Night pressed a thick darkness against the paper-thin walls. Muffled snores from neighboring houses and the ceaseless drone of cicadas provided a dissonant lullaby to the dripping rain. Akira knelt upon the tatami, not in meditation, but in careful preparation. Her travel bag, incongruously modern in this ageless room, lay open on the floor. Not steel and magnesium, but her other weapons were laid out with meticulous care: a worn leather-bound journal, faded ink brushes, a bundle of incense bound with a crimson thread. Each item held memories. A child, small hands stinging from the rap of a bamboo switch across her knuckles as she fumbled to form the kanji for protection. The sting was nothing compared to the burning shame, her stern grandmother's voice echoing in her skull, "Our lineage protects. Weakness invites disaster." Sleepless nights poring over scrolls, their archaic script blurring as exhaustion pulled at her eyelids. But giving in meant more than tired eyes
Rain fell not in drops, but sheets, blurring the outline of the ancient stone torii gate that marked the entrance to Kasumigawa. Akira stepped off the sputtering bus, the hiss of its brakes swallowed by the downpour. One weathered suitcase was all she carried – her other tools were less tangible. The driver gave her a look of frank pity, his gaze flicking between her neat travel attire and the hunched, dripping figures of the villagers who hadn't bothered with umbrellas. This was no place for tourists, their hunched forms seemed to say, least of all a lone young woman. Her boots squelched in the mud road. Faded paper talismans hung askew from doorways, limp offerings against the rain. In the distance, a twisted cypress marked the village shrine, barely visible against the mist-shrouded hills. This was a place where the world of the living and the realm of the dead blurred together like ink on soaked parchment. A movement in the shadows – a bent figure, watching. "You've co