The sky hung low, bloated with gray clouds that threatened to break but never wept. Snow, ash, and dust swirled together in the frigid air like remnants of forgotten prayers. In the outermost edge of the ruined kingdom of Aokigahara, where the sun had long ceased to shine in full, a girl walked alone.
They called the place the Hollow District—where dying embers of a crumbled empire flickered in silence. Roofs caved inward. Market stalls lay abandoned, bones of their wooden frames jutting toward the sky like pleading hands. No one with purpose lived there. Only the discarded. The remnants. And her.
Her name—whispered only in the cold hush of wind through crumbling alleys—was Kuroyuki Aika.
She had no memory of her parents, no stories of laughter or lullabies. Just a silver hairpin tucked into the folds of her ragged scarf and a name carved into the base of her spine in an ancient dialect: 黒雪 哀華. No one dared speak it aloud. Not the other orphans. Not the elders. Names like that meant something once. Now, they were only burdens.
Kuroyuki moved like a shadow, thin and silent, her presence barely more than a ghost. Her hair, dark as ink, fell in jagged lengths around her face, and her pale skin seemed almost luminous against the gray world. Her eyes—sharp, unreadable, nearly colorless—held nothing. No anger. No sadness. No hope.
She scavenged for food near the remains of the Yamaichi Shrine, a place once sacred, now overtaken by frost and moss. Behind her, three younger children—Mika, Haruto, and little Rika—watched her with wide, hollow eyes. She never spoke to them. But when she found bread, she always left some behind on the stone steps. Just enough to keep them alive.
She didn't know why.
"Kuroyuki-san," a voice called, barely above the wind.
She turned. A tall boy stood at the edge of the ruined square, wrapped in faded samurai cloth too large for his frame. Takane Renji. Seventeen. His family had once served the high court before the Fall. Now, like the rest, he scavenged, scraped, and bled to stay breathing.
"There's been a sighting. A Shōkan beast, near the riverbank."
Kuroyuki said nothing.
Renji hesitated, then stepped closer. "They're saying it's marked. Black-red eyes. Just like the ones in the legends."
Her gaze narrowed slightly. Red and black. The forbidden colors.
"Stay away from it," she murmured, voice low and even. "Marked creatures don't wander near humans unless something's wrong."
Renji nodded. "That's why they think it's a sign."
"A sign of what?"
He hesitated. "The return of the Crown."
A hush fell between them. The Hollow Crown—a cursed relic of Aokigahara's royal line, said to bind its wearer to ancient magic. Said to kill anyone unworthy who dared place it upon their head.
Kuroyuki turned from him. "Legends don't feed you. Or keep your bones warm."
She walked away, wind tugging at her cloak. But the name burned in her chest. The Hollow Crown. Red-black magic. And somewhere, deep in her veins, something stirred.
Not yet awakened.
But close.
Too close.