The steady tap of boots against the boat's deck. The creak of old wood settling. The fog rolling in thick and gray from Devil Town's shore, swallowing everything beyond arm's reach.

Gin stood at the edge of his boat, arms crossed, staring at the place where the mist met the water. The fishing rod sat forgotten against the rail, line slack and drifting.

You're better off without me.

He clicked his tongue once. Annoyed at himself.

Shouldn't have said that. Words had weight in Limbo, more than in the living world, where people could lie and forget and pretend things didn't stick. Here, everything you said carved itself into the air and stayed there, waiting to become true.

But it was done. And Gin didn't undo things.

He picked up the rod more out of muscle memory than intent, cast the line with a practiced flick of his wrist. The hook hit the water and the fog swallowed it immediately. He didn't expect a bite. Didn't care if one came. Movement kept the mind from wandering into places it shouldn't go.

For a while, there was nothing but the gentle rocking of the boat and the faint lap of water against the hull. No wind. No birds. Just the vast, empty quiet of a place where even sound went to die.

Then voices drifted across the water.

Low at first, careless, the kind of voices that came with too much drink and not enough sense.

Gin's hand stilled on the rod. His eye flicked toward the shore, but he didn't turn his head. He just listened.

“...saw it myself. Human girl, right there in the market square. Bold as brass.”

The second voice was rougher, skeptical. “You're full of shit. No human makes it past the docks without getting ripped apart.”

“I'm telling you. Sereph had her. Dragged her right through Willow Street like she was a fuckin' trophy.”

Gin's jaw tightened, but his face stayed blank.

“What'd she look like?”

"Skinny. Pale. Hair was all fucked up, white and brown, like she dipped half her head in bleach and gave up halfway through."

They paused. There was a sound of liquid sloshing. Probably a bottle changing hands.

“And the other one?”

“What other one?”

“The blond human. Heard Gluttony's boys grabbed him off the street two days ago.”

“Oh, that one.” A laugh. “Yeah. Sereph's boss took him personal. Probably already eaten by now. Or worse.”

“What's worse than eaten?”

“You ever seen what Gluttony does when she's playing with her food?”

Silence. Then a sharp intake of breath. “Shit.”

“Yeah.”

The line in Gin's hand went completely slack. He stared at it for a long moment, at the place where it disappeared into the black water, then set the rod down carefully.

He stood there. Hands loose at his sides. Eye fixed on the fog, on the bleeding yellow lights of Devil Town seeping through the gray.

He could ignore this. Should, probably.

Wasn't his problem. Wasn't his responsibility. He'd done more than enough already, brought her to the city, gave her supplies, pointed her in the right direction. That was the deal. That was where his obligation ended.

And Devil Town...

He closed his eye as he thought. He hadn't set foot in that place in over a decade. Hadn't wanted to. Hadn't needed to. The boat, the Limbo, the endless fog… it was enough. It was safe. No history. No faces that remembered who he used to be. No demons waiting around corners with questions he couldn't answer.

Going back meant risking all of that, and going back meant walking past places he'd spent years trying to forget. Meant possibly running into people who knew his name.

Going back meant Sereph.

Gin's hand curled into a fist. He exhaled slowly through his nose. He saw the fog curled around his boots.

This was stupid. Going into hostile territory for someone he barely knew. Someone who'd probably be dead before he even found her.

She was fragile. Human in the worst possible place to be human. But that damn cat...

Gin's eye narrowed.

Ain. The Time Devil. The way he'd looked at Juno on the boat. Gin knew a setup when he saw one. Knew the shape of a trap even when he couldn't see all the pieces yet.

Howeber, some suspicions were safer left unspoken, even in his own head.

But the girl...

Pale skin. White hair. That look in her eyes like she was already halfway gone, just waiting for the world to finish the job.

She wouldn't last the night.

Gin looked down at his hands. At the scars crossing his knuckles, the calluses from years of gripping sword hilts, the faint tremor that never quite went away.

He couldn't save everyone. Couldn't even save the people who mattered most.

But maybe… just this once.

He looked back at the Limbo stretching out behind him, vast and gray and safe in its emptiness.

He could leave right now. Cast off. Let the fog swallow him whole as it was before he found her drowning by his boat days ago. Go back to fishing dead souls and pretending the rest of the world didn't exist.

It would be easier, smarter. It would be what he'd been doing for the last ten years. Telling himself it was survival when it was really just cowardice with better branding.

His jaw tightened.

Enough.

If he walked away now, if he let Sereph take another person, let the girl die because Gin was too much of a coward to step foot in a city he used to call home, then what was the point? What had the last decade been for? What had any of it been for?

He'd told himself he was staying in the Limbo to avoid making things worse. To keep his distance.

But maybe the real reason was simpler than that. Maybe he'd just been afraid. Afraid of facing Sereph. Afraid of admitting he'd been wrong. Afraid of finding out that nothing had changed, that he was still the same failure who couldn't protect the people who needed him most.

Well.

Only one way to find out.

His hands reached for his coat.

The leather settled over his shoulders. His swords followed, twin katanas slotting into place at his hip with quiet echoes across the empty deck.

His boots hit the dock and the old wood groaned under his weight.

The demons were still there, talking over each other the way drunk people did when they thought no one important was listening. There were two of them, maybe three. Hard to tell with the fog doing what fog did.

But Gin moved through the mist like he was part of it. Just steady steps that ate the distance between the boat and the voices without disturbing the air.

He stopped when he could see them clearly.

Two demons leaning against a stack of crates near the waterline. One was big, scaled hide like old armor, too many teeth crammed into a jaw that didn't quite close. The other was smaller, wiry, with eyes like tarnished coins and fingers too long for its hands.

They didn't notice him until his shadow fell across them.

The big one turned first, still half-smiling from whatever joke it had just told. The smile died the moment it saw Gin's face.

Or rather, the moment it saw his eye, singular, green, and completely devoid of anything resembling patience.

“Fuck,” it said. Just that. Flat and startled.

The smaller demon turned too, slower, instinct telling it that sudden movements were a bad idea. Its gaze dropped immediately to the katanas at Gin's hip, then back up to his face, then down again like it couldn't decide which was more dangerous.

Gin didn't say anything. Just stood there, one hand resting casual on a hilt, waiting.

The big demon swallowed, throat clicking. “Look, uh... we don't want any trouble.”

“The girl.” Gin's voice was quiet. “Where.”

The demons exchanged a glance. The smaller one's fingers twitched like it was thinking about running. The big one's scales rippled, tension moving through its body in visible waves.

“We... we don't know what you're–”

Gin drew his right-hand katana. But he didn't raise it. Didn't point it at anyone. Just held it loose in his hand.

The big demon's mouth clicked shut.

“Old manor,” the smaller one blurted out, words tumbling over each other in its rush to get them out. “Western edge. Past the burned church. Sereph's been using it as a– as a base or something. That's where he took her.”

Gin's eye shifted to it, making it flinch.

“The human boy,” Gin said.

“Gluttony's got him. Red Cliffs. The dungeons, probably, or…” It cut itself off, realizing it was babbling. “That's all we know. I swear. We're just... we're nobody. We don't know anything else.”

Gin stood there for another beat, weighing the truth of it. Then he sheathed the katana and turned to leave. Relief flooded the smaller demon's face, but the big one’s hand shot out, thick fingers closing around Gin's forearm.

“Wait–”

Gin’s wrist twisted, breaking the grip with a sharp, practiced snap. His other hand came up, fingers closing around the demon's throat and slamming it back into the crates hard enough to crack wood. The demon's head bounced off the planks and its eyes went wide.

Gin leaned in close. Close enough to see the pupils contracting in fear.

“Don't,” he said quietly.

Then he let go and stepped back.

The demon slid down the crates, hands going to its throat, breathing hard. The smaller one had gone completely still, pressed flat against the dock like it was trying to phase through the wood and disappear.

Gin didn't look at either of them again. Just turned and walked into the fog.

Behind him, he heard a hissed whisper: “That's the Ferryman.”

“I didn't– I thought that was just–”

“Shut up. Shut the fuck up and don't move until he's gone.”