Smoke rose from the barracks chimney. Bitter. Not from food. From scorched cloth. Burned flesh. Sunstone Pass was quiet. Too quiet.
Twelve returned. The others didn't. No funerals. No chants. No names carved. Just ash dumped into the gorge.
Kaito sat by the wall. Back sore. Wrist wrapped in stained linen. He watched snow drift down like falling ash. His spear rested across his knees. Cleaned. Sharpened.
Footsteps.
Nakamura. Bandaged shoulder. Sword at his hip.
"Orders came," he said. "We're summoned."
Kaito stood. Didn't ask where. Just followed.
They entered the inner keep. Stone hall. Cold floor. At the end—Watanabe. Standing. Arms crossed. Beside him, a woman in red armor. Not Takeda colors. Not any clan's.
Eyes like obsidian. Unreadable.
"This is Lady Saya," Watanabe said. "She speaks for the Onmyoji."
Kaito blinked.
Magic. Forbidden. Whispers. He'd never met one. Only heard rumors.
Lady Saya stepped forward. Every movement deliberate.
"You faced the corrupted. Twice," she said. Voice soft. Carried weight. "You've seen how they move. How they change."
Kaito nodded.
"They don't feel pain. They don't bleed like us. They remember how to fight. But not why. Their minds are hollow. Something speaks through them."
Nakamura scoffed.
"Demons? Ghosts?"
Saya tilted her head.
"No. Something worse. Something old. Buried deep beneath this land. Forgotten by lords. Not by the earth."
She paced slowly.
"Long ago there was a wound. A great rift. The clans sealed it. Sacrifices were made. But cracks are opening. One by one."
Watanabe spoke.
"And Sunstone sits on one."
Silence.
Kaito's jaw clenched.
"You're saying this place is cursed."
Saya nodded once.
"You're breathing tainted air. Drinking from tainted snow. Every time one of those creatures dies, its blood feeds the wound."
Nakamura turned.
"So what. We abandon the pass?"
Saya's voice didn't rise.
"No. You hold it. Until we know more. Until the line breaks. Or the earth swallows you."
She looked at Kaito.
"But you. You saw it before the others. Heard it. Felt it. That makes you useful."
Kaito tensed.
"I'm no mage."
"You don't have to be."
She stepped closer. Smelled of incense and iron.
"You will lead a scouting party. Small. Quiet. Into the tunnels below the outer ridge. We need to know how deep the corruption goes. Find the breach. Report back."
Kaito looked to Watanabe.
He nodded.
"It's an order."
Nakamura sighed.
"Guess I'm going too."
---
The mouth of the tunnel yawned open like a scar. Cracked rock. Ice along the ceiling. Smell of rot. They lit torches. Five men entered.
Kaito.
Nakamura.
Two scouts. Light on their feet.
And Ryudo. A quiet man with burn marks on his arms. Carried two short swords. Said little. Eyes always scanning.
They moved slowly. Air thick. Walls pulsed faintly. As if breathing.
After an hour, they found bones.
Not old. Stripped clean. Armor still intact. Scratches along the stone. Deep grooves.
Ryudo knelt.
"Not blades," he said. "Claws."
They moved on.
Then the whispers started.
Faint. Almost inaudible. Not in any language Kaito knew. Still he understood.
Turn back.
He gritted his teeth.
"Do you hear it?" he asked.
The scouts nodded. Pale.
They entered a cavern. Huge. Lit from below by a dull red glow. Like coals under skin.
At the center, a pit. Wide. Deep. No bottom in sight.
And hanging above it. A body.
Suspended by black strands. Thin as hair. Wrapped like a cocoon.
It twitched.
Ryudo readied his blades.
Kaito raised his hand.
"No."
He stepped closer. The body was armored. Takeda. Face partly exposed. Eyes open.
Not dead.
Whispers grew louder.
Nakamura hissed.
"We shouldn't be here."
The cocooned man looked straight at Kaito.
"Too late," he rasped. "They see you now."
Then the pit screamed.
Not the man.
The pit.
A sound without shape. A pressure in the skull. Torches blew out.
Dark.
Then motion.
Crawling. Fast. All around.
Swords drawn.
Steel sang.
Shapes emerged. Not full creatures. Pieces. Limbs. Eyes. Teeth. Writhing.
The scouts fell first.
One screamed. Cut off mid-breath.
Kaito slashed. Torch in one hand. Spear in the other.
Nakamura backed toward the exit. Bleeding from his arm.
Ryudo moved like smoke. Silent. Efficient. One, two, three fell by his blades.
But there were more.
Kaito looked at the hanging man.
Still alive.
"Cut him down," he shouted.
Ryudo leapt. Slashed the strands.
The man fell. Screamed. Caught by Kaito.
They ran.
The things gave chase. Skittering. Screeching.
Kaito threw his last torch behind them. Hit the oil flask one scout dropped.
Fire exploded.
A wall of flame. Screams behind.
Then silence.
They emerged into night.
Snow falling hard now.
The man they saved wept. Not from pain. From fear.
"They're inside," he kept saying. "They wear us. They feed on memory."
Watanabe stood waiting.
Saya beside him.
She listened. Said nothing.
Finally she spoke.
"We found the breach."
Kaito nodded.
"And it found us."