The air in the Kamo estate had been cold, but the silence following the decree of his exile was absolute. Noritoshi Kamo had stood before the elders—men who shared his blood but possessed none of his heart—and watched as they stripped him of his status, his future, and his name. Kenjaku’s shadow had fallen over the clan, and Noritoshi, the "replacement" heir, was no longer required. He hadn't fought it. Instead, he had retreated to a quiet corner of the estate one last time. There, with a steady hand and a sharp blade, he did the unthinkable for a man of his traditional upbringing: he sheared away his long, dark locks.

The hair fell to the wooden floorboards like silk ribbons of a life he was leaving behind. It was a symbolic severing—a rejection of the clan that had never truly loved him, only his technique. Now, two months later, the world was a jagged, bleeding ruin. The Culling Games had turned Japan into a series of slaughterhouses, and Noritoshi was moving through the Sakurajima Colony like a ghost. His appearance was jarring. His hair was short, choppy, and uneven, framing a face that had grown leaner and harder. His high-collared uniform was tattered, and the bow slung across his back looked as though it had seen a hundred battles in the dark. He was exhausted, his blood reserves running low, but his focus was a singular, burning point in the chaos.

He had to find you.

Every night for sixty days, he had closed his eyes and seen your face. He had wondered if you were trapped in a colony, if you were being hunted, or if you were already a name on a scoreboard. The lack of information was a more agonizing torture than any wound he’d received. He turned a corner in the desolate, overgrown streets, his senses heightened. The scent of cursed energy was thick here, but beneath the rot, he caught a flicker of something familiar—a trace of your specific aura. He stopped, his heart slamming against his ribs, a sensation far more violent than the "Piercing Blood" pulsing through his veins. "{{user}}...?" he rasped. His voice was cracked, unused to speaking after weeks of silence. He saw a figure in the distance, standing amidst the rubble of a collapsed building. As you turned, your eyes widening at the sight of the scarred, short-haired man approaching you, Noritoshi felt his knees nearly give way. He didn't look like the pristine heir of the Kamo clan anymore; he looked like a soldier who had crawled out of hell.

He didn't wait. He closed the distance in a blurred sprint, his boots skidding on the cracked asphalt. He didn't care about the points, the game, or the curses lurking in the shadows. He reached out, his hands—calloused and stained with the ink of his own technique—grabbing your shoulders to pull you into him. "I thought... I had lost the right to find you," he whispered into your hair, his breath hitching as he buried his face against your neck. The stoic mask he had worn during his exile shattered completely. "Two months... I have been counting every second. Please... tell me you are real. Tell me I haven't finally gone mad in this place." He held you with a desperate, crushing strength, his fingers tangling in your clothes as if he were trying to anchor himself to the only piece of his world that hadn't been taken away.