The morning was cold, and the light slipping between the trees felt like a frigid blade slicing through the skin of time.
The old man stood on the threshold of the wooden house, silently watching the backyard where Kizuki Takura, the former samurai, knelt in the dirt
burying his sword.
It wasn't a symbolic ritual.
It was the burial of an entire life.
Years of war, of screaming, of blood.
Of children's faces
whose cries never had the chance to finish.
Kizuki was crying.
Not with sound, but with the trembling silence in his shoulders،
With a shiver that no longer bothered to hide itself in a man who had learned killing better than compassion.
"Teach me…"
he whispered, as if the words came from a mouth that wasn't his own.
"I don't want to go to hell… There are hundreds of souls… cursing me…
How am I supposed to live like this?"
The old man stepped closer, his voice cracked like soil that hadn't seen rain in years:
"I no longer have a soul left to spend in the waking world.
But I still have time…
Time to teach you how to accept your fate.
Doom is inevitable.
but to walk toward it in peace…
that is the only path left for men like you."
He paused.
Stared into Kizuki's eyesthen continued:
"The guilt you carry… cannot be washed away.
Blood doesn't get forgiven.
But you can live with it.
You can come to understand it.
You can admit it.
And that's why… your first lesson is this:
Live each day as if it were a blessing.
You won't understand what I mean now—
You will, when you're older… or when you burn."
The old man turned his back and walked into the cabin.
At that moment,
Kizuki reached for the hilt of his sword.
He watched its glimmer one last time…
then drove it into the ground.
It wasn't just a sword Kizuki buried in that yard.
It was something heavier…
or perhaps lighter,
depending on what the spirits believe:
his past.
The next morning,
the old man woke him with a quiet voice:
"Get up. The soil won't wait for your regret."
Kizuki ignored the voice the first time.
Then the second.
On the third day, he didn't even open his eyes.
His body lay on the mattress.
but his heart was still on the battlefield,
where the last scream was severed from a neck,
or the echo of a sword whose blood had yet to dry.
On the fourth day,
the old man dragged him by the collar and dropped him onto the dirt.
"If you want to die," he said,
"then die standing on the soil.
not sleeping on it."
Then he tossed a handful of seeds into Kizuki's lap:
"This is your food.
If you don't plant it
we starve.
If we don't harvest it we die."
Kizuki took the seeds and stared at them for a long while.
His hands had only ever known the grip of a sword.
but these tiny grains…
they looked to him like spirits.
simple, still,
yet their fate rested in the palm of the one who held them.
✧
For days, Kizuki woke up late.
not seeking rest,
but fleeing from wakefulness itself.
His steps were acts of obedience, nothing more.
His body moved,
but his soul was still stranded in a war long past.
a war that never truly ended.
Days of digging, watering, sweating.
and aching backs.
His hand could not hold the hoe the way it once held a blade.
The soil rejected him.
Or perhaps…
he was the one rejecting it.
Spirits?
They visited him every evening.
Not to harm him,
but to remind him.
Faces without features.
Eyes suspended in the air.
watching him,
weeping silently.
They didn't scream.
They didn't accuse.
They only… stared.
One night, the old man told him:
"This is your curse. Don't turn away from it.
Let them see you planting life after you've sown so much death."
But Kizuki gave no reply.
Deep down, he didn't believe planting a single seedling
could ever atone for the horrors he had unleashed.
✧
A week passed.
On the evening of the seventh day,
the old man sat alone beside the hearth,
fingering the dim fire with worn hands.
He glanced toward the field.
There, at the edge of the crops,
Kizuki sat, his gaze locked on his muddied hands.
"What am I doing?" he thought.
"As if farming could erase the past…
As if it could teach me anything worth knowing."
Kizuki Takura had begun waking up late every day.
not out of weariness,
but because he no longer wanted to face the light.
His body wandered through the world
as though his soul had abandoned it.
Only a heavy shadow remained.
searching desperately for any reason to keep moving.
He acted not to satisfy himself,
but to appease the old man.
And the old man,
watching in silence,
saw how the samurai had become a walking corpse.
pretending to live,
just as the dead pretend to breathe in their final dreams.
That night…
Moonlight was dim,
and the silence gripped the world like an invisible hand,
squeezing the breath out of the night.
The old man lit the first candle.
Then the second.
Then a third.
Until the house began to shimmer with a strange glow,
as if the light itself were
burning away.
Kizuki lifted his head, voice barely audible:
"What are you doing?"
But the old man gave no answer.
He kept lighting candles,
as if preparing a stage for a hidden ritual—
one known only to him.
And as the glow flooded the room,
Kizuki's eyelids grew heavy.
Sleep took him quietly, completely.
It wasn't escape.
It was collapse.
He saw himself.
There.
In that day that never seemed to end.
Walking through stone corridors,
clad in the imperial armor,
his friend beside him,
chuckling under his breath.
His friend spoke, with a tone that held no innocence:
"Why don't we go train?"
Kizuki looked at him, hesitant.
"How can we train after conquering every village?"
His friend laughed, as if the answer was obvious:
"Follow me… you'll see."
They walked together.
Entered a peaceful village.
small, worn down by too many wars.
The villagers welcomed them with warm smiles,
offering food and drink.
Women filled plates,
children ran barefoot,
and elders bowed low with respect.
Kizuki sat down,
and for a fleeting moment,
he felt something unfamiliar…
something like peace.
But it didn't last.
Suddenly,
his friend stood up amidst the feast,
his voice sharp, unsettling:
"One of your children is plotting a rebellion!"
The villagers froze.
An old man, voice trembling, pleaded:
"We swear to you…
we love the Emperor…
we teach them nothing against him."
His friend wasn't after the truth.
he was after a massacre.
He pulled his sword out and spat:
"Liars… not enough."
In the next instant, peace shattered.
It split apart like a soul cleaved by a blade.
A child screamed. A woman fell.
Blood spread over the ground that had shone moments before.
Kizuki drew his sword too.
He didn't think. He didn't question.
He fought as if his hands weren't his own,
possessed by a curse beyond control.
He struck, stabbed, and sliced.
unable to tell attacker from victim,
or weapon from plea for mercy.
His eyes shut tight in fury,
his hands moving like they obeyed a silent command to kill.
After the massacre, the air was thick with dust. The swords dripped with blood.
Kizuki spoke, his voice as heavy as the corpses of children behind him:
"Was there really… a child planning a revolt?"
His friend smiled.
the smile of a man who had killed too many to feel anything.
"No… but they deserved to die. They were a burden.
We protected them for nothing.
They're good for training, nothing more."
Before the last word left his mouth.
a blade pierced his gut.
He gasped.
He screamed.
His body convulsed.
Kizuki stood frozen, the embodiment of sin itself.
He couldn't pull the sword back.
He couldn't even scream.
Everything unfolded before him.
while he stood there,
a statue carved from guilt.
His friend fell.
and then the voices began to rise from the earth.
The spirits stirred from where they had been buried.
Eyes of children.
Tears of women.
Screams of the old.
They drew closer.
They began to speak.
to call him:
"Why?"
"We did nothing… why did you kill us?"
"Why?"
Kizuki screamed:
"Leave me alone!"
"I don't want to see you!"
But they kept coming.
One of them his face disfigured by death grabbed Kizuki's face.
He spoke, with a voice that sounded like it came from beneath the grave:
"I swear to you… your end will be worse."
Kizuki jolted awake.
Sweat drenched his face.
His chest rose and fell like he had just escaped death's jaws.
The hut was still aglow with candlelight.
a light that gave no warmth,
only revelation.
He saw the old man sitting among the flames.
Still. Silent.
Kizuki shouted, his voice cracked with rage and fear:
"You did this… you made these nightmares!"
The old man opened his eyes
though blind,
he opened them as if he could truly see.
And in a voice calm enough to unsettle gods, he said:
"I saw nothing, Kizuki…
I only meant to wake you.
What you saw tonight.
is only a glimpse…
of your life after death."
Silence followed.
Then he continued,
his voice like the rustle of dry leaves:
"The spirits are angry with you.
You have only a few years left in the material world…
Beyond that, there is only eternal damnation.
You must live now
not with closed eyes,
but with open sight."
He pointed to his own eyes and said:
"Look at me. I am blind.
yet I see the spirits more clearly than you.
You have eyes…
but you refuse to see.
You choose blindness."
"All I wanted… was to open your eyes."
"Your eyes to the Yokai world…
and to your sins."
And just before closing his eyes again, he added:
"Sleep now…
For tomorrow, you will not sow to eat…
but to be cleansed."
✧
The Perfume Seller jolted awake.
His breath was ragged, his forehead slick with sweat,
his body tense
as if he'd just returned from an invisible war.
Beside him, the spiritualist stood frozen,
eyes wide,
watching as the morning light crept through the window.
"What's wrong?" the Perfume Seller asked.
The spiritualist replied in a trembling voice:
"You were crying… making strange noises,
as if you were dying in your sleep."
He then pointed at the Perfume Seller's lap and added:
"And you were clutching that little pouch…
like it was priceless.
It was glowing… oddly."
The Perfume Seller lowered his gaze
to the pouch wrapped tightly in his arms.
A long breath escaped him.
Then, with a calm voice,
as his breathing began to settle, he said:
"Don't worry… just a dream."
But the spiritualist wasn't convinced.
He stepped closer, his curiosity tinged with fear.
"What kind of dream makes you cradle a pouch
as if it were a dead child?
What's inside it?
A bag of coins?
Or… something else?"
The Perfume Seller rose slowly,
didn't answer.
He simply said:
"Enough talk.
What time is it?"
The spiritualist peeked outside through the thin slit in the curtain.
"Noon.
Looks like we slept heavily…
Some of the others have already started leaving the inn."
He shrugged and offered a hesitant smile.
"Shall we go catch that fish, finally?"
The Perfume Seller's reply came in a breathless murmur:
"Let me… catch my breath first.
And gather my tools."
✧
Moments later, the two stepped out of the inn.
The sun had risen high, and the market was buzzing with life.
From the far end of the square, shouting erupted a commotion.
They made their way toward the source.
The spiritualist stopped beside a bystander and asked:
"What's going on?"
The man replied:
"The boats sent to Lake Mizukagami… haven't returned.
No one knows what happened.
Those aboard vanished no debris, not even splinters were found."
A heavy silence fell. Then the man added:
"The spirit mediums are afraid.
Some have backed out, others want to press on…
but the boatmen refuse to carry anyone.
They say the lake swallows the boats whole."
The spiritualist's eyes widened.
In a hushed voice, he asked:
"Are you still intent on reaching that fish's heart…
and breaking this village's curse?"
The Perfume Seller answered coldly:
"I have no concern for cowards.
Many claim to be mediums,
yet tremble at the sight of their own shadow."
Then, with a quiet scoff, he added:
"Who knows…
Perhaps those who disappeared weren't even true spirit-talkers.
Maybe they were just greedy men chasing the reward."
His words carried a sting so sharp, the spiritualist felt it pierce straight through his chest.
But he said nothing just walked on in silence.
✧
They reached the riverbank, where the boat awaited them, just as they had left it.
As the spiritualist bent to untie the rope, he recoiled and covered his nose.
"What is that stench? It reeks like a rotting animal!
There's no way I'm stepping into that boat like this."
The Perfume Seller calmly retrieved a small vial from his bag.
He uncorked it and sprinkled a few drops along the boat's edge.
Just moments later, the air began to shift clearing, purifying.
"Try now."
The spiritualist climbed aboard, inhaled once, then smiled faintly.
"Much better… Thank you."
He settled at the bow, grasped the oar, and began rowing forward into the silence.
The boat sliced through stagnant water, drifting toward the heart of the lake
where shadows dwell… and the fish with them.