The moon hung low over Orario, casting silver lines across the stone streets.
Lanterns glowed dully, some flickering, others out entirely. The city felt quieter at night, not asleep, but watching, like a beast with half-lidded eyes.
Toji liked the quiet.
He always had.
It reminded him of missions before a kill, those long nights crouched on rooftops, the sound of Tokyo wind blowing past rusted antennas.
He would listen to the breathing of his targets through thin walls. Feel the seconds stretch between heartbeats.
He walked now with no urgency, coat fluttering behind him, a small paper box of skewered meat in one hand.
The stall he'd gotten them from was still open despite the hour, run by an old dwarf who didn't care who you were as long as you paid.
Toji appreciated that.
The food was salty, cheap, and hot.
He'd spent most of the day in the Dungeon, deep enough to see things worth stabbing but not deep enough to see things that could stab back harder.
Just the right kind of tension to keep the body sharp and the mind loose.
He was thinking of going back to the Hostess. Not for company, he didn't care much for pleasantries, but he liked the food.
Syr's stew wasn't bad. And the people there... they minded their own.
He turned down an alley, shortcut toward West Main.
That's when it happened.
The shift in air. The sound of gravel shifting behind him.
He stopped mid-bite, letting the half-eaten skewer hang from his lips.
Four of them.
Amateurs.
They came out from the shadows with scarves pulled over their mouths, blades drawn, wearing light armor that barely covered their torsos.
Not adventurers. Thugs. Probably local. Probably desperate.
Toji didn't move.
"You got coin," one of them said.
Tall. Scar across his jaw. Fake confidence dripping off him like stale wine.
Toji raised a brow, chewing slowly. "Is that right."
"Hand it over. The food, too."
Toji looked down at the skewer in his hand. Then back up. "No."
Silence.
The men shifted, surprised. Probably thought he'd be easier. He didn't look like much. No visible Falna. No emblem. Just a guy in a dark coat with tired eyes.
"I don't think you heard him," another growled, stepping forward.
Toji sighed.
He finished chewing, then flicked the skewer up and caught it in his mouth. As he did, his hand dipped into his coat, fingertips brushing metal.
The next second blurred.
The thug closest to him lunged.
Toji sidestepped, casual.
His blade, a short, curved weapon with a wicked edge, black as pitch, sang once.
The man dropped.
His friends screamed. Rushed in together.
Toji ducked the first swing, caught a wrist, twisted until bone snapped. Another tried to stab him from the side, he pivoted, the edge of his dagger flashing.
Blood sprayed. Not much. Just enough.
Three heartbeats later, it was over.
One of them whimpered on the ground, holding what used to be a hand. The other two lay still.
Toji crouched next to the whimpering one, grabbing him by the collar.
"Name."
"I—I don't—"
Toji slammed him into the wall. Not hard. Just enough to knock loose a lie.
"Name."
"B—Bruno! Bruno! Gods, please!"
"No," Toji said, voice flat. "Not yours. Who runs you."
The man stared, trembling.
Toji's knife pressed against his cheek. A soft drag. Not enough to cut. Just enough to promise.
"K-Kaldon. Kaldon's crew! North slums. Big warehouse, near the old tannery. That's where they take stuff, where they're based, please, I don't want—"
Toji let him go.
The man collapsed to the cobblestone, breathing in shallow gulps.
Toji stood, cleaned his blade on the edge of one of their scarves, and walked away.
Not quickly. Not with fury.
Just walked.
The skewer still hung from his lips.
He didn't like being touched. Didn't like when people thought they could take from him.
He'd promised himself, after Gojo, after the long dark, that he wouldn't fall into old patterns. That he'd try to live with some kind of peace. Let things go.
But some things still twisted inside him, tight and bitter.
And old habits...
Old habits were hard to kill.
The warehouse wasn't hard to find.
It reeked of blood and rot and the stink of wet leather. The tannery had been abandoned for years. Now it served a different kind of filth.
He watched for ten minutes from a rooftop.
Guards at the door. Two more on patrol. Poor spacing. Predictable routes.
He counted seven total.
Likely more inside.
Didn't matter.
He ghosted down the wall, boots silent. His cursed tools, hidden weapons stored in invisible fabric compartments, slid into his hands without a whisper.
Two guards near the front didn't see him until the blade entered their necks.
Quick. Clean.
He dragged them into the shadows.
Then moved.
Through the side window. Shards of broken glass. Oil lamps hung from chains, casting orange shadows over crates of stolen goods, coins, weapons, sacks of something powdery.
And men.
Nine, maybe ten. Drinking. Boasting. One of them stood out, larger, more armored. Kaldon, probably.
Toji took a breath.
Then dropped in.
The first man to notice got a blade in the throat.
Then chaos.
He moved like shadow, a blur between bodies. Slashed a tendon. Cracked a kneecap. Disarmed one with a twist of the wrist and stabbed him with his own dagger.
Blood pooled.
Screams rose.
Toji ducked a thrown axe, kicked a table over, drove his boot into a man's chest hard enough to break ribs.
Kaldon roared, swinging a mace as big as Toji's torso.
Toji slid under it, came up behind him, and buried a curved blade into his back.
The big man fell with a grunt.
Two more tried to flee. He didn't let them.
Minutes passed.
Then quiet.
Toji stood alone, surrounded by bodies and silence.
He didn't breathe hard.
Didn't sweat.
This was normal.
This was him.
And it was too easy to fall back into.
He stood there for a long time, looking at his hands.
Blood again.
Always blood.
He'd thought maybe this time it'd be different.
Maybe this world wouldn't need him to be what he used to be.
But he'd been wrong.
There was always work for men like him.
Later, as dawn crept in and the birds began to sing, Toji sat on a rooftop overlooking the canal.
He'd cleaned up. Washed his hands in river water. Burned his coat, it was too soaked to bother saving.
The air smelled clean again.
He pulled out another skewer. Bought it from a vendor just opening shop. This one had chicken and some kind of spicy sauce.
He chewed in silence.
Thinking.
He remembered how Gojo had looked at him before the end. Not with pity. Not with rage. But with disappointment.
Like Toji could've been something else.
Something better.
He laughed quietly.
Low. Bitter.
Maybe.
But then again, maybe not.
He finished his food, flicked the stick into the water below, and leaned back, staring at the sky turning pale with morning.
There was always another job.
Another hunt.
Another fight.
He wasn't a hero.
Wasn't a good man.
But in this world or the last, he knew exactly who he was.
...
The next day...
The morning air in Orario was sharp and dry, the sky still tinted a pale blue haze as sunlight pushed stubbornly over the edges of the stone skyline.
The streets were beginning to stir, early vendors calling out over steaming food carts, Familia members dragging half-sleeping supporters toward the Dungeon, and merchants setting up stalls for the day.
Toji hated mornings.
Not because they were bright or noisy. But because they gave him time to think.
He walked with hands buried in the pockets of his coat, sleeves fluttering slightly in the wind as he moved past the bustle.
There was a slow, deliberate rhythm to his gait. Not aimless, Toji was never aimless, but unhurried.
He had money in his pocket, blood still drying on his gear from the previous night, and a growing itch he hadn't quite figured out how to scratch.
Maybe it was the way the air felt, clean, alive.
Or maybe it was the silence in his head. Too quiet. Too soft.
It annoyed him.
He bought a skewer of grilled meat from a woman with crooked teeth and kind eyes.
She smiled too easily, even when he didn't look at her.
He didn't speak. Just nodded, dropped the coin in her hand, and walked on, chewing slowly.
The city never changed.
Not really.
No matter how many gods played at being kings, how many mortals chased glory, Orario still stank of ambition and desperation in equal measure.
Toji could smell it in the gutters, taste it in the sweat of the streets.
And yet...
He didn't hate it.
Which bothered him more than it should have.
He'd been trying to change.
Trying to step away from the man who once gambled for sport, killed for coin, and thought nothing of it.
Gojo Satoru had ripped his soul out and shoved it back in sideways. Now, sometimes, when he looked at his own hands, he felt like they weren't really his.
Still capable. Still brutal. But... different.
Unfamiliar.
"Morning Toji!"
A familiar voice sang from across the cobbled path.
Syr.
She stood in front of the Hostess of Fertility, wiping down one of the outdoor tables with a rag that had definitely seen better days.
She beamed at him like he hadn't brutally threatened Bete a week ago, like she didn't see the blood that still clung to the edge of his coat.
He gave a half-wave in return. That was enough.
"Off to the Dungeon again?" she called.
"Eventually," he muttered, then bit off another chunk of meat.
"Be careful," she said brightly, and then ducked back inside.
He kept walking.
Ten minutes later, he felt it.
A vibration in the soles of his feet.
A scent, not of blood or magic, but oil, fire and iron.
He paused, eyes narrowing.
There was something in the air, familiar in a way that tugged at old memories.
Silencers, barrels, empty corridors lit by dying fluorescents.
A forge, but not like the ones he passed every day. This one had precision. Heat and discipline. Not brute strength.
He followed it instinctively, cutting down a narrow alley between two tall shopfronts, past a pair of hanging laundry lines and into a tucked-away courtyard where the sky narrowed above into a thin blue slit.
The forge was buried in the stone.
Small. Quiet. Flames behind thick glass. Tools hung like surgical instruments on the wall.
And in the middle of it, a red-haired man stood with goggles over his eyes, hammer in hand, sparks bouncing off the shoulder of his apron.
Toji didn't speak.
He stood in the doorway, watching.
The man, Welf Crozzo, finished his last strike, turned the blade on the anvil with practiced fingers, and only then looked up.
For a moment, they simply studied each other.
Welf get up, squinting slightly. "You lost, or just curious?"
Toji stepped inside. "Neither."
"Huh."
Welf set the metal aside, then grabbed a cloth to wipe down his forearms.
"You don't look like the usual type who wanders into my forge."
"I'm not."
Toji moved slowly, gaze flicking over the weapons mounted along the back wall, none enchanted, all handmade.
Axes, shortswords, polearms. Nothing flashy. Nothing divine.
But the balance.
The edge.
He could see it in the finish. In the way the steel breathed.
"You made these?"
Welf nodded. "Every one."
Toji stopped in front of a short, wide-bladed knife. It had a curved spine and a handle wrapped in black cord.
He picked it up. Weighed it in his palm.
Then spun it once around his fingers.
"Good grip. Almost no vibration on the pivot."
Welf blinked. "You've handled knives like that before."
Toji smiled faintly. "You could say that."
"Adventurer?"
"To some."
Welf raised an eyebrow. "You talk like a merc."
Toji didn't answer, but... he is pleased, this man is useful.
He placed the knife back, carefully, and turned to face the smith. A smile on his face, one that he used to wear when he meet his personal weapon maker in his old world.
"I want something custom."
Welf looked intrigued. "Everyone does."
"No. You don't get it." Toji stepped forward. "I don't want something flashy. I want function. I want weapons built to kill. Not to glow. Not to please the gods. Just to end lives."
Welf's smile thinned. "That's a hell of a request."
"You up for it?"
Welf paused. Studied him again. Longer this time. His gaze lingered on the way Toji stood, the tension in his shoulders, the casual ease of his body's balance.
Like someone who'd spent a long, long time killing and didn't regret a second of it.
"What kind of weapons?"
Toji leaned in slightly.
"Can you make something with rotating barrels? Small caliber, tight recoil, durable casing. Manual loading if necessary, but quick discharge. No enchantment. Just steel and oil."
Welf blinked.
"You want... a gun?"
"Something close enough."
"You know how they work?"
"I used to carry one."
Welf let out a low whistle. "You're not from around here, are you?"
Toji didn't respond.
He didn't need to.
Welf looked thoughtful. "What else?"
"Toothpick-sized blades. Fast deployment. Compact. Coated if you have the right materials. No magic."
"I can try. It's not what people usually ask for."
"You're not an usual smith."
Welf chuckled. "I'll take that as a compliment."
There was a pause.
The forge hissed softly behind them, bellows pumping in the background like a slow, sleeping heartbeat.
Toji reached into his coat and pulled out a pouch of gold.
"Half now. Half when it's done."
Welf didn't take it.
Instead, he looked up, serious for the first time.
"You planning to kill a god?"
Toji looked him dead in the eye.
"No."
Then he turned, coat fluttering again, and stepped back toward the door.
"But if one gets in my way," he said over his shoulder, "I'd like to be ready."