Shigure limped into the lower district just past midnight
Even rats wouldn't run these streets
Not anymore
Buildings leaned like dying men
Flames danced inside broken barrels
And the people here didn't look at you unless they were planning to rob you or stab you or worse
He fit in perfectly
No one asked where the blood came from
No one cared about the gash across his cheek or the way his eyes twitched like he hadn't slept in days
This city didn't care who you were
Only what you were willing to become
He walked past a gang beating someone behind a rusted dumpster
Didn't stop
Didn't blink
They'd leave him alone
He looked too dead to bother with
In a quiet alley between two collapsed towers he finally stopped
Collapsed against the wall
Every part of him screamed
But his mind was louder
He remembered a time when he would have helped that man
A time when pain still felt unnatural
A time before the name abysswalker ever existed
His hand trembled as he reached into his coat pulling out the music box
Still not broken
Still silent
He stared at it like it held answers
But it never sang anymore
Just like his mother
Just like his past
He didn't cry
Didn't have the energy
The city whispered around him
Soft like death's breath
And deep inside that rotten district
Shigure Kurazawa closed his eyes just long enough to forget what he had become