Solo Streaming: My only viewer is Yandere Goddess

Chapter 53: Sister’s Secret

The morning after the maismic song was not a morning of victory. The grey cloud still sat rigidly on the horizon, a thick, suffocating blanket that refused to let the sun touch the earth. At the Okutama shrine, the fire pits were nothing but piles of cold, white ash. The survivors moved like ghosts, their faces pale and their eyes sunken. Ren’s counter-humming had saved their souls, but it had left their bodies hollow.

Ren sat on the edge of the porch, his left hand rhythmically massaging his blackened right arm. He could feel a faint, needle-like prickle deep within the bone, which is the first sign of returning sensation, but his mana was a thin line.

[Divine Mana: 0.1 / 150]

[Condition: Critical Exhaustion]

"You should be sleeping," a voice said.

Ren didn’t have to look up. He knew the light, steady footfalls. Haru sat down beside him, her presence bringing a strange, cooling calm that the mountain air lacked.

"I can’t sleep while the air smells like a morgue," Ren said, looking at her. "How are you feeling? The song... it didn’t pull at you last night?"

Haru shook her head, her black hair swaying. "It didn’t feel like a song to me, Niisan. It felt like... a leak. Like a pipe had burst somewhere underground, and I could hear the water rushing out."

Ren narrowed his eyes. "A leak?"

Haru hesitated, her fingers twisting the fabric of her tattered kimono. She looked around to make sure Tanaka and the others were out of earshot. Slowly, she unbuttoned the top of her collar, revealing the skin just above her collarbone.

Ren’s breath hitched. The sapphire marble he had embedded in her chest wasn’t just glowing. It was thumping. Thin, crystalline blue veins had begun to spread from the core, branching out like a map across her skin. But the most alarming part was the color. The elegant blue of the ocean core was being invaded by streaks of sickly, milky grey.

"It’s the Rot," Ren whispered, his hand reaching out instinctively, stopping just before he touched her. "The core is absorbing the miasma."

"It’s not just absorbing it," Haru said, her voice steady. "It’s tracking it. When the singer started last night, the core started to vibrate. I could see them, Ren. Not with my eyes, but in my head. I could see where the grey clouds were coming from."

Ren’s heart was hammering vehemently. "Haru, you shouldn’t have been looking. That’s a link to the God of Death’s intent. If he senses you—"

"He already has," Haru interrupted. She looked out at the grey horizon with a gaze that seemed far too old for a fragile girl. "But he doesn’t see me as a threat. He sees me as a witness. He wants me to see what’s coming, Ren. He wants me to tell you that the ’Morning’ isn’t coming back."

Ren stood up, his staff clattering against the wood. He grabbed Haru by the shoulders, his eyes flashing. "We’re leaving. Tanaka! Get the truck ready! We’re moving Haru further inland, away from the coast."

"No!" Haru shouted, pushing him back.

Ren froze, petrified. Haru had never raised her voice to him. Not once since the day their mother died.

"I’m not a bag you can just carry and hide, Niisan!" Haru’s eyes were glowing with a sapphire light. "You have no mana. You can’t even swing your wooden sword without coughing up blood. If you go to the coast alone, you’ll die."

"I have the Shinen-ryu," Ren growled. "I don’t need mana to kill."

"You need to know where to strike!" Haru countered. "The mist hides them. The song confuses the hunters, but I can see through it. I can see the heart of the Rot. It’s in Yokohama, Ren, beneath the ruins of the Great Pier."

Tanaka ran over, looking between the siblings with concern. "What’s going on? Ren-sama, the refugees are starting to panic. The water in the wells is turning grey again."

Ren looked at Haru, then at the sapphire veins on her neck. He felt a wave of self-loathing. He had fought the Heavens to keep her safe, and now her own body was becoming a lighthouse for the very thing he was trying to kill.

[The God of Fate is whispering, her voice a sharp, jagged edge of jealousy.]

[God of Fate]: The little bird has found her own song, Ren. She is connected to the deep now. If you don’t cut the thread, the God of Death will pull her under to use her as his bride. Let me sever her, Ren. Give me a second, and I will prune the sapphire rot before it reaches her heart.

"Get out of my head," Ren hissed.

He looked at Haru. She wasn’t shaking. She was the sister of the Executioner, and she had decided that she wasn’t going to watch from the sidelines anymore.

"If we go," Ren said, his voice a low, heavy rasp. "You stay in the truck. You don’t leave the ward. You just point the way. Do you understand?"

Haru nodded, a small, sad smile touching her lips. "I understand, Niisan."

The departure from Okutama was silent. Tanaka had selected five of the most stable hunters to stay behind and protect the shrine, while he and Kenji joined Ren and Haru in the battered truck.

****

As they drove down the mountain, the slow rot became visible in all its horrific detail. The forests at the base of the mountain were no longer green. The trees had turned a soft, spongy grey, their leaves changing into a thick, salty slime that coated the road. There were no birds or insects. There was only the sound of the tires splashing through puddles of grey brine.

"The air... it’s getting harder to breathe," Kenji whispered, covering his mouth with a damp cloth.

Ren looked out the window. He saw a group of abandoned houses. Standing in the front yard, there was a dog. It didn’t bark. It just stood there, its eyes replaced by grey skin, humming that same low, rhythmic tune.

Ren’s hand tightened on the Kusanagi-Vessel. He could feel the sword vibrating. It was an Earth-relic; it hated the salt. It hated the way the ocean was trying to eat the land.

"Haru," Ren said. "Where?"

Haru was sitting in the middle of the back seat, her eyes closed. The sapphire glow from her chest was illuminating the interior of the truck like a blue lantern.

"Turn left at the next junction," she said, her voice sounding distant, almost airy. "The ’Path of Tears’ is there. The song is loudest near the old stadium."

"That’s Yokohama territory," Tanaka said, gripping the steering wheel. "The Red Sun militia controls that area. They won’t like us crossing their border."

"The Red Sun is gone, Tanaka," Haru said softly. "I can’t feel them anymore. I only feel... drowned."

They reached the outskirts of Yokohama by late afternoon. The city was a ghost of its former self. A thick, waist-high fog rolled through the streets, obscuring the piles of rubble and the skeletons of cars. But the most disturbing part was the people.

Thousands of them were standing in the streets. They weren’t fighting or scavenging. They were simply standing still, facing the ocean. Their clothes were soaked, as if they had just walked out of a lake. They were all humming. A massive, discordant choir of the damned that made the metal of the truck vibrate.

"Don’t look at their eyes," Ren warned, his left hand reaching for the door handle.

"Ren, you can’t go out there," Tanaka said, his face pale. "There are thousands of them. If they turn on you—"

"They won’t," Haru said. She opened her eyes, which were now glowing with pure sapphire light. "They’re waiting for the conductor, and she’s almost here."

Ren stepped out of the truck. The air hit him like a physical blow... cold, wet, and smelling of ancient decay. His mana flared, a tiny spark of defiance against the overwhelming grey. He drew the wooden sword. "Tanaka, stay with Haru. If any of them move toward the truck, drive. Don’t wait for me."

"Niisan!" Haru leaned out the window. "She’s at the pier. The one with the red crane. But be careful... She’s not alone. The God of Death has given her a ’Guardian’."

Ren didn’t look back. He started walking.

The people didn’t move as he passed. He walked through the crowd of humming survivors like a ghost. He saw faces he recognized from the news, they were the politicians, famous actors, hunters, all reduced to hollow shells, waiting for the water to take them.

As he reached the pier, the grey fog began to swirl, forming a massive vortex. Standing at the end of the pier, right beneath the rusted red crane, there was a woman. She was beautiful in a terrifying way, her skin the color of pearls and her hair made of living seaweed. This was the Siren of the Salt, the God of Death’s primary pawn for the Kanto region, and beside her stood the Guardian.

Ren’s heart stopped. It was a man armored in blackened iron, wielding a massive, jagged greatsword. But it wasn’t the armor that froze Ren’s blood. It was the stance. The way the man held the blade low, centered, with a slight tilt of the head. It was the Shinen-ryu mid-level guard.

"Master?" Ren whispered, the wooden sword trembling in his hand.

The Guardian raised his head. Beneath the iron visor, there were no eyes. Only the grey, sightless skin of the drowned. But the intent was unmistakable. It was the shadow of Jubei, resurrected by the God of Death to kill his own student.

"A warrior is defined by what he refuses to let go, Ren," the Guardian spoke, the voice a gurgling, distorted version of Jubei’s rasp, "and you... you refused to let go of the dirt. Now, the dirt will become your grave."

The Siren began to sing. An ear-piercing note that shattered the glass of the surrounding warehouses.

[Divine Mana: 0.1 / 150]

[Condition: Mental Trauma Detected]

Ren Hanshin stood alone on the pier, faced with the ghost of his teacher and the song of the abyss. He had no mana, no scythe, and a body that was failing him.

But in the truck, Haru clutched the sapphire core, her secret power lighting the dark. She could see the threads of the Rot, and she could see the one thing Ren couldn’t.

"The heart isn’t the woman, Ren!" Haru screamed from the truck, her voice enhanced by the sapphire core. "The heart is in the water! Look at the reflection!"

Ren didn’t look at the Siren. He looked at the churning grey water beneath the pier. In the reflection, the Siren was a massive, many-eyed parasite attached to the underside of the crane, its tentacles reaching into the woman’s back.

The illusion shattered. The Guardian, the shadow of Jubei lunged. The jagged greatsword cut the air with a high speed. Ren didn’t retreat. He dropped his staff and gripped the wooden sword with his left hand, his thumb pressing against the hilt in the way Jubei had taught him.

"The Void isn’t empty, Master," Ren whispered, his obsidian eyes turning black. "It’s just waiting for the truth."

Ren’s will had reached its first explosion. The sister’s secret had revealed the target, but the executioner now had to kill his own master’s shadow to save the world.