His ash-colored robes were soaked in blood. In his right arm, he carried a severed human head. Black hair dangled between his fingers like a silent memento.
Old women by the carts froze.
Children stopped playing.
Silence settled-
no whispers, no screams-only uneven breaths and eyes following the length of his shadow.
The samurai's face showed nothing. No anger. No fatigue.
Not even a trace of pride.
Only half-lidded eyes, as though nothing mattered to him except reaching his destination.
His gaze does not seek the path ahead; instead, it feels as though the path itself retreats before him.
As if the streets have learned to bow.
With every step, the silence deepens. More eyes watch in quiet vigilance.
On the wind drifts the scent of brutal bloodshed.
In the distance, the imperial palace gates loom—black and towering, adorned with ancient shogunate engravings.
Two guards stand sentinel at the gate, opening it without question.
One breathes quietly, restrained. The other simply stares at the head.
He stepped through the palace gates.
Candles hung along the walls, casting flickering shadows on the gilded stone.
At the far end, the Emperor's ivory throne sat—empty.
No one greeted him.
No one asked for an explanation.
Samurai don't seek permission.
They advance.
At the base of the ivory steps, he lowered his head—
not in submission, but in recognition.
Of ritual.
Of order.
Of the custom that meant nothing to him.
Yet he performed it with mechanical precision.
Then, he straightened.
And the sound of footsteps fell—
soft, almost unreal.
As if he weren't walking at all,
but gliding through the air.
The Emperor.
A man in his early thirties,
draped in royal robes with sleeves that flowed like waves of black silk.
His hair, tied back with ceremonial precision, lent him the air of a high priest from a forgotten court.
His face… flawless.
A cold, porcelain beauty.
Untouched by flaw, untouched by feeling.
But when he smiled—
only with his lips,
his smile resembled a stone wall in an abandoned shrine.
The samurai dropped to one knee.
He bowed his head until it nearly touched the floor.
It wasn't respect.
It was submission.
The Emperor didn't look at him right away.
He stood atop the stone stairs,
gazing at the severed head
as one might regard a piece of art—
not with disgust,
but with distant admiration.
Then, he turned.
His eyes—wide, cold—
settled on the kneeling samurai.
And he smiled.
"…You're late."
The samurai did not move.
He stayed bowed.
He did not dare to look.
His voice emerged slowly, muffled behind the mask:
"I apologize, my Lord…
I'll complete the task with greater haste next time."
The Emperor stepped down.
Just once.
No rush.
No comment.
He stopped before the head.
Studied it for a long, long moment.
Then, almost to himself, his voice quiet as falling ash:
"You know, Kizuki…
sometimes I envy you."
"The sword… simplifies everything."
Kizuki said nothing.
But something coiled in his chest.
A twitch—small, just above his brow. Barely there.
Yet the Emperor saw it.
Said nothing.
He turned away.
As if the head had lost its charm.
Then, with a voice sharp as a drawn blade:
"You'll go to Ishikawa. I want the Shogun's head… in three days."
Silence.
A breath. Then another.
And then, softer—softer than prayer,
like a whisper spoken to a mad god:
"Be quicker this time, Kizuki Takura…
I'm beginning to grow bored."
Kizuki bowed again.
Said nothing.
His voice had died in his throat.
Then he rose.
Slowly.
Like drawing a sword from flesh.
His footsteps echoed on the marble.
As if the floor itself feared to speak over him.
They passed him—
maids, soldiers, monks—
their eyes drawn to the iron mask veiling half his face,
to the dried blood staining his sleeve,
to footsteps that fell too quietly,
as if even the ground resented their weight.
No one dared whisper.
He was Kizuki.
The Emperor's blade.
The will of the throne.
Outside the palace.
Each step landed with solemn weight,
steady and unhurried,
like a verdict already sealed.
Wind brushed his torn sleeve.
Blood still clung to his fingers—warm, unwilling to dry.
And in his chest…
that thing.
The emptiness.
Not sorrow.
Not rage.
Just the quiet sense
that something small had come undone.
He didn't think much.
Kizuki didn't like thinking.
The sword did the thinking for him.
And yet.
For some reason he could not name,
his steps faltered at the edge of the palace gate.
He glanced upward.
Toward the stone balcony where the Emperor had once stood to speak,
his voice rolling over the masses like a divine decree.
That face—cold, still, unblinking—
had lived in Kizuki's mind since he was ten.
The first time he was brought before the Emperor,
he didn't know how to bow.
His hands were trembling.
His face stained with the blood of a child
he had just slaughtered in a ritual of allegiance.
The Emperor didn't ask him why.
He didn't praise him.
He didn't scold him.
He simply looked down… and said:
"A sword that hesitates… breaks."
Since that day, he never hesitated.
His body became the Emperor's.
A blade with no will of its own.
But now…
now, something quivered behind his eye.
A small muscle.
A tiny tremor.
And he had no idea why.
Years had passed.
Nothing was as it had been.
The wind had changed.
The court had changed.
The Emperor had not.
Winter had come.
In the heart of Hetsuga Street,
the street itself had changed little,
but the city around it… no longer resembled the one he remembered.
The wind that once roared over distant hills
now whispered through narrow alleys.
The scent of smoke lingered,
but no longer the fire of war—
only the faint, weary smoke of poor kitchens.
Hetsuga Street,
that familiar lane he had often crossed on horseback,
had shrunk now—
tight and suffocating,
as if the buildings themselves pressed close,
ashamed by the decay surrounding them.
No one came to deliver the news.
But he knew.
When no orders came,
when he stood at the palace gate for a day… then two… then a week,
without summons,
he understood.
There was no attack. No betrayal. No clear cause.
Only… disregard.
The corridors he had walked all his life
were being cleansed of his presence.
Swords were drawn from their sheaths.
Old soldiers dismissed.
Even his own clan—the Takura—had turned away.
Their loyalty had crumbled.
He had become a mark,
a shadow to be hunted,
as if the name he carried had lost all weight,
and the blood that bound him to them was forgotten.
Then came the decree.
"We no longer require the swords of the Takura clan."
Cold words, devoid of feeling,
as if they spoke of people long dead.
Yet he was still alive. Standing. Hearing every word.
He did not rage. He did not shout.
He simply… did not understand.
He had believed he was made for this.
That he was the sword the Emperor wielded at will.
But the sword was laid aside
not for weakness,
but because the Emperor had found others more useful:
men draped in silk, who spoke without killing.
What use is a sword,
when no one wishes to fight?
Kizuki Takura stepped back. One step. Then another.
No one asked where he was going.
He left.
Years passed.
No purpose.
No home.
No path.
Just the weight of a blade he knew too well.
Killing.
But it was different now.
No honor. No orders.
Only contracts.
Names signed in blood that didn't mean a thing.
I'm a bounty hunter.
Not for money.
I don't want money.
I want the motion.
The pull of the hunt.
But the cities don't know me.
They don't fear me.
I'm just a shadow passing by.
The contracts aren't paid like before.
But who cares?
Blood is payment enough.
Targets blur into the streets.
Faces vanish before the blade.
I take the name.
I track the scent.
I strike…
without looking.
I don't remember them.
I don't want to.
And the silence…
this quiet that fills the nights…
it's worse than any sword.
Waking up with empty pockets.
Breathing without purpose.
This kind of stillness…
cuts deeper than steel.
Then the coup happened.
Not a surprise.
The king—abandoned by his swords—
stood naked in the shadow of his own throne.
No soldiers.
No spear.
No ancient guards.
I heard it first from a drunk in the market:
"The emperor… stabbed in the palace corridors… like a dog."
I said nothing.
Did not ask why.
Just turned away.
Walked off.
It wasn't grief.
Not even anger.
It was a hollow kind of silence inside,
as if the wall I leaned on all my life
had crumbled to dust beneath me.
No voice inside to tell me what to do next.
No sword in my hand to show the way.
Suddenly, I realized.
I wasn't serving the emperor.
I was just avoiding thinking.
So I went back.
Back to roads I once knew,
streets I crossed on horseback,
wearing armor I no longer possessed.
Every step woke something in my chest.
Not memories.
I don't remember.
But I hate it.
Winter dragged on, slow and heavy,
clutching every weighted second.
The wind was relentless, biting sharp like frozen steel against bone.
The sky hung low, a flat gray shroud,
swallowing any trace of light or color.
And I… didn't understand why I was still alive.
Behind me lay countless bodies—friends, foes, names carried away by the cold air.
Ahead?
Nothing but a suffocating silence.
No shadows.
No signs of life.
No hope.
No one watching.
No one waiting.
One day, after carrying out another assassination,
the blood was still warm on his hands.
Not on his sword—
his hands.
A small difference, now meaningless.
The path to the valley was narrow, flanked by withered fields that had long surrendered to ruin.
The air hung thick with iron and sweat—the scent of life and death intertwined.
The sun dipped low, casting a smoky hue across the sky, but he didn't hurry.
No one was rushing. No one awaited him.
He didn't speak right away.
Kizuki stood, one boot planted in the dirt, the other still hanging mid-step.
He looked at the old man.
No sword. No beast to pull the plow. No reason to still be alive.
Just a crooked back, calloused hands, and a stick carving graves into dead soil.
"…Are you blind?"
His voice was sharper than intended.
"Or just stupid?"
The old man lifted his head slowly.
The sky behind him stretched dull and gray.
Even the wind had stopped to listen.
"I'm blind, son. But I'm not stupid."
No flinch. No stammer.
Just that brittle voice, like bark dried to the bone.
Kizuki blinked.
He didn't like the answer.
Didn't fully understand it.
So he turned and walked away.
There was nothing left to say to a man who couldn't see him.
Days passed.
Another job.
Another name.
The blood had already dried beneath his fingernails as he took the same road back.
The same crooked path.
The same dying wind.
He didn't expect to find anything—
especially not him.
But then.
A shape.
Just off the trail.
Still.
Too still.
He pulled the reins.
The horse snorted. Its hooves crushed the stones, but Kizuki didn't hear.
All he saw was a body curled in the dust.
The same frail frame.
Bent the wrong way.
Half his face buried beneath a thin layer of dirt.
No sound.
No breath.
Just… a silence too old to break.
He stared.
He could have kept riding.
But he didn't.
He didn't know why.
He climbed down slowly, boots sinking into the dirt, each step heavier than the last.
Why was he walking toward him?
Why did his hands feel cold?
The wind caught the edge of his coat.
He thought he smelled—
Ash.
Not blood.
Not steel.
Just the scent of something long dead.
Like a funeral that never ended.
He knelt.
Reached out.
Stopped halfway.
This isn't your business.
This isn't your fight.
He wasn't even a name on any contract.
And yet.
He was breathing.
Barely.
Soft, reluctant breaths, as if the earth itself refused to let go.
Kizuki's jaw clenched.
Every part of him wanted to stand, walk away, forget.
But his hand moved anyway.
He lifted him up.
It was the same blind old man from that day—
light. Too light.
As if he had already begun to vanish, one bone at a time.
The hut was small.
Rotten.
Forgotten.
He laid the man down on the floor.
Mold clung to the corners.
The wood groaned beneath his weight.
Still no words.
Kizuki stood there, unsure whether to leave—
or burn the place down just to silence the feeling in his chest.
Then.
A breath.
Then another.
Then, a voice.
Low.
Cracked.
But clear.
"Two hands… soaked in blood.
And yet they tremble."
Kizuki said nothing.
He stared at his hands.
No fresh blood.
Only the old kind.
The kind that never fades.
"…Who are you?"
"How do you know me?"
His voice came out flat.
Emotionless.
But he asked anyway.
The old man smiled.
A wounded smile—
worn and tired.
But calm.
"The spirits speak to me," he said.
"It wasn't your eyes that frightened me…
It was your silence."
Kizuki stood at once.
"Spare me the nonsense."
Spirits?
Is that what this broken relic wants me to believe?
That there are whispers in the dark?
I've torn open men's chests with my bare hands.
Watched their eyes dim.
Heard their breath dragged out like it was drowning in mud.
I've silenced their screams with my mouth—
when I had to.
And you think…
I have a heart?
He turned away.
Something shifted in his chest.
Heavy. Slow.
But he refused to name it.
He was about to leave.
Fingers curled around the crooked door handle.
The air thickened with each breath.
Thin gray threads danced before his eyes,
and the walls of the hut seemed to press in,
like lungs refusing to exhale.
But then.
The old man spoke again.
Not a plea.
An offer.
"A bounty hunter… aren't you?"
Kizuki didn't answer.
No time for nonsense.
"Then I'll hire you."
He froze.
Turned—slightly—just enough for one half-lidded eye to meet the old man's.
Voice flat. Cold.
"To kill who? You don't even have a roof."
The old man exhaled, as if the words had to claw their way out of his chest.
Every breath sounded borrowed—
as if he needed permission from death itself to speak.
"I don't want you to kill anyone.
I want you to stay.
Just for the night.
I'm too weak to be alone."
"And I'll pay you… with the most valuable thing I have."
Kizuki let out a short, cold laugh.
"Do I look like I sell my nights to dying old men?
Save your breath. Begging won't help."
But the old man didn't beg.
Didn't plead.
He simply said, calm as ever:
"It's an offer. Take it… or don't."
Kizuki didn't answer.
He stood there. Still.
Something about the man's voice… didn't feel ordinary.
"The most valuable thing I have…"
The phrase circled in his head.
Gold?
A manuscript?
Some forgotten treasure?
This hut didn't look like it held even a spoon.
And yet.
He didn't leave.
He didn't turn the handle.
He simply… sat back down in the corner.
His body moved on its own.
At night, the hearth breathed faint embers—
glowing slowly, like they neither wanted to die… nor live.
The old man sat by the light,
pulling out worn scrolls and a slender bamboo brush.
He said nothing.
No explanations.
Just unfolded the paper, propped his frail arm against the table, and began to write.
Kizuki watched.
Thin lines crawled across the parchment, curving with discipline, rising, falling.
No tremor. No hesitation.
Even the scratch of ink on paper carried a kind of… peace.
Kizuki spoke, voice low, eyes still locked on the ink:
"How does a blind old man write like that?"
The man didn't look up.
"The same way you gave your body to the blade…
I gave my soul to the brush."
Silence.
Kizuki knew that tone.
The sound of someone who'd surrendered to something.
Every strike he ever dealt had taken a part of him.
He knew what it looked like—
someone who had forgotten who they were.
He spoke suddenly, without thinking:
"And how did you know I was a killer?"
The old man paused, lifted his nose slightly,
and smiled, as if inhaling something unseen.
"The scent of blood, son…
It lingers in the air longer than anything else."
He said it like a fact.
Not an accusation.
Then, without a word, he returned to writing.
The room quieted.
Wind scraped at the walls,
like something waiting just outside, listening.
Moments passed.
Then the old man spoke again, almost absentmindedly:
"You haven't told me your name… stranger."
Kizuki didn't answer right away.
His eyes followed the brush,
tracing the line that danced across the paper as if it had a will of its own.
Finally, he said:
"Kizuki… of the Takura clan."
The old man didn't flinch.
He reached for one of the scrolls, held it closer to the fire.
Faded characters glowed faintly—ashes in ink.
He blew gently across the surface and murmured:
"Shodō… is all I have left."
Then turned his blind eyes toward the voice:
"As you've mastered the taking of souls…
I've mastered giving them form."
Kizuki didn't reply.
But his chest rose.
And fell.
As if his body understood the insult before his mind could name it.
The old man sighed.
"You're no longer a killer," he said quietly.
"Just the remains… wandering the earth."
Time stopped.
Kizuki looked away, jaw tight.
Something stirred inside him—something he loathed.
And he never forgave what he could not control.
The old man paused his calligraphy.
He blew softly on the ink, waiting for it to settle, then spoke—almost to himself, a whisper heavier than air:
"Some men… carry weight the world cannot see.
Spirits do not lift it easily.
Some paths, Kizuki… only lead to one place.
Hell—even if the roads twist and shift."
Kizuki turned sharply.
His eyes cut through the silence like a blade.
No shouting. No theatrics.
Just one step forward, the quiet fire that burns without flame.
"Hell?" His voice low, drawn from a deep well.
"I am hell, old man."
"I burned villages.
Hung heads from trees.
Walked through blood until it clung like a second skin.
You speak of spirits? Of unseen fates?"
He stepped closer. Shadows darkened his eyes.
"Damn you…
I only believe in what bleeds.
And what bled… was always blood."
Silence.
The hearth shrank.
The walls seemed to bend under the weight of his voice.
But the old man didn't flinch.
He folded the parchment with care—
as if Kizuki were nothing more than an unwanted stroke of ink… erased.
He smiled.
Not warmth.
A calm like the stillness before a storm.
Then, almost like reciting the death of something long buried, he said:
"You spent your life silencing voices, haven't you?
Those who screamed… you buried.
Those who resisted… you ripped the breath from their throats."
A pause.
Then he raised his head.
Dimmed eyes—empty, sightless—seemed to pierce some unseen truth.
"I don't scream," he said.
"And I don't resist.
Yet still… you could not finish me."
It wasn't a retort.
It was a handprint on the space between them—
invisible, but scorching.
"So tell me, Kizuki…
if you saw the spirits,
would you still deny them?"
No answer.
Kizuki stared—not at words, but at lips.
Seeking a lie where none existed.
The old man didn't wait for belief.
Nor denial.
He reached behind him and drew forth an old instrument.
Wooden, worn, faded carvings lost to memory.
Benzaiten.
He unfurled a small scroll. Ink faded, as if written before memory itself:
The Attraction Song
No bachi. No ritual. No performance.
Just fingers moving—deliberate, calm.
The strings spoke only through him.
It was not an instrument…
but a memory.
The melody—familiar.
Uncomfortably so.
Kizuki could not name why.
It tugged at him, as if from within his own chest.
At first, nothing.
Then—breath forgotten.
Something stirred.
Fragments.
A child's scream.
A woman dying in silence.
The scent of burning wood.
A small hand tugging his sleeve… just before the blast.
Tears came.
One, then another.
Kizuki wiped them fast, as if they were blood.
As if his eyes had betrayed him.
"What… what is this?"
Whispered. Angry. Lost.
He looked up.
The hut was no longer empty.
Spirits.
Hundreds.
Transparent, still.
Faceless, yet watching.
They circled the old man, guarding the melody's end.
Some vaguely human.
Some… not human.
Yōkai.
For the first time, Kizuki saw them as they were.
No shadows. No illusions.
Presence without names.
And they trembled, as if the spirits themselves played in harmony with the old man—a symphony beyond comprehension.
Outside the hut, through trees, wind, and darkness, the same melody echoed.
Not reflection. Response.
The world itself sang.
Kizuki pressed a hand to his chest.
A heartbeat, lost since childhood, returned.
Time fractured.
He cried.
Not as a killer. Not as a warrior.
But as a child who died and was reborn in the same instant.
"What is this… this melody? Why does it feel like… I've always known it?"
He hid the tears like a soldier hides a wound.
But the face cannot lie.
Confusion. Awe. Urge to run—then to stay.
The old man smiled, without lifting his head.
Voice like wind:
"These… are my companions.
Lost spirits. Forgotten legends.
I lit their path… they lit mine."
A final note trembled in the air.
And, quiet, yet carrying everything, he said:
"It seems… I've won in the end."
The Perfumer slowly awoke beneath the tree's shade.
A single tear traced buried pain.
His grip on the pouch held more than ashes.
He glanced at his horse, silent, and whispered a vow:
"Kizuki… your ashes forged this dream.
But this… is not the end."
He drew the ancient manuscript:
Ōgon no Megami (黄金の女神) — The Golden Goddess.
A sharp smile crossed the Perfumer's lips—
sorrow and strength intertwined.
His true journey had only begun.
The horse breathed calmly.
A solitary tear slid down the Perfumer's cheek.
The dream remained unfinished.
He opened the manuscript, recalling the melody.
That melody… would never play just once.
Spirits gazed at him, waiting for the reprise,
an ending… in another form.