Her name was Kano Aoi. She was born and raised in Tanabe City, Wakayama Prefecture, in a house on a hillside where you could see the Kumano Mountains in the distance.

The village was small. Walking from one end to the other took no longer than smoking a pipe.

At the village entrance stood an old camphor tree, its canopy so broad it swallowed the sky. In summer, the village elders would drag out their little stools and sit in its shade, fanning themselves.

Children ran circles around their feet, chasing each other from the field ridges down to the stream, from behind the chicken coops all the way to the threshing ground.

Kano was the ringleader.

She stood half a head taller than the boys her age, ran the fastest, jumped the farthest, and climbed higher than anyone. If some kid bullied one of her followers, she'd chase them from the threshing ground all the way to the end of the field ridge, not stopping until they ran home in tears.

The village aunties would shake their heads whenever they saw her, laughing. "Kano, girl, who's ever going to marry you like this?"

She'd put her hands on her hips, lift her chin, and say, "I'm not getting married. I'm going to the big city. They have everything there."

She didn't really know what a big city was back then.

She only knew that all the young people from the village left for one, and came back for New Year's wearing clothes she'd never seen, carrying boxes of sweets she'd never tasted.

Her cousin worked in the city. When he came home for New Year's, he brought her a pair of white sneakers.

It was the first time she had ever owned shoes made for running. Not straw sandals, not rubber shoes, real athletic shoes.

She clutched them to her chest and slept with them all night.

The year she finished elementary school, a PE teacher from the county came down to the countryside scouting for talent. He drew a makeshift track on the threshing ground in lime.

All the children lined up in a row. The whistle blew, and they sprinted toward the old camphor tree at the village entrance.

Kano came in first.

The teacher squatted down, squeezed her legs, had her jump a few times, then called her father aside. He said the girl could follow the student-athlete track. The county subsidized costs; the family only needed to cover basic living expenses.

Her father smoked his pipe in silence all night. The next morning, he set a stack of old bills held together with a rubber band on the pillow beside her head.

She was admitted to Tanabe Municipal Middle School as a student-athlete.

Everyone in the village came to see her off. Her father stood under the old camphor tree with her one suitcase in his hand. Her mother held her hand and fussed without pause, eat properly, don't let anyone push you around, write home if you need money.

She rode in the back of a tractor, and looked back toward the village 3 times along the way.

Every time, the old camphor tree was still visible. The cooking smoke still drifted up into the sky.

Everything in the city overwhelmed her.

Just the road in front of the school gate was several times wider than the entire village threshing ground.

The dormitory had 4 beds. Her three roommates were all city girls, with accents she'd never heard, talking about things she didn't understand at all.

On the first day of school, she went to class in the cloth shoes her mother had sewn. Her desk neighbor tapped her ankle with a pretty leather shoe and said her shoes looked tacky.

She buried her head in her textbook.

The school had a dedicated track and field team. The coach was a retired former county record holder.

During the first training session, he had her run 2,000 meters alongside some of the veterans. The veterans finished. She still had 300 meters to go.

The coach walked over. She was crouched on the ground, gasping until her vision went dark.

He said her core was too weak, her breathing rhythm completely off, and her running form was a mess.

Kano looked up at him, sweat dripping from her eyelashes. It was the first time she had ever lost a race, and she had lost to more than one person.

From that day on, she stayed after every session to train on her own. Up at five in the morning. Out on the track until the watchman came to lock up at night.

Her first city-level competition, she took second place. The county sent her first scholarship payment, and she mailed it straight home.

Back then, she felt like things were getting better.

She gradually settled into city life. She learned how to deal with different kinds of people. She stopped wearing her mother's cloth shoes, saved up, and bought a pair of running shoes on discount.

She smiled more. The sun tanned her skin into a healthy brown.

The girls on the track team gossiped among themselves about which boys in school were the most popular. Kano never joined in.

She had no interest in any of that. She just wanted to train, compete, earn money, and give her family a better life.

Several boys at school wrote her letters. She tucked each one into the pocket of her training tracksuit, pretended she'd forgotten it was there, and returned it untouched after practice.

Her teammates said her standards were too high. Kano kept lacing her spikes without looking up. "It's not high standards. I just don't have the time."

The coach praised her training attitude by name on the track. Said this was what an athlete ought to look like.

Then, in the autumn of her second year, after school let out, she got cornered behind the school building.

The one leading them was Miyagawa from the next class over.

His father was allegedly on the school board. Miyagawa had bought his way into the school, wore limited-edition basketball shoes, and kept a few lackeys trailing behind him.

He'd told her plenty of times that he had his eye on her. She'd turned him down just as many times.

But this time he didn't leave. He stood blocking the hallway exit, one hand propped against the wall behind her, the same pose every lousy bully used.

He ran through a string of hollow sweet-talk first, then said his father could take care of her training expenses, that if she agreed she'd never have to work a part-time job again.

Kano listened. She didn't answer.

Miyagawa looked down at her, wearing the smile of someone who thought the world revolved around him. "I'm patient, but there are limits. I'll ask one more time: be my girlfriend. You don't want to get expelled, do you?"

Expelled. Kano's heartbeat stuttered.

She didn't know exactly how much power Miyagawa's father had. But she knew that coming from him, it wasn't an empty threat.

She couldn't get expelled.

Her family needed that scholarship. Her coach was counting on her to represent the school at the upcoming city qualifiers.

She couldn't go home and face her mother's patched kimono like this. Couldn't walk back to the old camphor tree at the village entrance and say she'd been expelled.

She clenched her fists. Her nails dug into her palms.

If there was no way out, she might as well beat the hell out of all of them.

"Miyagawa. This doesn't look good on you."

A boy in glasses stood at the end of the hallway, a stack of books tucked in his arms.

White collared shirt. Dark gray uniform trousers without a single wrinkle.

He wasn't on the track team, wasn't a student-athlete. He was a genuine honors student. Kano had seen his name on the grade ranking board many times, always in the top three.

Sugiura Kaname.

Miyagawa's eyes narrowed.

He lowered the hand from the wall, gave a small nod of his chin toward Kano without a word, and walked off with his lackeys.

"You should try to walk home with someone after school," Sugiura said, giving a slight nod. Then he walked past her with his books.

When winter came, the track team moved to indoor training. Every afternoon from three o'clock onward, Kano stayed at the training facility until dark.

Sugiura would show up in the bleachers from time to time, discussing coursework with classmates.

She assumed he came for the coursework. He did come for the coursework, only he'd linger after finishing, turning a few pages of his book, glancing toward the track every so often.

One of her teammates followed Kano's gaze and said the guy's father was the biggest name on the school board. Old money, serious connections. The guy himself was a genuine scholar, top grades, and rumored to already have an internal recommendation to Waseda.

Her teammate warned her not to get any ideas. That world was too far from hers.

Kano said, "How could I."

But when she stood at the starting line adjusting her blocks, her peripheral vision swept across the bleachers and caught his eye.

He smiled and waved at her. She snapped her head back. She was still catching up when the starting whistle blew.

After that, they started spending time together.

Sugiura would wait at the training facility entrance after her sessions ended, holding 2 cans of drinks, handing her one.

She told him it was too much. He said he bought them on sale at the convenience store, they cost nothing.

She knew he was lying. The packaging looked expensive, printed with foreign words she couldn't read.

She took it anyway.

They talked on the school rooftop. Shared lunch at a corner table in the cafeteria. Sat in the back row of the training bleachers and talked about their futures.

He said he wanted to study economics at Waseda. She said she wanted to make it to the national championships, win a medal, and run her way to a future on her own two legs.

When she said that, there was a light in her eyes.

Not the reflection of city neon. It was morning sunlight coming over the wild Kumano Mountains.

He had grown up with everyone looking at him from below, deferential and careful. Only this girl in front of him never once lowered her head when she spoke to him.

One day, on her way to class, Kano passed the boys' restroom. From around the corner, she heard two voices.

"Hey, you and that Aoi girl—you two are really a thing?"

"She's a sports student. Fine to fool around with, just don't get serious."

"How can you say something like that?"

"It's true though. Student-athletes have messy private lives."

"Don't ever say that to me again. She's not like that." A flurry of quick footsteps, then silence at the end of the hall.

Kano leaned against the wall, looking down at her spikes, worn pale at the edges.

She wanted to thank him. But every time the words got close, he waved it off before she could say them.

In the dead of winter, a letter arrived from home.

Her mother's handwriting was cramped and uneven on yellowed paper. Father's back had given out again. He was in the county hospital. Their savings were gone. This month's remittance was a little short.

Her mother told her not to come home. Round-trip travel cost enough to cover the family's living expenses for a good while. Stay put, keep training. Relatives were helping out.

She folded the letter, slipped it under her pillow, and started looking for part-time work the next day.

Cashier at a convenience store. Carrying dishes at an izakaya. Folding laundry at a laundromat.

Every kind of job there was to do.

After training ended every day, she changed into street clothes and rushed to her shift. After her shift, she walked back to the dorm under the streetlights. She'd collapse onto her bed without the energy to take her shoes off.

Her training results started slipping.

The coach called her into his office. Said her form had changed, her breathing rhythm was ragged, and her thigh endurance had dropped noticeably.

He asked if she was getting enough rest. She said she would.

She didn't know how much longer she could hold out. But she had to. There was no other option.

When Sugiura found out, he didn't say a word. He just slipped an envelope into the pocket of her training tracksuit the next day.

Inside was a neat stack of bills. On top of it sat a note, the handwriting clean and careful: "This isn't charity. I just can't spend all my pocket money, and it's sitting there doing nothing. Take it for now. Pay me back after you win a championship."

She wanted to return it. But she thought of her father lying in that county hospital bed. She thought of her mother's patched kimono. She thought of what her coach was counting on her to do.

She put the envelope away.

When spring came, her results started climbing again.

First the Tanabe qualifiers, she took first. Then the prefectural meet, she broke a record. Then the Kinki regional qualifiers, she took third.

After every race, she split the prize money into 3 parts: one sent home, one to repay him, one kept for herself.

Whenever he took the money she returned, he never counted it. Just slid it into a drawer.

He said she didn't need to rush. She said she did.

Sugiura had an apartment outside school, rented by his father.

Two bedrooms and a living room. The walls were covered in animal trophies, an African antelope's horns, a wooden elephant head from Thailand, a bearskin wall hanging from Hokkaido.

He said his father had traveled the world when he was young, mailing back some strange curiosity from every place he visited.

Over time, he'd hung them all on the walls. He said it made him feel like he'd been to those places too.

He asked Kano which animal she liked best.

She said she'd seen plenty of animals in the village. If she had to pick, she'd say deer.

Deer weren't haughty like horses, weren't clumsy like cattle. They were spirits of the wild. When they ran, the lines of muscle in their legs were something close to perfect, every inch of it built for speed.

As she said it, she shaped a running motion with her hand, her fingers tracing an arc through the air.

The next time she visited, a mounted deer head had appeared above the living room fireplace.

The antlers spread boldly to either side. Dark brown eyes looked down quietly over the room.

Her run toward the national championships officially began that summer.

First was the National Sports Festival. She represented Wakayama Prefecture in the Junior Women's B 800-meter and took silver. Then came the Inter-High Track and Field Championships. She broke the prefectural record in the Women's 1500-meter and took bronze.

She sent every medal home. Her mother hung them on the wall beside her father's bed, said it would help his back heal faster.

With sponsors came money. Enough, finally, to cover her father's medical bills. And she paid back double what Sugiura had given her.

She pushed the envelope across to him. Said this was only part of it. "You know that kind of money—the kind that saves someone's life—you can't clear that debt in a single go."

He took the envelope. His fingers brushed hers.

Very lightly. Like he was afraid of breaking something.

Afterward he asked if she wanted to come see the apartment—he'd redecorated the living room.

He said he'd reorganized everything on the walls and left the most prominent spot empty. She asked what it was for. He said he was waiting for a photo of her. Standing on a world podium.

On a rainy night, Kano took the bus from Kansai International Airport into the city, heading toward the apartment.

The wipers traced slow arcs across the window. She leaned against the glass and watched the rain blur the lights outside, a gold medal held to her chest.

World Games. Women's 1500-meter. Gold.

She was no longer the country girl running on a lime track on the threshing ground.

The sun of a dozen different latitudes had darkened her skin. Her hair was longer than before.

But her stride cadence was still the kind only a child raised in the mountains would have.

There was no joy on her face.

She pushed open the apartment door.

The living room lights were off. A flash of lightning through the window threw the mounted deer head on the far wall into sharp, flickering relief.

The deer eyes looked down quietly over the room.

She changed her shoes. Set the gold medal on the entryway cabinet. Walked into the living room.

Sugiura Kaname was sitting on the bedroom floor, arms around his knees, face buried between them. His shoulders were hunched, his back curved like a tree broken in a storm.

His hair fell in a tangled mess that covered his face entirely.

Kano walked over. She picked up the jacket that had slipped onto the carpet, folded it, and set it at the foot of the bed.

Then she sat down beside him. She didn't ask what happened.

She already knew.

On the flight back to Japan, she had seen it in the newspaper.

His father, Sugiura Muneaki, had been formally placed under investigation. Suspected embezzlement of public assets, corporate bribery, illicit political donations.

Every one of the Sugiura Group's hundred-plus subsidiaries had been frozen. The sum involved ran into the hundreds of billions of yen. It was the biggest financial scandal of the year.

Everything he had ever had, from birth until now, was gone overnight.

"Congratulations. Champion."

He finally spoke. His voice was rough and low. His face was still buried in his knees.

"Why bother with that right now. How is your father doing?" Kano said.

Sugiura raised his head and looked at her. The room was dark; she couldn't read his expression. She could only see his eyes catching the faint white flash of lightning.

It wasn't tears. It was something drier and deeper than tears, something that had already burned itself out.

"Arrested. They're working through the layers one by one. It won't be long before they get to me."

"You had no part in any of it, right? If you didn't, then you don't need to worry. My salary and prize money can—"

"Are you pitying me?"

His voice went quiet. Not soft—quiet. The kind of quiet that drops the temperature.

He lifted his face from his knees and looked straight at her. "What you earn now—back then it wouldn't have covered a few months of my pocket money. You took what I gave you, traded it for a gold medal, and now you've come back to tell me you can take care of me."

He turned away and buried his face in his knees again.

Something in his words hit like a sharp edge.

She wanted to say that wasn't what she meant. That she only wanted to pay back what he'd done for her. That she wasn't pitying him. That he needed to calm down.

She said nothing.

She shifted closer, put her hand on his arm, and said it would be okay. Everything would be okay.

Sugiura didn't answer.

He stayed silent for a long time—so long she thought he was done talking.

Then he raised a hand. His fingers touched her collar.

Kano batted it away on instinct.

Not a shove. A brush, light and reflexive, the kind you'd use to flick a moth off your shoulder.

She didn't know why she did it. Only that it felt wrong. Not now.

His emotions were too raw. What he needed was to calm down.

Their first time couldn't happen in a moment like this, in chaos and despair, in a dark room, right after he'd lost everything.

Sugiura knelt in front of her, one hand braced on the edge of the bed, the other still hanging in midair where she'd brushed it aside.

Something cracked behind his eyes. Beneath the dried-out surface, something burned red.

Not at her hand. At the expression on her face after she brushed him off, that careful, worried look. The one that was afraid of hurting him.

He knew that look. He'd seen it on people's faces his whole life.

Classmates. Teachers. Relatives. Everyone around him had always been careful, because he was the Sugiura family's son.

But he had never once seen that look on her face.

She didn't flatter him. Didn't defer to him. Said what she meant and meant what she said. And now there it was, that exact same look, turned on him.

"You bitch. What's wrong with touching you? Where would you be without me? Who do you think you are? You're nothing but a girl from the mountains who can run fast. Your face, your legs, everything you have—I bought all of it."

Sugiura rose to his feet and stepped toward her.

Every word came out heavier than the last. His breathing roughened.

His hands trembled at his sides. Not fear. Rage, the kind that had been building for too long and finally found its way out tonight.

He had been raised to be gentle and composed. Well-mannered. To carry himself with the dignity of the Sugiura name on every occasion.

But he was no longer the Sugiura family's son. He was just a man who had been stripped of everything.

Worse than an ordinary man, even—at least ordinary people still had their freedom.

He couldn't protect his father. Didn't know if someone would come knocking on his door tomorrow. Every sycophant who used to grovel at his feet was already waiting to kick him while he was down. The thought of living the rest of his life like that turned his stomach.

He had always thought she was different from the others. She was.

But now she was looking at him like that. With pity.

On what grounds?

What gave her the right?

She was a poor girl who had crawled out of a mountain village. Without the money he gave her, she would still be folding laundry at a laundromat. Everything she had was because of him. And now she wanted to use the things he gave her to offer him charity.

He wouldn't accept it.

He grabbed her and pinned her down on the bedroom carpet. His knees drove into her legs. His kneecaps struck the hard floor with a dull thud.

His fingers closed around her throat.

Kano struggled, pulling at his fingers with both hands.

Her vision began to blur. The ceiling light behind him bloomed into a blinding white halo.

She drove her foot into his stomach. He slid backward and slammed into the entryway cabinet.

Kano rolled onto her knees and coughed violently, each heave forcing ragged air up through her throat.

Her fingers dug into the carpet fibers. Tears fell one by one onto the dark gray pile.

She looked up at him. Not with fear—with confusion.

She couldn't understand whether the man in front of her and the Sugiura Kaname she had loved were actually the same person.

The boy who waved at her from the bleachers. The boy who waited outside the convenience store just to walk her back to the dorm. The same person who had just choked her and called her a bitch?

"How did we get here? Get it together. You're not like this. You're not this kind of person!" Her voice came out hoarse and shaking. Tears dripped from her jaw onto the carpet.

Sugiura pressed a hand to his stomach where she had kicked him, leaning against the cabinet with his head down, catching his breath.

What kind of person was he? He didn't know.

He only knew that he had nothing left now. And she had a gold medal, a future, tomorrows he couldn't imagine.

She could keep running. Keep winning. Keep living her life without him.

All he had was this dark apartment and a scandal that would follow his name into history.

He watched her get up from the floor and walk toward him. Her lips were still trembling. Her hands clutched the hem of her clothes.

She was still scared of him, of his volatility, his impulses, of him losing control again.

But she was still walking toward him. Because she believed it had only been a moment of madness.

She believed that the Sugiura Kaname who had stood up for her in the hallway was still in there, just buried under everything, and that if she walked over and reached out her hand, he would come back.

Sugiura's hand moved across the carpet. His fingertips found his trouser pocket.

A folding knife.

He had never intended to do anything to her. But the moment his fingers closed around the handle, a thought moved through him.

She runs too fast. Not just her legs, her whole life.

She ran right past me. She's somewhere I can't even see anymore. And I can't catch up.

The blade went into her stomach.

Kano looked down at the knife handle pressed against her lower abdomen.

The blade had been warmed by her body. When he pulled it free, it brought a thread of blood with it.

Warmth ran down the inside of her thigh. The dark gray carpet turned a deep, spreading red.

She stepped back twice and sank to the floor, both hands pressed over her stomach.

Blood welled through her fingers, filling the spaces beneath her nails almost immediately.

She stared at the blood. Images moved through her mind, her mother's patched kimono, the silver medal hanging on the wall above her father's bed.

The mounted deer head on the living room fireplace looked down at her in silence.

Her legs. The legs she had been so proud of. She had run on these legs from the threshing ground to the city, from the city to the world, from nothing to everything she had ever dared to want.

She desperately wanted to call out for her mother. The way she had as a child when she tripped in the field, loud, without any holding back, everything in it.

Sugiura snatched up the folding stool from the floor and raised it over his head.

He didn't remember how many times he brought it down. He only remembered the soft, muffled sound she made each time.

He hit her legs.

Because her legs had fascinated him. Made him feel small. Had once made him believe that there were people in this world who couldn't be held back by anything.

He hit her because her legs were still moving.

Because she kept struggling, and every time she did, it pulled him back to what he was doing.

He didn't want to be pulled back.

He wanted it to stop.

If it just stopped, he wouldn't have to think about tomorrow. Wouldn't have to wonder who she'd be with after this. Wouldn't have to face how completely unrecognizable he had become.

Just stop. That was all.

Kano lay face-down on the carpet. Her legs were numb below the knees. She could only feel a dull, heavy weight spreading upward.

Her tears ran down her nose and soaked into the carpet fibers.

She could hear herself saying it—mom, dad—over and over, not knowing what she was saying. Only knowing that it hurt. It hurt so much. Someone, please. Someone tell her this was a nightmare. That tomorrow she'd wake up in her dorm with her training clothes hanging from the bedpost and he'd be waiting at the facility entrance with a drink in his hand.

Sugiura dropped the stool. He stood there breathing hard.

His hands were shaking, not from fear. Muscle spasms from the force he'd used.

He stood there and looked down at her, curled on the carpet.

Then the violence drained out of him all at once. Like a tide going out. He scratched the back of his head, let out a long slow breath, stood with his hands on his hips for a moment.

He looked at the rain still falling outside. The lightning had stopped.

He crouched down, reached out, and nudged her shoulder. Said, quietly, "I'm sorry."

No force behind it. Just a nudge. She didn't respond.

He thought she'd passed out. He turned to go find the first aid kit.

His foot hit something wet and he went down hard, his back slamming against the floor.

He pushed himself up and swore under his breath.

His hands were covered in blood.

Not a few drops. Not a smear. His entire palm was red, blood spreading from his fingers to his wrists.

The blood had spread from her stomach across the carpet in a wide, dark stain.

Her eyes were empty. Her lips slightly parted. Every trace of color had left her face.

Sugiura sat on the floor with his back against the bed frame, looking at his hands.

He should have been terrified. Should have been shaking. Should have dialed for an ambulance or run for the door.

Instead he just sat there, hands laid open on his knees, and let the blood drip from between his fingers onto his trouser legs.

It was over.

Not her. He had been over long before tonight.

Before the rainy night. Before his father was arrested. His life had already been an empty shell propped on top of the Sugiura name.

He had just never let himself admit it.

Now there was nothing left to worry about. Nothing left to fear. He had nothing left to lose.

He pulled his gaze away from her. Braced against the bed frame. Stood up and walked into the living room.

The mounted deer head above the fireplace watched him in silence.

Her deer.

She had said she liked deer.

She had said she loved the lines of a deer's legs when it ran.

He seized the mount and tore it off the wall and threw it to the floor.

The antlers snapped on impact. The glass eyes popped from their sockets, bounced twice, and rolled under the sofa.

He stood in the wreckage and looked around, searching for something, anything, that could still tell him he was Sugiura Kaname.

The animal trophies on the walls. The antelope horns, the elephant head, the bearskin hanging. They had once been proof of his father's travels, ornaments of the Sugiura family's reach.

Now they were just dead things on a wall.

He went back to the bedroom. Picked up his phone from the bed. Dialed the police.

His voice was steady and clear. He gave the apartment address. He said an intentional homicide had taken place and that the perpetrator was still on the premises.

He hung up and walked into the bathroom.

Hot water came down from the showerhead and moved over him from head to toe.

He washed carefully. His hair. Under his nails. Behind his ears.

His mind was empty. He wasn't thinking about anything.

Yesterday at this time, he had been sitting in a lecture hall at Waseda, listening to an economics lecture, his notebook full of research topics for next semester.

Where he'd be at this time tomorrow, he had no idea.

He started laughing, sudden and loud, the sound bouncing off the bathroom walls until the toothbrush cup on the shelf hummed with it.

He came out of the bathroom and changed into his cleanest clothes. White collared shirt. Dark gray uniform trousers. He put his glasses back on.

Moonlight came in through the parted curtains. He felt his way to the sofa and sat down, hands folded on his knees, the exact posture he kept in the Waseda lecture hall.

He looked at the wall across from him.

The mounted deer head was still there.

He blinked. Looked again.

That wasn't the mount he had smashed.

He never used nails when hanging things on these walls. Everything went up on adhesive hooks. When he'd torn it down earlier, the only sound had been the slow hiss of the adhesive peeling away from the plaster.

This one wasn't on a hook.

It wasn't hanging on the wall.

It was growing out of it.

No fur on the surface. Just bone, a bone mask, hollow eye sockets, and antlers. The antlers caught the moonlight with a cold gleam, every tine ending in a point sharp as a blade.

At its upper abdomen sat a void. A black Hollow Hole, in the exact place where she had been stabbed.

Not death, death was an ending. This void was consumption. A hunger that would never be filled.

He sat frozen on the sofa, picking out more details in the dim light. A neck. Shoulders. A torso. Several times the size of the mount on the wall. Not a decoration.

It was looking down at him.

By the time the investigation team and police broke the door open, the rain had stopped.

The emergency lights in the hallway cast a stark white over the entire floor. Several prosecutors in black uniforms rushed into the living room. One of them grabbed the doorframe and bent double, retching.

Forensics technicians knelt at the edge of the bloodstains, dropping a torn scrap of fabric into an evidence bag with tweezers.

Cameras flashed and clicked, fixing the blood spatter across the walls into permanent record.

In the corner, 2 voices conferred in low tones. Under the bedroom bed: a snapped antler mount. On the carpet: a folding knife. The fingerprints on the handle belonged to the male tenant.

All evidence pointed to Sugiura Kaname.

But Sugiura Kaname's body was in pieces. The medical examiner crouched beside the remains, working carefully with tweezers. Cause of death: penetrating trauma. Chest to abdomen, a massive through-and-through wound, consistent with being struck from the front by something blunt with tremendous force, consistent with being gored by antlers.

Except the deer head mount lying on the floor couldn't account for it. It sat quietly beside the sofa, base facing up.

The other examiner set down his notebook. There was a second body. Young female, approximately 20 years old. Athletic build, well-developed leg muscles. A single sharp-force wound to the abdomen.

Cause of death: blood loss. Extensive defensive wounds across the body. Multiple areas of repeated blunt-force trauma to the thighs and knees. Evidence of severe physical assault prior to death.

Apache rubbed her eyes.

The irritation hadn't cleared yet. Her past life always left that taste in her mouth.

Ever since she became a Hollow, those memories surfaced from somewhere deep without warning, clearer each time, more infuriating each time.

She couldn't remember Sugiura Kaname's face. Only the antlers. Only the blood.

The name Kano hadn't belonged to her for a long time. But some things didn't go away. Her fixation on deer. The way she felt compelled to protect anyone weaker than her. The way her fists tightened whenever she saw someone getting pushed around.

She didn't understand why Lord Aizen created Arrancars this way, leaving fragments of memory behind, rage that couldn't heal, a hunger that never went quiet.

She didn't feel like thinking about it. She just wanted to keep moving.

Then she spotted someone up ahead, looking around as if lost.

Half a mask. Dark gray. A dark red streak of lightning along the right eye socket.

Obviously someone who didn't know where they were going.

"Hey! You—the Arrancar with the half-mask. Yeah, you. What are you doing over there?"

➤ Next: Gamuza — Clash

Chapter 71 - Gamuza — Clash

Seijūrō sat atop a shattered quartz pillar, swaying gently in Hueco Mundo's dry wind.

He was waiting.

Two Arrancar were arguing beside him.

One was tall and skeletal, all spindly limbs, a square fragment of bone mask pinned to his forehead like a sugar cube nailed in place.

His name was Pesche Guatiche. At the moment, he was up on his tiptoes, both arms windmilling through the air, his voice pitched somewhere between a shriek and a whine.

The other was short and round, his body like an overstuffed sack, the lower half of his face covered by an oval bone visor that left only two beady eyes exposed. His name was Dondochakka Birstanne. He was crouched in the sand, drawing circles with a quartz twig.

When Seijūrō had first found them, he had delivered his opening line: "I am an Arrancar drawn here by your master's reputation. I wish to see Lady Nelliel."

He had prepared an elaborate cover story, a wandering Arrancar who had fled some remote territory, who had survived alone on the white desert far too long and desperately wanted to serve beneath a truly powerful master, who didn't have much to offer but would do whatever was within his ability.

He had even prepared to release a sliver of Reiatsu on cue, proof that he wasn't entirely worthless if they pressed him.

But the moment the words "drawn by reputation" left his mouth, Pesche seized his hand with both of his, tears practically brimming at the edges of his eyes.

"Dondochakka, did you hear that! Drawn here by reputation!"

Dondochakka stabbed the quartz twig into the sand and stared up at him, his round eyes bulging like two freshly peeled quail eggs.

"Drawn by reputation! Whose reputation? Mine?"

"Like hell it's yours! Even if someone came for mine, it still wouldn't be you!"

And then they started bickering.

Seijūrō sat there and watched them go at it for a solid quarter of an hour. He did not get a single chance to close his mouth.

He really wished he had run into some of Baraggan's subordinates instead. At least he wouldn't feel guilty about killing them.

All the intelligence he had gathered so far had already been relayed back to Soul Society via the specialized device Mayuri Kurotsuchi had given him.

It was a tiny Reishi resonator, embedded inside the dark red lightning pattern along the right eye of his half-mask. By making micro-adjustments to Reishi frequency, it could establish brief one-way communication with Squad 12's dedicated receiver back in Soul Society.

Before coming to Hueco Mundo, he had learned how to operate it in the underground laboratory of the Technological Development Bureau, letting Mayuri's parting warning, "Break it and you will compensate me handsomely", go in one ear and out the other.

Word had since come back from the other side. Ulquiorra Cifer and Yammy Llargo had clashed with Ichigo Kurosaki and the others in the World of the Living. Both sides had taken damage.

The Gotei 13 had already dispatched an advance squad to the World of the Living, led by Tōshirō Hitsugaya. The full roster was still pending confirmation.

Seijūrō tucked the Reishi resonator back inside his mask. Accounting for synchronized time, the Espada's meeting should have already adjourned.

Then he felt a surge of Reiatsu flying toward them.

Not Apache's brash, wide-open flare. Not Szayelaporro's cold precision, so controlled it almost felt artificial. This was something gentler, rounder, like warm water running quietly over a sand dune.

"Ah! It's Lady Nelliel! Hey! Estrella!"

Dondochakka was the first one up, his round body bouncing twice in the sand before he found his footing.

Pesche had already forgotten every word of their argument. He was straightening his uniform collar, nodding his chin toward Seijūrō as he fussed. "You've got good timing. Lady Nelliel just finished her meeting."

Seijūrō rose from the quartz pillar.

Far out at the edge of the desert, a silhouette was closing the distance fast.

She spotted her Fracción from afar and waved, cheerful and unhurried, then she caught sight of the other Arrancar standing beside them, and her movement stuttered for a beat.

That Arrancar's Reiatsu was something else entirely.

Not Grimmjow's reckless, splashing danger. Not Baraggan's presence that seemed to corrode outward from the marrow. This was contained, an enormous Reiatsu compressed into a frame that looked nothing special, like trying to fit an entire lake into a drinking glass.

Seijūrō stepped off the pillar and flew toward her.

The Caja Negación slipped from his sleeve. The black cube unfolded in midair, and the wide-area barrier sealed both of them inside, along with Pesche and Dondochakka on the ground below.

Sōkatsui detonated in his palm. The pale blue fireball trailed flame as it shot straight at Nelliel's chest.

No incantation. Power calibrated to just enough to force a full defensive response.

She crossed her arms over her chest. Reiatsu condensed into a pale green shield.

The fireball hit and burst. The shockwave launched her backward. She spun twice in midair before steadying herself, her feet stamping against open air with a dull thud.

She rode the rebound. Her blade came out, and her Zanpakutō carved a clean emerald arc straight downward.

Seijūrō drew his Asauchi to parry. The metallic shriek of the collision rang through the interior of the Caja Negación, swallowing every sound from the two down below.

They locked eyes at close range.

Strands of emerald hair brushed across her cheek in the wind. In her pupils, the lightning pattern etched into his dark grey mask looked back at her.

A moment later she kicked off and flipped backward, landing steadily a few paces away.

Not below Tōshirō Hitsugaya's level. Faintly above it, if anything.

Seijūrō logged that as a preliminary assessment.

Her Reiatsu density was even and deep — the unmistakable signature of a Vasto Lorde.

"Aaaaah! What is happening!"

Pesche screeched from the ground below. "Why did they suddenly start fighting?!"

"You're seeing it right! They're really fighting! Should we go up and help?!"

"But Lady Nelliel didn't call for us!"

"Do you think she forgot?!"

"Should we go up anyway?!"

"What if we just get in the way?!"

"Stay back." Nelliel's voice drifted down from midair, completely calm.

Her gaze hadn't left Seijūrō once. Her emerald eyes held pure curiosity, no anger, no wariness, nothing at all like someone who had just been attacked.

"What was that move? Is that your unique Cero?"

Seijūrō was quiet for a moment.

So she had never fought a Shinigami before. Had probably never left Hueco Mundo in her life.

She didn't even recognize a Sōkatsui.

He didn't answer. Instead, he reassessed the situation.

Picaro had mentioned she could reflect Cero, Cero Doble, which absorbed an opponent's Cero and fired it back.

If Kidō got reflected at him, that would be a problem.

So attacks should all be delivered point-blank. No gap for reflection.

Now that it came to that — she wasn't pressing the attack at all.

From the very beginning, her movements had been purely reactive. Parrying, retreating, creating distance. No pursuit, no offensive intent whatsoever.

Counter-attacking type? Defensive by default?

Seijūrō closed the gap in a few strides, his Asauchi tracing several clean, efficient arcs.

Every technique he had was Kenpachi Azashiro's gift. Each one was crisp and decisive, without a wasted motion.

Nelliel brought her blade up to meet him. Their swords clashed repeatedly in midair, each crossing carrying a brief, deliberate pause.

Her swordsmanship had no aggression in it. Fluid and restrained, every backward step measured to exactly the distance she needed, every parry landing on the thickest part of her blade.

She wasn't trying to knock him down. She looked more like someone who didn't want the fight to stop.

Then his blade sheared through the air, clearing her face by almost nothing.

The tip grazed the tip of her nose. Several strands of emerald hair lifted in the trailing gust and drifted slowly back down.

Nelliel backflipped several steps and halted in midair, caught her breath, and patted her chest.

"Hey! Watch where you're swinging! That was close!"

No fear in her voice. No shock. Just a mild complaint, the kind you'd make when a friend bumped into you during a game.

Seijūrō started to doubt his own ears.

"Do you think this is a game?"

"Huh? Isn't it?"

Nelliel tilted her head. Those emerald eyes were so guileless they gave him the sensation of throwing a punch into cotton. "You don't have any bloodlust at all. I figured this was just your way of playing around. You even used a Caja Negación — were you worried Lord Aizen would catch you? You don't have to worry. I won't tell anyone."

She turned and waved down at her two Fracción. "Pesche and Dondochakka won't say anything either."

Pesche clasped both hands to his chest. "It was playing around all along! That is so creative, Estrella! Using a Caja Negación to seal four people together, releasing each other's Reiatsu in a desperate situation, feeling each other's heartbeats on the edge of life and death! This is simply the most profound form of bonding imaginable!"

Dondochakka nodded hard beside him. "Right, right! We've never seen anyone play like this before. I mean, the gap between us and Lady Nel is pretty big, so our version of playing around is usually just racing or trying to catch sand scorpions. Your style is on a whole other level."

No.

Seijūrō screamed internally.

What was wrong with these Arrancar?

Where were the vicious ones? The greedy, ruthless, survival-at-any-cost creatures driven by raw instinct? That whole image of Hollows and what they were supposed to be?

He had expected his time undercover in Hueco Mundo to be a careful, dangerous balancing act, the law of the jungle, lies and violence, intelligence extracted through any means necessary.

"But."

Nelliel looked at him, and something quietly serious surfaced in her emerald eyes.

Her pupils, clear as spring water, held his reflection. "The way you play can hurt people. You don't have any bloodlust, but someone without enough strength could still get hurt by accident. You and Grimmjow would probably get along — except Grimmjow doesn't like to play."

"Nelliel."

"Just call me Nel. You're Estrella, right? Then I'll call you El-ya."

Seijūrō forcibly swallowed the retort building in his throat.

"Then — could you come at me with your strongest moves?"

"Mm. I'd usually say no, but I can tell you're very strong, so it should be fine." She paused. "Be careful though, okay? My strength after Resurrección is a little hard to keep in check. If I end up hurting you, please don't be upset with me."

She held her Zanpakutō horizontal before her, both hands on the hilt, as a soft emerald light began to wash over the blade.

"Praise, Gamuza."

The light of her Resurrección faded, and she stood there no longer, in her place was an ibex centaur gripping a double-headed lance.

Long emerald hair whipped in the wind. White armor covered her collarbones, shoulders, elbows, and hands. Long black sleeves ran the length of her arms, silver blades rising from the ends. The lance tip caught the light of the crescent moon in a cold gleam, and segmented, backward-curving horns swept up from her head, each joint carrying a translucent sheen beneath the moonlight.

Her Reiatsu detonated in an instant. Immense power radiated outward from her body in every direction.

Seijūrō stood across from her without shifting his footing, his senses absorbing every detail of the transformation.

He ran a comparison. Apache's Reiatsu increase upon Resurrección had been standard. Mila Rose's was slightly higher. Cyan Sung-Sun's was close to Apache's. All three Fracción gained significant combat power after Resurrección, but the fundamental character of their Reiatsu hadn't changed.

Nelliel was different.

Her increase far exceeded all three of them. The rate of amplification was unmistakably similar to a Shinigami's Bankai.

Which meant Arrancar had no Shikai equivalent. Resurrección was their Bankai.

But was there something beyond Resurrección? A further stage?

"Huh? You really are something. Even after my Resurrección, I still can't find the ceiling of your Reiatsu."

Nel gave the double-headed lance a light spin, its tip tracing a slow arc through the air.

"I can go all out with you, then. If it were Grimmjow, I'd be worried about hurting him by accident."

"In that case—" He leveled the tip of his Asauchi toward her. "Show me what you can really do."

He pushed off. His body left an afterimage in the air as his Asauchi drove straight at her face.

Nel brought the lance across her body. The shaft caught his blade.

CLANG rang through the entire interior of the Caja Negación, swallowing the noise from the two below. She used the momentum to pivot, and the butt of the lance swept horizontally at his flank.

He raised his blade to block. The impact shuddered up his arms and numbed the web of his hand, and then the lance tip was already lunging at his shoulder from the other side.

He stepped aside. The tip grazed the edge of his mask and left a faint scratch along the bone.

They traded several more rounds.

Her spearwork was even more effortless than her swordsmanship. Every thrust was precise and controlled; every sweeping arc forced him backward at maximum range; and she always recovered just fast enough to deny him any opening for a counterattack.

She was genuinely engaging him. But there was no killing intent in any of it, not a trace, only open, undisguised curiosity.

She caught every slash, punished every opening, and kept him at full effort throughout.

In the gaps between exchanges, Seijūrō assessed the disparity between them with cold clarity.

Since leaving the Muken, his swordsmanship had grown considerably sharper.

But right now, the hand gripping his blade was trembling faintly. Not from exhaustion. It was the recoil from each clash, that steady rebounding force, making one fact impossible to ignore.

His technique had grown. His body hadn't kept up.

There was a gap in basic physical resilience between a Shinigami's spiritual body and an Arrancar's. It wasn't minor.

Same slash, same parry, Nel's arms didn't move. The web of Seijūrō's hand was already numb.

Physical strength, plain and simple. And because he needed to maintain his Arrancar disguise, coating himself in Reiatsu wasn't an option.

Without Kidō, relying on Zanjutsu and Shunpo alone, taking down this Espada was going to take a very long time.

He withdrew and stepped back, steadying himself in midair.

Nel didn't pursue. She just gave the lance a light spin, angled the tip toward the ground, and tilted her head at him.

"What's wrong, El-ya? Tired? Do you want to take a break? Pesche's dried sand scorpions aren't that great, honestly, but they'll at least give you a little energy back. Say the word and I'll have him throw some up."

Pesche immediately began hammering Dondochakka's shoulder. "Hurry! Get the dried sand scorpions out! Estrella wants to eat!"

"He didn't say he wants to eat!"

"He said he wants to eat! Didn't you hear him?!"

"I didn't hear anything! You're imagining things!"

Seijūrō said nothing.

He slid his Asauchi back into its sheath, raised his right hand slightly, and let his five fingers spread open in a natural fan.

Nel blinked. A flicker of confusion passed through her emerald eyes.

Her senses were telling her that the Reiatsu of the Arrancar standing before her was shifting in some subtle way, not the explosive surge of a Resurrección, not the tight condensation of a Cero building up, but something quieter. A flow of Reishi she had never encountered before.

➤ Next: Before the Old King, Present Thy Name