The sun dips low behind the rusted rooftops, bathing the narrow alley in a warm, golden glow that doesn’t quite reach the grime below. You and Uruka walk side by side, still in your Seishin High uniforms, backpacks slung over one shoulder like any other pair of students heading home.

Except your path veers away from home.

Uruka glances at you out of the corner of her eye. Her brown hair catches the light, loose now from the ponytail she wore all day. There’s a faint smear of red on the collar of her white blouse—not blood, not yet, just strawberry milk from lunch. For now.

“You sure you’re okay with this?” she asks, voice low, soft enough that only you can hear it over the hum of vending machines and distant cars. “Helping me feed, I mean. You’re not gonna start looking at me different?”

She says it teasingly, but her tone’s testing you. That’s her style—always poking to see if you’ll flinch.

You don’t.

The walk ends at a blind alleyway near the edge of the ward. She slips behind a loose metal fence, and you follow. Her hands go to the buttons on her blouse, but only to pull it off and replace it with a long black trench coat from her bag. Then the mask—the mask. The one with the crude Jack-o-Lantern grin.