The rain didn't stop when Itsuki Haruto died.
It only grew heavier.
Blood dripped from his temple in thick streaks, mixing with the water running down the cobblestones. His knees buckled as he leaned against the cold brick wall, a rusted blade still lodged between his ribs. The man who stabbed him—just a desperate thief with wild, frightened eyes—was already gone.
But Haruto wasn't listening to retreating footsteps.
He was listening to the voices.
"Murderer."
"Thief."
"Traitor."
"Coward."
Each word carved into his skull like a hot brand. They were not voices of strangers—they belonged to the dead. People whose lives he had ended in this life, and countless others before it. Their sins were now his burden.
The whispering turned into screams, overlapping until they became unbearable. Faces flickered before his dimming eyes. Men and women he had forgotten. Soldiers, thieves, nobles, peasants. Children.
"Not again…" Haruto's voice cracked as he pressed a trembling hand over the wound. His chest tightened. His body shook. The voices were so loud he couldn't even hear the storm anymore.
Then—darkness.
---
When his eyes opened again, sunlight stabbed into them. The damp chill of the alley was gone. Something warm cradled him. He tried to move but his arms were short, stubby—helpless.
A baby's cry tore from his throat before he realized it was his own.
"Congratulations, Mrs. Itsuki," a midwife's cheerful voice said. "A healthy boy."
His mother's voice trembled with joy. "Haruto. I'll call him Haruto."
But within his newborn body, the whispers stirred again.
"Don't pretend."
"Don't start over."
"We're still here."
Haruto couldn't form words, but in his head he screamed. Leave me alone.
The voices only laughed.
---
By the time he turned ten, Itsuki Haruto was already feared in his village. Not because he was cruel, but because he knew too much.
The children avoided him. They whispered when he passed. Some swore they saw him talking to shadows, others that his eyes glowed red in the dark. None of it was true. But the truth was worse.
"Hey, Haruto," called Aoi, a girl with bright eyes and a mischievous grin. She had been his friend since infancy, one of the few who didn't shy away. "Come play tag with us."
Haruto hesitated. His gaze drifted to the baker across the street. The old man smiled kindly as he handed bread to children. To anyone else, he looked harmless.
But to Haruto, the whisper was clear.
"Arsonist."
His stomach twisted. He didn't know the details, but he never doubted the voices. They had never once lied.
"Haruto?" Aoi tilted her head. "You're spacing out again."
He forced a smile. "Sorry. Maybe later."
From the shrine steps, Reiji, the son of the village chief, sneered. His cronies snickered behind him. "Freak. You always act like you're better than us. What are you hiding?"
The whispers answered for Haruto.
"Jealousy. Pride. Envy."
His fists clenched. He wanted to shout at Reiji, to tell them he wasn't a freak—that he was cursed, chained. But how could he explain? Who would believe that he carried not just his sins but the sins of everyone he'd killed across lifetimes?
He swallowed it. Like always.
---
That night, Haruto lay awake staring at the wooden ceiling of his family's home. Moonlight crept through the paper windows, pale and ghostly.
The voices would not let him rest. They grew louder, sharper, accusing.
"You killed me."
"You abandoned me."
"You burned us alive."
"You betrayed your oath."
Faces swarmed in his mind. A soldier clutching his severed arm. A woman in tattered silk, screaming as flames consumed her. A boy begging for bread. People from lives he didn't even remember clearly—yet their agony clung to him.
He pressed his hands over his ears until his head throbbed, but it made no difference. The voices weren't outside. They were inside him.
"Why me?" he whispered into the dark, his voice trembling. "Why am I the one who has to carry this? Why can't you leave me alone?"
For the first time, the voices answered in unison, like a thousand mouths speaking through one throat.
"Because you are the Collector."