Hundreds of spirits swirled around the boat, guardians bound to the fragile vessel like a living shield.
They danced with the waves, their ethereal forms rippling and shimmering in harmony with the lake's restless pulse.
Each spirit hummed the ancient melody, a spectral chorus echoing the rhythm of the water itself—a sacred protection against the deadly fury of the storm.
The wrath of the lake was merciless.
A violent surge tore through the waves, scattering the spirits like dust caught in a tempest. Their forms fractured, faltering under the overwhelming force. The protective dance collapsed—but for a fleeting moment, their echoes clung to the boat, lending it the barest pulse of resistance before the tempest finally tore them apart, leaving the vessel at the mercy of the lake's wrath.
He tightened his grip on the hilt of his blade, fingers curling around the familiar cold steel.
The boat rocked violently beneath him, yet his stance remained unyielding.
"Damn it," the Perfume Seller muttered, voice low but sharp, eyes fixed on the horizon.
The battle ahead would be brutal.
A sudden wave of light erupted from the center of the lake.
Then—detonation.
Spiritual energy tore through the water's core like an underwater bomb.
A massive tail rose, splitting the lake like a blade.
Slowly, the monstrous fish emerged—not swimming, but dragging itself from a river of oblivion.
At the center of its translucent chest, a heart gleamed.
Golden. Beating. Blinding.
Each pulse distorted the air itself. Time faltered—stuttering with every throb.
Then came the voice…
A sound unlike anything. Neither male nor female. Neither human nor beast.
"…I heard your music."
The fish spoke. Its body didn't move, yet the voice echoed as if the entire lake had become its mouth.
The spiritualist, standing behind the Perfume Seller, took an unconscious step back. His eyes widened in disbelief, as though reality itself had twisted before him. He whispered, voice trembling, as if the words alone might wake him from a nightmare:
"Is that… is that really it? This isn't what we came for… This isn't what you promised me."
"You've reached the Seventh Melody."
"The one played only for spirits who've been forgotten."
"I am Mizukagami—the mirror where the drowned leave behind their final sighs, and the bearer of the ancient oath of water."
"I've answered your call."
A brief silence followed. Rain began to fall—slow, deliberate drops tapping against the quiet. One drop landed on his cheek. His breath remained steady.
Then he smiled.
A smile without warmth. The smile of a wolf seeing the neck of its prey exposed.
"I want your heart."
Rain intensified, each drop striking the lake's surface like war drums.
"That golden heart. Give it to me."
The air shifted. Light began to crack and fracture across the water.
Mizukagami's voice boiled with disbelief:
"What… are you saying?"
The Perfume Seller lifted his head, gaze burning:
"I didn't play to be rewarded. I didn't summon you to be gifted. This was all… just to bring you out."
Thunder rumbled across the sky. The fish's gaze hardened—its voice now tinged with fury:
"You don't understand what you're asking. My heart is the seal—the covenant between water and death. If it's taken… all who've drowned will be set free."
The Perfume Seller understood.
That heart was not a blessing.
It was a cage.
Every soul that had drowned was crushed inside it—alive, bound, and screaming without sound.
The Perfume Seller closed his eyes, whispering:
"Maybe so… That's why I want it even more."
The water roared. The battle began.
The world seemed to shift in a single, terrifying breath.
The wooden boat was thrashed by the raging water, rocked violently from side to side beneath crashing waves.
The Perfume Seller gripped the edge of the boat—steady, his eyes locked on the horizon with razor focus.
The spiritualist beside him trembled, barely able to move.
Flying fish circled them in swarms, attacking with sharp spiritual needles that shot like spears.
The spiritualist screamed in panic:
"What are these spirits?! They're trying to devour us!"
He raised his hand as if to shield himself, but one of the needles sliced through the air beside him. He collapsed to his knees, gasping for breath.
Rain pounded harder. The lake was no longer a place of stillness. Everything in it seemed intent on killing them.
Amid the storm—in the swirling darkness and howling wind above the waves—the Perfume Seller opened a small case made of black leather.
Inside, there was no weapon. No charm. Only a slender glass vial—transparent, barely visible.
He removed it gently, as if time itself held no meaning. Without haste, he uncorked it… and sprayed the perfume—first on his own neck, then on the trembling spiritualist's shoulders.
The man didn't understand. He didn't need to.
Light shifted. The world trembled.
Suddenly, the fish's body before them cracked open.
"The monstrous fish was not singular—its body housed a physical form and a separate spirit, intertwined yet distinct."
"A fish made of flesh…and another of pure light—floating within the flesh like a soul torn from its body."
Not one body—but two.
As if what they had seen until now was only a mask.
A fish made of flesh…and another of pure light—floating within it like a soul torn from its body, shimmering in dreadful harmony.
The spiritualist gasped, staggering back until he nearly fell from the boat.
"W-what is this? She's… she's not just one!"
The Perfume Seller said nothing. His eyes did not flinch. He saw the full truth. Fighting wouldn't be enough. Blades wouldn't matter. What he witnessed… was half water, half death.
He whispered, voice barely audible beneath the storm:
"She can't be killed… unless her soul is torn from her flesh."
A moment of silence.
Then—the fish screamed.
Not a sound like any voice. A scream that cracked the sky, reverberating across the lake, shaking even the storm itself.
Echoed from beneath the lake.
For a moment, soul and flesh separated…
Then fused again—faster.
Fiercer.
As if she understood…
she had been seen through.
Once more, the lake began to churn.
The wind shredded the surface. Waves slammed into the wooden boat as if trying to swallow it whole.
The fish's eyes had split—one gazed from flesh, the other floated in the void, glowing with the souls of the drowned.
The Perfume Seller remained unmoved.
He stood tall, eyes fixed on the slender blade in his hand, now drinking the surrounding light.
He raised it—and struck the air.
Silence shattered.
His voice, low and unwavering, cut through the storm:
"I'll handle the body."
He turned to the spiritualist.
The spiritualist did not meet his gaze.
His face was pale. Eyes locked onto the fish…
or rather, what dwelled inside it.
The soul.
One glance—was enough.
Darkness seized him.
Not his body—but his mind.
Dragged from the boat,
from the lake,
from the rain…
He fell.
Into the spiritual plane.
No color.
No sound.
No water.
Only a crushing void, as if he had been born into a room soaked in pain.
Everything around him had vanished.
Yet… he was not alone.
The spirit was there.
It did not walk toward him—it appeared within him,
as if it had always been a part of him.
Two little girls… overlapping.
One eye weeping,
the other staring—sick, still.
Their bodies melted together, forming a face he once recognized—then rejected.
A fractured, whispering voice, like a broken melody, spoke:
"Why did you lie to us?"
He tried to answer.
His throat burned. He gasped.
Blood poured from his nose, then his ears.
(In the real world, his body trembled on the boat.
Blood dripped from his mouth. His hands began to seize.)
Inside, he screamed:
"I… I didn't lie! I just couldn't—"
But his voice was bleeding. No one could hear it.
The girls stepped closer.
With every step, his chest caved in,
as if the very air had turned to weight.
The closer they came, the more the world warped around him.
Faces began to swirl in the air—
drowned children, dead women,
men with hollow sockets where eyes once were.
All staring at him.
"You were the one who heard us,"
they whispered.
"You echoed our prayers,
not out of love… but fear.
You feared we would silence you."
Suddenly, something opened behind him.
A watery door.
From it emerged a transparent arm, long and skeletal, carrying the breaths of the dead.
It wrapped around his body.
"No… stay away from me…" he cried.
But the arm did not relent.
His skin began to peel away, as if the voice itself was stripping him of his humanity.
(In the real world, the spiritualist vomited blood onto the deck.)
Inside, the voice grew louder, crawling into his mind:
"You will hear us now, whether you will or not."
"Hear us, as we heard your cries... praying to be forgotten."
"You wanted to disappear, didn't you?"
"Well... we will hide you."
Suddenly-
He saw something.
His mother's face... splintering into fragments.
His little brother screaming beneath the water.
A temple engulfed in flames.
His hand trembling, a forced smile etched onto a face
consumed by pain.
"I'm fine... I'm fine... I'm fi-"
The sound exploded.
Color returned.
Blood streamed from his mouth.
Blood oozed from his ears.
His heart pounded, hammering against his ribs as if it would burst through.
Outside, a faint moan drew the Perfume Seller's attention.
He turned.
The spiritualist lay sprawled, trembling,
blood streaking his chin, eyes wide and unseeing.
No scream escaped him.
It was as if his soul had been torn from his body, leaving behind a hollow shell— nothing but an echo.
A tense silence stretched... then the fish screamed again, tearing through the air.
The lake erupted.
Waves soared, tall as temple walls,
as if the lake itself had chosen to crush the boat.
The sky split.
Rain fell in relentless wrath, punishing the earth for unspoken sins.
The air tasted of iron.
The scent of ancient death drifted heavy.
The Perfume Seller did not flinch.
His gaze remained fixed on the monstrous fish,
then shifted to the collapsed spiritualist behind him.
He understood.
This was no longer the fish's body.
The spirit had moved.
Imprisoned itself inside the spiritualist's flesh.
He whispered without turning:
"Just hold on... a little longer."
Then the explosion roared.
First came the sound.
Then-light,
splintering the sky like a spear of lightning plunging into the lake's heart.
The fish surged forward.
Water shattered at its sides, fleeing as if death itself chased it.
Its massive body rose, a wall of living flesh and raw violence.
One eye... blank.
The other stared into the void, dull, searching for a mind long lost.
It charged.
No spirit.
No thought.
Only a carcass, driven by a single, ruthless instinct: to kill.
The Perfume Seller did not retreat.
He stepped forward.
One step-
the wooden deck cracked beneath him like rolling thunder.
The fish's maw opened.
Teeth jagged as shattered glass, dripping translucent saliva—a maw designed to erase anything it touched.
Inside... emptiness.
Enormous? Yes.
Deadly? Undoubtedly.
Yet this... was only a shell.
A dying body chasing death, abandoned by its soul.
The lake erupted behind him, water roaring as if the world itself recoiled from what was about to unfold.
The Perfume Seller's arm moved in a straight, merciless line.
No flourish. No hesitation. Only purpose. Only inevitability.
A single strike.
The fish's jaw split open, raw flesh parting like a sacrificial bloom.
A scream tore from it-twisted, strangled, as though death had claimed its voice.
But he didn't pause. He jumped.
His silhouette cut against the rain-soaked sky, a living shadow of wrath.
The second strike-skull to tail-cleaved the beast in two.
The halves didn't fall. They quivered, writhing like living horror, instinctively clawing at each other, desperate to become whole.
Green blood spurted, thick and acidic, bubbling with the trapped shrieks of tiny spirits, struggling, clawing, screaming from inside the corpse.
And then—he let them act.
The drowned spirits, freed from the shattered heart yet bound to the Perfume Seller's will, surged forward—intangible, yet devastating.
They didn't just flee-they entered the carcass, slipping through flesh and sinew, tearing the monster apart from within.
The water around the boat churned violently, responding to their fury. Waves slammed upward, sweeping away fragments of scales and bone, striking the lake like the wrath of a vengeful god.
The spiritualist gasped, eyes wide with terror as the spirits tore at the fish, dragging its essence into a frenzy.
"Get out of that body... I've already killed you once."
The Perfume Seller whispered, his voice cold steel.
His hand smashed the
Benzaiten to the side, the wood cracking and splintering with a deafening snap. The instrument shattered-but the momentary surge of chaos only fueled him, a pulse of raw fury.
The third strike came-relentless, precise-aimed at the heart.
Time hiccupped. Reality seemed to pause.
The boat beneath him cracked, splintering under the force, yet he didn't fall. He stood as though the water itself obeyed his will.
His blade sank deep into the fish's chest-beyond flesh, beyond bone, into the invisible golden heart.
It pulsed once beneath steel.
Silence followed.
No spirits remained. No echoes.
Only the smell of blood, iron, and ancient death.
The Perfume Seller stood, drenched in rain and gore, eyes burning with something far darker than victory.
Beneath him, the shattered Benzaiten lay in ruin, useless yet a testament to the force he had unleashed.
His gaze fell to the golden heart, still warm, still beating-trapped in flesh like a dying sun.
He bent and lifted it carefully, feeling the weight of what had been taken.
The spiritualist coughed blood, collapsed behind him, his soul hollowed, leaving only an echo of what he had been.
For a long moment, the Perfume Seller did not move.
Then a slow, terrifying smile spread across his face.
Not honor. Not mercy.
The predator's grin of a man who had claimed what he wanted...
"…from the mouth of a being older than the lake itself."