Rudo is an ugly, broke, and friendless boy who spends most of his time rummaging through trash in the rich part of town. One day, he notices a rich lady discard a trash bag with a perfectly good doll in it, and he wants it. So, he heads down to the trash collection site and sneaks into one of the garbage rooms to start looking for any valuables.
However, he’s a bit too sloppy with his approach, as he gets spotted by one of the guards. The people here take their trash very seriously, because the guard immediately runs in and draws his gun on Rudo. Only authorized personnel are allowed inside, and once he realizes Rudo is a trash raider, the guard sounds the alarm to call for reinforcements.
Rudo doesn’t plan on sticking around, so he jumps into the trash chute and climbs back up to escape. But the lockdown sequence has already been initiated, and just as he’s about to get out, the front gate seals shut. The guards eventually catch up to Rudo, and as soon as they have a clear shot, they open fire without hesitation—just to keep him from looking through their trash.
As the bullets head straight for him, Rudo moves so fast that he’s able to dodge them point-blank. The guards, unaware of his speed, genuinely intended to kill him. He slips through one of the open doors and runs into the loading area while the guards continue shooting. At one point, a bullet grazes his arm, but he still manages to scale the wall and escape the trash collection compound.
The guard continues to chase him, but Rudo hides in the sewer system until the coast is clear. He doesn’t understand why they’re willing to go so far to stop him from going through trash when he isn’t hurting anyone. Soon, word spreads, and people all over the city hear about the recent trash raid. They’re appalled at the idea of the dirty tribesfolk rummaging through their discarded belongings.
In this city, people are divided into two sections: the city dwellers, who live in a clean and pristine part of town, and the tribesfolk, who live in the filthy part. The trash raid is a hot topic here as well, and everyone already suspects Rudo, especially since he’s busy fixing up the junk he collected last night.
A few moments later, Rudo is confronted by his friend Chiwa, who yells at him for going trash raiding again. The city folk are strict about trash management, so there’s no telling what they’d do if they caught him. Rudo understands the risks, but he doesn’t think it’s fair that the rich constantly throw away perfectly usable items. Selling the fixed junk helps him cover his living expenses.
Just then, a group of guys show up and start insulting Rudo unprovoked. They tell Chiwa she shouldn’t hang around a loser like him. Rudo tries to stay calm, but they keep pushing his limits. One of them even knocks over the lantern he was fixing, saying no one would buy something touched by his filthy hands. They then call him the son of a homicidal maniac.
That last comment strikes a nerve. The boys explain that these slums were originally created as a prison for criminals, and now, as the children of those criminals, everyone here must behave in hopes of being allowed to rejoin the city. But people like Rudo’s father ruined that chance by going on a killing spree.
This boy has been talking a lot of [ __ ] for someone within dropkicking range. And that last statement officially crossed the line, so Rudo stares at him with a look that says he’s about to snap. Rudo’s glare is so filled with animosity that it scares them into realizing it would be a bad idea to keep messing with him, so they slowly walk away. Once they’re gone, Rudo silently picks up the lantern they kicked over, being used to ridicule for no reason.
To his surprise, Chiwa is still standing by his side. She tells him she believes he’s a good person, and that’s the nicest thing anyone has ever said to him, leaving him unsure how to react. Chiwa then notices the toy Rudo fixed and loves it. She’s impressed he found something so cute in the trash and restored it. The whole reason Rudo went after the doll was to give it to Chiwa as a present, so he’s happy she likes it. Before he can explain it’s a gift, Chiwa’s mother shows up and tells her it’s time to go home. Chiwa says goodbye to Rudo and leaves with her mother, leaving Rudo disappointed he missed his chance to confess.
After that, Rudo heads home, but as soon as he steps inside, he finds Regto standing there with a wide smile. He had been spying on Rudo earlier and repeats his failed confession word-for-word. Rudo gets flustered and yells that spying on private moments isn’t cool. But Regto changes the subject, wanting to talk about the trash raid stunt Rudo pulled last night.
Regto admits they are poor, but not so poor that Rudo should risk his life searching for junk. Rudo insists it’s not risky since he’s never been caught before, but Regto points out he was spotted last night and nearly captured. He understands Rudo is trying to repay him for everything he’s done, even though they’re not related by blood. But to Regto, Rudo is his son and owes him nothing. Regto found him abandoned as a baby and took him in, always treating him as family.
Just then, Regto notices the wound on Rudo’s arm and asks if he got shot. Rudo tries to deny it, but it’s obvious. Regto tells him to roll up his sleeve so he can treat it and change the bandages. Once done, he warns Rudo to stay away from the trash site because next time he might not be lucky enough to get away with just minor injuries. Rudo says he’s fine—compared to the wounds his biological father left him with, a scratch isn’t a big deal.
The mood shifts at the mention of Rudo’s father. In this city, major crimes are punished with immediate death by being dropped into “the pit.” Rudo’s father was executed this way, and Regto doesn’t want the same fate for him. Rudo’s hands have been pitch-black for as long as he can remember, and he sometimes suffers crippling pain from them. People look at him with disgust, but Regto was different—he gave him gloves to help manage the pain, and Rudo has treasured them ever since.
Regto then tells Rudo he’d better make a move on Chiwa soon, or someone else might. Rudo doesn’t want to talk about it, but while they’re bickering, a mysterious masked man is outside, staring at their house ominously.
The next morning, Rudo practices smiling because Regto told him it would make him more approachable. After a few minutes, he decides he’s just plain ugly, so smiling won’t help. Still, he wants to give Chiwa the doll, so he heads to her house. On the way, he thinks about the pit—a massive trash dump where the city throws both its garbage and criminals deemed useless to society. Public executions happen often, and the slums were built on the city’s edge to remind the tribesfolk that stepping out of line means being thrown in without question.
When Chiwa shows up, she says it’s awful how people are sent to the pit so often. She doesn’t want that to happen to him. She understands he disagrees with how the rich waste perfectly good items, but if he keeps putting himself in danger, it’s only a matter of time before he’s caught. Rudo laughs, saying Regto told him the same thing last night. Chiwa responds that’s probably because Regto loves him just as much as she does.
Rudo keeps laughing—until he realizes Chiwa just said she loves him. Chiwa, flustered, tries to explain she didn’t mean it in a weird way. Sensing this is his best chance, Rudo holds out the doll and says he got it for her because he thought she’d like it. Chiwa is overjoyed and says she’ll treasure it forever. This went far better than Rudo expected, so unsure how to react, he runs off before his “ugly face” makes Chiwa change her mind.
Now that he has finally made progress, Rudo wants to go home and tell Regto all about it. However, as he turns a corner, he accidentally bumps into a group of guards from the inner city. They barely acknowledge his existence, walking past him like he’s nothing but trash. Apostles showing up in the slums is never a good sign, but right now Rudo doesn’t care—he just wants to brag to Regto about his love life.
When he gets home and opens the door, to his absolute horror, he finds the masked man with a sword plunged into Regto’s chest. The masked man pauses for a moment, surprised by Rudo’s sudden appearance, then pushes the sword deeper. Refusing to let Regto die in front of him, Rudo charges at the man, but in less than a second, he’s slammed against the wall, barely able to move. The beating is so quick that Rudo doesn’t even remember how it happened, and the masked man barely considers him a threat.
Convinced Regto won’t survive, the masked man gets up and begins walking away. Rudo yells at him to stop, but when that fails, he tries to gather his strength to chase after him. Just then, he hears Regto’s voice. Helping him takes priority over revenge, so Rudo rushes to his side. He tries to assure him that he’ll get help, but there’s little to be done when you’ve got a sword in your chest. Regto grabs his shirt and tells him to get out as fast as he can.
Before Rudo can understand why, he’s suddenly shot in the back with a taser and pinned to the ground by city guards. They accuse him of murdering Regto. No matter how much Rudo tries to explain his innocence, they refuse to listen. One of them even punches him until he loses consciousness.
When Rudo wakes up, he’s tied to the execution stand, dangling over the pit, while an apostle condemns him for a crime he didn’t commit. The people of the slums already disliked him, so many cheer for his execution. Rudo wonders how things turned out this way—he did nothing wrong, yet dozens of people want him dead. He scans the crowd, searching for someone who believes in him, and spots Chiwa.
He calls out to her, insisting he didn’t kill Regto and asking her to help find the real killer. But Chiwa cuts him off, saying she was a fool to believe someone like Rudo could be more than a filthy murderer. She declares she wants nothing to do with him ever again. Watching Chiwa walk away, Rudo realizes he’s truly alone.
Just before he’s dropped into the pit, Rudo spots the man who killed Regto in the crowd. In that moment, he swears to kill that man and everyone who turned their backs on him.
When Rudo next opens his eyes, he’s lying in a pile of trash, reeking from head to toe. To his surprise, he’s still alive—he always thought the pit was a death sentence. Looking around, he sees endless wastelands stretching as far as the eye can see.
Then a loud rumble comes from behind. Turning around, Rudo sees a massive trash monster glaring at him. He runs, but the monster calls for backup, and within moments, two more appear. Rudo struggles to believe what he’s seeing—since when could piles of trash come to life and attack? But the human skull on the ground makes it clear what will happen if he doesn’t act fast.
Suddenly, the trash beneath his feet gives way, and he falls to a lower level. The impact knocks the wind out of him, and the stench is worse than a moldy gym bag, making it hard to breathe. With nothing but trash in sight, there’s nowhere safe to hide.
Losing hope, Rudo thinks he’s doomed no matter what. Then he remembers Regto’s last words and refuses to die before making them all pay—the people who looked down on him as trash, the cowards who watched as he was thrown into the pit, and above all, the man who killed Regto in cold blood.
One of the trash monsters tries to sneak-attack Rudo while he’s mid-motion, but he’s so filled with rage that he smashes the monster’s head away with a metal pipe. Meanwhile, on a nearby trash pile, a man spots Rudo across the trash field and becomes curious about him.
Rudo does his best to fight back, but the pipe barely damages the monsters’ trash bodies. He’s swatted away and bounces across the ground multiple times. Eventually, he gets hold of a broken stop sign and hurls it at one of the monsters, managing to deal some real damage. Still, the toxic air makes it hard for him to keep fighting. The two trash monsters see him struggling to stand, so they charge at him together.
Just before they reach him, Rudo grabs a sheet of metal and slices one of the monsters clean in half, causing a huge explosion of debris. He’s relieved to have taken one down—but another, much larger trash monster spawns right in front of him. With no choice, Rudo runs for his life. The monster slams the ground, launching him through the air until he lands right in front of the man who had been watching him.
Confused by the stranger’s presence and still unable to breathe in the foul air, Rudo tries to gather himself. The man, without explanation, picks him up, kicks him across the ground, and then puts a gas mask on his face. At first, Rudo is angry, but once he realizes he can finally breathe, he becomes grateful. He thanks the man and starts asking questions—where they are, what the monsters are, and whether everywhere is like this.
The mysterious man tells Rudo to shut up. When Rudo refuses and keeps demanding answers, the man finally snaps back. He explains that this is one of many toxic dumps created by people like Rudo, and he would have told him if he hadn’t been so loud. But now, thanks to his yelling, they have to deal with more monsters. He calls them “trash beasts”—creatures made of garbage that can’t be harmed with normal weapons and that react to sound.
Energy begins flowing from the man’s arms into the umbrella he’s holding, transforming it before Rudo’s eyes. As a trash monster attacks, the man uses the umbrella to shred it to pieces with ease. Rudo is stunned by the man’s skill, but there are more monsters closing in. The man charges into battle, taking down over a dozen trash beasts in seconds.
One of the beasts vomits a stream of foul purple sludge, which the man blocks with his umbrella before driving it straight through the creature’s head. After the fight, he walks back over to Rudo, removes his mask, and introduces himself as Engine, a cleaner. He immediately regrets taking off the mask—the stench is unbearable. Moments later, Rudo collapses from exhaustion, his body still battered from earlier.
While unconscious, Rudo recalls a childhood memory with Regto. When he was young, he came home covered in mud, and Regto asked what happened. Rudo explained that some kids had pushed him into the dirt.
All he did was tell them that objects are alive because if you take care of them for long enough, a soul will come and live in them. But the kids just laughed and started picking on him after that. Rudo learned that story from Regto, so he feels bad that repeating it got Rudo in trouble, because stories like those are usually just made up. But Regto does believe that objects can have souls. Rudo lights up after hearing this and asks if that means all the stuff in the room has a soul as well. Regto says anything can have a soul — even the gloves that Rudo is wearing — as long as he cherishes them.
Rudo later wakes up and finds himself being dragged across the floor by Enjin. He starts yelling, demanding to know why Enjin chained him up. Enjin reminds Rudo that he’s still a total stranger, and there’s no way he’s bringing a stranger back to base without taking some precautions first. Rudo squirms around, telling Enjin to let him go because he needs to get back to the city as soon as possible, but Enjin tells him that isn’t possible right now. The place Rudo calls the city is called the Sphere down here, and it moves around a lot in the sky, making it hard to keep track of. There’s also the fact that Rudo can’t fly, so he’d never be able to get back up there. There are other factors as well, but the point is, for now, Rudo is stuck down here, so he should just stay quiet and deal with it.
However, Rudo refuses to give up because nothing’s going to stop him from getting revenge on those pricks in the Sphere. Earlier, Enjin said Rudo was stuck “for now,” meaning there must be some way to get up there, and Rudo wants to know what that is. He asks Enjin to tell him everything about this place and how to leave, saying he won’t shut up until Enjin tells him. Enjin, sick of the constant yelling, says if Rudo is so desperate to know what kind of place the surface is, he’ll get a firsthand lesson.
Enjin drags Rudo to an old service station with two trucks out front, drops him off, and wishes him luck before leaving him to fend for himself. Rudo then spots five men staring at him. They think his clothes are strange and speculate that he might be a spirit. To be sure, they ask where he came from. Rudo says he fell from the Sphere, and the men remove their masks in shock — they’ve never seen a living spirit before. They still find it hard to believe he survived the fall, but judging by his face, they think he’s telling the truth.
Rudo dislikes strangers touching his face, so he pulls away. The men apologize but say they don’t see people like him often. The leader notices Rudo’s chains and offers to change them, and Rudo thinks he’s being kind — but instead, he ends up chained in the back of their truck. The men joke about how dumb it was for Rudo to trust them without knowing who they are.
The leader tells them to be careful because they don’t want to damage their latest product. Spirits fetch a high price here — mostly just their bodies, eyes, fingers, and even spirit clothes. But finding a living spirit is rare. The leader says people are willing to pay so much for spirits because everyone on the surface despises them. All they do is dump trash on the people here, poisoning the air and creating monsters. Once people find out Rudo is a spirit, it won’t go well for him. He may be tortured, torn apart — or worse. The leader doesn’t care either way; he just wants the money.
Before selling him, he decides to get some payback by shoving trash into Rudo’s mouth. He thinks Rudo has lived a sheltered life in the Sphere, so this will break his spirit. But while doing so, Rudo bites down on his fingers, ripping the flesh off. The leader jumps back in pain, but Rudo chews and swallows it. Back in the slums, Rudo was forced to eat trash all the time, so nothing’s changed — even the discrimination is the same.
He rips free from the chains, and now, all he thinks about is murder. Enjin, watching from a cliff, is impressed by Rudo’s capabilities. Rudo recalls what Regto told him about cherishing objects, and as he grabs a chain, it begins to glow red. On the surface, there are special people like Enjin who can give life to objects, drawing out their full power — and Rudo is one of them. The chain transforms, startling the scavengers.
The leader reminds them that if they take the chain away, Rudo can’t use his powers. They knock it from his hand, but Rudo grabs a tire instead and beats them all down. The leader is last, insulting him repeatedly, but before Rudo can kill him, Enjin stops him. Rudo snaps out of it, and the tire crumbles to dust. Rudo doesn’t know what happened, but suspects it’s connected to his gloves.
Enjin apologizes for leaving him but says he needed to see his abilities. Now that he knows Rudo is a Giver, he offers him a deal: he’ll tell him everything if Rudo joins him and the other Cleaners. But after everything, Rudo refuses, saying, “Nope.”
