The darkness didn't break all at once. It cracked. First came the smell of incense—sandalwood and dried blood—and the rhythmic, distant sound of rain hitting a tin roof. My body felt as if it had been disassembled and put back together by someone who didn't quite know where the parts went. Every muscle was a dull ache, and my cursed energy felt like a shallow pool of stagnant water.
[SYSTEM NOTIFICATION]
[STATUS: CRITICAL RECOVERY]
[SYNC RATE: 10.2% (DORMANT)]
[NOTICE: THE MARK OF THE VOID IS PERMANENT]
I opened my eyes. I wasn't in the damp tunnels of Roppongi anymore. I was in a small, traditional tatami room. The walls were lined with ancient, yellowed scrolls, and the air was thick with the hum of a powerful protective barrier.
"You're awake. Good. I was beginning to think I'd have to use the boy's tongue to wake you."
I turned my head. Sitting in the corner, cleaning a long, curved blade, was a man who looked like he had been carved out of granite. He was older, his hair a shock of silver, and a jagged scar ran from his temple to his jaw. He wore a simple indigo yukata, but the presence he radiated was suffocating.
"Who... are you?" I croaked, my throat feeling like it was lined with sandpaper.
"A ghost," the man said, not looking up from his blade. "My name is Zenin Juro. Or it was, before the Elders stripped me of my name and my rank because I refused to murder my own daughter for having a 'low' cursed technique."
I tried to sit up, and for a second, the room tilted. I felt a hand on my shoulder, steady and warm.
"Easy, Alley-Cat. You've been out for two days."
Nobara was there, sitting on the edge of the futon. She looked exhausted, with dark circles under her eyes, but she was whole. In the corner of the room, Inumaki was sitting cross-legged, his head bowed. He looked like a statue of regret.
"Juro-san found us in the tunnels right after you collapsed," Nobara explained, her voice low. "The bounty hunters were closing in. He killed four of them before they could even draw their weapons. He's... he's the one who's been keeping the barrier up."
The Deal with the Devil
Juro stood up, his sword clicking into its scabbard with a sound like a closing tomb. He walked over and looked down at me, his eyes landing on the black geometric patterns on my hands.
"The Singularity," Juro murmured. "I haven't seen that since the scrolls of the Heian era. You didn't just kill that assassin, boy. You erased him from the cycle of reincarnation. The Elders are terrified now. They aren't just sending 'Cleaners' anymore. They're calling in the Gojo-Zenin Peace Treaty to force Satoru to stay out of the way while they burn Tokyo to the ground to find you."
"He's strong," Valthazar whispered, his voice sounding oddly respectful. "This one knows the old ways. The ways of blood and gravity."
"Why help us?" I asked, staring at Juro. "You're a Zenin. You could turn me in and get your rank back. You could get everything you lost."
Juro let out a short, bark-like laugh. "I don't want my rank back, Ren. I want the Elders' heads on pikes. I've spent twenty years waiting for a weapon sharp enough to cut through their arrogance. And then you showed up in Roppongi, turning the air into a meat grinder."
He leaned in closer, his gaze piercing. "I can teach you how to control the Void. I can show you how to use the [Gravity Anchor] to not just survive, but to crush the space between you and your enemies. But in exchange, you do one thing for me."
"What?"
"You kill the Zenin Clan Head. You kill Naobito Zenin."
[NEW QUEST: THE REBEL'S APPRENTICESHIP]
* Objective: Master the 'Crushing Palm' technique under Juro's tutelage.
* Reward: 5,000 OP | Skill: [Absolute Horizon].
* Warning: Failure to master the skill within 7 days will result in permanent Soul Burn.
The Training of the Void-Walker
The next few days were a blur of agony. Juro didn't believe in "lessons." He believed in survival. He took us to a hidden courtyard beneath the tin-roofed shack, where the gravity was naturally distorted by ancient talismans.
"The Void isn't about strength!" Juro roared, swinging a wooden bokken that felt like it weighed a ton. "It's about will! If you hesitate for even a microsecond, the gravity you call will eat you instead of your target!"
I stood in the center of the courtyard, the [Cloak of the Fallen King] flickering in and out of existence. I was trying to hold a sphere of compressed air between my palms, but it kept vibrating, threatening to explode.
Nobara wasn't resting either. Juro had her practicing "Delayed Resonance"—planting nails in thin air, held in place by my gravitational fluctuations.
"Now, Ren!" Juro commanded.
I pushed my hands together.
[SKILL ATTEMPT: CRUSHING PALM]
[FAILURE... FAILURE... STABILITY AT 40%...]
The sphere shattered, sending me flying back into a stone wall. I coughed up more blood, my lungs burning.
"Again!" Juro shouted.
"He's reaching his limit!" Nobara yelled, stepping forward.
"His limit is exactly where the Void begins!" Juro countered, his eyes cold. "If he can't handle a stone wall, how is he going to handle the Zenin 'Big Three' when they come for his head?"
I stood up, the black marks on my hands glowing a fierce, angry violet. I looked at Nobara, then at Inumaki, who was watching from the sidelines, his hand hovering over his collar as if he wanted to help but didn't know how.
'I'm not failing,' I thought. 'Not this time.'
I closed my eyes and reached deep into the place where Valthazar lived. I didn't ask for his power. I took it. I grabbed the coldness of the void and pulled it into my palms.
"Crushing... Palm!"
This time, the air didn't vibrate. It went silent. A shockwave of pure, focused gravity erupted from my hands, turning a massive boulder at the end of the courtyard into fine, white sand in a single heartbeat.
[SKILL LEARNED: CRUSHING PALM (LV. 1)]
[SYSTEM NOTIFICATION: YOUR POWER HAS BEEN DETECTED BY THE KYOTO SENSORS.]
Juro looked at the sand, then at me. For the first time, a small, grim smile touched his lips.
"Good," he said. "Because they just crossed the Roppongi border. We have company."