The rain hadn't stopped since I returned.
It fell like an endless curtain, drowning the world in grey. The land of the living felt colder than Yomi itself — not because of death, but because it remembered nothing.
I walked through the ruins of my clan's shrine. The torii gate was half-sunken into the mud, its red lacquer peeled away, the sacred rope frayed into silence. My footsteps echoed over the wet stones like ghostly drums.
Here, I had once prayed for victory.
Here, I had once promised never to abandon them.
And yet, the banners were gone. The names erased.
I knelt by the altar — cracked, overgrown, half-buried by moss. My hand brushed across it, and something beneath my palm pulsed faintly, like a heartbeat trapped in stone.
The voice of Tsukiyo echoed faintly in my mind:
"You are the shadow that remembers."
I drew my blade. The Kagebane hummed softly — not from steel, but from the weight of the souls bound to it. For a moment, I saw their faces in the reflection — warriors, brothers, my father.
Then the vision faded, leaving only my reflection and the storm.
I whispered their names.
Each syllable cracked my voice a little more.
"Father. Shin. Hikari. Tomoe…"
When I reached her name — Aika — my hand trembled.
Her face, her smile, her blood on my hands.
The earth shuddered.
From behind the shrine, a low chime rang out — delicate, deliberate, alive.
I turned sharply.
A figure stood in the mist beyond the altar, holding a bell. Her robes were white, streaked with mud and ash. The hood shadowed her face, but her voice was gentle, as though it had drifted from a dream.
"You should not speak the names of the forgotten, traveler. It awakens the sorrow that binds them."
Her presence felt familiar, unsettling.
"Who are you?" I asked, my hand still on my blade.
She stepped forward. The rain parted slightly around her, as if refusing to touch her.
"A keeper of this shrine," she said softly. "Or what's left of it."
"You lie," I said. "This shrine belonged to the Kagemura Clan."
She tilted her head. "And yet no one bears that name anymore."
The wind howled through the broken torii.
I took a step closer, my eyes narrowing. "Then tell me — what happened here?"
For a moment, she said nothing. Then she raised her bell and rang it once more. The sound echoed strangely — deep, hollow, pulling at the mist.
Shapes began to form behind her — faint silhouettes, wavering like candlelight. Dozens of them.
My breath caught.
Spirits.
They bowed in silence, faces hidden behind veils of smoke.
"These are the souls who died defending this place," she said. "They do not rest. They linger, waiting for something — or someone."
My throat tightened. "They wait for me."
Her gaze lifted toward me then. Beneath the hood, I caught a glimpse of her eyes — pale silver, glimmering with sorrow.
"You speak as if you remember what you are," she murmured. "But tell me, Ghost — do you remember what you did?"
The question struck like a blade.
Memories surged: the siege, the betrayal, the fire that consumed everything. My brother's face twisted with rage and grief. My own sword, dripping crimson.
"I remember enough," I said.
"Then you also remember how you died?"
Lightning split the sky.
"I was betrayed," I hissed. "My brother turned against our clan, led the Shogun's army to our gates."
She studied me in silence. "And yet… it was your blade that ended him."
The world froze.
I stepped back, heart pounding. "That's a lie."
Her voice was calm — too calm. "Perhaps. Or perhaps it's a memory your soul refuses to carry."
The spirits behind her began to whisper. Their words tangled, overlapping — fragments of names, prayers, and accusations.
I could barely breathe. The air grew heavy, pressing against my chest.
"What do you want from me?" I demanded.
She lowered her bell. "Not me. Them."
The spirits stepped forward — dozens, then hundreds, forming a circle around me. Faces emerged from the mist — burned, broken, weeping.
"You walk between worlds," the woman said. "The living will not see you as one of them. The dead will not claim you. The Kagemura shrine stands as a wound between both. If you wish to close it — if you wish to know the truth — you must atone."
My grip on the sword tightened. "And if I refuse?"
The spirits began to wail. The earth cracked beneath my feet, and the altar bled dark light. The world tilted — and suddenly I was falling again, sinking through the mud, the rain, the dead.
I gasped — and found myself on my knees before the shrine. The woman was gone. Only the bell remained, resting in the mud, its sound faint and distant.
A voice — hers, faint — whispered through the storm:
"Seek me at the mountain's edge. There, your oath begins anew."
I rose slowly, the bell cold in my palm.
The Kagebane pulsed faintly, as if it too remembered her.
When I turned toward the mountains, a strange light shimmered in the distance — faint lanterns burning along an old pilgrimage path. The road to Mount Yomi.
Each flame flickered as if calling me forward.
The climb began before dawn.
Fog rolled down the slopes like ghosts, curling around the trees. My every step echoed like a heartbeat against the earth.
Halfway up the path, I found the remains of a procession — shattered masks, broken offerings, footprints turned to ash.
Something had slaughtered them. Recently.
The smell of blood lingered faintly beneath the rain.
Then I saw it — a creature crouched beside the road. Long limbs, pale as bone, its head tilted unnaturally. When it turned, its mouth stretched too wide, filled with black teeth.
A Yurei.
A soul that had lost its name.
It hissed, its body twisting as it lunged.
My sword moved before thought. Steel met shadow — a spray of black mist erupted as my blade cut through it.
The creature's scream faded into nothing.
Silence followed — except for the whisper of my own breath.
When the mist cleared, I saw what the Yurei had been clutching — a fragment of a white robe, embroidered with the same sigils as the woman's.
The shrine maiden.
She was real.
And in that moment, I knew — my path was no longer vengeance alone. It was tied to her, to this land, and to the truth buried beneath both.
I sheathed my sword and looked toward the summit.
Thunder rolled across the valley like a heartbeat. The storm had not ended — it had only begun.