Kyuroto walked along the ruins of the old Mitsuyo estate. Moonlight reflected off the cracked windows, painting ghostly shapes across the floor.
Even at 1% of his 1,000,000% power, he felt the threads of the past stretching before him, each a whisper of possibility, probability, and forgotten moments.
He extended his consciousness into the invisible tapestry of fate, letting threads flow from the corners of his mind. Every decision, every betrayal, every death was a line in the pattern.
And then he found it:
A distortion.
Small, subtle, buried under layers of time, memory, and misdirection. Not an accident. Not random. Intentional erasure.
Kyuroto's lips curved slightly.
"You hid well… but not well enough."
He followed the thread across decades, through hidden interdimensional passages, into empty rooms that shouldn't exist. Each space seemed ordinary, but they were echoes, containers for memories others had tried to erase.
The killer had left a trail, subtle, clever, but undeniably arrogant.
Kyuroto knelt, touching the floorboards. His katana hung at his side, unused—but even without drawing it, the air bent to his will. Shadows curled and shimmered, revealing what had been hidden.
A faint symbol glimmered beneath the dust—one of the oldest in the Mitsuyo bloodline. Not a mark of the clan. Not a mark of his parents.
Someone else. Someone powerful.
Kyuroto exhaled.
"This wasn't just a murder. It was a message. And someone is still watching."
He rose, stepping into the deeper alleys of the city. Probability threads swirled around him, minor disturbances in reality that no one else could perceive. The killer's signature was subtle but present—a shadow layered under centuries of misdirection, carefully orchestrated so only someone with his perception could see it.
Kyuroto smiled faintly, the wind tugging at his coat.
"I've been given the opportunity to hunt in silence. Perfect."
Somewhere, far beyond this layer of reality, a faint ripple of recognition occurred.
The Grandfather's presence—still watching, still measuring—did not interfere. But for the first time in eons, even the silence seemed to lean forward, curious.
Kyuroto's hands brushed the air as he whispered to himself:
"I will find you. Whoever erased the past, whoever killed my parents… no shadow can hide from me forever."
The first thread had been traced. The hunt had begun.
End of Chapter 53