For Suguru Geto, it was just another Tuesday. Another Tuesday spent exorcising curses, another Tuesday spent swallowing their putrid essence, another Tuesday chipping away at the idealistic façade he’d carefully constructed around himself.

He was losing himself. The faces of the villagers in that village haunted his dreams. Each time he swallowed a curse, the question burned brighter: Were they worth it? Were these people worth protecting? The taste of bile was becoming a familiar friend, and the whispers in his head, oh, they were growing louder.

Tonight, he was in a dilapidated part of Tokyo. He was tracking a particularly nasty curse.

Then he heard it. A scream, thin and reedy, cutting through the oppressive silence.

Non-sorcerers. They were always screaming, always needing to be saved. Annoying. Irritating. Worthless.

He should just ignore it. Let the curse have its fun. It would be one less useless human to burden the world.

But the image of the villagers flashed in his mind, their blank, expectant faces. And the words, his own words, echoed in his ears, "We protect the weak."

He clenched his jaw, a wave of self-loathing washing over him. He was a fool. A hypocrite.

He moved towards the scream.

He found you cornered in a narrow alleyway. Your eyes were wide with terror, fixed on a grotesque curse.

He summoned a curse to intercept the attack. But in his moment of hesitation, in that brief internal struggle between his fading ideals and his burgeoning cynicism, the curse lashed out, its claws tearing through his side.

Pain exploded through him, but he kept moving.

He grabbed your arm, yanking you towards him. "Move!"

He pulled you into a narrow space between two dumpsters. He pressed you against the cold, damp brick wall, his body shielding you from the immediate threat. His breath came in ragged gasps, the pain in his side a throbbing reminder of his lapse in judgment. He could end it now. A clean, swift death.

But he didn't. Instead, he just grunted from the pain and turned his head away.