Sir.”

Nino surveys the scaffolding like he’s reading a weather report. “How’s the patient?”

Hokuto doesn’t blink. “Which one.”

Nino’s gaze slides to him. “The corridor.”

Hokuto’s mouth tightens. “It’s in pieces.”

Nino nods, as if that settles it. “Good. Then it’s honest.”

Hokuto’s eyes narrow. Shintaro’s stylus pauses above the tablet, like even Green doesn’t know what field to file that under.

Nino looks back at the repairs, then adds lightly, “Try not to break any more infrastructure this quarter.”

Hokuto exhales through his nose. “Tell that to Yellow.”

Nino’s gaze lingers. Too long.

Hokuto feels it like a hand on the back of his neck: the unspoken we already did.

“Where is he,” Hokuto asks again, this time directly.

Nino’s attention shifts, and in that shift Hokuto sees it—just a flicker.

Not worry.

Calculation.

“He’s in Transit Review,” Nino says.

Hokuto stiffens. “Why.”

“Because certain things happened in a corridor that was not supposed to happen,” Nino replies. “And the system would like to pretend it understands why.”

Shintaro’s stylus moves again, quick and precise. “Transit Review is a formality.”

Nino glances at him. “It usually is.”

Hokuto hates the way Nino says usually.

He hates that his own attention sharpens, reflexive, like Black senses a shadow before it moves.

“Who requested it,” Hokuto asks.

Nino shrugs. “The system.”

Shintaro’s tone is dry. “The system does not request. It assigns.”

Nino smiles faintly. “Then consider it an assignment with unusually good timing.”

Hokuto’s stomach knots.

“Timing for what.”

Nino’s gaze lifts, and for a moment Hokuto thinks he sees cherry blossoms outside the glass—endless, drifting, never touching the ground.

Then Nino’s voice goes even.

“Someone’s been circling again,” he says.

Shintaro’s stylus stops.

Hokuto’s blood goes cold.

“Name,” Hokuto demands.

Nino doesn’t answer immediately.

He doesn’t have to.

There are some names the building itself seems to hesitate around.

Hokuto feels the corridor behind him—new paint, fresh seals, careful repair—like a lie laid over a bruise.

Nino finally speaks.

“Muraki.”

Shintaro’s tablet emits a soft warning chime that he immediately silences. Green’s face doesn’t change, but Hokuto sees the tiny shift in his fingers—tension, controlled.

Hokuto’s voice is low. “He’s not supposed to have access.”

Nino’s expression remains mild. “He isn’t.”

“Then how—”

“Patterns,” Nino says, and the word lands like a knife that’s always been at the ready. “He doesn’t need access if he can predict where we’ll be.”

Shintaro swallows once, almost imperceptible. “He’s moved from influence to contact.”

“Not yet,” Nino replies.

Hokuto stares at him. “You’re saying that like it’s the goal.”

Nino’s gaze flicks, brief and sharp. “I’m saying that like it’s the difference between a warning and an emergency.”

Hokuto’s hands curl into fists at his sides. “Where is Kouchi?”

Nino’s eyes slide toward the corridor behind them.

Hokuto turns.

At the far end of the hall, past the scaffolding and the polite technicians pretending not to listen, a figure stands with the stillness of someone waiting for a cue.

Kouchi.

Yellow uniform pristine. Hair neatly in place. Posture mild.

Too mild.

Hokuto’s throat tightens.

Kouchi looks fine.

And that’s the sign that something is amiss.

Jesse is there too—half a step behind Kouchi, close enough to be a shadow, not close enough to touch. His gaze keeps flicking to Kouchi’s hands, like he’s checking whether they shake.

They don’t.

Jesse looks up, catches Hokuto’s stare, and something raw flashes across his face—not again.

Hokuto starts walking before he’s aware of the decision. The scaffolding blurs at the edges as he cuts through the “authorized personnel only” tape like it doesn’t exist.

“Yellow,” Hokuto calls.

Kouchi turns his head. Smiles faintly.

“Black,” he says, polite as always. “You’re glaring. Again.”

Hokuto stops three feet away.

Up close, he can see it.

Not possession. Not the empty calm from the corridor.

Something subtler.

A tiredness pressed flat under competence. A carefully stacked version of Kouchi’s steadiness, like he rearranged himself so no one would notice the cracks.

Hokuto’s voice is quiet. “You shouldn’t be here.”

Kouchi’s smile doesn’t change. “I know.”

Jesse shifts, restless. “He insisted.”

Kouchi’s gaze flicks to Jesse—not reprimand, not softness. Just a steady look that says: Don’t.

Jesse clamps his jaw shut.

Hokuto’s chest tightens.

“You’re being reviewed,” Hokuto says.

“I’m being documented,” Kouchi corrects.

“Same thing.”

“No,” Kouchi says gently. “Documentation implies they intend to remember.”

Hokuto’s eyes narrow. “What did Nino tell you?”

Kouchi blinks, slow. “Enough.”

Hokuto almost laughs. It would have come out ugly. “That means nothing.”

Kouchi’s expression remains mild. “That means it means exactly what it needs to.”

Hokuto hates him a little for sounding like that.

Hokuto hates himself more for understanding.

Behind them, a technician drops a tool with a clatter that echoes too loudly through the corridor.

The sound doesn’t fit.

It feels wrong.

Like a misnote in a piece that’s been rehearsed too many times.

Jesse stiffens first.

Then Hokuto feels it—a change in pressure, subtle, like the air has turned its attention toward them.

Not an attack.

A presence.

Hokuto’s shadows shift automatically, gathering close, ready.

Kouchi doesn’t move.

That’s the second wrong thing.

“Kouchi,” Jesse says under his breath. “Do you feel that?”

Kouchi’s eyes flick, almost tired. “Yes.”

Hokuto’s voice goes sharp. “Then move.”

Kouchi exhales, small. “It’s not here for you.”

Hokuto’s blood turns to ice. “What.”

Kouchi’s gaze slides away—not avoidance. Acceptance.

Jesse takes a half-step forward, and Hokuto sees the panic behind his restraint.

“No,” Jesse says immediately, voice cracking. “No. We’re not doing this. Not—”

A shadow at the other end of the corridor moves.

Not Hokuto’s.

Not the technicians’.

A figure steps out of the thin space between lights as if the hallway has always had an extra seam.

He wears a suit that looks too neat for the chaos he brings.

His smile is gentle in the way scalpels are gentle.

Muraki.

Hokuto’s shadows flare, instinctive and violent.

Muraki doesn’t look at them.

He looks at Kouchi.

Like he’s been looking for him all along.

“Kouchi,” Muraki says, voice soft. Familiar. “There you are.”

Jesse goes rigid.

Hokuto takes a step forward, shadows coiling, ready to strike.

Muraki lifts one hand—not a ward, not a command. A gesture of calm.

“Oh,” Muraki says, still not looking at Hokuto. “Don’t bother.”

Hokuto’s voice is lethal. “You don’t belong here.”

Muraki smiles faintly. “Neither do you.”

Hokuto’s shadows surge—

—and stop.

Not because Hokuto hesitates.

Because the corridor does.

The repaired seals hum. The fresh paint glows faintly, lines of containment lighting up like someone just traced them from the inside.

Shintaro’s earlier words flash in Hokuto’s mind, cold and precise.

Clean data lies.

Muraki tilts his head, as if listening to the building. “New repairs,” he remarks pleasantly. “How thoughtful.”

Hokuto’s stomach drops. “You—”

“I didn’t break it,” Muraki says, almost amused. “Your system did. I’m simply… taking advantage of the seams.”

Jesse’s voice is raw. “Stay away from him.”

Muraki finally looks at Jesse.

And the smile sharpens.

“Ah,” he says. “The Red. The restart.”

Jesse flinches like the word is a hand around his throat.

Muraki’s gaze returns to Kouchi—devout, possessive, clinical.

“I’ve been patient,” Muraki says softly. “I’ve watched you absorb what no one else would touch. I’ve watched them call it stability.”

Kouchi doesn’t answer.

Hokuto sees it: Kouchi’s hands are relaxed at his sides. His posture is composed.

He looks like someone trying very hard not to be a problem.

Muraki continues, voice almost kind. “You’re tired.”

Kouchi’s throat bobs once. “Yes.”

Jesse jolts. “Kouchi—”

Muraki’s eyes flicker with interest, like that single syllable was a successful experiment.

“Come with me,” Muraki says.

Hokuto’s shadows bristle. “You can’t order him.”

Muraki doesn’t glance at Hokuto. “I’m not ordering.”

He shifts, just slightly, and the corridor responds—seals tightening, lights dimming at the edges as if the building itself is leaning in.

“I’m offering him a place where he doesn’t have to pretend being functional is living,” Muraki says, voice low. “A place where the grooves can be… understood.”

Hokuto’s voice is a growl. “Kyoto.”

Muraki smiles.

“Kyoto,” he confirms.

Jesse’s breath comes fast. “No. No—he’s not going to—”

Kouchi turns his head and looks at Jesse.

No apology. No farewell. A look that is almost unbearably gentle, precisely because it’s honest.

“Kouchi,” Jesse whispers, shaking. “Don’t—don’t choose this.”

Kouchi’s expression doesn’t change. But something in his eyes does—something old, something tired, something that has been waiting for permission to stop carrying everyone else.

“I’m not choosing him,” Kouchi says quietly.

Jesse’s face flickers with relief so sharp it hurts to see.

Kouchi continues.

“I’m choosing the only path where you don’t get hurt next.”

Jesse goes very still.

“No,” he says, voice breaking. “That’s not—”

Muraki’s smile widens, satisfied.

Hokuto’s shadows surge—late, furious—but the corridor seals flare bright, trapping the darkness mid-motion like a net catching a bird.

He snarls, fighting the restraint, and for the first time in a long time he feels what Jesse described: the building deciding you’re not allowed.

Muraki steps closer to Kouchi, unhurried. “You see?” he murmurs. “Even now, they’d rather repair walls than admit what you are.”

Kouchi doesn’t look at Muraki.

He looks at Hokuto for a beat.

Then, softly: “I’m sorry.”

Hokuto’s chest tightens. “Don’t you dare—” but the sentence hangs. 

Kouchi looks back at Jesse.

Jesse is shaking. He doesn’t move, because he promised himself he wouldn’t strike Kouchi. Because he promised he would stay.

And Muraki has positioned the entire moment right in the middle of that promise.

Muraki extends his hand.

“Come,” he says.

Kouchi hesitates—just long enough that Hokuto’s shadows strain against the seals.

Just long enough that Jesse’s eyes go wet.

Then Kouchi steps forward. Takes Muraki’s hand.

The corridor breathes in.

And folds inward.

Like a doorway remembering an older shape.

Jesse lunges on instinct, hand outstretched—“Kouchi!”

His fingers catch Kouchi’s sleeve for half a second.

Just fabric. Just enough contact to trigger the feedback. Pain detonates up Jesse’s arm—white, brutal, immediate.

He gasps, knees buckling.

Kouchi’s eyes snap to him, horror flashing—raw and unguarded.

“Jesse—”

Muraki tightens his grip, gentle and absolute.

“You see?” Muraki murmurs, almost fond. “He always arrives early. Afraid of being too late.”

Jesse’s vision blurs.

Hokuto roars, shadows slamming against the seals hard enough to make the repaired walls tremble.

Taiga and Juri step forward to lend support while Shintaro’s voice cuts through from somewhere behind them—sharp, urgent, too late:

“—CORRIDOR LOCKDOWN—!”

But the fold is already closing.

Kouchi’s gaze stays on Jesse—anchored, helpless.

His mouth moves.

Jesse can’t hear the words over the blood rushing in his ears.

But he sees the shape of them. Stay.

Then the corridor snaps back into place.

Fresh paint.

New seals.

Scaffolding humming.

Technicians frozen mid-breath.

Muraki gone.

Kouchi gone.

And Jesse on the floor, shaking, clutching his arm like the pain is the only proof his hand had reached anything at all.

Hokuto drops beside him, shadows finally breaking loose now that the corridor has let them go.

“Jesse.”

The name comes out too fast—unplanned, unfiltered.

Jesse’s breath stutters. His fingers won’t unclench. Pain still screams up his arm, raw and unbuffered, like Red has nowhere left to put it.

Hokuto doesn’t touch him at first. He looks—really looks—at the way Jesse is shaking, at the way he’s holding himself together on instinct alone.

“Stay with me,” Hokuto says quietly. Not a command. Not protocol.

Jesse swallows hard and nods once.

That’s when Hokuto’s jaw tightens.

His shadows pull in close, coiled and restrained, not striking because there’s nowhere they can go that won’t make this worse. He turns his head just enough to take in the corridor—the fresh paint, the new seals, the immaculate repair laid over what was stolen.

“Maintenance,” Hokuto says flatly, “is what they call fixing walls.”

His gaze sharpens. Something cold settles behind his eyes—not rage, not yet. Calculation shaped by guilt.

He rises slowly, like every movement costs something.

“And now,” Hokuto adds—finally, deliberately saying Jesse’s name out loud—“we go after him.”

Not because it’s procedure. But because someone took Kouchi. And hurt Jesse to do it.

This isn’t repair.

This is retrieval.