The ridge dropped away into a fold of hills where the cedars stood thick and silent, their branches knitting a canopy that dimmed the midday sun to a hazy glow. Taro moved first through the bramble gap Sora had opened, his boots crunching on dry needles, the air thick with the scent of resin and damp moss. The fog from the trap lingered at his heels, a clammy touch that made the hairs on his neck stand, but he shook it off, eyes fixed on the path ahead. That red-corded figure in the trees below had been a ghost in the mist, gone before he could mark it, but its presence stuck like a burr, a sign Goro's betrayal ran deeper than ropes and pits.
Kenta fell in behind him, his armor scraping faintly against a branch, his breath still ragged from the scramble. "We're exposed up here," he said, voice low, edged with that quiet fury he carried like a second blade. "One wrong step, and we're tumbling into whatever's waiting below."
Mika snorted, slipping through next, her dagger sheathed but her fingers drumming against her thigh. "Exposed? We're already neck-deep. That merchant played us like fools. Next time, I say we gut the smooth-talkers first."
Jiro chuckled, squeezing past last, his gourd tucked under his arm as he brushed pine sap from his robes. "Gut 'em, and you learn nothing. Roads like this teach in riddles, not blood. Speaking of..." He trailed off, squinting ahead where the path dead-ended against a sheer wall of rock, vines snaking over it like veins on old skin.
Taro stopped short, hand on his sword, the map in his other fist now a crumpled joke. The wall hadn't been there minutes ago—the trail should've curved around, per Goro's sketch. But now it loomed, solid and unyielding, the air before it humming faintly, like a plucked string left to vibrate. He pressed a palm to the stone, felt it give—not rock, but something softer, elastic, pushing back against his touch.
"Not stone," Sora said, stepping up beside him, her voice steady as a drumbeat. She traced a finger along the vines, her eyes narrowing. "It breathes. A nurikabe—the wall that walks. It guards what it doesn't want crossed."
Kenta drew his katana halfway, the steel whispering free. "A wall that walks? Sounds like monk tales to scare children."
Jiro shook his head, his grin fading into something sharper, more knowing. He scattered a pinch of salt at the base, watching it fizzle against the invisible barrier. "No tale. Old yōkai, born from lonely grudges. Blocks the path till you answer its riddle. Get it wrong, and it swallows you whole—time, sense, everything."
Mika crossed her arms, peering at the wall, her skepticism cracking just a hair. "Riddles? Great. I'm better with locks than word games. What's it want?"
As if in answer, the humming sharpened, the vines rustling without wind. A voice slithered from the wall—not words at first, but a murmur, layered and echoing, like wind through a bamboo flute. Then it cleared, gravelly and old: "I have no mouth, yet I devour. No eyes, yet I see all paths. No feet, yet I follow where you flee. What am I?"
The group fell quiet, the hills holding their breath. Taro's mind turned it over, his hashiriya days flashing back—nights piecing together coded messages under lantern light, outsmarting guards with half-guessed meanings. But this felt heavier, the wall's hum pressing in, stirring a restlessness in his chest, like the road itself was testing not just his wits, but the frayed edges of his patience.
Kenta frowned, blade still half-out. "A shadow? Or the wind—follows, sees nothing."
Mika shook her head quick. "No, a trap. Like Goro's pit—devours the unwary."
Jiro leaned close, eyes half-closed, murmuring to himself. "Devour without mouth... see without eyes..." He snapped his fingers, voice rising. "The road itself! It eats travelers, watches every step, chases you no matter how fast you run."
The wall shuddered, the hum spiking like a laugh, but the vines didn't part. Wrong. Taro felt the weight of it, the group's eyes on him, that thread of trust pulling tight. He wasn't just leading them through hills anymore; this was about holding them together when the world conspired to tear them apart. His thoughts sharpened, sifting the riddle like gravel for gold.
"No," he said finally, stepping forward, his voice cutting the hum. "The fog. It swallows without teeth, spies without sight, trails you through every twist."
The wall went still, the hum fading to a sigh. The vines quivered, then parted slow, the rock face rippling like water disturbed by a stone. The path beyond opened, clear and winding down into the valley, the air lighter, the pressure gone.
Mika let out a breath she'd been holding, her grin crooked. "Not bad, old man. Didn't peg you for a riddle-solver."
Kenta sheathed his blade, a nod of respect flickering across his face, though his eyes still burned with unanswered questions about his own failures. "Saved us a fight. For once."
Jiro clapped Taro on the shoulder, his laugh warm but tinged with something else—relief, maybe, or a shadow of old regrets. "Sharp as your sword, eh? But nurikabe don't stir for nothing. Someone's poking the yōkai awake, and it ain't just Goro's ink."
Sora lingered a moment, her fingers brushing the fading wall, her expression distant, like she'd heard the riddle before. "The land speaks when called," she murmured. "And it remembers."
Taro didn't press her, but the words stuck, a puzzle of their own. He folded the map away, leading them down the newly revealed path, the valley unfolding below in greens and golds. The riddle's echo lingered in his head—not fear, but a spark of clarity, the kind that came from outwitting the unseen. The group moved closer now, their steps syncing without words, a quiet rhythm born from the wall's test.
But as the hills sloped away, Taro caught a glint in the distance—a red cord, fluttering from a branch like a banner of warning. The Flame Bearers weren't done, and neither was the road. Whatever game they were playing, Taro was ready to call their bluff.