The shed was small, dark, and smelled of earth and old tools. The black-eyed prophet sat propped against the wall, his ropes secured to a heavy timber. He was awake. His empty eyes stared into the darkness, but a faint, cold awareness radiated from him like frost.
Jubei slid inside, closing the door silently. He didn't bother with a lantern. He sat cross-legged on the dirt floor, a few feet from the bound man, and placed his odd nagamaki across his lap.
For a long time, neither spoke. Jubei simply waited, his breathing slow and even. He was a man comfortable with silence.
You are the shadow, the prophet's voice finally rustled in Jubei's mind. It was weaker than before, thinned by pain and hunger, but still sharp. You have no master but coin. Why involve yourself in the pattern?
"I'm curious," Jubei said aloud, his voice conversational. "I like puzzles. You're a new one. A man who spreads plague with a thought. That's a neat trick."
It is not a trick. It is revelation. The Rot is a door. Fear is the key. I simply turn the lock.
"For this 'master' of yours."
He is the architect. The one who sees the glorious design where you see only chaos.
Jubei picked at a sliver of wood on the floor. "See, that's what bothers me. Architects need blueprints. What's his design? A world full of things like you? Cold, quiet puppeteers?"
A world of order. Of perfect, silent understanding. No more noisy, chaotic wills. No more petty desires. Just the pure, singular purpose of the hive. The flesh remade to serve a greater mind.
"Sounds boring," Jubei said flatly. "And it sounds like he's building an army. Where is he?"
The prophet's mental voice grew a shade colder. You will see. When the harvest is complete, the chaff will be burned, and the grain gathered.
"Poetic. But not an answer." Jubei leaned forward slightly. "Let's talk about something else. The girl. Sakura. The 'broken mirror.' What did you mean?"
For the first time, Jubei sensed a flicker of genuine emotion from the prophet, not coldness, but a twisted, academic interest. She is a mistake. A resonance. The Rot opened a door in her mind, but her soul did not pass through. She stands on the threshold, hearing the chorus on both sides. She is… painful to perceive. A wound in reality.
"Can she do what you do?" Jubei asked, his heart beating a little faster. This was the real question. "Can she turn the key?"
She lacks the will. The cold clarity. She is made of empathy, of warmth. Such things are weaknesses. Noise in the signal. She could no more command the chorus than a candle could command the sun. The disdain was palpable.
"But she pushed back against you," Jubei pressed. "She warmed up the pieces you were trying to freeze."
A momentary interference. A sputter in the engine. She is a symptom, not a tool.
Jubei filed that away. He changed tactics. "Tomorrow, we're going to the way-station. Your master have any surprises waiting there?"
The prophet went very still. The cold presence retreated, becoming guarded. That place is… irrelevant. A speck.
"You hesitated," Jubei said, a smile in his voice. "That means it's not irrelevant. What's there? Besides the obvious hungry mouths."
Nothing for you.
"See, I think there is. I think maybe it's a test. A… what's the word… a trial ground. For new designs. Like the fast one. Kuroi. She's different too, isn't she? Not a thinker like you, but a hunter with a mind. Did your master make her?"
You ask too many questions, shadow.
"It's what I'm paid for." Jubei stood up in one fluid motion. He tapped the curved blade of his nagamaki against his palm. "Here's the deal, thinker. You're coming with us tomorrow. You're going to be our lucky charm."
The prophet's head tilted. I am your prisoner.
"You're our bait," Jubei corrected, his voice losing all warmth. "We're going to walk you right up to the walls of that station. And you're going to do for us what you did for your master. You're going to call the Gaki. All of them. You're going to pull every single one of those things out of that fortress and into the open, right into Kenta's noisy, fiery distraction."
The cold presence in the shed spiked with something akin to outrage. I will not be your bell to ring!
"You will," Jubei said, leaning down so his face was close to the prophet's. His eyes, glinting in the dark, held no mercy. "Because if you don't, I won't kill you. I'll give you to the girl. To Sakura. And I'll have her pour every warm, noisy, painful, human feeling she has straight into that cold, empty mind of yours. I'll have her fill you with memories of sunsets and laughter and the taste of warm rice until your precious silence shatters and you're nothing but a screaming, feeling thing again. Which is it? A clean use of your power? Or death by feeling?"
The prophet recoiled as if struck. The concept was a profound, existential horror to him. The silence in the shed was absolute, the cold presence now vibrating with a terrified loathing.
You are a monster, the voice whispered, frail and shaken.
"We all are, now," Jubei said, straightening up. "Welcome to the new world. Get some rest. You have a big day tomorrow."
He slipped out of the shed as silently as he'd entered, leaving the prophet bound in the dark, not just by rope, but by a threat worse than death.
At first light, the village was a scene of grim purpose. The distraction group, twenty strong, gathered their pots, pans, and oil-soaked torches. Their faces were pale, but Kenta moved among them, clapping shoulders, repeating the plan. "Noise, fire, run. We are the fox, not the wolf."
The clearer group—Hayato, Jubei, Sakura, and the six villagers—stood apart. They were armed with their modified tools and a grim resolve. Hayato had reclaimed his katana from Kei; the long blade felt right in his hand again. Jubei had the prophet on a short, cruel leash, his hands bound behind him, a gag in his mouth made from a strip of leather. The prophet's black eyes simmered with hate.
The carriers—Kei, the elderly, the children, and the rest of the villagers—were packed and ready, their faces etched with a hope so fragile it hurt to see.
"Remember the signals," Hayato said to the entire assembly, his voice carrying in the crisp morning air. "One long shout from the tree line means the distraction has begun. Two blasts on a hunting horn from the walls means the courtyard is clear and the carriers can come in. If you hear three rapid shouts from anywhere… it means run. Scatter. Save yourselves."
Nods all around. No one spoke.
"Then we go," Hayato said.
The groups split. Kenta's distraction team melted into the woods to the south, to circle around to the front of the way-station. The rest began the careful, silent march back down the valley toward the ford and the road beyond.
Sakura walked in the middle of the clearer group, her eyes closed part of the time. "The fast one… she is far. South and east. Her pack is with her. The station… it has thoughts. Dull, hungry thoughts. Not many. Maybe ten. They are… sleeping? Resting in the dark places."
"Good," Jubei muttered. He gave the prophet's leash a tug. "You'll wake them up for us nicely."
They reached the tree line overlooking the way-station by mid-morning. It looked even more forbidding in the daylight. The broken main gate yawned like a black mouth. The walls were stained with old smoke and darker, unnameable things. A profound silence hung over it.
They waited.
Then, from the far side of the woods, a tremendous CLANG-CLANG-CLANG erupted, followed by shouting and war cries. Kenta's group. A moment later, a pillar of thick, black smoke began to rise, blown by the wind toward the station's front.
They watched from their hiding place. For a minute, nothing. Then, movement. Shambling forms appeared at the broken gate. One, three, five. They moved toward the noise and smoke. Then more came from inside the courtyard. They streamed out, a ragged line of maybe twenty Gaki, drawn to the commotion.
"That's most of them," Hayato whispered. "Sakura?"
The girl concentrated. "The thoughts… are leaving. Going toward the noise. The station is getting quieter. But… not empty. There are two… no, three left. Inside the main keep. And… the quiet thought. High up. It is still there. It is… watching the smoke too."
The person in the tower.
"Time for our part," Jubei said. He pulled the gag from the prophet's mouth. "Do it. Call the ones left inside. Call them out the front gate. Pour your 'revelation' into their little hungry heads. Make them need to go to that noise."
The prophet glared, his chest heaving. He looked from Jubei's pitiless face to Sakura, who was watching him with wide, sad eyes. The memory of Jubei's threat, death by feeling, was clearly in his mind.
He closed his black eyes.
Hayato felt nothing. But Sakura gasped. "He's… pulling. A cold string. Tugging on the hungry thoughts inside."
A moment later, the two remaining Gaki stumbled out of the main keep's doorway. They moved with a new, frantic urgency, shoving past each other to get through the courtyard and out the broken gate, joining the stream chasing Kenta's distraction.
"The station is empty," Sakura confirmed, her voice shaky. "Except for the quiet thought upstairs."
"Perfect," Jubei said, re-gagging the furious prophet. "Let's move."
Hayato's group sprinted across the open ground to the back wall. Jubei threw a grapnel hook—taken from the village—and scaled the low wall like a spider. He dropped down, unlocked the small postern gate from the inside, and swung it open.
The stable yard was a mess of overturned carts and old bones, but it was clear. Hayato led his six villagers in, fanning out, weapons ready. Sakura pointed. "The kitchen door. Nothing. The stable… nothing living. The thoughts are all gone."
They cleared the outbuildings swiftly, methodically. Every shadow held a memory of terror, but no monsters. The prophet had done his job.
Hayato nodded to one of the villagers, who put a hunting horn to his lips and blew two long, clear blasts, the signal.
From the tree line, Kei's carrier group emerged and hurried across the field, shepherding the elderly and children. They streamed through the postern gate into the secure courtyard. Kei immediately began directing people. "You, barricade this gate! You, with me to the main keep, find the storerooms!"
It was working. It was actually working.
Hayato turned to the main keep's rear door. This was the final step. Clear the interior. Find the survivor. Secure their new home.
He, Jubei, Sakura, and two of the bravest villagers entered the dark, stinking hall. The great room was a charnel house, just as Kenta had described. They stepped carefully, their weapons held high.
Sakura pointed a trembling finger at a narrow staircase leading up. "The quiet thought… is up there. It's… scared. But not like the hungry scared. It's… waiting."
Hayato climbed the stairs first, his katana a sliver of light in the gloom. The upper floor was a corridor with a few doors. One, at the end, was slightly ajar.
He pushed it open.
It was a small, neat room, an officer's quarters. And in the far corner, on a bare mattress, sat a young man. He was maybe eighteen, dressed in the tattered remains of a junior samurai's uniform. He was emaciated, his eyes sunken, but they were clear and human. In his hands, he held a loaded matchlock pistol, aimed directly at Hayato's chest.
"Stay back," the boy croaked, his voice raw from disuse. "I'll shoot."
Hayato slowly lowered his sword. "We are not Gaki. We are here to help. We have retaken the station."
The boy's eyes darted to Jubei, to Sakura, then back to Hayato. "Retaken? No one retakes anything. They just die. Or change." His gaze landed on Hayato's bitten forearm, now just a scar. His eyes widened. "You… you're bitten."
"I was."
"And you're not…"
"No."
The boy's arm wavered. The pistol shook. A storm of emotions crossed his face—hope, disbelief, utter exhaustion. "I've been watching from the window. For days. I saw you. I saw the fire trick. I saw you come back." A tear cut through the grime on his cheek. "My name is Isao. My lord was… was in the first palanquin. I failed him."
"The world failed everyone," Hayato said, taking a slow step forward. "The fight is not over, Isao. We need every sword. Will you lower yours?"
The boy, Isao, stared for a long moment. Then his strength gave out. The matchlock clattered to the floor. He buried his face in his hands and wept, the awful, shuddering sobs of someone who had held onto hope for so long they'd forgotten what it felt like.
They had the station. They had food. They had a survivor.
But as Hayato looked out the tower window, he saw Kenta's distraction group fleeing back into the woods from the south, pursued by a dwindling number of Gaki. And far beyond, on the southern road, he saw a larger, darker mass. Moving slowly, but moving north.
Kuroi's pack. And they were heading this way.
The victory was real. But the clock was already ticking.