It was just after dusk when Reiko arrived at Miyazaki Shrine.
The path was overgrown. Ferns reached up from the roots of ancient cedar trees like ghostly fingers, and the torii gate loomed above her, worn smooth by time and rain. She'd followed the whispers here — not from any spirit, but from something stranger.
A name.
A date.
A bloodstained diary buried in the restricted archives of Hairama Library, passed to her by an elderly monk with cloudy eyes and a voice that trembled when he spoke of "the god who weeps in sleep."
Reiko stepped forward.
The old stone steps groaned under her weight. She could hear her own breath — tight, shallow — as if her body was trying to tell her something her mind refused to accept.
Something was wrong here.
She gripped the diary in her hand tighter, its leather cover damp with sweat. The last few pages were torn and scribbled in manic, slanted kanji — written by a girl named Asigawa Reina, a student who once studied at Reiko's school a century ago.
> "The blood wouldn't stop.
They said she disappeared.
But I saw it.
I saw her go into the shrine.
I saw her become the god.
And I saw the boy she chose.
The one with silver eyes."
Reiko's hands trembled.
She remembered the first time she saw Shin Kazumi.
It had been raining. He had offered her an umbrella. He'd smiled, awkwardly, like he didn't know what to do with his hands. She thought he was annoying at first — too curious, too calm in the face of horror. But somewhere along the way, that unease had softened. He'd fought beside her against the spirits. Risked himself to help her free Okiku. And he'd always been there when the dreams came.
Too always there?
Reiko opened the shrine doors.
Dust curled into the air like breath from a corpse.
The room was old. Silent. Tatami mats rotted, and the altar's candles had long since gone out. But behind the shrine was what she had come for: the statue of the so-called god of Miyazaki — a tall cedar figure with a face wrapped in old cloth.
But it wasn't a god.
The diary said so.
> "It was her.
Reina.
Sealed in wood.
Dreaming.
Waiting."
Reiko stepped closer.
Then she saw it.
An old photograph, black and white, tucked behind the altar. Three students. One girl — pretty, serious-looking, in a sailor uniform. The second — her arm around the first, grinning. And a boy.
His eyes.
Reiko staggered back.
They were silver.
Just like Shin's.
---
Wind howled through the broken doors behind her.
Reiko turned. Slowly.
A figure stood in the doorway, framed in shadow.
"…Reiko?" Shin's voice was quiet. Hesitant. "Why are you here?"
Reiko's lips parted.
But she couldn't speak.
She simply held up the photo. Let it fall to the floor.
Shin looked down at it.
And for the first time — he didn't smile.
---
"You knew," she said softly.
Silence.
"You've known this whole time."
He didn't deny it.
Didn't move.
Only looked at the statue behind her with something like grief.
"I didn't want you to come here," he said.
Reiko took a step back. "Is it true? You're—"
"I'm the Vessel," he said, his voice like wind scraping stone. "She chose me. Not recently. Long ago."
Reiko's throat burned. "Why didn't you tell me?"
"Because I didn't want to scare you away."
The room felt like it was shrinking. The walls breathing. The statue seemed to lean forward.
Shin knelt slowly. Touched the photo on the ground.
"She was killed," he whispered. "In 1925. Stabbed. Left to die in the music room at your school. Her spirit was too powerful. Too full of grief. So the monks sealed her inside the shrine."
"And you?" Reiko's voice cracked.
"I was born to the bloodline of the last priest. My soul was… malleable. Empty, they said." He looked at her, eyes hollow. "They used me as her cage."
---
Reiko's legs gave out.
She collapsed to her knees, breath ragged.
"I trusted you," she whispered.
Shin's lips trembled.
"I am still me," he said. "But I hear her. At night. In the rain. When I touch blood—she moves. And lately…"
He looked up.
"…She's waking up."
The statue behind them creaked.
The air thickened.
And Reiko heard it too.
A sob.
Soft.
Long.
Endless.
Coming from the cedar god.
From Reina.
---
Shin clutched his chest, falling forward.
Blood spilled from his mouth. His fingers spasmed.
Reiko screamed. Ran to him.
"She's trying to take me again," he choked. "Please… run…"
But Reiko didn't run.
She wrapped her arms around him.
Held him tight.
Even as blood splattered her arms.
Even as the statue wept sap like tears behind her.
Even as the floor trembled.
Because even now — even knowing — she refused to let him be alone.
And in that moment, deep beneath Miyazaki Shrine, the Vessel cracked.
A voice whispered from nowhere.
> "You watched me die before.
Will you watch again?"
---
TO BE CONTINUED