Dawn came cold and gray, the kind of light that revealed rather than comforted. Taro found them huddled beneath the eaves of a roadside shrine—barely more than a wooden post with a faded torii gate and offerings long since rotted. But it was consecrated ground, and that had been enough to keep the night's hungry shadows at bay.
Kenta saw him first, hand flying to his katana before recognition struck. "Five Roads." Relief cracked his voice. "We thought—"
"I'm harder to kill than I look." Taro's grin felt like broken pottery hastily glued together. He was soaked through, covered in mud and ash, and every step up the shrine's overgrown path had felt like wading through deep water. But he was whole. Alive. Bound by promises to the dead, but alive.
Mika emerged from behind the shrine's offering box, eyes red-rimmed from either smoke or tears. She punched his shoulder—hard. "You stupid, noble, idiotic—" Another punch. "Don't ever do that again."
"Noted." Taro caught her wrist before she could land a third blow. "Where's—"
"Here." Sora sat with her back against the shrine post, the jade amulet dark and dormant against her chest. Her face was parchment-pale, but her eyes tracked him with sharp awareness. "You survived."
"Disappointed?"
"Surprised." She tilted her head, studying him like a puzzle with missing pieces. "Onryō don't negotiate. They consume or they're banished. But I felt her presence fade. Not destroyed. Released." Her gaze sharpened. "What did you promise her, Taro?"
He told them. All of it—the merchant's wife, the message he'd carried in ignorant haste, the daughter who'd thrown herself from a cliff, the scales that would never quite balance. And the promise: his temple wish, offered to the dead in exchange for their lives.
The silence that followed was heavy enough to crush stones.
"Your daughter." Jiro spoke first, his voice stripped of its usual sardonic lilt. The monk sat cross-legged nearby, prayer beads wrapped around bandaged ribs. "Hana. You're walking this road for her."
"Was walking for her." Taro shrugged, the gesture hollow. "Now I'm walking because a ghost agreed not to kill me if I keep my word. Road's the same either way."
"The hell it is." Kenta surged to his feet, hand clenched on his sword hilt. "You think we'd let you sacrifice your daughter for—for us? For strangers you met a month ago?" His voice cracked. "I'm already damned for betraying my lord. I won't be the reason a child dies too."
"It's not your choice." Taro met the young samurai's furious gaze without flinching. "It's mine. I made the promise. I'll live with the cost."
"Or die with it." Mika's voice was acid and hurt. "What happens when we reach the temple and you can't wish for Hana's life? What then?"
"Then I find another way. There's always another way." Taro didn't believe it, but he said it anyway. "I've run impossible roads before."
"Not like this one." Sora pushed herself upright, swaying slightly. Mika caught her elbow, steadying her. The shrine maiden's gaze was distant, turned inward or perhaps toward futures only she could glimpse. "The onryō—before she faded, she spoke to me. Through the amulet." Her hand drifted to the jade pendant. "She said the theft wasn't mine to atone for. That the kami who took it knew the price."
"What price?" Jiro leaned forward, professional curiosity overriding exhaustion.
"She didn't say. Only that I'm a vessel, not a thief." Sora's laugh was brittle. "But vessels can be broken. Spilled. Emptied out." She looked at Taro. "She also warned me. Said the road ahead is darker than I know. That trust will break and blood will spill."
"Comforting." Mika's sarcasm was reflexive, a shield against fear. "Any other cheerful prophecies from beyond the grave?"
"One." Sora's midnight eyes found each of them in turn. "If we hold to our purpose—whatever that means—the temple may grant mercy." She paused. "May. Not will."
"Better odds than I usually get." Taro rolled his shoulders, feeling vertebrae pop. Every muscle ached. His short sword felt heavier than it had any right to, weighted with promises and ghosts. "We need to move. Magome's probably swarming with shogunate by now. They'll want answers about the fire."
"Can't go back to the main road," Jiro said, already pulling out a water-stained map from his robes. "Checkpoint posts will have descriptions circulating—group of five, one shrine maiden with a jade amulet, led by a hashiriya with more scars than sense." He traced a finger along a thin line that veered into the mountains. "But there's an old pilgrimage trail. Kisokaido branch. Rougher terrain, fewer towns, but it connects back to the Nakasendō near Tsumago."
"How rough?" Kenta asked.
"Bandits, probably. Bears, definitely. Maybe more yōkai if the Flame Bearers have scouts in the high country." Jiro's grin was crooked. "So, typical pilgrimage hazards."
Mika groaned. "I hate mountains."
"You hate everything," Kenta pointed out.
"True. But I hate mountains more." She checked her dagger—still sharp despite being thrown through a lantern the night before—and tucked it back into her obi. "How long before Sora can walk on her own?"
"I can walk now." Sora pushed away from the shrine post, took three steps, and would have collapsed if Kenta hadn't caught her.
"Right. Totally fine." Mika rolled her eyes. "Kenta, you're carrying her until she stops bleeding from places people shouldn't bleed from."
"I'm not bleeding—"
"Your left ear says otherwise." Mika dabbed at Sora's earlobe with her sleeve, coming away with crimson. "Whatever you did last night drained you worse than the kappa fight. How much can that amulet take before it burns you out?"
Sora's silence was answer enough.
"Then we ration its use." Taro made it an order, not a suggestion. "No more healing. No more ghost-binding. Not unless we're about to die."
"And when the Flame Bearers catch up?" Sora asked quietly. "They know I'm weakened. The cultist you killed at the patrol clash—he saw me stumble. They'll press the advantage."
"Then we get creative." Taro nodded to Jiro. "You know yōkai lore. Wards, tricks, the kind of things that don't need a shrine maiden's power. Teach us."
"I'm not a teacher."
"Then improvise. You're good at that." Taro turned to Kenta. "You said you served a border lord. That means you know mountain combat. Terrain advantages."
"Some." Kenta looked uncertain but determined. "My lord's domain bordered the Hida range. We trained for ambush scenarios."
"Good. We're the ambush now." Taro faced Mika last. "And you—"
"I scout, I steal, I stab things that need stabbing." Mika's smile was sharp. "Don't worry, Five Roads. I know my role."
"Your role is keeping us alive when my plans fall apart."
"So, constantly." But her expression softened slightly. "I can do that."
Taro looked at his ragged band—a disgraced samurai, a thief with more walls than a castle, a drunk monk with ghost stories and genuine skill, and a shrine maiden carrying a divine artifact that half the spiritual underworld seemed to want. They were exhausted, injured, hunted by both mundane and supernatural forces. He'd just promised away his daughter's life to appease a vengeful ghost.
And somehow, standing in the gray dawn light under a forgotten shrine's protection, Taro felt something he hadn't felt in years on the road:
Hope.
Fragile, maybe. Foolish, certainly. But there.
"We rest until midday," he said. "Eat what we have left, tend wounds, get our bearings. Then we disappear into those mountains like we were never here." He met each of their eyes. "The Flame Bearers want the amulet. The shogunate wants us in chains. And apparently, the road itself wants to test whether we're worthy of the temple's mercy." His scarred hands flexed on his sword hilt. "So let's show them all what Five Roads and his band of misfits can do."
"Misfits?" Kenta's eyebrow rose.
"You have a better word?"
"...No. Misfits works."
Jiro uncorked his sake gourd—somehow still intact despite the chaos—and took a long pull. "To misfits, then. And to roads that don't kill us." He passed the gourd to Mika, who drank and grimaced.
"This is terrible sake."
"I never promised quality." Jiro's grin widened. "Just availability."
The gourd made its rounds. Even Sora took a small sip, coughing at the burn. When it reached Taro, he hesitated, then drank deep. The sake was terrible—bitter and harsh—but it was warm, and warmth mattered when you were cold, wet, and bound to promises that might destroy you.
"We should give ourselves a name," Mika said suddenly. "If we're going to be legends—or corpses—people should know what to call us."
"We're not legends." Taro handed back the gourd.
"Not yet." Mika's smile was wicked. "But give it time. Five misfits walking an impossible road, pursued by cultists and ghosts, carrying a divine amulet to a temple that grants wishes at terrible costs?" She spread her hands. "That's a story that writes itself."
"The Lantern Bearers?" Kenta suggested.
"Too close to Flame Bearers." Jiro shook his head. "We need something that marks us as different. Opposite, even."
"The Twilight Band," Sora murmured. "Not quite day, not quite night. Walking the spaces in between."
They considered this. Taro found he didn't hate it.
"Twilight Band it is," he said finally. "At least until we think of something better."
"Or until we die," Mika added cheerfully. "Then someone else can name us."
"Optimistic as always." Kenta settled back against a tree root, closing his eyes. "Wake me when it's time to walk into certain doom again."
Taro let them rest. He stood watch, back against the shrine post where Sora had sat, short sword across his knees. The mountains loomed ahead, dark green and shadow-thick, hiding whatever trials the road had prepared. Behind them, Magome still smoldered, sending thin trails of smoke into the colorless sky.
He thought about Hana. Seven years old, bright as a summer lantern, wasting away in a house he'd bought with blood money and regret. He'd promised her he'd come home with a miracle. Now that miracle was spoken for, given to a dead woman's memory in exchange for the lives of people he'd known for less than a month.
He should feel guilty. Should feel the weight of that choice crushing him.
Instead, he felt lighter. As if some burden he'd carried for fifteen years—longer—had finally been set down.
"Strange thing, the road." Jiro settled beside him, offering the sake gourd again. Taro shook his head. "It takes everything from you. Then gives you things you didn't know you needed."
"Philosophy before noon," Taro muttered. "You're getting soft, monk."
"Soft enough to survive." Jiro took another pull, then corked the gourd. "The onryō—what you did last night. That was the right choice."
"Was it?" Taro stared at the mountains. "Hana might not think so. If she dies while I'm honoring a promise to a ghost—"
"Then you'll carry that guilt too." Jiro's voice was matter-of-fact. "But you'll carry it with honor. That's worth something." He paused. "My friend—the one I failed years ago—he died because I hesitated. Because I chose my own safety over his need. I've been drunk ever since, trying to forget that moment." His knuckles whitened on the prayer beads. "You didn't hesitate. You chose sacrifice over survival. That's... rare."
"Or stupid."
"Both can be true." Jiro's crooked smile returned. "But I'll walk a stupid road with an honorable man over a smart road with a coward any day."
"Flatterer."
"Drunk."
"That too."
They sat in companionable silence while the others slept and the sun climbed slowly behind clouds that promised more rain. The shrine's torii gate cast a crooked shadow across the path, pointing toward the mountains like an accusation or an invitation.
Taro found himself thinking about the temple. Hōrai-ji, hidden somewhere in Mikawa Province, guarded by trials and kami and the weight of centuries. What would it ask of them? What cost would it demand beyond the one he'd already promised?
And when they finally reached it—if they reached it—what would mercy look like for a band of misfits carrying too many scars and not enough answers?
"Jiro," he said quietly. "When we get to the temple. If I can't wish for Hana..."
"You'll find another way," Jiro finished. "You're Five Roads. You always find another way." He met Taro's skeptical look with uncharacteristic seriousness. "And if you don't... we'll help you look. That's what twilight bands do."
"Is it?"
"Seems like it should be."
Taro almost smiled. "Wake them in an hour. We have mountains to disappear into and cultists to avoid."
"And bears."
"And bears."
Jiro ambled off to catch a few minutes of sleep, leaving Taro alone with his watch and his thoughts. In the distance, a crow cawed—harsh and mocking, or perhaps just observing. The road stretched ahead and behind, and Taro stood at the center of it, bound by promises to the living and the dead, carrying hope like a fragile lantern through darkness that went deeper than any night.
The mountains waited.
The Twilight Band would meet them at noon.