Kaida slept with one eye open and her blade tucked under her pillow.
I didn't sleep at all, because the well hadn't stopped whispering.
Not once.
And the worst part?
It said my name like it knew me.
Kiyomi laid on the futon across the room, back turned, body curled in on itself like a shrimp.
She was pretending to sleep.
But her fingers moved.
Slow. Silent.
Tracing a pattern across her palm.
A seal, a ward or maybe for comfort, no idea.
The whispering stopped.
I stood up and crossed to the window, lid the screen aside.
The village looked dead.
But something moved near the well.
A shape, small and still.
I didn't wake the others. I just stepped outside.
The air was colder here, I walked barefoot across dirt and stone until I stood before the well.
The rope swayed gently, though no wind moved it.
I looked down.
Nothing.
Then the voice came again, but not from below, from behind.
"You left me."
I turned, slow.
And there she was.
A boy.
Ten years old.
Wearing a torn kimono I hadn't seen in years.
Hair in tangles.
Dirt on his cheeks.
And eyes wide, wet, familiar—
It was the boy I killed. The one with the rice ball, but not as I remembered him.
"You left me in the frost."
His voice was hollow.
"You forgot my name."
I stepped back.
He stepped forward.
"Do you want it back?"
The well creaked.
And the water below—reflected my face.
Except the eyes were black.
And smiling.
Behind me, the inn door slammed open.
"Kiyomi?" Kaida barked.
No answer.
Then the boy vanished.
Just… gone.
And Kiyomi?
Gone too.
Her futon was empty.
Kaida stepped past me, slow. "Where is she?"
"I don't know."
"She was right here."
"I know."
I picked up the charm. It pulsed once, warm in my hand.
Kaida swore under her breath. "This whole place stinks of old curses and bad decisions."
"She didn't run," I said.
"How do you know?"
I met her eyes, my voice low, "She would've woken me first."
Kaida studied the empty room. The charm ink now seeping into the floorboards like blood into bandages.
Then she looked at me.
"All right, beast boy," she said. "Let's go hunting."
Kaida led with a hand on her blade.
I followed the scent.
The charm Kiyomi left behind was a trail. Symbols that vanished if you looked too long. Her magic was strong—but something else was guiding it.
"She's not thinking straight," Kaida muttered.
"She's not guiding it," I said. "Something else is."
Kaida's hand tightened on her sword.
"So the fox-girl's possessed?"
"I hope not," I growled.
We moved fast. I cut through branches. I wasn't really watching the path—I was feeling it.
Then we found a clearing.
And at its center—a shrine.
Crumbling and covered in vines.
And on the altar a single white fox-shaped mask.
Kaida stepped forward.
"…You seeing this?"
"Yeah."
"You thinking what I'm thinking?"
"That I'm about to break something ancient?"
"I was gonna say cursed."
"Same thing."
Then we heard her voice faint from the woods.
"…Toki…"
I turned.
Kaida grabbed my arm.
"That didn't sound right."
I pulled free, didn't care about anything else at the moment.
I followed the voice, through branches, through bone-cold wind, until I found her.
Kiyomi stood in a shallow pond.
Knee-deep in black water.
Her eyes wide.
Her mouth moving, but the words didn't reach me.
And on her skin were symbols, glowing.
Something behind her moved. It was tall and smiling.
I didn't call her name.
I didn't ask what she was seeing.
Didn't wonder what the creature was—Spirit, ghost, demon, memory—Didn't care.
I just moved.
One step.
Two.
Through the water, chest-deep before I even realized.
The cold hit like knives.
Didn't stop me.
The moment its smile widened, that thing with no face and too many teeth, I drove my shoulder forward and—
Hit it.
It folded and then it screamed.
It wasn't a howl or roar but a memory as weird as that may sound.
"Do you remember what you did to me?"
It wasn't really speaking more like replaying a scene.
The boy.
The field.
Blood on the frost.
I grabbed it by the neck—if it had a neck—and slammed it down into the water. Again. Again.
The pond boiled.
Kiyomi stumbled back, hands over her ears. The light around her dimming.
Kaida's voice echoed from the trees: "Toki, what the hell are you fighting?!"
I didn't answer.
I was somewhere else.
The creature fought back.
Its fingers wrapped around my arms—long, spindly, cold—and pulled. I felt my veins freeze. My vision shake.
It wanted to drag me under.
Where the voices live.
Where I'm still that boy, still starving, still feral.
I screamed.
Drove my fist into its chest and something shattered.
Light broke across the water like oil catching fire.
The thing hissed—no, it wept—and began to come apart.
Piece by piece.
Gone.
I stood alone in the pond.
Breathing hard, shaking.
Water red around me.
Not mine, not sure whose.
"You didn't even call my name."
She was shaking. She stood a few paces back on dry land, arms tight across her chest.
"You didn't see me," she said.
"I did."
"No. You saw it. And you broke it. That's what you do, isn't it?" Her voice wavered. "You break things."
She wasn't yelling.
That would've been easier.
I stepped forward.
The water lapped around my knees.
She stepped back.
Then Kaida arrived.
Whistling.
"You're both alive. Great. That's my quota of miracles for the week."
She looked around. At the scorched grass, the rippling water, the blood on my hands.
Then she looked at Kiyomi..
And she got it.
Kaida sighed.
"Alright, lovers," she said. "Let's not set the forest on fire with all this tension. Save it for the next thing that wants us dead."
Kiyomi didn't answer.
She just turned around and walked back toward the trees.
Kaida glanced at me.
"You want my advice?"
"No."
"Too bad."
She gestured after Kiyomi.
"Don't let her be the next thing you break."
Further away was someone deep on their thougts.
I walked until I couldn't hear their voices anymore.
Not Toki's heavy silence.
Not Kaida's smug laughter.
Just the ugly throb in my chest that wouldn't quiet down.
I didn't know what I was looking for.
Maybe distance.
Maybe a place where my knees could shake and no one would see.
He hadn't called my name.
He didn't see me.
He saw the thing behind me and he destroyed it.
And for a moment, I think he would've destroyed anything standing between them.
Even me.
I stopped near a ring of stones.
Old. Covered in moss.
I didn't remember walking this far.
I didn't remember choosing to stop.
But I did.
I knelt, not to pray, just because my legs gave out.
"…I'm not strong enough," I whispered.
Not like him.
Not like them.
I froze in the fight. I ran from a whisper. I let him charge in while I stood there—useless.
And I'm supposed to be the one carrying—the blood, the legacy.
I looked at my hands, still shaking, then the stones glowed, just for a second.
And from the center of the ring, something rose.
Not a demon, not a threat.
A shape made of light and dust.
A woman.
Dressed in robes I'd only seen in temple paintings.
It was memory.
"Daughter of the Flame."
I couldn't breathe.
"Your fear does not shame you. It marks the beginning."
The wind stopped.
The leaves quieted.
She stepped forward—hand outstretched.
Not toward me.
Toward the charm at my belt.
It flared.
And when I looked again—
She was gone.
But the symbols on my charm?
They'd changed.
And somewhere behind me, I heard Toki call my name.
She stepped through them with a stillness that wasn't fear.
Her eyes flicked across the campfire, over Kaida, and landed on him.
Toki.
He stood. Of course he did.
Kaida gave a low whistle. "And the prodigal girl returns."
Kiyomi didn't answer.
She sat.
Folded her legs beneath her.
Carefully unrolled her charm pouch.
And began to write.
Not a single word was spoken.
But Toki saw it.
The new symbol.
Burned into her most-used charm, the one she inherited.
She didn't look at him.
"I'm not afraid of you."
He flinched.
So did Kaida.
But Kiyomi kept writing.
Didn't even glance up.
"I'm afraid of what you don't see when you fight."
She folded the charm. Slid it back into her sleeve.
"And I'm afraid that I won't be able to stop you next time."
She stood and walked past him without touching him.
"But I'll try."
And for the first time since the pond—since the well—since the moment she looked at him like a man instead of a monster—
Toki had no idea what to say.
The next day the group walks a narrow path along a cliff, the only sound is Kaida chewing on something that probably used to be meat.
Then they see it.
A man.
Sitting on a rock.
Drinking tea.
"Ah. I was wondering when the three of you would pass this way."
Toki immediately reaches for his sword.
The man chuckles. "I assure you. I'm not here to fight."
Kaida: "Then what are you here for?"
The man sips his tea.
"To watch. For now."
Kiyomi steps slightly behind Toki, but doesn't hide.
The man's eyes meet hers.
Something flashes in them.
Recognition?
Or expectation?
"I've heard stories," he says. "Of a ronin with a beast in his blood. A girl with ink in her veins. And a woman with no fear and no leash."
He smiles wider.
"I love stories."