Ranmaru rode down the mountain.
Without being seen, he had taken up the reins of his horse once more, slipping silently past the hunters' watch. The beast whinnied once, but Ranmaru's hand—steady and commanding—quieted it. He mounted with the ease of a soldier who had once known war on horseback, even as his ribs ached and his wounds burned.
The road beneath him was ash-streaked, the air heavy with the stench of charred yokai blood. He rode until the smoke of the ruined village vanished behind the hills, until even the mountain peak itself faded into memory.
Hours passed. Forests gave way to rocky trails, and the sun bled low into evening. That was when he felt it—Qi disturbed. The faint prickle at the nape of his neck. The way shadows bent where they should not.
His third obstacle.
The horse stopped of its own accord, ears flattening, nostrils flaring. Ahead, the road narrowed into a gorge where two cliffs pressed close. Mist pooled there unnaturally thick, clinging to the rocks like a living thing.
And in that mist, pale lights danced.
At first, they seemed like fireflies. But they did not drift randomly—they circled, pulsed, and shifted in deliberate rhythm. Lantern light without a lantern-bearer.
Ranmaru dismounted, boots crunching against gravel. The air tasted of iron. The horse balked, pulling away until it refused to follow further. He let it go.
From the mist came a sound—a woman's laughter, soft and lilting. Then another voice joined it, lower, rasping, like a man choking on smoke.
Two shapes stepped into the road.
One was a woman draped in crimson silks, her long hair trailing to the earth, her face hidden behind a Noh mask carved into a permanent smile. In her hand dangled a lantern that burned without fire, its flame pale blue, swaying though there was no wind.
The other was a man bent like an old priest, skin hanging loose, his robes torn and caked with dirt. His head was bald, his eyes sunken, yet his grin was wide, revealing too many teeth. A string of prayer beads hung broken around his neck, the wood blackened as if charred.
The woman's mask tilted. "A traveler? Alone on this cursed road?"
The man rasped, beads clacking as he lurched closer. "Or a hunter, perhaps. One who carries the stink of oni blood upon him."
Ranmaru's hand slid to his katana. His voice was low, calm, edged."And what are you?"
The woman's laughter rang again, echoing unnaturally through the gorge. She raised her lantern high. The blue flame brightened—and with it, the mist writhed.
Figures began to crawl forth from the fog: half-formed corpses, faces twisted in agony, their bodies bound by threads of blue light to the lantern's glow. Dozens of them, dragging broken limbs across stone.
"We," the woman whispered, her mask smiling, "are what remains when fools wander too close to the Lantern of Regret."
The priest chuckled, voice thick with phlegm. "And you, samurai, reek of sin. Will you feed our lights?"
The corpses moaned, dragging themselves closer, their mouths opening with the hunger of the forgotten.
Ranmaru's blade sang as it left its sheath. The veins along his arms pulsed with that second, black heart. His third obstacle had found him.
"Tell me, old yokai," he stepped forward, "you said you smelled oni blood—yet what makes you think I'm something to prey on?"
The old man laughed. "When did I ask you to be prey? I only asked if you'll feed our lights."
His crooked grin softened, voice turning almost gentle. "We mean you no harm, traveler. We saw you wandering this road, lost in ways long forgotten. Would you like to join us? Wait out the night… and perhaps offer your regrets to an old lantern?"
Ranmaru studied them, katana still loose in his hand, yet the tension in his shoulders eased. The strange pull of the lantern's glow, the unnatural curiosity of the gorge—it amused him.
"Very well," he said quietly. "I'll wait out the night."
The woman tilted her head, mask glinting in the pale light. She moved ahead, lantern held aloft. The priest lumbered beside her, beads clacking softly. Together, they led Ranmaru off the path, deeper into the gorge, until the mist thickened around them like a cocoon.
Eventually, they reached a shrine, ancient and half-buried in the mountainside. Its wooden beams were blackened by time, its torii gate cracked. The priest stopped, lowering his broken beads in solemnity.
"Before you speak, traveler… do you wish to ask forgiveness? To cleanse the heart before you offer it to the lantern?"
Ranmaru shook his head. "None. I carry no regrets that I wish to release."
The priest's eyes narrowed, though his tone remained calm. "Then speak none, but know—the lantern will see what lies in the darkness regardless."
The woman's lantern flared. Blue light lanced into the shrine, cutting through darkness and illuminating the altar. Shadows stretched across the walls, writhing like living things.
Then—without warning—the shrine trembled. Beams cracked. Tiles splintered. A blazing sword erupted from the altar, the wood shattering like brittle paper as it shot into the air. The priest's shout was lost in the roar of splintering timber. The blade hovered, suspended, blazing with fire that smelled of brimstone.
Ranmaru's pupils narrowed. The black heart in his veins throbbed. And then the lantern's light struck him—not in body, but in memory.
The woman's lantern released a torrent of blue radiance, burning into his mind, pulling out thoughts he had long ignored:
Mistakes. Regrets. Shadows of what he had caused.
The corpses in the gorge. The village. The oni. Their weight pressed on him, made flesh by the lantern's glow. His chest tightened, staggering beneath it.
Yet even as the lantern revealed them, he did not falter. The red markings along his jaw flared, veins pulsing with yin and yang. His heart beat with venomous rhythm. He had faced oni, yokai, and curses. Still… he stood.
The priest's sword glimmered, massive and deadly, as he stepped forward. "You… you will pay for the sins you have refused to name!"
Ranmaru's grip tightened on his katana. His voice was calm, almost bored."I pay for none, monk. But if your blade seeks to test me, so be it."
The lantern's blue flame coiled like serpents, drawing his regrets to the surface—not to weaken him, but to force him to reckon with himself. And yet, his blackened heart did not waver.
He drew a breath, the mountain's chill biting his lungs, and prepared for whatever would emerge from the shrine's shattered altar. The blue light danced across his face, illuminating the battle yet to come.