Kibo's body dangled upside down, the rope creaking under his weight. Blood rushed to his head as his vision blurred. His wrists were hanging down, one of the arrow tip was plunged into the ground , and the forest below swayed, golden light slipping between strange trees. He could hear Hiroshi's panicked breathing, and in front of them, a shadow moved.
A figure approached—slow, deliberate.
"Cut the rope!" Kibo shouted to Hiroshi, straining against the bindings. "Use something!"
But before Hiroshi could react, something leapt from the ground.
A blur.
As sunlight pierced through the canopy, the figure was revealed—a young woman, no older than her twenties, clad in a tattered monk's robe. In her hands, she held a long, curved blade—a Naginata, its steel catching the light like flame.
She lunged at Hiroshi.
He tried to defend himself with the crimson sword, but it was obvious—he didn't know how to use it. The monk girl moved like wind and steel, fluid and merciless. With a single sweep of her weapon, she disarmed him, sending the blade clattering to the ground. In seconds, she had him pinned.
Kibo watched helplessly, veins throbbing in his forehead. His eyes darted to an arrow embedded in the dirt nearby. He reached for it—too far. He swung his body, desperate, gritting his teeth. Another swing. His fingers scraped the shaft. One last swing—and he grabbed it.
He loaded it into the bow, still upside down, and aimed directly at her.
"Let him go!" he yelled.
The monk girl didn't flinch. She raised her weapon to finish Hiroshi.
Kibo fired.
The arrow flew clean, deadly, toward her head.
Clang!
She deflected it mid-air—one smooth motion. Her eyes locked onto Kibo, calm and cold. For a moment, he swore he saw death staring back at him. Then she turned and began walking toward him, her blade dragging across the ground.
Hiroshi, still frozen in fear, suddenly blurted out, "Do you… do you know where we are?"
She stopped.
Her brows furrowed slightly, then turned toward him.
"Do you?" she asked. "Do you know where I am? How I got here?"
Kibo coughed, still swaying. "We blacked out. We don't remember how we got here. We've never seen a place like this. These… things. We've been surviving—barely. You're the third person we've seen."
Hiroshi spoke quickly. "We saw a torii gate. On a cliff. There might be others there. People who know more than us."
Her gaze sharpened.
"You know where the gate is?" she asked. "Or are you lying?"
"If we were lying," Kibo said, "you'd already have killed us."
She stared at him a moment longer. Then, without a word, she sliced through the rope.
Kibo crashed to the ground, landing headfirst with a groan.
Hiroshi rushed to help him up. "Are you okay?"
"Do I look okay?" Kibo muttered.
"What's your name?" Hiroshi asked, glancing up at the monk girl.
"Sachiko," she replied.
Her voice was calm. Final.
"You better not be lying," she added as she turned and began walking. Kibo and Hiroshi followed behind her—hesitant, cautious.
As they walked, the strange pink forest rustled with silent watchers—yokai and beasts that moved like mist through the alien landscape. Every tree looked wrong, twisted in unnatural ways, the air too still.
"She's stronger than the one-eyed giant," Hiroshi whispered.
"She took us both down without trying," Kibo replied. "She could kill us in our sleep."
"We should be careful."
"We have to be."
the bond between Hiroshi and Kibo grows more due to the presence of a new person.
Ahead, Sachiko stopped.
"You fought anything in here?" Kibo asked her.
"Some," she answered flatly. "That's where I got the rope."
She didn't elaborate.
The forest began to dim—the sun fading faster than it should. Sachiko glanced up.
"It's getting dark. We'll rest here."
Neither boy protested. What would be the point?
They sat silently while she gathered wood and started a small fire. As flames danced, the same strange beam of light rose again in the distance—from the torii gate they had seen before.
Sachiko saw it too.
"So you weren't lying."
"Told you," Kibo and Hiroshi said in unison.
She sat down near the fire, pulling off her headband. Her long hair spilled down her shoulders, catching the firelight.
Hiroshi stared for a second too long.
"I… I thought you were bald," he said, awkwardly.
She turned, glaring over her shoulder. Her expression said everything.
Hiroshi quickly looked away. "Sorry."
No reply.
Kibo sat quietly, watching Sachiko through the firelight.
She was strong. That much was obvious.
But more than that—she was surviving. Just like them.
And yet… something about her felt more dangerous than the yokai they'd faced. She didn't just kill to protect herself. She moved like someone who'd already made peace with the idea of killing anyone who stood in her way.
They would need to be careful around her.
The fire burned low as they rested. Morning came like a whisper, soft light spilling between branches.
Eventually, they reached the edge of the pink forest, and through the trees, the torii gate came into view—tall, ancient, and eerie in its silence. But it wasn't the gate that stopped them.
It was what lay just before it.
A massive bridge, spanning a chasm—and on the other side, buried in the slope of the earth, was a giant skull, half-buried and weather-worn. Empty eye sockets stared back at them.
It was the size of a small house.
Sachiko stopped in her tracks, eyes fixed on the skull. Her fingers tightened around her Naginata.
"Is this some kind of trap?" she asked sharply.
Kibo blinked at her. "Do we look like we can set up a trap that big?"
He turned to Hiroshi, who was crouched near a tree, fiddling with some rope.
"What are you doing now?"
Hiroshi looked up, holding two lengths of rope. One was his. The other was the one Sachiko had used to tie Kibo earlier.
"Just thinking ahead," Hiroshi muttered. "Could be useful if we run into trouble. I tied it to mine, in case we need an anchor or... something."
Sachiko rolled her eyes and pointed across the bridge.
"Kibo. You go first."
He stared at her, but didn't argue. He walked toward the bridge and stepped onto the creaking wood.
The moment he reached halfway, the wind shifted.
The giant skull rumbled—and with a cracking, thunderous groan, slid loose, tumbling off the edge of the cliff and disappearing into the foggy abyss below.
Kibo froze. "What the hell was that?"
Hiroshi blinked. "All that for nothing..."
But before the sentence was finished, the ground shook.
A deep boom echoed from below.
And then—
A massive skeletal hand erupted from the cliffside, clawing at the stone.
The bridge trembled violently.
From the darkness, a towering, twenty-foot skeleton rose up, its ribs hollow and misshapen, its jaw stretched open in a silent scream. Bones were bound together with rotting ropes and ash, its eye sockets glowing faintly with a red, pulsing light.
Gashadokuro.
Its body loomed over the bridge, blocking the path forward, its hollow gaze fixed on them.
Hiroshi stepped back, heart pounding. "Okay… now we're in trouble."