The moon hung low, pale as bone, casting silver veins across the forest path. They had walked for hours, leaving the ruined village behind, yet silence clung to the ronin heavier than his armor.
At last, he broke it.
"Tell me… what are you, truly?" His voice was rough, scraped raw by the sights he had witnessed.
Shaketsu did not stop walking, but her white hair shimmered under the moonlight, moving like river foam. "You already know what I am."
"You call yourself forgiveness," he spat. "But demons don't forgive. They slaughter. I've fought them since I was a child. I've watched them tear men apart. And you—" he hesitated, his hand tightening on the hilt of his sword, "—you don't move like them. You don't hunger like them."
Finally, Shaketsu stopped. She turned, her red eyes meeting his in the stillness. "That is because I remember what they have forgotten."
The ronin frowned. "Remember what?"
She stepped closer, so close that her presence chilled his skin. Her voice dropped low, almost like a secret lullaby.
"Once, demons were men. Women. Children. Once, they were farmers who dreamed of good harvests. Samurai who longed for honor. Lovers who prayed to see each other at dawn. They were like you."
His stomach twisted. "You lie. Demons are born from hell—"
"Hell," she interrupted, "is not beneath your feet. It is here." She tapped her finger against his chest, right where his heart beat frantically. "When a soul dies with nothing but hunger, grief, or rage, it cannot dissolve into the quiet. It clings. It festers. It twists. What you call 'demon' is nothing more than a dream that refused to end."
The ronin's breath caught. Her words lodged deep like thorns. He thought of every demon he had slain. Had they once spoken, laughed, prayed?
"No," he whispered. "They were monsters."
Shaketsu tilted her head, her expression unreadable. "Tell me, ronin. When you saw the children hung in the village—did you see monsters then?"
He flinched, his fists tightening. The memory struck him like a blade across the ribs.
"They were men," he admitted bitterly.
Shaketsu's lips curved, not quite into a smile. "And when those men died, bound by their own hatred, what do you think they became?"
The ronin staggered back a step, his throat dry. "You mean—"
"Yes." Her voice was sharp now, her gaze burning like coals. "The demons you hate are the echoes of your own kind. Vengeance made flesh. Dreams turned rancid. Even I…" Her hand hovered briefly above her chest, her voice lowering to a whisper. "Even I was once human."
Silence thundered between them. The ronin's world cracked beneath his feet. He wanted to deny it, to call her liar, but every memory of the battlefield returned to him. The way some demons wept as they died. The way others whispered names before their final scream. He had ignored it, told himself it was only tricks of the dying.
But what if it wasn't?
"What were you?" he asked quietly.
Shaketsu's eyes gleamed, but for the first time, her voice carried sorrow. "A mother. One who prayed for her children's safety, even as the world fed on their bones. My prayer became my curse. Forgiveness bled into vengeance. Thus, I wear both."
The ronin's heart stumbled. For a fleeting moment, she did not look like a demon. She looked like a woman who had stood too long in fire and chosen to become flame.
He looked away, his chest heavy. "If demons are born from us, then…" His voice cracked. "Then all this slaughter I've done—"
"Was slaughter still," Shaketsu finished coldly. "Do not polish it with honor."
Her words cut deeper than any blade. He wanted to rage, to deny, but instead he sank onto the cold earth, burying his face in his hands. "Then there is no salvation. If demons are us, then we are doomed to become them."
Shaketsu knelt before him, her pale form folding gracefully. She leaned close enough that he could feel her cold breath.
"No," she said. "Salvation exists. But it does not come from gods, nor from swords. It comes from understanding. From breaking the chain of vengeance before it binds you in death."
He lifted his head, his eyes raw. "And you? Have you broken it?"
For the first time, Shaketsu faltered. Her gaze drifted to the sky, to the indifferent stars. Her voice trembled with something almost human.
"I do not know," she whispered. "Perhaps that is why I walk still, never resting."
The forest around them sighed with wind, carrying the scent of ash from the ruined village. The ronin sat in silence, the truth heavy on his shoulders. He had thought demons were the enemy. Now he saw the enemy was deeper, older, closer. It lived in man's heart.
Shaketsu rose, turning her back to him once more. "Stand, samurai. The night is long, and dawn does not forgive hesitation."
Slowly, with trembling hands, he stood. He followed her again, but now every step felt like walking on the edge of a dream. He did not know if he was following her as ally, prisoner, or student.
All he knew was this: the world he thought he knew was gone.
And vengeance, he realized, had never belonged only to demons.