The morning air was sharp and cold, the light slipping through the trees like a blade, slicing time itself.
On the threshold of the wooden house, the old man stood silently, eyes fixed on the backyard where Kizuki Takura, the former samurai, knelt in the dirt, pressing his hands around the hilt of his sword.
This was no ceremonial gesture.
It was the burial of a life.
Years stained with war, with screaming, with blood.
Children's faces, their cries cut short before they could finish.
Kizuki wept.
Not aloud. Not with sound.
The trembling in his shoulders, the shiver that ran through him, spoke enough—
a man who had learned the precision of killing, yet never the mercy of compassion.
"Teach me…"
he whispered, the words trembling on lips that almost did not belong to him.
"I do not wish to go to hell… so many souls… cursing me.
How am I to live like this?"
The old man stepped closer, voice rough and cracked, like droughted soil:
"I no longer have a soul to spend in the waking world.
Yet there is still time…
Time to show you how to bear your fate.
Doom is inevitable,
but to walk toward it with peace…
that is the only path left for men like you."
He paused.
His gaze held Kizuki's for a moment longer, then continued:
"The guilt you carry… it cannot be washed away.
Blood does not forgive.
But you can learn to live with it.
You can understand it.
You can acknowledge it.
And that is why… your first lesson is this:
Live each day as if it were a gift.
You may not understand now—
but you will.
When you are older… or when you burn."
The old man turned his back and walked inside the cabin.
Kizuki reached for the hilt of his sword.
He studied its glimmer one final time…
and then drove it into the ground.
It was not merely a sword he buried in that yard.
It was something heavier… or perhaps lighter,
depending on the eyes of the spirits:
his past.
The next morning, the old man's voice called softly:
"Get up. The soil will not wait for your regret."
Kizuki ignored it the first time.
Then the second.
By the third day, he did not even open his eyes.
His body lay on the mattress,
but his heart remained on the battlefield,
where the last scream had been cut from a throat,
and the echoes of a sword's blood still lingered in the air.
On the fourth day, the old man dragged him by the collar and dropped him onto the dirt.
"If you wish to die," he said,
"then die standing on the soil,
not sleeping on it."
A handful of seeds fell into Kizuki's lap.
"This is your food.
If you do not plant it, we starve.
If we do not harvest, we die."
Kizuki stared at the seeds for a long moment.
His hands had only ever known the grip of a sword,
but these tiny grains…
they looked to him like spirits.
Simple. Silent.
Yet their fate rested entirely in the palm of the one who held them.
✧
For days, Kizuki woke late.
Not out of slumber,
but fleeing wakefulness itself.
Each step he took was obedience, nothing more.
His body moved,
but his soul remained stranded in a war long past,
a war that had never truly ended.
Days passed in digging, in watering, in sweating.
Their backs ached, muscles screaming with every motion.
His hands, once steady on a sword, struggled to grip the hoe.
The soil seemed to reject him.
Or perhaps…
he was the one rejecting it.
And then the spirits appeared.
Every evening.
Not to harm him,
but to remind him.
Faces without features.
Eyes suspended in the air.
Watching him.
Weeping silently.
They made no sound.
No accusations.
They only… stared.
One night, the old man spoke quietly:
"This is your curse. Do not turn away.
Let them see you planting life after all the death you have sown."
Kizuki said nothing.
Deep inside, he did not believe that a single seedling
could ever atone for the horrors he had unleashed.
✧
A week passed.
On the evening of the seventh day,
the old man sat alone by the hearth,
fingering the dim fire with hands worn by time.
He glanced toward the field.
There, at the edge of the crops,
Kizuki sat, eyes fixed on his muddied hands.
"What am I doing?" he thought.
"As if farming could erase the past…
as if it could teach me anything worth knowing."
Kizuki Takura had begun waking late each day,
not from exhaustion,
but because he no longer wished to face the light.
His body moved through the world as if abandoned by his soul.
Only a heavy shadow remained,
searching desperately for any reason to keep moving.
He acted not to satisfy himself,
but to appease the old man.
And the old man,
watching in silence,
saw how the samurai had become a walking corpse—
pretending to live
just as the dead pretend to breathe in their final dreams.
That night…
Moonlight was thin, pale,
and the silence gripped the world like an invisible hand,
squeezing every breath from the night.
The old man lit the first candle.
Then the second.
Then the third.
Until the room shimmered with a strange, trembling glow,
as if the light itself were burning away the shadows.
Kizuki lifted his head, voice barely audible:
"What are you doing?"
But the old man did not answer.
He continued lighting the candles,
as though preparing a stage for a hidden ritual—
one only he could see.
And as the glow filled the room,
Kizuki's eyelids grew heavy.
Sleep came quietly, consuming him entirely.
It was not escape.
It was collapse.
He saw himself there,
trapped in a day that refused to end.
Walking through stone corridors,
clad in imperial armor,
his friend beside him,
chuckling softly.
"Why don't we train?"
his friend asked, with a tone devoid of innocence.
Kizuki hesitated.
"How can we train after conquering every village?"
His friend laughed, as if the answer were obvious.
"Follow me… you'll see."
They walked together.
Entered a village—peaceful, small,
worn down by too many wars.
The villagers greeted them warmly,
offering food and drink.
Women filled the plates,
children ran barefoot,
elders bowed low in respect.
Kizuki sat down,
and for a fleeting moment,
felt something unfamiliar…
something like peace.
But it did not last.
Suddenly, his friend rose amid the feast,
voice sharp, unsettling:
"One of your children is plotting a rebellion!"
The villagers froze.
An old man, voice trembling, pleaded:
"We swear to you…
we love the Emperor…
we teach them nothing against him."
His friend did not seek the truth.
He sought massacre.
He drew his sword and spat:
"Liars… not enough."
In the next instant, peace shattered.
It split apart like a soul cleaved by a blade.
A child screamed. A woman fell.
Blood spread over the ground that had shone moments before.
Kizuki drew his sword too.
He did not think. He did not question.
He fought as if his hands were not his own,
possessed by a curse beyond control.
He struck, stabbed, and slashed,
unable to distinguish attacker from victim,
weapon from plea for mercy.
His eyes shut tight in fury,
hands moving as if obeying a silent command to kill.
After the massacre, the air hung heavy with dust.
The swords dripped with blood.
Kizuki spoke, his voice weighed down by the corpses of children behind him:
"Was there really… a child planning a revolt?"
His friend smiled.
A smile shaped by too many killings to feel anything.
"No… but they deserved to die. They were a burden.
We protected them for nothing.
They were good for training, nothing more."
Before the last word left his mouth,
a blade pierced his gut.
He gasped.
He screamed.
His body convulsed.
Kizuki froze, the embodiment of sin itself.
He could not pull the sword back.
He could not even cry out.
Everything unfolded before him
while he stood there,
a statue carved from guilt.
His friend fell.
And then the voices began to rise from the earth.
The spirits stirred from where they had been buried:
the eyes of children,
the tears of women,
the screams of the old.
They drew closer.
They began to speak,
to call him:
"Why?"
"We did nothing… why did you kill us?"
"Why?"
Kizuki screamed:
"Leave me alone!"
"I don't want to see you!"
But they kept coming.
One spirit, its face disfigured by death, grabbed Kizuki's face.
It spoke, its voice echoing from beneath the grave:
"I swear… your end will be worse."
Kizuki jolted awake.
Sweat drenched his face,
his chest heaving as if he had just escaped the jaws of death.
The hut remained aglow with candlelight—
a light that offered no warmth,
only revelation.
He saw the old man,
sitting among the flames,
still.
Silent.
Kizuki shouted, his voice cracking with rage and fear:
"You did this… you made these nightmares!"
The old man opened his eyes—
though blind,
he opened them as if he could truly see.
And in a voice calm enough to unsettle gods, he said:
"I saw nothing, Kizuki…
I only meant to wake you.
What you saw tonight
is only a glimpse…
of your life after death."
Silence followed.
Then he continued, his voice like the rustle of dry leaves:
"The spirits are angry with you.
You have only a few years left in the material world…
Beyond that, there is only eternal damnation.
You must live now
not with closed eyes,
but with open sight."
He pointed to his own eyes and said:
"Look at me. I am blind,
yet I see the spirits more clearly than you.
You have eyes…
but you refuse to see.
You choose blindness."
"All I wanted… was to open your eyes.
Your eyes to the Yokai world…
and to your sins."
And just before closing his eyes again, he added:
"Sleep now…
For tomorrow, you will not sow to eat…
but to be cleansed."
✧
The Perfume Seller jolted awake.
His breath ragged, his forehead slick with sweat,
his body tense as if he had just returned from an invisible war.
Beside him, the spiritualist stood frozen,
eyes wide,
watching the morning light creep through the window.
"What's wrong?" the Perfume Seller asked.
The spiritualist replied in a trembling voice:
"You were crying… making strange noises,
as if you were dying in your sleep."
He then pointed at the Perfume Seller's lap and added,
"And you were clutching that little pouch…
like it was priceless.
It was glowing… oddly."
The Perfume Seller lowered his gaze to the pouch held tightly in his arms.
A long breath escaped him.
Then, with a calm voice, as his breathing began to settle, he said:
"Don't worry… just a dream."
But the spiritualist was not convinced.
He stepped closer, curiosity edged with fear.
"What kind of dream makes you cradle a pouch
as if it were a dead child?
What's inside it?
A bag of coins?
Or… something else?"
The Perfume Seller rose slowly, saying nothing.
He simply replied:
"Enough talk.
What time is it?"
The spiritualist peeked outside through the narrow slit of the curtain.
"Noon.
Looks like we slept heavily…
Some of the others have already started leaving the inn."
He shrugged and offered a hesitant smile.
"Shall we go catch that fish, finally?"
The Perfume Seller's reply came in a breathless murmur:
"Let me… catch my breath first.
And gather my tools."
✧
Moments later, the two stepped out of the inn.
The sun had risen high, and the market buzzed with life.
From the far end of the square, shouting erupted, a commotion.
They made their way toward the source.
The spiritualist stopped beside a bystander and asked:
"What's going on?"
The man replied:
"The boats sent to Lake Mizukagami… haven't returned.
No one knows what happened.
Those aboard vanished—no debris, not even splinters were found."
A heavy silence fell. Then he added:
"The spirit mediums are afraid.
Some have backed out, others want to press on…
but the boatmen refuse to carry anyone.
They say the lake swallows the boats whole."
The spiritualist's eyes widened.
In a hushed voice, he asked:
"Are you still intent on reaching that fish's heart…
and breaking this village's curse?"
The Perfume Seller answered coldly:
"I have no concern for cowards.
Many claim to be mediums,
yet tremble at the sight of their own shadow."
Then, with a quiet scoff, he added:
"Who knows…
Perhaps those who disappeared weren't even true spirit-talkers.
Maybe they were just greedy men chasing the reward."
His words carried a sting so sharp, the spiritualist felt it pierce straight through his chest.
But he said nothing. He just walked on in silence.
✧
They reached the riverbank, where the boat awaited them, just as they had left it.
As the spiritualist bent to untie the rope, he recoiled, covering his nose.
"What is that stench? It reeks like a rotting animal!
There's no way I'm stepping into that boat like this."
The Perfume Seller calmly retrieved a small vial from his bag.
He uncorked it and sprinkled a few drops along the boat's edge.
Moments later, the air began to shift—clearing, purifying.
"Try now."
The spiritualist climbed aboard, inhaled once, then smiled faintly.
"Much better… Thank you."
He settled at the bow, grasped the oar, and began rowing forward into the silence.
The boat sliced through the stagnant water, drifting toward the heart of the lake
where shadows linger… and the fish waits with them.