They came up on the sunken kombini. It had slumped into its own cellar at some point; the doorway now sat at a permanent tilt, glass shattered out, the floor a shallow pool of old rain and newer mold.
Kyo stepped wide of the threshold and still clipped the edge of the water. The surface didn't break clean. It lagged, then folded around his boot a fraction late, sending a second ripple back the wrong way. The smell hit after—wet plastic, rot, something sweet underneath that shouldn't have been. His throat tightened around it.
Inside, shelves leaned together like drunk friends. One shifted as they passed, a slow complaint of wood against tile, then stilled like it hadn't moved at all.
A convenience-store kami sulked in the ruins, its vague body made of flickering price tags and the ghost of a refrigerated buzz. The buzz came in pulses—too fast, then gone, then back under itself.
It watched them pass, offended by their lack of purchases.
Hana gave it a small bow without breaking stride. The motion pulled tight across her ribs; Kyo saw the hitch before she hid it. She didn't go deep—just enough to register.
The kami puffed itself up, surprised and pleased, and managed a feeble beep. The sound doubled on itself, one clean, one thin and late.
The train tracks cut a shallow trench through the suburb, half-buried under moss and blown dirt. Steel rails warped upward in places, frozen in half-melted loops. The ballast stones had been pushed aside by patient roots.
Kyo dropped down first. The stones shifted under his weight, a soft cascade that didn't settle right away. One rolled back into place after his foot had already moved on.
Little spirits clung to the signal posts: a signal light made of one exhausted red LED; a ticket gate ghost whose once-cheerful body was now a frame of rusted bars.
When they passed under the gate, it tried to beep them through. The sound came out thin and embarrassed—then repeated, softer, a half-beat behind.
"They miss timetables," Hana said under her breath. "People moving on purpose. Same time, every day. They don't know what to do with empty."
Ren's foot slipped on a loose stone. He corrected late, shoulder jerking to catch up. "They could learn to enjoy the quiet."
Hana's head tilted, like she was listening past him. "It's not quiet," she said. Then, after a beat, quieter: "It just… doesn't line up."
"Like you do," Sumi said dryly. The coil on her shoulder knocked against her ribs, out of time with her steps.
Ren gave her a sideways look. One ear flicked—late, then corrected. "I like quiet. I don't like what happens right before it."
Kyo kept moving. The trench narrowed ahead, forcing them closer. Sound changed with it—duller, held in, their steps stacking on top of each other until he couldn't separate whose was whose.
He smelled it before he saw it.
Oil, old and sour. Wet metal holding cold longer than it should. Something trapped inside that hadn't aired out.
He slowed without meaning to.
The street ahead bent around a collapsed storefront. The laundromat sign hung sideways, one corner still clinging, the rest peeled down like skin.
Something blocked the entrance.
Not debris. Too intact for that.
Kyo stepped up onto the curb. Water had pooled there, thin film over broken tile. His boot slid, caught. The object resolved in pieces as he got closer—angles first, then weight.
A vehicle.
Armored, maybe. Or just thick.
It had gone nose-first through the glass and stopped halfway. The front half sat inside the laundromat's dark, the back half still out in the street, wedged hard enough to bow the doorframe around it.
He didn't stop until he was close enough to touch it.
His hand landed on the twisted bumper.
Cold, but not evenly. One section held a deeper chill, like it had been insulated. Water dripped from the underside a second after his fingers made contact, delayed, tapping against the pavement below.
Something in the metal hummed—not sound, not quite. A memory of vibration that didn't match the air.
He pulled his hand back.
Ren came up on his left, slower than usual. He didn't look at the shape first. He inhaled, then made a face.
"Smells sealed," he said. Then, after a beat: "No—broken seal. Something sat in there."
"Engine?" Sumi said, already moving. She stepped onto the running board. The metal creaked under her weight, then again a second later, like it hadn't finished reacting.
Her first grip slipped. She adjusted, fingers finding purchase on a seam clogged with dirt and vine.
Vines strangled the gun ports—if they were gun ports. Kyo's eyes tracked the openings, then away, then back. The spacing felt wrong.
A faded logo peeled on the side.
He saw the shape and didn't place it.
Black on gray. Curved lines. Something branching.
For a second, it looked like a flower. Then not. The lines shifted when he blinked—antennae, maybe. Or cracks.
He frowned.
"Military?" Ren said, but there wasn't conviction behind it. His jaw tightened after the word, like he didn't like how easily it came.
Sumi pried at a side panel. It resisted, then gave all at once with a sharp pop that echoed inside the vehicle a fraction too long.
She flinched. Not at the sound—the second one.
Inside, the air didn't move.
She leaned in anyway.
"Careful," Kyo said. It came out late.
Her shoulder hit the frame. She steadied, then reached deeper.
"Nothing live," she said. Then, slower: "Just—gear."
Her hand came back first, wet with something that wasn't just rain. She wiped it on her pants without looking.
"Visor," she said, pulling it free. The plastic was cracked, edges cloudy. It caught the light wrong—something faint still flickered across the inside, lines trying to assemble and failing.
She set it aside on the running board. It slid an inch on its own before stopping.
"Straps," she added, reaching back in. "Harness—old."
Her fingers brushed something else. She paused. Missed it. Found it again on the second try.
A cloth patch.
She pulled it out and held it between two fingers.
Kyo's eyes went to it before she spoke.
The same shape as the one on the side, cleaner here. Black skull—no, not clean. The teeth were wrong. Too even. Lines ran through them, like they'd been cut and redrawn.
Above it, the branching lines again. Antennae. Or wires.
He felt something in his chest tighten, not recognition exactly. A near-miss.
Ren leaned closer. His nose wrinkled again, sharper this time.
"I've seen that," he said. Then stopped. "Or—something like it."
"Drone crews?" Sumi said. Then, after a beat: "No. Not—"
She turned the patch over. Nothing on the back. Turned it again.
"People who… collect," she said, slower now. "Gear. Parts."
"Scrappers," Ren said.
"Not just scrap." Her fingers tightened on the cloth. "They take—"
She stopped.
Hana's shoulders drew in. "Take what."
Sumi didn't answer immediately. She looked back into the dark of the truck, like something might still be there if she stared long enough.
"Things that still… work," she said finally. The word came out uneven. "Even if they shouldn't."
Ren's ear flicked—late, then held halfway.
"Hun—" he started, then cut himself off. The word didn't land clean.
Kyo's gaze went back to the logo.
Skull. Lines. Antennae. He tried to place it again and got the same almost-recognition, like a name on the edge of hearing.
His hand twitched, like it wanted to go back to the metal and check something.
He didn't.
Hana's voice came softer. "Organs," she said, but it sounded like she wasn't sure she'd said it.
Sumi exhaled through her nose. "Sometimes," she said. "If they can."
The visor on the running board flickered once—lines trying to resolve into a display, then collapsing.
No one spoke for a second.
Water dripped from the frame of the laundromat, hitting the truck's side in uneven intervals. One drop landed on the logo and ran down through the skull's teeth, splitting around the lines.
Kyo stepped back.
The space around the vehicle felt tighter than it should have. Sound didn't leave cleanly. His own breath came back to him a fraction late.
"We move," he said.
It wasn't decisive. It came out like a correction.
Sumi dropped down from the running board. Her landing jarred her knees; she took a half-step that didn't match the ground.
She still held the patch.
For a second, Kyo thought she might keep it.
She let it fall back inside.
It landed without a sound.
Ren looked at the logo one more time, then away. His jaw stayed tight.
"Not—" he started, then stopped. "Yeah. Move."
Hana didn't look at the truck again. Her steps angled around it wider than necessary, like giving space to something that might reach.
Kyo followed the line of the tracks as they reemerged past the laundromat. He didn't look back immediately.
When he did, it was just long enough to catch the shape again.
Black. Skull. Lines.
This time it held a fraction longer before slipping out of place in his head.
He faced forward.
"We're not—" he started, then stopped. The rest didn't come.
His hand flexed once at his side, fingers closing late.
"Tracks keep going," he said instead.
No one answered.
They moved on, spacing uneven, the truck's presence taking a few steps too long to fall out of the rhythm behind them.