War has a way of creating its own economy.

  In the old days, it was brass casings, scrap metal, and stolen rations. Now, the currency had changed. People were scavenging the "Abyss Dust" left behind when a Fiend was disintegrated. They were hunting for shards of crystallized entropy-jagged, obsidian-like fragments that didn't quite vanish with the rest of the monster. They called it "Black Glass" on the street, and it was worth more than gold to the right kind of desperate person.

  The narrow alleys of the Shinjuku backstreets swallowed me whole, my boots clicking softly on the damp pavement. The air here was thick with the smell of frying oil, cheap tobacco, and a desperate, clinging sort of hope that felt heavier than the smog.

  A flyer was plastered to a rusted utility pole, its edges curling in the humidity. *THE GREAT PURGE IS COMING*, it screamed in bold, jagged letters. *THE ABYSS IS THE CURE FOR A SICK WORLD. JOIN THE CHOSEN.*

  My fingers ripped it off and crumpled it into a ball. Cults. There was always a group of nihilists ready to worship the thing that wanted to eat them. They thought they were being "cleansed." In reality, they were just seasoning themselves for the main course.

  But cults needed supplies. And supplies meant a paper trail.

  The weathered wooden door appeared between a shuttered ramen joint and a coin laundry, its faded sign reading: *Hibari's Herbs & Tinctures*.

  The bell chimed with a tinny, mournful ring as I stepped inside. The shop was a claustrophobic maze of floor-to-ceiling shelves packed with glass jars, dried bundles of lavender, and things that definitely weren't listed in any medical textbook. The air was heavy with the scent of sage and the sharp, ozone tang of the Abyss-a smell that made the hair on my arms stand up and my skin itch with a phantom static.

  "We’re closed for private consultations," a woman’s voice called out from behind a beaded curtain. It was a voice I recognized, though it sounded thinner, more brittle than it had ten years ago.

  "I’m not here for a consultation, Mrs. Hibari," I said, leaning against the scarred wooden counter. "I’m here for a refill. And maybe some information."

  The curtain parted, and a woman in her late thirties stepped out. She had tired eyes and hair that was starting to grey at the temples, but her hands were steady as she wiped them on a stained apron. She looked at me, her gaze lingering on my face for a second too long, her expression hardening into a mask of professional indifference.

  "I don't know you," she said, her voice flat. "And I don't sell to strangers who walk in off the street asking for 'information.' This is a pharmacy, not a gossip parlor. If you’re not buying herbs, you’re wasting my time."

  Without blinking, my hand went to my pocket. A thick roll of yen came out, and one by one, several high-denomination bills landed flat on the counter. My thumb smoothed them out, the crisp paper a loud contrast to the silence of the shop.

  Mrs. Hibari’s eyes tracked the movement. Her fingers twitched, and the hardness in her gaze softened just enough to let the exhaustion show through. She swept the bills off the counter with a practiced motion, tucking them into her apron.

  "You look familiar," she murmured, her brow furrowing as she leaned in closer. "But you’re too young to be who I think you are. A relative, perhaps? You have her... edge."

  "I have one of those faces," I said, keeping my voice neutral. "I heard you’ve been making something new. Something that gives a man the strength of ten for an hour, and a heart attack the next morning."

  Mrs. Hibari sighed, reaching under the counter to pull out a small vial filled with a swirling, violet liquid that seemed to pulse with a faint, sickly light. "Vigor Potions. It’s what the market wants. People are terrified, and terror makes them want to feel powerful. Even if it’s a lie that kills them from the inside out."

  A case of content theft: this narrative is not rightfully on Amazon; if you spot it, report the violation.

  "Where are you getting the raw materials?"

  "Scavengers. They bring me the dust from the 'incidents.' I refine it, stabilize it with traditional herbs, and sell it to the highest bidder." She paused, her voice dropping to a whisper that barely carried over the hum of a nearby refrigerator. "But I’m not the only one buying. There’s a group... men in grey robes. They don't want the refined stuff. They want the raw essence. The pure poison."

  "The Purge cult," I said.

  "They call themselves the 'Acolytes of the Void,'" a new voice interrupted.

  My head turned toward the back of the shop. A girl was sitting on a high stool behind a workbench, her pink hair tied in a messy ponytail with a ribbon that looked like it had been chewed on by a dog. She couldn't have been more than sixteen. She was wearing a stained lab coat and holding a pair of silver tweezers, meticulously extracting a glowing sliver from a piece of blackened bone that looked suspiciously like a Fiend’s rib.

  She didn't look up. Her eyes-a dull, unimpressed crimson-were fixed on her work with a focus that was almost frightening.

  "They’re idiots," the girl continued, her voice a flat, sardonic drawl. "They think if they inject enough of that junk, they’ll turn into gods. Most of them just turn into puddles of black goo. It’s a waste of perfectly good reagents. Do you have any idea how hard it is to find a stable shard of this density?"

  She leaned in closer, her tweezers hovering over a particularly bright spot on the bone. "If I just... adjust the resonance... here..."

  *POOF.*

  A small, localized explosion of purple smoke erupted in her face. The girl didn't even flinch, though her bangs were now standing straight up and her face was dusted with a fine layer of soot. A single, glowing spark landed on her shoulder, which she casually brushed off with a flick of her finger.

  "Suzune!" Mrs. Hibari cried out, rushing over with a damp cloth. "I told you to use the containment field for the high-grade shards! You’re going to blow the roof off one of these days!"

  "The field interferes with the tactile feedback, Mom," Suzune said, her voice still perfectly flat as she wiped a smudge of soot from her nose. She looked at me, her expression never changing despite the fact that she looked like she’d just lost a fight with a chimney. "What are you staring at? Haven't you ever seen a professional at work?"

  "I’ve seen professionals," I said, trying to keep a straight face. "Usually they have fewer eyebrows missing and more of their skin intact."

  "It’s a stylistic choice," Suzune shot back, her eyes narrowing slightly. She sized me up with a clinical detachment that made me feel like a specimen under a microscope. "You have the same smell as the shards. Also, your posture is terrible for someone who looks twenty. You stand like a grandma who’s been carrying a rucksack for forty years."

  A muscle in my jaw twitched. *Grandma?* The brat had no idea.

  "You’re a bit young to be playing with Abyss shards, kid," I said, stepping closer to the workbench.

  "And you're a bit young to have eyes that look like they've seen the end of the world," Suzune shot back, her expression never changing. "But here we are."

  "The robed freaks," I pressed. "Where do they meet?"

  Suzune's tweezers stopped. For the first time, something like interest flickered across her face. She set the tools down with deliberate precision and held out her hand, palm up.

  "Information costs. Especially the kind that keeps you alive." She wiggled her fingers. "Grade-B Fiend core. Intact. Or the cash equivalent—fifty thousand yen. I'm saving up for a centrifuge that doesn't catch fire."

  "You're sixteen and you're shaking me down."

  "I'm sixteen and I'm running a business. There's a difference. Grandma."

  Another roll of bills hit the counter. Suzune counted them with the speed of a bank teller, then tucked them into her lab coat without a change in expression.

  "Basement of the old textile factory, east side. Midnight. Bring a mask if you don't want to breathe in the incense—it's mostly hallucinogens and ground-up Fiend teeth. Very tacky. Very 'edgy teen' aesthetic."

  She picked up her tweezers and went back to work, clicking them against the glass with rhythmic precision. She was doing things with that shard that should have been impossible—manipulating the entropy without letting it consume her.

  "She’s a prodigy," Mrs. Hibari whispered, a mix of pride and genuine fear in her voice. "She sees things in the alchemy that I can't. She says the Abyss isn't just destruction-it’s a different kind of order. A 'purer' state of matter."

  "It’s a cancer," I said, looking at the girl one last time. "Tell her to be careful. The Abyss doesn't like being studied. It likes being fed."

  "The Abyss doesn't care," Suzune muttered without looking up. "That’s what makes it so much better than people. It doesn't lie about what it wants."

  The shop door shut behind me with that same tinny chime, the violet vial heavy in my pocket. A location and a time—bought and paid for.

  The "Magical Girl of Twin Guns" was going to a cult meeting. And I had a feeling I wasn't going to like what I found there. But if these Acolytes were playing with raw essence, they were more than just a nuisance. They were a breach waiting to happen.

  And that pink-haired brat... she was definitely someone to keep an eye on. Even if she did have a big mouth and a tendency to blow herself up.