Crozz Seraph's Arc

Chapter 1 of 2

Crozz Seraph needed a stadium, and he had six weeks to find one. His bandmates were carrying a demon lord inside them. The only way to tear it loose was a banishing ritual, and the ritual needed one thing he didn't have: a stage big enough to hold the power. Small rooms would burn. He'd seen it happen once, and he still smelled the smoke in his sleep. He spread the booking sheets across the floor of the practice room. Every arena had turned him down. No credit. No label. No draw big enough to fill the seats. A nobody couldn't rent a room that seated forty thousand people. Kita Choi kicked the door open with her boot. She was the only hunter he trusted, the one who'd pulled him out of that burning room. She dropped a folder on the sheets. "Stop begging strangers," she said. "You already have a stage." Crozz opened the folder. Photos of a performance platform spilled out. Steel towers. Blue lights. Panels covered in old warding marks. A ritual circle was built right into the floor. "The Moonlit Idol Stage," Kita said. "Someone designed it for exactly this. A concert that hides a banishing. It's been sitting empty for years." "Then why hasn't anyone used it?" "Because of who holds the lease." The door swung open again. A woman walked in without knocking. Blue hair, sharp ears, a tail curled behind her like a question. Crozz had seen her face on a thousand old posters. Azure Hellsong, the idol who'd vanished at the top of the charts. A demon wearing a pop star's smile. Kita's hand went to the blade at her hip. Azure didn't even look at it. "That stage is mine," Azure said. "I built it to channel power. Not to throw it away on your friends." "Those friends are dying," Crozz said. "Everyone's dying." She studied the ritual photos. "But I'm curious. You think you can fill forty thousand seats? You can't fill a bar." Crozz stood. "Give me the stage and I'll prove it." Azure laughed. The lights flickered when she did. "Fine. The lease is yours. One condition." She tapped the photo of the circle. "I perform with you. On that stage. When you light the ritual, I'm standing in the center of it." Kita stepped forward. "That's insane. She's the thing we hunt." "Those are my terms," Azure said. "Take the venue, take me. Or keep begging arenas that laugh at you." Crozz looked at the circle in the photo. He thought of the smoke, the small room, his bandmates. He had his stage now. He'd traded one problem for a worse one. "Deal," he said. Azure smiled and signed the lease across his palm with one claw. "Then let's sell out a stadium, demon hunter."