Dawn had hardly kissed the sky when Hikari met Rinne at the border of Yamaoka. Her childhood friend was already there, his hunter's attire merging with the morning shade. He was sitting on an old fallen tree where they used to meet as kids, carving a wood piece with skilled strokes. Unlike the other villagers who kept their distance with respectful reserve, Rinne had always looked beyond her title of Kanshisha, addressing her simply as Hikari.
"You haven't slept," he stated, not looking up. It wasn't a question.
Hikari sat beside him on the log, wrapping her robes closer in the chill of morning. "How can I? Every time I close my eyes, I see those Hakari soul, Rinne. The way they seemed to. to drink in the light."
Rinne put aside his whittling and looked at her. Morning sunlight illuminated the worry in his dark eyes. "Tell me about last night. Everything you saw."
"It happened during dinner," Hikari began, her hands instinctively going to her judgment beads. "Hakari was different—more different than usual. Father confronted him about skipping his training sessions, and s-something just... Something just snapped.".
"His true Hakari or the mask he has been sporting?"
The inquiry gave Hikari a pause. "Both, perhaps. Don't you recall how he used to be, before I was blessed with judgment?"
Rinne nodded slowly. "He was a good brother to you. Protective, even. Used to chase off the kids who attempted to peek in on your early training sessions to tease you."
"Also he would bring me rice balls to those sessions," Hikari whispered, her eyes watering at the memory. "But after the gift showed up."
"He changed," Rinne finished.
"He spent more time in the archives, obsessing over ancient texts... I thought initially that he was just trying to impress the elders. To demonstrate that he could be useful, even without the gift." Hikari's voice broke. "But in the middle of the night, when I attempted to read him through my gift, what I saw. Rinne, it was like peering into an abyss without depths. Only darkness, consuming whatever it came in contact with."
Rinne reached out and grasped her shaking hands in his. "You're certain about this? Heading to Kurohana village. the elders expressly prohibited anyone from going near it after the disappearances. If we get caught—"
"I require evidence," Hikari cut in, clenching his fists. "The elders won't move against Hakari without it, not when our family has been guarding for so long. And there was something in those markings on his arm. they were recognizable, the sorts of things in Kurohana's old stories.".
"The village that sought immortality," Rinne whispered. "I heard about it from my grandmother. She said that they had rituals that opened their shrine as a doorway for demons."
"Did she ever say why they wanted to be immortal?" Hikari's voice was barely above a whisper.
Rinne shook his head.
"I came across an ancient scroll in the archives—before Hakari began occupying all his time there."
"It told how the people of Kurohana did not fear death, but rather being forgotten. They believed that if they lived forever, their names would never be forgotten." She looked up at the lightening horizon. "I think something of the same thing is happening with Hakari. He fears so much being forgotten, living in my shadow, that he will do anything to make his own mark in the world."
"Even if that signature is written in blood?" Rinne's voice was gentle but firm.
"That's what I'm most afraid of Rinne, " Hikari confessed. "The brother I knew—the one who was supposed to protect me—he would never have stood for such evil. But now." She squared her shoulders, determination taking the place of sorrow in her face. "That's why we need to go to Kurohana. If there's any hope we can discover what he's mixed up in, perhaps we can stop him before he goes any further."
Rinne stood up straight, shifting the bow slung over his shoulder. "Or perhaps we'll discover he's done more than we already suspect."
"Then at least we'll know," Hikari stood up with him. "And I can approach the elders with certainty rather than suspicion."
They set off down the forsaken trail that wound into the interior of the woods. As she walked, Hikari could sense the weight of the corruption within her brother pressing against her mind. The darkness that she had sensed in him was something she had never experienced—not mere malice or greed, but something that appeared to consume light itself.
"You're thinking about him again," Rinne murmured. He'd never needed magical abilities to be aware of her moods.
"I keep wondering if there was something I could've done to prevent this," Hikari admitted. "If only I'd realized the signs earlier. I recall one day, perhaps a month ago, I saw him leaving the restricted section of the archives."
"His eyes gleamed with fever, and he was holding a scroll to his chest as though it were worth more than gold. When I questioned him about what he was reading, he merely smiled and replied, 'The truth about power, little sister.' I should have realized then that something was amiss."
"This isn't your fault." Rinne's fingers touched hers for a moment. "Whatever Hakari did, he chose to do it of his own accord. Do you recall what you said to me when we were kids and I was blaming myself for not being able to save that wounded fox?"
A wry ghost of a smile crossed Hikari's features. "That we cannot rescue everyone from their own choices?"
"Precisely. Even if those choices break our hearts."
The forest grew denser as they went along, the trees closing in until they formed a canopy that blocked out all but a little of the morning sun. The air grew thick with an unnatural mist that clung to their skin.
"We're close," Rinne breathed, gesturing forward where the trees started to clear. "Kurohana should be just over that ridge."
They broke through the trees and were confronted with a vision that halted them both. Kurohana village was spread out in the valley below them, but it was far from the deserted town they had anticipated. The structures remained, yet they were somehow wrong—their lines appeared to twist in ways that pained the eyes, and the wood of their walls had darkened to unnatural black.
Yet it was the silence that shook them most. No birds sang, no insects hummed. Even the wind appeared to perish when it reached the outskirts of the village.
"Air." Rinne touched his throat. "It is heavy."
Hikari nodded, her judgment beads unpleasantly warm against her skin. "There is power here. Old power. Can you feel how it resists us?"
They made their way down the ridge, each step like trudging through water. When they came to the village itself, Hikari's gift woke. Threads of light flickered from her fingertips involuntarily, trying to connect with. something.
"Look at these," Rinne exclaimed, kneeling alongside one of the charred buildings. Symbols were carved into the wood—symbols that made Hikari's heart pound with recognition.
"They're the same as those on Hakari's arm," she whispered, her shaking fingers tracing the air over them. "But these are older, more finished."
"Over here!" Rinne had walked ahead to what must be the village shrine. Unlike the other buildings, its wood was unstained, though the torii gate that came before it had been twisted into a spiral that led the eye inward, creating a dizzy sensation of falling.
As they got closer to the shrine, Hikari's beads started flashing warning light. "There's something underneath it," she said. "A space that doesn't belong."
Rinne notched an arrow in his bow with a practiced ease. "Or simply called a cave?"
"More than that. It's." Hikari's voice faded out as her present revealed more to her. "It's a door. They made their whole shrine into a door to something else."
They discovered the doorway concealed behind the altar of the shrine—stone stairs leading down into the dark. The air that wafted up from underground was sweet and cloying, like overripe fruit, Hikari thought.
"We should return," Rinne said, though he was not very convincing. "Seek aid from the village."
Hikari shook her head. "Whatever is down there. it's related to what's going on with Hakari. I can feel it." She laid her hand on his arm gently. "But you don't have to come with me.".
Rinne's laugh was soft but firm. "As if I'd leave you to handle this by yourself." He drew a torch from his pack and ignited it. "Just. promise me something?"
"What?"
"If we locate what we're searching for—if we locate evidence of what Hakari's up to—we leave right away. No heroics, no fighting, no judgment okay? We bring the evidence walk away and goes to the elders and they deal with it."
Hikari nodded, although something in her heart was saying it wouldn't be quite that easy. "I swear."
They walked down the stairs together, the torch's beam sending dancing shadows across the stone walls. The scent of sweetness increased with every step, and Hikari's beads pounded harder, a scared heartbeat against her chest.
The stairs ended in a circular chamber that took their breath away. The walls were covered in the same glyphs they'd seen upstairs, but here they were done in something that glistened wetly in the torchlight. Altars ringed the room, topped with things that Hikari's mind seemed to dart away from rather than actually look at. And in the center of it all stood another altar, larger than the rest. Upon it lay a mask made of what looked like polished bone and painted red. Its seems it wants a paint at all its like hardened blood, its surface carved with symbols of such complexity that they seemed to move when viewed directly.
"The Immortal Mask," Rinne breathed, recalling bits of the ancient tales. "They really did it." Rinne crept nearer to the mid-altar, bow half-drawn. "Is this what Hakari's trying to achieve? Some kind of immortality ritual?"
Before Hikari had a chance to respond, a hollow voice that seemed to ooze over shattered glass said, "what clever little mice have crawled into my nest?"
The air between them and the altar churned, and a woman emerged from nowhere—a woman of impossible loveliness, her face pale as moonlight, her eyes aglow with an inner flame that said something far removed from human.
"The hollow queen," Rinne whispered, drawing his bow fully as him and Hikari back away.
The vacant queen does not say a word, but being near her is stifling. "The Kanshisha herself, and her faithful guard dog. How delectable." She stroked the mask with a long-fingered hand. "Do you come for answers about your dear brother? Or maybe. You've come for the same power he pursued?"
Now, as the shadows shift and the air is heavy with the perfume of fruit gone too far, the Hollow Queen inclines her head. "You were well advised to come seek me out, young Kanshisha. Do you come. To look for your brother. Or perhaps." her head back to normal again. "would you rather die remembered. or live forever in immortality."
The edges of the room started to writhe in the darkness, and Hikari could sense her power struggling to alert her to something—but by that time, it was already too late. There crept in from all directions an unnatural darkness, like a fog, and the vacant queen silence rang off the stone walls like the toll of a funeral bell.
The unnatural fog curled around Hikari's ankles like living silk, its touch sending a shiver of wrongness through her entire body. Her judgment beads flared into protective light, creating a small sphere of clarity around her, but the darkness pressed against it hungrily, looking for weaknesses.
"Rinne!" she called out, hardly able to discern her friend now in the thickening fog. Her only response was the tension of his bowstring.
A voice, full and complex with the imprints of a thousand pilfered voices, occupied the chamber.
"Oh, never mind him for the time being, young judge. I would prefer to discuss you."
The Hollow Queen stepped out of the receding darkness, her black funeral garments flowing behind her like a cloud. Beneath her transparent veil, her face shifted and altered, unable to stay the same. Staring at her for too long made the world around Hikari seem. unreal, as though she herself was fading away.
The being's voice wrapped around her brain like a smoke. "Ah, my dear child… how burdensome that power must be to you."
Hikari's head ached. For a dizzying moment, she felt something had been removed from her—a memory, a thought, something vital.
And then, without warning, the past had come flooding back.
Seven Years Ago
Seven-year-old Hikari sat by herself in the practice courtyard, shaking hands over her wooden prayer beads. Elder Miyako had taught her the beginning of judgment was to feel the energy in common objects, to feel the weight of justice even in tiny things.
But she couldn't focus. Not with the whispers behind the courtyard wall.
"She just sits there all day!"
"Hahaha! Perhaps she's not so special after all."
"Hahahaha! look at her! Sitting all day like some granny!"
The words stung, searing tears into her eyes. Clutching the beads, she whirled and fled—away from the courtyard, away from the voices, away from the pressure of expectations tightening across her chest.
She had just one spot where she could be safe.
At the edge of the Yamaoka Forest, she came upon the ancient fallen log—her hidden hideaway. Somebody was there already.
A boy, at least five years older than her, sat on the log, whittling on a piece of wood with slow, deft strokes. He glanced up as she came near, his blue eyes sweeping over her tear-stained face.
"Bad day?" he inquired pointedly.
Hikari paused, then nodded. "T-the other kids." she sniffled. "They won't l-leave me alone."
The boy didn't answer immediately. He glanced at his whittling, then laid it aside and patted the log next to him. "Want to practice here?"
She blinked. "You don't mind?"
He smiled wryly. "Provided you don't object to my whittling."
Hikari paused, then got up onto the log, putting her beads aside. The boy resumed carving, the knife moving in a steady rhythm against the wood.
For the first time that day, she was. at peace.
She drew a deep breath, cupping her hands around her beads.
Focus. Feel. Listen.
Something stirred in the air around her.
She dug deeper, looking for the power in the beads. And then—for the very first time—the wooden beads lifted off her palms.
She let out a soft gasp. The beads glowed softly, pulsing with light, and in a moment, fine threads of pure energy extended between them.
A chain.
A small, delicate chain of judgment.
The boy ceased carving. He looked at her, a flash of something—pride, maybe, admiration?—on his face.
"That's great," he stated. "Most would have given up after they cried."
She glanced at him, then at the bobbing beads, her heart swelling.
"Rinne," he replied abruptly. "That's my name."
She smiled, her beads glinting more brightly.
"Hikari."
I know, he sneered. "Kanshisha-sama."
She winced at the title, but this time there was no teasing in his voice. "Call me simply Hikari."
He nodded, going back to his whittling.
The sole sounds were the gentle whisper of the wind, the scrape of his blade, and the gentle hum of her chains.
The Present
Hikari's eyes flew open, the past colliding with the present like a wave bursting into existence.
The Hollow Queen stood before her, veil fluttering, whispering in voices that were not hers. An voice of many people have tormented by darkness.
"Your brother came to me of his own accord," she sang. "He feared the destiny of all those who share your accursed ability. To judge others is to be discarded after the judging is finished. To have power is to eventually become the judged. Is that not the reason that you hold back, even now?"
Hikari's breath caught—but she was no longer a child.
Her hands tightened. Her judgment beads flared with light.
"Get out of my mind."
The Hollow Queen softly, mournfully laughed. "Ah, but I am already within it, little judge."
Hikari didn't hesitate.
With —a sudden gesture, she tossed her hands outward before her— and as previously, the beads rose, pulsating with iridescent energy.
But this time they did not merely float.
They forged chains.
Blazing chains of judgment.
They snapped forward, twisting into a vast, glowing net that surged toward the Hollow Queen. The very air shook as the chains carved through the darkness.
The Hollow Queen tilted her head, amused.
"Ah… so you do remember."
She —lifted a single needle-thin finger— and in an instant, the chains withered, disintegrating like strands of forgotten memory. The glyphs of judgment died out of existence, obliterated as if they had never been.
"No—!" Hikari gasped.
The Hollow Queen's veil fluttered, and suddenly, Hikari felt herself being unmade.
—a world where she had never been—
—a house that never spoke her name—
—a brother who did not have a sister to eclipse him
A sacred arrow cut through the dark.
The illusion shattered.
Hikari fell back into consciousness.
"Not today!" Rinne exclaimed.
The Hollow Queen confronted him, darkness emanating from her.
Rinne's bow was strung, his second arrow alight with holy flame. Yet in his open hand, something else.
Hikari tensed.
The Blood Blossom of Penalty.
"No," she whispered.
Rinne glanced at her, just briefly. His expression was mournful.
And then, before she could prevent him—he triggered the charm.
A streak of red light illuminated the room, splitting the gloom with the flames of sacrifice.
The Blood Blossom of Penalty pulsed in Rinne's grasp, its deep crimson glow searing against the surrounding darkness. Its powerful curse technique. Consume both the target and user life. Even one like Hollow queen that devour many souls. It still can kill her. But. The toll is Rinne.
Hikari's breath caught.
No. No, no, no.
She lunged forward, reaching for him—too late.
Rinne crushed the blossom in his hand, activating the curse.
The chamber exploded with red light.
The Hollow Queen shrieked, her shifting, veiled form writhing as the sacred fire ignited along her robes, her many hands twisting and curling in agony. Her veil, once an intangible thing of whispers and stolen names, burned away, revealing the true face of nothingness beneath.
A mouth, filled with thousands of voices, opened in a scream so deep it made the world itself tremble. She was unraveling.
Her hands clutched at the edges of reality, her flickering face twisted in rage and disbelief. "You—" Her voices layered over each other, fractured and raw. "You dare?"
Rinne stood firm, the cursed fire wrapping around him as well, binding them both within its deadly glow. He was trembling, his body breaking under the weight of the sacrifice—but his grip on his bow never wavered.
The Hollow Queen's many eyes—all the stolen souls she had consumed—focused on him. And for the first time in centuries, she was afraid.
"You think this is victory?" she spat, her form flickering as the fire consumed her. "You are but a speck in the abyss, a name that will fade like all the rest. But I am eternal!"
Her arms lashed out, trying to grasp something—anything—to anchor herself. "I will not end here! I swear it! I will claw my way back from the void, from the places beyond names—I will return! I will not vanish! I will not be forgotten like you lowly mortal!"
The light scorched hotter, the chains of judgment—Hikari's chains—tightening around the unraveling entity.
Rinne took a shuddering breath, his voice steady despite the agony consuming him.
"No," he said softly. "You won't."
He pulled back the string of his bow his final arrow, wreathed in judgment, in memory, in everything he had ever been—and fired. Even he is fading. He must make sure his work is done.
The arrow pierced through the Hollow Queen's flickering heart.
She shrieked, her entire form collapsing inward, devoured by the very abyss she had ruled. The blackness imploded, folding in on itself, and for the first time, the Hollow Queen truly knew what it meant to be forgotten. What it mean to die like an mortal
Her final words, twisted with hatred and desperation, echoed into nothing.
"you lowly mortal! I swear... I-i will not be forgotten! I am Eternal! I-i am...! I will... I-iwill... I..."
Then the room imploded in upon itself, bringing Hollow Queen, altar, mask and Rinne down with it. The final thing that Hikari saw before the explosion sent her flying backward was his smile. And just like that... he was gone.
The final thing Hikari remembered as she flew through space with the force of the blast was that look on Rinne's face—sad and serene. She did not look at him as warrior that he had now become at that moment, she only saw him as that gentle boy who always sitting on that log, saying that people fear things that they don't comprehend.
And then nothing and in the distance a dim echo of her brother's laughter in the corridors of her mind.
When she awoke, she lay on the stairwell that ascended from the ceremony chamber. The shadows had disappeared and so had the hollow queen. and Rinne. nothing of him existed except a trail of red petals that seemed to radiate with a light within him, and his bow, blackened though unbelievably intact and unstrung.
Hikari picked up the petals with shaking fingers, burning like a fiery tear on skin. Her judgement beads throbbed gently with her, grieving with her. She had wanted to know about shadows of her brother, and at what cost that knowledge had been so much greater than she had ever been able to dream.
She gazed at the flowers in her hand and thought of the boy who had brought solace to her when she had most needed it and had grown into a man who had given up his life to save not only her, but everything that both of them cherished.
Above her, under soiled torii entrance, she observed that the sky was darkening. Darkness loomed and out there, in a place, Hakari waited. Her brother who had made power more than kin. Who had been on a path that had now led to losing dear friend.
The judgment beads around her neck weighed more than ever as she ascended into the realm above. She had vowed to judge her brother, and now she caught a glimpse of what that would be. No longer did she fear that she might save him, but that if there was something of brother left to be saved.
As she emerged from the shrine day's last light caught streaming on her face and illuminated it like that of the Blood Blossom in her hand. Something shifted behind her in Kurohana's blackness—watching and waiting and hungry for the next gift in this struggle of light and shadow, of power and condemnation, of greed and love. The breeze carried with it a scent of cherry blossoms and decay and in casting shadows in a not-so-distant location a black bird spread wings with a message of loss and gift to a brother who had volunteered to be monster.