The fog had followed them.
By the time Ren and the Maiden reached the mountain ridge, the air had turned silver and soundless. Their breaths came out in visible threads, vanishing before they could dissolve. The path wound between stone lanterns buried in moss, each one dark, as though the light inside them had been forgotten centuries ago.
The Maiden stopped at one, brushing the moss away with her sleeve. A faint carving appeared — a name eroded by time.
"Do you know this place?" Ren asked.
She nodded once. "The Shrine of Returning Voices. My order was forbidden to come here. It's where mortals tried to speak to the dead before Yomi sealed the veil."
Ren gazed up the slope. The shrine sat near the cliff's edge, its torii gate cracked but unfallen, its beams wet with rain. Wind threaded through the forest bells hanging from the eaves, but no sound came.
"Returning voices," he murmured. "As if silence has somewhere to go."
"Silence always goes back to the living," she said.
They crossed under the gate. The air grew heavier — colder. For a moment, Ren's own footsteps echoed back at him, slightly delayed, like someone else walking a half-breath behind.
Inside the shrine, stone idols sat half-submerged in mud. Paper ofuda hung limp and blackened from rot. Beneath the altar lay an old water basin filled with rain. When Ren looked down, his reflection blinked a moment too late.
The Maiden lit a charm, pressing it against the wet stone. "If this place still listens," she said softly, "it will answer those who cannot let go."
A whisper brushed Ren's ear.
At first, he thought it was the wind.
Then came a voice he knew — broken, familiar, edged with sorrow.
"You came back too late, brother."
Ren froze. The water in the basin rippled, and from its reflection rose Kaito's face — clear, unscarred, eyes like the dawn before their clan burned.
"Kaito."
"You left me," the voice said.
Ren's heart slammed against his ribs. "I tried to save you."
The reflection tilted its head, smiling faintly — the same smile Kaito wore when they used to train in the courtyard. "You tried to save honor. Not me."
The Maiden looked up sharply. "Ren, step back— that's not him."
But Ren couldn't move. The reflection's eyes deepened to gold.
"You don't belong among the living anymore," it whispered. "Come back, and I'll forgive you."
The sigil under Ren's skin flared faintly, a pulse of dull gold. The air around the shrine twisted, the fog thickening into the outline of a man — Kaito's figure, flickering between shadow and light.
Ren reached for his sword, but something inside him hesitated.
He wanted to believe the shape before him was real.
"Do you remember the night Father fell?" Kaito asked. "Do you remember whose blade touched his back first?"
Ren's breath hitched. "Stop."
The Maiden stepped forward, placing a talisman against his arm. "It's feeding from memory. Don't let it name your sins aloud."
Too late.
The shrine shuddered. The paper charms overhead fluttered violently, as if gasping for air. The fog poured in from the open gate — carrying another presence with it.
A woman's silhouette emerged.
She moved like smoke — no footsteps, no weight. Her hair spilled like ink over her shoulders, her eyes gleaming with mismatched fire. The air bent around her presence, as if even gravity paused to listen.
The Maiden's hand went to her ofuda, whispering sutras under her breath. "Yokai," she spat.
The woman's smile was gentle. "How you cheapen that word, little priestess. Do you call every shadow you fear a yokai?"
Ren stepped forward, despite himself. His chest felt tight. "You again."
Her gaze slid to him. "You dream of me even when you don't remember."
Kaito's echo flickered. The yokai woman turned her hand, brushing her fingers against the air, and the illusion dimmed, collapsing into the basin like spilled ink.
The Maiden lunged, charm glowing in her hand. "Leave him!"
The woman's eyes glimmered with mild amusement. "Leave him? He was never yours to guard."
She touched one of the hanging bells. It gave a single, perfect note — soft enough to make the entire shrine fall still. Every echo, every whisper, died.
Ren's mark seared. He fell to one knee, clutching his chest as a line of gold flared beneath his skin, twisting upward toward his throat.
The yokai knelt beside him, her voice low and coaxing. "You carry Yomi's breath, Ren. The living won't understand it. But I do. I was born from the same fire."
"Don't… touch him," the Maiden warned. Her voice trembled with more than anger — it trembled with fear.
The woman smiled, tilting her head. "And if I already have?"
The Maiden threw the charm. The air between them ignited — blue light flaring across the shrine, bursting into a roar of wind. The woman stepped back, her form distorting like smoke scattered by breath.
But her voice lingered, soft and persuasive even as her body dissolved:
"Every vow you keep burns another life, Ren. Ask her how many she's already given for yours."
The light died. The shrine was dark again.
Ren fell forward, gasping, and the Maiden caught him by the shoulders. Her palms glowed faintly, burning the sigil back into stillness.
"Don't listen to her," she said, though her own voice was unsteady.
Ren stared into the basin. The reflection showed three faces — his, the Maiden's, and hers, faint but smiling behind them both.
And for the first time, he realized her words weren't meant as temptation. They were a warning.
he silence after the spirit's departure was not peace.
It was the kind of quiet that pressed against the lungs — too deep, too still, as if the air itself refused to breathe.
Ren stayed crouched near the basin, his reflection broken by faint ripples. The Maiden knelt beside him, still trembling from the exertion of her seal. A faint burn trailed up her wrist where the charm had ruptured.
He turned toward her. "You're hurt."
"It's nothing." She forced a weak smile. "Better me than you."
Her words echoed faintly, as though the shrine itself repeated them under its breath.
Ren looked around. The once-ruined hall now felt alive again — shadows moved where no wind stirred. The bells swayed slowly, singing no sound but ringing in the bones of his mind. He rose, unsteady, and noticed the faint hum on his back.
Hoshikage.
The bow was glowing through the cloth wrapping — veins of faint silver crawling along its polished surface like moonlight on rippling water.
"Maiden," he said quietly, "step back."
"What is it?"
"It's… waking."
He unwrapped the bow slowly. The wood pulsed with light — not fire, not spirit energy, but something older, colder. When he held it, the whispers in the air aligned into a single, endless chant. Words he didn't understand, yet his body remembered them.
Hoshi wa kage ni, kage wa uta ni.
The stars are shadows; the shadows sing.
The Maiden's eyes widened. "That's the language of the Boundary Priests… No mortal's supposed to know those rites."
Ren's grip tightened. "Then why does it sound like my name?"
A tremor rolled through the ground. The altar stones split, releasing faint wisps of blue flame — spirit breath escaping the seals that held them. The air grew thick with the scent of wet ash and salt.
The Maiden rose, clutching her staff. "Ren, the shrine's breaking! You have to—"
But he was already moving. The bowstring hummed, drawn by instinct, though there was no arrow to nock. He pulled until the hum became a low note, deep enough to shake the roof beams.
For an instant, he felt another hand guiding his — smaller, colder, feminine. A voice whispered in his ear, the same voice that had haunted the river and the Gate:
"The world remembers you differently than you remember yourself."
Ren turned — no one stood there. Only mist and moving light.
The Maiden's voice broke through. "Ren, stop! You'll—"
He released.
The string loosed no arrow, but silence itself split apart. A surge of invisible energy tore through the shrine, collapsing every hanging bell at once. Each fell like rain, ringing one note before shattering. The sound rolled down the mountain like thunder, echoing through valleys that hadn't heard prayer in centuries.
When the light faded, Ren stood alone amid dust and smoke.
The Maiden crawled toward him, coughing, her sleeve shielding her face. "Ren!"
He turned slowly. The sigil on his chest had vanished — replaced by a mark shaped like the crescent reflection of a blade.
The bow in his hands no longer glowed, but faintly breathed.
"You broke the seal," she said, eyes wide with horror. "The Shrine's guardian spirit—"
Before she could finish, the ground beneath them rumbled. From the cracked altar rose something immense — not a beast, but a shape of smoke, a towering mass of memories bound into one trembling form. Faces flickered in and out across its surface — pilgrims, monks, children — each whispering in agony, their words overlapping.
"Return us…"
"Hear us…"
"Remember us…"
Ren drew the bow again, his eyes empty, his heartbeat syncing with the spirit's pulse.
The Maiden gripped his arm. "Don't— they're not enemies!"
He hesitated. The spirit's many faces turned toward him — and among them, for a moment, he saw Kaito's.
His bow arm dropped. "No…"
The Maiden pressed a charm to the earth. The sutras spiraled outward like veins of light, forming a barrier that enclosed the spirit. "Go," she said. "Before it binds to you."
Ren shook his head. "I won't run."
"Then fight with me."
They moved together — she chanted, he aimed. The bow drew light from her sutras, forming a spectral arrow of pure flame. The spirit screamed as the shot pierced through it — not destruction, but release. The voices scattered, rising in faint motes of blue that drifted upward into the mist.
Then silence again. But this time, it was gentle.
The Maiden fell to her knees, breathing hard. "It's done."
Ren lowered the bow. His reflection in the shattered basin looked older, eyes darker, gold-rimmed.
"What have I become?" he whispered.
She touched his arm. "Something in between."
He turned to her — but in the reflection behind them, another woman smiled faintly from the mist's edge. The yokai's eyes gleamed with quiet satisfaction.
"Every seal you break," she murmured, unheard by the Maiden, "brings you closer to me."
The wind stirred. The bells no longer rang.
Far below, where the valley river wound like a scar, a faint ripple appeared on its surface — glowing faintly with gold, as if the water itself had begun to remember.