The stench of decay in the alley suddenly intensified. Yaiba stumbled backward, his sneakers slipping on the moss-covered pavement with a sickening squelch. The Tailed Staff-class Aratobe slowly straightened its hunched form, its forked tail scraping against the ground with a metallic screech.
"Suburbs... these monsters should only appear in the suburbs..."
Memories surged through his mind like electric shocks. That stormy night when he was seven, his father's headlights had illuminated a hunched figure in the rain — something with coral-like bone growths on its back, its silhouette overlapping with the creature before him now.
The Aratobe's circular maw suddenly bloomed like a flower, revealing layer upon layer of inward-curving spines. Yaiba turned and fled just as concrete shattered behind him. He didn't dare look back, but could feel putrid air and stone fragments whistling past his ears.
The convenience store plastic bag exploded in his grip, scattering newly purchased paperbacks across the ground. When he burst onto Thunder Gate Shopping Street's main road, he found it completely deserted. The vending machine's screen flashed crimson warnings about "Crimson Rain," while cobweb-like red mist drifted over the wet asphalt.
"How..."
The hairs on his nape stood up. Yaiba threw himself sideways on pure instinct as the Aratobe's tail cratered the spot where he'd stood. The monster's bone spur grazed his right arm, the torn uniform sleeve burning where it made contact.
Rolling beneath a yakitori shop's awning, Yaiba's fingers closed around a fire iron from the grill. Childhood memories flooded back — his mother clutching a similar rusted tool as she shoved him into a closet.
"Run!" His mother's scream from memory overlapped with reality.
As the Aratobe shattered the glass display window, sparks erupted from the fire iron in Yaiba's hands. The seal on his wrist throbbed violently, molten heat surging through his veins. He swung instinctively, the glowing tip leaving charred marks on the monster's forelimb.
The creature wailed like a crying infant — a sound that reminded Yaiba of the heart monitor in the hospital three years prior. Kneeling outside the emergency room then, the fiery pattern on his wrist had first emerged, cracking the marble floor tiles beneath him.
"Stay back!"
The fire iron hissed in the rain. The Aratobe's three bone spurs began secreting mucus. Yaiba's strikes grew frantic, each parry numbing his palms. When the monster's tail swept his legs out, the back of his head striking a gas cylinder awakened deeper memories — his father being carried from the wrecked car, his suit stained with the same dark red fluid.
"So that's what..." Yaiba coughed blood, watching the Aratobe's spiraling maw descend. "That's what happened to you..."
The downpour intensified. Blue-white flames suddenly erupted from the fire iron, the seal's glow piercing through his soaked shirt. The Aratobe recoiled — just enough time for Yaiba to kick the gas cylinder toward the creature.
The explosion blew the awning skyward. As Yaiba struggled to rise, he saw the Aratobe's charred exoskeleton regenerating visibly. Enraged, the monster's forked tail lashed out like a steel whip, piercing clean through his left shoulder.
Agony washed his vision in red. Aya's voice echoed in his ears: "I hate how you never cry out when hurt." Warmth spread through his sodden uniform jacket, blooming crimson flowers in the rainwater.
As the Aratobe's maw loomed overhead, Yaiba glimpsed his parents through the curtain of rain. His mother still wore the cake-frosting-stained apron, his father clutching the never-given birthday present.
"Sorry..." He gripped the bone spur embedded in his abdomen, the seal sizzling against his skin. "If only I'd realized sooner..."
The moment before the fangs snapped shut, silver light streaked across his vision. The Aratobe shrieked unbearably as its impaling tail severed clean. Darkness swallowed Yaiba's consciousness, but not before hearing the chime of metal bells and a girl's urgent voice cutting through the void:
"Hold on! Emergency treatment incoming!"