The village was gone.
Where once stood the banners of the Kagemura clan, there was only ruin.
Charred beams. Crumbling walls. A sky the color of dying embers.
I walked slowly through it, my footsteps sinking into soot. Every sound I made felt like a trespass — a living thing disturbing the sleep of the dead. The air was heavy with the scent of burnt cedar and salt, the perfume of old fires that refused to fade.
A part of me had always known this was what I would find.
But knowing does not soften the pain of seeing it.
We passed the old training grounds — or what was left of them. Wooden dummies were gone, reduced to blackened stumps. The sparring mats were nothing but charred leather scraps. A broken naginata lay half-buried in the ash, its blade curled from heat.
The wind hissed low through the ruin, carrying ashes across the ground like snow. For a moment I thought I saw the flicker of movements — the shadows of students sparring, children chasing each other with wooden swords. But they vanished when I blinked, leaving only silence.
"This place…" the shrine maiden whispered. "It remembers you."
I stopped, glancing back at her. She stood at the edge of the path, her white robes glowing faintly in the dusk. Her eyes traced the burned rooftops with the same sorrow a priest gives a corpse.
"Memories aren't what I came for," I said. "I came for truth."
Her voice softened. "Truth and vengeance often share the same blade."
I turned away before her words could settle in my chest.
The dojo still stood — barely.
Its roof sagged inward, beams split from heat, and the banners of my family crest hung in tatters, ash clinging to them like disease. I slid the door open, and it groaned as if protesting my return.
Inside, the air was thicker. The smell of smoke sharpened, almost fresh, as though the fire had never truly died.
Dust motes drifted in the half-light, and for a heartbeat, I saw the past laid over the ruin:
students bowing, the crack of bamboo swords, laughter spilling into the summer air.
My younger brother, Kaito, smirking at me before lunging forward with a strike that nearly took my wrist.
Then it was gone. Only silence remained.
In the center of the dojo lay something I knew at once.
A half-melted blade. My blade. Its once-bright steel twisted and blackened, yet when I knelt and touched it, the metal was cold — and it pulsed faintly, almost as though it remembered me.
"Ren," the maiden said softly. "Do you wish to remember, or to forget?"
I closed my fist around the hilt. "I don't have that choice anymore."
A sound broke the silence.
Faint. Scraping. Irregular.
At first I thought it was the wind dragging debris.
Then it spoke.
"R…en…"
The maiden drew a sharp breath.
Something moved in the shadows at the far end of the dojo. It crawled at first — dragging itself on hands that bent the wrong way. When it rose, its body jerked unnaturally, bones shifting beneath its skin like insects crawling under cloth.
A mask clung crooked to its face — a Kagemura warrior's mask, split down the center. Behind the cracks, two pale eyes glowed.
"Brother…" it rasped.
My blood turned to ice. "Kaito?"
The creature tilted its head. The mask creaked.
Then it laughed — a wet, splintering sound no human throat could make.
"Not yet," it said. "But he waits for you."
The maiden's voice sharpened. "Ren, that is no living thing."
Its presence pressed on my lungs like a weight. The stench of rot rolled off it in waves.
When it stepped forward, the floor cracked beneath its feet.
I drew my sword. The hiss of steel leaving the sheath cut the silence like lightning.
For a moment, we circled one another — hunter and prey, though which was which, I could not tell.
Then it lunged.
The clash was thunder.
Its broken blade met mine in a shower of sparks, the shock biting deep into my arms. Too strong. Stronger than anything dead should be.
"Ren…" it hissed between blows. "You left them to burn…"
The voice was warped — but beneath it, I heard the faint echo of Kaito's tone.
It was enough to shake my hand.
The next strike slipped through my guard. Steel cut into my shoulder, hot pain flaring.
I staggered. The maiden cried out, talismans flaring with light. She hurled them forward — golden seals pinning the creature in place. Smoke hissed from its flesh where the charms clung.
"It's bound by hunger!" she shouted. "A soul forced into a corpse!"
The restraints snapped. The thing howled and came at me again.
I barely parried. Sparks danced against my blade as it forced me back. My shoulder burned — not with pain, but with something deeper.
Something alive.
The Yomi Flame stirred at the edges of my thoughts, whispering.
Not yet… I begged.
But it was already awake.
The next strike came fast. I twisted, parried, and felt the fire surge through my arm.
My blade glowed faint blue — the same hue as incense burned for the dead.
The creature recoiled, shrieking, but I pressed forward. One cut, then another. Each swing left trails of firelight in the air, the dojo glowing with ghostly flame.
It slashed wildly, screaming words it barely formed: "Ren… brother… traitor…"
Its broken blade grazed my ribs. Pain lanced sharp, but the fire in my arm swallowed it whole.
I roared, driving my katana down in a vertical cut.
The steel passed through its torso. For an instant, it froze — staring at me through the cracks in its mask.
Then the Yomi Flame erupted.
Blue fire poured from the wound, swallowing it whole. Its mask melted first, then its flesh, then its bones.
The scream that followed was not human. Not spirit. Something between.
When the fire died, nothing remained but drifting ash.
I stood heaving, the flame still flickering faintly on my blade. My shoulder throbbed where the wound had been — yet already, the bleeding had stopped.
The maiden approached cautiously, her talismans dimming.
"Ren…" she said softly. "Each time you call upon that power, it listens more closely."
I stared at the ashes. "And if I stop?"
"Then it will whisper until you answer," she said. "Yomi's gifts are never given freely."
I sheathed my sword. The ache in my body was gone, but the cold inside me had deepened.
Outside, the ruins groaned as the wind rose, rattling beams like old bones.
"Was that thing truly one of my clan?" I asked.
The maiden hesitated. "It carried their memory. But the soul was twisted — consumed by Yomi's hunger."
I clenched my fists. "So this is what's left of us. The Kagemura name, devoured and reanimated."
She lowered her gaze. "Not all souls find peace. Some are caught between duty and despair. And some…" her eyes flickered toward me, "are called back by something stronger than either."
We left the dojo in silence.
The night had deepened. The sky bruised with red.
The moon was no longer silver, but bleeding — a swollen wound pouring crimson light across the ruins.
I looked up, and for a heartbeat, I thought I saw faces in its glow — the faces of those I failed.
A wind swept through the village, scattering ashes across the path. They rose briefly, drifting toward the sea, as if pulled by an unseen tide.
The maiden watched them go. "The dead move when the balance breaks. Something stirs beyond the veil."
I said nothing. My hand brushed the hilt of my sword, still faintly warm.
The silence stretched until the world itself seemed to hold its breath.
Then — faint, but unmistakable — a bell tolled from beyond the cliffs.
Once.
Twice.
Then again, slower.
Each sound echoed through my chest like a heartbeat.
"Kaito," I whispered.
The maiden's head snapped toward me. "What did you say?"
"He's here," I said. "Somewhere close."
The flame stirred again — a pulse like a calling.
The maiden's gaze sharpened. "Be careful, Ren. If your brother walks this realm, he no longer does so as a man."
I looked to the horizon, where the blood moon touched the sea.
"Then I'll face what he's become," I said. "And end what I failed to finish."
We left the ruins behind.
The firelight faded. The forest swallowed us once more.
Ash clung to my steps, whispering with every footfall.
And somewhere beyond the ridge, the bell tolled again — slow, patient, inevitable.
Calling me home.