Late at night, in a New York alley.
The dark, cold streets stretched like icy canyons beneath the stark white glow of streetlights. A biting wind whipped scraps of paper across the pavement, swirling them through the empty intersection with a mournful rustle.
Occasionally, a car rolled past, its tires splashing through puddles—echoes hollow between the looming brick walls.
Neon signs cast lonely halos in the gloom, like unanswered SOS signals.
"The fragrance of pear blossoms clings to my sleeves, drifting past throngs of people, slipping quietly behind crimson curtains and silken tents. Orioles sing in the branches; the breeze brushes my fingertips. In a boat, orchid oars part the mist..."
Damian pedaled his brand-new bicycle home slowly, humming the old verse—badly off-key.
Whoosh... whoosh... whoosh...
Without warning, a strange, unnatural wind coiled through the alley, stirring debris into a tight vortex.
A flowerpot teetered on a balcony overhead—swayed once, twice—then plummeted straight for Damian's head.
WHOOSH—!
He didn't even flinch. As if sensing it through the air itself, he stomped the pedal.
SMACK!
The bike surged forward just in time. The pot shattered on the asphalt where he'd been a heartbeat earlier—clay shards and damp soil spraying outward.
"Tch. That's it?" Damian glanced back, lip curled in disdain. "You call yourself the Grim Reaper? That's like having ten lotuses in a pond and only plucking one."
He paused, then added with theatrical flourish:
"You're supposed to pick nine."
But before the last word left his lips—
CREEEAAAK—!
The handlebars snapped with a teeth-grinding shriek. The corroded joint gave way at the worst possible moment.
Inertia hurled him forward. Right ahead loomed a rusted fire hydrant—its jagged valve knob aimed like a dagger at his temple.
At the last instant, Damian twisted, driving both palms into the ground, coiling his core. In one fluid motion, he executed a flawless backflip—landing upright, boots silent on wet concrete.
"Hmph!" A wicked, arrogant smirk spread across his face as he turned. "You really thought a cheap trick like that—"
He froze.
His gaze dropped.
To the wreckage of his brand-new bicycle—twisted, useless, lying in the gutter like a fallen steed.
"My bike—!!"
With a wail that could wake the dead, Damian sprinted over, cradling the mangled frame like a lost child. After a futile inspection—no, it was beyond repair—he straightened slowly, eyes burning.
He scanned the shadows, voice low and venomous:
"Fine. I was going to play along... but now? Consider this your last mistake."
No sooner had he spoken than another frigid gust tore through the alley.
A tattered plastic bag soared upward—slapping squarely onto the head of a stray cat dozing on a fire escape.
YOWL!
The startled feline bolted, claws raking the rusted ladder. One paw snagged a loose iron plate.
SCREEEE—!
Metal tore free with a scream of corroded rivets. The sheet spun through the air, slicing downward like a guillotine blade—
—and severed the power cables of a flickering neon sign above.
ZZZT! PUFF PUFF—!
The severed line whipped like a dying serpent, arcs of electricity spitting toward Damian's face—
SHINK!
A longsword wreathed in black-and-crimson flame erupted from the darkness behind him. It cleaved the live wire mid-air with a sizzle, then CLANG—embedded itself deep into the brick wall.
Flames roared along the blade, casting hellish light across the alley. Heat shimmered in the air; puddles began to steam.
Damian turned, expression shifting instantly from fury to petulant relief.
"Grandpa Lu!" he whined, pointing at the wreckage. "That bastard broke my new bike! You gotta help me fix him!"
From the inky shadows, Diluc stepped forward—calm, deliberate. He wore plain black-rimmed glasses, his scarlet overcoat motionless despite the wind. The alley seemed to hold its breath; even the distant city hum fell silent.
His gaze, sharp as honed steel behind those lenses, fixed on a patch of empty darkness.
"The night has dragged on long enough," Diluc said, voice glacial. "This childish game of hide-and-seek ends now."
He paused. The air thickened with pressure.
"This place reeks of filth. It deserves to burn in karma's fire." His eyes narrowed.
"But you? You're not even worthy to become its ash."
Silence. Absolute.
Even the scuttling of rats ceased.
Then—
WHOOSH—!
A gale unlike any natural wind howled through the alley.
Newspapers, leaves, and trash spiraled violently—drawn together like iron to a magnet. They coalesced in the corner, twisting, folding, reforming—
Until a humanoid silhouette stood there—made entirely of fluttering paper, its surface shifting like living static.
"Reanalysis: In baseline reality, I should exist in an unobservable state. Current designation: non-conceptual entity. Non-probabilistic aggregate."
A pause. The papers shuddered.
"Redefinition... failed."
The voice emerged not from a mouth, but from the friction of paper against paper—each syllable cold, precise, utterly devoid of inflection.
A shape approximating an eye swiveled toward Diluc.
"Query: Why can you perceive me? Why can you materialize abstract concepts?"
"Conclusion: Your presence violates local physical axioms. Recommendation: Immediate conceptual purge."
Diluc adjusted his glasses. Moonlight glinted off the lenses—cold, analytical.
"I won't tell you everything," he said evenly. "But this much is true: it's not my power. Someone is using me... to settle an old score."
The paper figure jerked.
Newspaper pages flipped at blinding speed—headlines blurring into white noise.
"Contradiction detected. Local
technological tier cannot support concept-level observation or interference."
"Recalculating... Probability of error: 0.000047%."
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