The candle at my bedside had nearly melted through.
Its flame danced with an erratic flicker, casting long, trembling shadows across the wooden walls of my little room. My skin was still damp, the fabric of my robe clinging to my back like a second, colder skin. I hadn't changed. I hadn't even moved much since being dragged out of the hot spring by one of the outer guards. They'd found me unconscious, curled in steam and silence, and dumped me here with all the urgency one might reserve for a sack of turnips.
Now I lay curled on a straw mat that itched worse than any bruise I'd earned. The clan, in its infinite generosity, had also left me two wrinkled plums and half a bruised pear on the floor beside me-- a feast for a champion, clearly. My fingers trembled as I picked one up, turning it in the half-light. The skin was soft. Rotten sweet.
I dropped it.
This room… it wasn't even a room. Just a storage cell with my name carved into the door with a nail. Cold drafts slipped in through the walls, whispering through the straw, and I tried curling tighter under the threadbare blanket someone had tossed over me like an afterthought. The scent of mold, damp wood, and something faintly metallic—blood, I think maybe...still lingered in the air.
But none of that was the problem.
No, the problem was the voice.
Or… not a voice exactly. More like a whisper that wasn't sound. A flicker that hovered just behind my eyes, pulsing in rhythm with my breath.
[Kettai Signature Confirmed.]
[Initiate Status: Rogue-Class]
[Mission Available: Accept to Unlock Path Initiation]
I turned onto my back, staring at the cracked ceiling as though it might provide answers. My heartbeat had finally slowed, but the confusion hadn't. The words—those glowing words—they'd returned three times since I woke. Always the same. No mouth. No source. Just… there.
Possession. That was my first thought, and it had stuck stubbornly.
I tried whispering a prayer earlier, the kind the Shinkage monks taught for spiritual cleansing. Nothing happened. The words still hung behind my vision, waiting like a silent ghost.
What if I had died in that spring and this was some sort of curse? A punishment? Maybe I had finally gone mad, just like the old sword maker who used to scream at ravens before vanishing into the river.
"Stop it," I mumbled, scrubbing my hands over my face.
Still there.
[Mission Available: Initiation Trial]
[Reward: First Blade Invocation, System Integration +2%]
[Failure: Null. No consequences.]
That last part comforted me only a little. If I was possessed, at least it seemed… polite.
The door creaked.
I sat up fast, wincing as a sharp bolt of pain tore through my ribs. Wet clothes sucked at my skin as I tried to look presentable.
It was Makio—the errand-runner two floors up, probably ordered to check on me. He was older, broader, with the kind of blank face that said he planned to live his whole life unnoticed.
He stepped into the candlelight, sniffed, and frowned. "Still breathing, huh?"
"Barely," I muttered.
"Good. Genzo-sama said to see if you needed a healer. But I told them you'd be fine. You don't look important enough to die." He said it without cruelty. Just a fact.
"Wait," I said, sitting up straighter. "Makio. Do you see that?"
He blinked. "See what?"
"The words. They're… floating. In the air. Bright. Kind of glowing. One of them says Mission Available. Does that mean anything to you?"
Makio squinted at me. For a moment I thought he might actually try to see it, but then he stepped back slowly.
"Oh no," he said. "You've finally snapped."
"I'm serious."
"So am I. You sound like the old bath house hermit. Next you'll be talking to walls and feeding your sword rice cakes."
"I saw something in the water. Before I passed out. And now…this thing, it's talking to me. It gave me a mission."
He shook his head. "You've always been strange, Aoto. Maybe the spring just boiled your brain."
Makio dropped a small cloth bundle on the floor--dry clothes, probably--and backed out of the room without another word.
I didn't blame him.
I curled back up slowly, letting the candle's dim warmth wrap around me again.
Possessed or not, the presence hadn't hurt me yet. And I had no other explanation. No scroll in the Hoto Clan's archives ever mentioned anything like this. Kettai awakenings were spiritual, emotional, intense -- but they didn't talk. They didn't offer missions like a ghost offering tea.
I looked at the flickering words again. Initiation Trial.
My lips twisted in a dry, tired smile.
"Alright, ghost," I whispered. "Let's see what happens."
I blinked once. And the world shifted.
The candlelight vanished.
In its place was mist--thick, silver-blue mist that curled at my feet and wrapped around my arms like cold fingers. The walls of my room had disappeared. In their place stood… nothing.
An endless, open space. Moonlight filtered from somewhere unseen, but there was no moon.
And in front of me stood a sword.
Simple. Plain. No ornamentation. No glowing marks. Just a curved blade, planted in the mist, hilt upright like it was waiting for someone to take it.
[Face the Veil: Trial Begins]
[To awaken your Kettai path, choose the blade you deserve.]
I looked around.
There were no other swords.
"Uh. There's only one?" I said aloud, then winced. "Wait, you're listening, right?"
No answer.
Of course.
I stepped forward. Each step echoed like I was walking on glass. The mist curled tighter, wrapping around my legs, resisting--but not stopping me.
My fingers closed around the hilt.
It felt warm. Alive. Like something was breathing just beneath the steel.
[Blade Accepted. Path: SHINKETSU Confirmed.]
[Kettai Sync: 4%]
[Technique Unlocked: Inazuma Nuki]
[You have touched the silence. You will never be the same.]
The mist exploded upward in a cyclone of silver light, and the world tilted as I screamed.
Or maybe I didn't.
I was already back in my room, the candle was sputtering low.
The sword wasn't in my hand--but I remembered it. Every detail. Its weight. Its breath.
But I knew one thing with perfect clarity: I was different, I felt very different as the feeling of new power surged through my veins.
My Kettai...I had awakened.