The first snow of winter drifted across the valley of Mount Yotei.
Where once a proud army had marched, now only broken spears stood like grave markers in the frost. Banners, torn and stiff with dried blood, flapped weakly against the wind.
The battlefield was silent.
Until a single sound cracked the stillness—
Chilling!
The echo of a blade sliding free from its sheath.
From beneath a mound of ice and ash, a hand emerged—gray, ghostly, and bound in faintly glowing chains. A second hand followed, dragging free a body clad in scorched armor, its metal blackened as if forged in the fires of hell itself.
The man knelt on the frozen earth, head bowed, long black hair spilling forward like ink.
For a moment, there was nothing—no breath, no heartbeat.
Then his eyes opened.
They glowed faintly red.
"So... this is the price of defiance," he murmured, his voice echoing hollow through the air.
He was Ren Kagemura, once a general of the northern provinces—a man whose blade had never been defeated. Yet, the same people who hailed him as savior had betrayed him on this very mountain.
And as his enemies burned his body upon a pyre of salt and cedar, he swore vengeance—not upon men, but upon the gods who had abandoned him.
Now, the gods had answered.
Just not in mercy.
A faint, ethereal voice drifted through the wind—a woman's, soft yet distant, like the memory of prayer bells.
"Ren Kagemura… warrior of Yomi… awaken. Your blade is bound to the underworld now. Those who escaped death will call your name in fear."
Ren raised his face to the falling snow. The sky above Mount Yotei burned with a sickly crimson hue, and shadows writhed in the clouds like trapped souls.
"Who speaks?" he demanded, his hand tightening around his sword's hilt.
"Is this Yomi? Or some cruel dream?"
"Neither," the voice replied. "You are the blade of balance. Hunt the yokai who defy the underworld. Slay them… and you may earn peace."
A sudden pain seared through his chest.
He tore open his armor—and saw it: a glowing red ember pulsing where his heart should be. It flickered like a dying lantern, each beat faint yet heavy with power.
Ren staggered to his feet. His once-human form shimmered like smoke; his feet left no prints in the snow.
As he looked down the mountain, he saw the faint lights of a small village nestled in the valley—lanterns swaying in the night breeze. He felt warmth even from this distance. Warmth… and something else.
A presence.
Faint, but familiar.
Like the whisper of a name he had long forgotten.
He stepped forward, the snow whispering beneath his ghostly armor. The mountain groaned, and the wind howled like a thousand voices carried from the underworld.
Every step toward the village felt heavier, like he was walking against the current of time itself.
Then, at the edge of the battlefield, he found it—
A shattered shrine gate, half-buried in the snow. Beneath it lay the remains of an old talisman carved with the crest of a sun and a lotus.
His hand trembled. He knew this symbol.
It belonged to her.
To the shrine maiden who had sealed him here a century ago.
To the woman he had once loved—and who had raised her blade against him in his final hour.
"Aiko…" he whispered. The name left his lips like a prayer and a curse.
A sudden gust scattered snow through the air, and faint laughter echoed through the wind—soft, melodic, and hauntingly familiar.
Ren's eyes narrowed.
The ember in his chest flared brighter.
"If fate calls me a ghost," he growled, "then I'll haunt the gods themselves."
He sheathed his sword, turned toward the lights of the village below, and stepped into the storm.
With every stride, his body faded into mist—until only the red ember of his heart remained, drifting through the snow like a dying star.
And from the darkness above Mount Yotei, unseen eyes watched him—eyes glowing gold, filled with sorrow and something deeper.
"You've returned… my lord," a voice whispered.
"But this time, it is I who must save you."