His steps made no sound only the faint scrape of bloodied steel trailing behind him; heavy, deliberate, unhurried.
The capital turned to watch.
Down the heart of Hitsuuga Street, beneath faded signs of ancient kilns and wilted greenhouses, the samurai walked steadily.
His ash-colored robes now soaked in blood, his right arm carried a severed human head. Black hair dangled like a silent memento between his fingers.
Old women near the carts froze. Children ceased their play. Silence fell no
whispers, no screams only broken breaths and eyes that followed his shadow.
The samurai's face reveals nothing. No anger, no fatigue, not even a trace of pride. Only half-closed eyes, as if they care for nothing but reaching their destination.
His gaze does not search the path ahead; rather, it feels as if the path itself withdraws before him.
As if the streets have learned to bow.
With every step forward, silence deepens. More eyes watch in quiet vigilance.
From the wind rises the scent of brutal bloodshed.
In the distance, the imperial palace gates loom black, towering, adorned with ancient shogunate engravings.
Two guards stand sentinel by the gate, opening it without question.
One breathes quietly, stifled. The other simply stares at the head.
He stepped through the palace gates.
Candles hung along the walls cast flickering shadows on the gilded stone.
At the far end, the Emperor's ivory throne sat.
empty.
No one greeted him.
No one asked for an explanation.
Samurai don't seek permission.
They advance.
At the base of the ivory steps, he lowered his head
not in submission, but in recognition.
Of ritual.
Of order.
Of the custom that meant nothing to him.
yet he performed it with mechanical precision.
Then, he straightened.
And the sound of footsteps falls.
soft, almost unreal.
As if he isn't walking at all,
but gliding through the air.
The Emperor.
A man in his early thirties,
draped in royal robes with sleeves that flow like waves of black silk.
His hair, tied back with ceremonial precision, lends him the air of a high priest from a forgotten court.
His face… flawless.
A cold, porcelain beauty.
untouched by flaw, untouched by feeling.
But when he smiles.
only with his lips.
his smile resembles a stone wall in an abandoned shrine.
The samurai drops to one knee.
He bows his head until it nearly touches the floor.
It isn't respect.
It's submission.
The Emperor doesn't look at him right away.
He stands atop the stone stairs,
gazing at the severed head
like one might regard a piece of art.
not with disgust,
but with distant admiration.
Then, he turns.
His eyes wide, cold
settle on the kneeling samurai.
And he smiles.
"…You're late."
The samurai does not move.
He stays bowed.
He does not dare to look.
His voice emerges slowly, muffled behind the mask:
"I apologize, my Lord…
I'll complete the task with greater haste next time."
The Emperor steps down.
Just once.
No rush.
No comment.
He stops before the head.
Studies it for a long, long moment.
Then, almost to himself, his voice quiet as falling ash:
"You know, Kizuki…
sometimes I envy you."
"The sword… simplifies everything."
Kizuki says nothing.
But something coils in his chest.
A twitch—small, just above his brow. Barely there.
Yet the Emperor sees it.
Says nothing.
He turns away.
As if the head has lost its charm.
Then, with a voice sharp as a drawn blade:
"You'll go to Ishikawa. I want the Shogun's head… in three days."
Silence.
A breath. Then another.
And then, softersofter than prayer,
like a whisper spoken to a mad god:
"Be quicker this time, Kizuki Takura…
I'm beginning to grow bored."
Kizuki bows again.
Says nothing.
His voice has died in his throat.
Then he rises.
Slowly.
Like drawing a sword from flesh.
His footsteps echo on the marble.
As if the floor itself fears to speak over him.
They pass him—
maids, soldiers, monks—
their eyes drawn to the iron mask veiling half his face,
to the dried blood staining his sleeve,
to footsteps that fall too quietly,
as if even the ground resents their weight.
No one dares whisper.
He is Kizuki.
The Emperor's blade.
The will of the throne.
Outside the palace.
Each step lands with solemn weight,
steady and unhurried,
like a verdict already sealed.
Wind brushes his torn sleeve.
Blood still clings to his fingers warm, unwilling to dry.
And in his chest…
that thing.
The emptiness.
Not sorrow.
Not rage.
Just the quiet sense
that something small has come undone.
He doesn't think much.
Kizuki doesn't like thinking.
The sword does the thinking for him.
And yet.
For some reason he cannot name,
his steps falter at the edge of the palace gate.
He glances upward.
Toward the stone balcony where the Emperor once stood to speak,
his voice rolling over the masses like a divine decree.
That face cold, still, unblinking.
has lived in Kizuki's mind since he was ten.
The first time he was brought before the Emperor,
he didn't know how to bow.
His hands were trembling.
His face stained with the blood of a child
he had just slaughtered in a ritual of allegiance.
The Emperor didn't ask him why.
He didn't praise him.
He didn't scold him.
He simply looked down… and said:
"A sword that hesitates… breaks."
Since that day, he never hesitated.
His body became the Emperor's.
A blade with no will of its own.
But now…
now, something quivers behind his eye.
A small muscle.
A tiny tremor.
And he has no idea why.
Years have passed.
Nothing is as it was.
The wind has changed.
The court has changed.
The Emperor has not.
Winter has come.
In the heart of Hetsuga Street,
the street itself had changed little.
but the city around it… no longer resembled the one he remembered.
The wind that once roared over distant hills
now whispered through narrow alleys.
The scent of smoke lingered,
but no longer the fire of war.
only the faint, weary smoke of poor kitchens.
Hetsuga Street,
that familiar lane he had often crossed on horseback,
had shrunk now
tight and suffocating,
as if the buildings themselves were pressing close,
ashamed by the decay surrounding them.
No one came to deliver the news.
But he knew.
When no orders came,
when he stood at the palace gate for a day… then two… then a week,
without summons,
he understood.
There was no attack. No betrayal. No clear cause.
Only… disregard.
The corridors he had walked all his life
were being cleansed of his presence.
Swords were drawn from their sheaths.
old soldiers dismissed.
Then came the decree.
"We no longer require the swords of the Takura clan."
Cold words, devoid of feeling,
as if they spoke of people long dead.
Yet he was still alive. Standing. Hearing every word.
He did not rage. He did not shout.
He simply… did not understand.
He had believed he was made for this.
That he was the sword the Emperor wielded at will.
But the sword was laid aside
not for weakness,
but because the Emperor had found others more useful:
men draped in silk, who spoke without killing.
What use is a sword,
when no one wishes to fight?
Kizuki Takura stepped back. One step. Then another.
No one asked where he was going.
He left.
Years passed.
No purpose.
No home.
No path.
Just the weight of a blade I know too well.
Killing.
But it's different now.
No honor. No orders.
Only contracts.
Names signed in blood that don't mean a thing.
I'm a bounty hunter.
Not for money .
I don't want money.
I want the motion.
The pull of the hunt.
But the cities don't know me.
They don't fear me.
I'm just a shadow passing by.
The contracts aren't paid like before.
But who cares?
Blood is payment enough.
Targets blur into the streets.
Faces vanish before the blade.
I take the name.
I track the scent.
I strike …
without looking.
I don't remember them.
I don't want to.
But this silence.
This quiet that fills the nights .
it's worse than any sword.
Waking up with empty pockets.
Breathing without purpose.
This kind of stillness…
it cuts deeper than steel.
Then the coup happened.
Not a surprise.
The king abandoned by his swords .
stood naked in the shadow of his own throne.
No soldiers.
No spear.
No ancient guards.
I heard it first from a drunk in the market:
"The emperor… stabbed in the palace corridors… like a dog."
I said nothing.
Did not ask why.
Just turned away.
Walked off.
It wasn't grief.
Not even anger.
It was a hollow kind of silence inside.
like the wall I leaned on all my life
had crumbled to dust beneath me.
No voice inside to tell me what to do next.
No sword in my hand to show the way.
Suddenly, I realized.
I wasn't serving the emperor.
I was just avoiding thinking.
So I went back.
Back to roads I once knew,
streets I crossed on horseback.
wearing armor I no longer possess.
Every step woke something in my chest.
Not memories.
I don't remember.
But I hate it.
Winter dragged on, slow and heavy, clutching every weighted second.
The wind was relentless, biting sharp like frozen steel against bone.
The sky hung low, a flat gray shroud, swallowing any trace of light or color.
And he… didn't understand why he was still alive.
Behind him lay countless bodies—friends, foes, names carried away by the cold air.
Ahead?
Nothing but a suffocating silence. No shadows, no signs of life or hope.
No one watching. No one waiting.
One day, after carrying out another assassination,
the blood was still warm on his hands.
Not on his sword
his hands.
A small difference, now meaningless.
The path to the valley was narrow, flanked by withered fields that seemed to have surrendered to ruin.
The air hung thick with iron and sweat—the scent of life and death intertwined.
The sun dipped low, casting a smoky hue across the sky, but he didn't hurry.
No one was rushing. No one awaited him.
He didn't speak right away.
Kizuki just stood there, one boot planted in the dirt, the other still hanging mid-step.
He looked at the old man.
no sword, no beast to pull the plow, no reason to still be alive.
Just a crooked back, calloused hands, and a stick carving graves into dead soil.
"…Are you blind?"
His voice was sharper than intended.
"Or just stupid?"
The old man lifted his head.
The sky behind him was a sheet of dull gray.
The wind didn't stir.
"I'm blind, son. But I'm not stupid."
No flinch. No stammer.
Just the voice, brittle like dry bark.
Kizuki blinked.
He didn't like the answer.
Didn't even really understand it.
So he turned and walked away.
There was nothing to say to a man who couldn't see you.
He didn't speak right away.
Kizuki just stood there.
one boot planted in the dirt, the other still hanging mid-step.
He looked at the old man:
no sword, no beast to pull the plow, no reason to still be alive.
Just a crooked back, calloused hands, and a stick carving graves into dead soil.
"…Are you blind?"
His voice came out sharper than intended.
"Or just stupid?"
The old man slowly lifted his head.
The sky behind him stretched dull and gray.
Even the wind had stopped to listen.
"I'm blind, son. But I'm not stupid."
No flinch. No stammer.
Just that brittle voice, like bark dried to the bone.
Kizuki blinked.
He didn't like the answer.
Didn't even fully understand it.
So he turned and walked away.
There was nothing left to say to a man who couldn't see him.
Days passed.
Another job. Another name.
Blood had already dried under his fingernails as he took the same road back.
The same crooked path. The same dying wind.
He didn't expect to find anything
especially not him.
But then.
A shape.
Just off the trail.
Still. Too still.
He pulled the reins.
The horse snorted. Its hooves crushed the stones, but Kizuki didn't hear.
All he saw was a body curled in the dust.
The same frail frame.
Bent the wrong way.
Half his face buried beneath a thin layer of dirt.
No sound. No breath.
Just… a silence too old to break.
He stared.
He could have kept riding.
But he didn't.
He didn't know why.
He climbed down slowly, boots sinking into the dirt, each step heavier than the last.
Why was he walking toward him?
Why did his hands feel cold?
The wind caught the edge of his coat.
He thought he smelled…
Ash.
Not blood. Not steel.
Just the scent of something long dead.
Like a funeral that never ended.
He knelt. Reached out.
Stopped halfway.
This isn't your business.
This isn't your fight.
He wasn't even a name on any contract.
And yet.
He was breathing.
Barely.
Soft, reluctant breaths, as if the earth itself refused to let go.
Kizuki's jaw clenched.
Every part of him wanted to stand, walk away, forget.
But his hand moved anyway.
He lifted him up.
It was the same blind old man from that day,
feeling light—too light.
As if he had already begun to vanish, one bone at a time.
The hut was small. Rotten. Forgotten.
He laid the man down on the floor.
Mold clung to the corners.
The wood groaned beneath his weight.
Still no words.
Kizuki stood there, unsure whether to leave or burn the place down to silence the feeling in his chest.
Then.
A breath.
Then another.
Then, a voice.
Low. Cracked. But clear.
"Two hands… soaked in blood.
And yet they tremble."
Kizuki said nothing.
Kizuki stared at his hands.
No fresh blood.
Only the old kind.
The kind that never fades.
"…Who are you?"
"How do you know me?"
His voice came out flat
emotionless.
But he asked anyway.
The old man smiled.
It was a wounded smile, worn and tired.
But calm.
"The spirits speak to me," he said.
"It wasn't your eyes that frightened me…
It was your silence."
Kizuki stood up at once.
"Spare me the nonsense."
Spirits?
Is that what this broken relic wants me to believe?
That there are whispers in the dark?
I've torn open men's chests with my bare hands.
Watched their eyes dim,
Heard their breath dragged out like it was drowning in mud.
I've silenced their screams with my mouth, when I had to.
And you think… I have a heart?
He turned away.
Something shifted in his chest.
heavy, slow.
But he refused to name it.
He was about to leave.
Fingers curled around the crooked door handle.
The air felt heavier with each breath.
thin gray threads danced before his eyes,
and the walls of the hut seemed to press in, like lungs refusing to exhale.
But then.
the old man spoke again.
Not a plea.
An offer.
"A bounty hunter… aren't you?"
Kizuki didn't answer.
No time for nonsense.
"Then I'll hire you."
He froze.
Turned—slightly—just enough for one half-lidded eye to meet the old man's.
Voice flat. Cold.
"To kill who? You don't even have a roof."
The old man exhaled, like the words had to claw their way out of his chest.
Every breath sounded borrowed—
as if he needed permission from death to speak.
"I don't want you to kill anyone."
"I want you to stay."
"Just for the night."
"I'm too weak to be alone."
"And I'll pay you… with the most valuable thing I have."
Kizuki let out a short, cold laugh.
"Do I look like I sell my nights to dying old men?
Save your breath. Begging won't help."
But the old man didn't beg.
Didn't plead.
He simply said, calm as ever:
"It's an offer. Take it… or don't."
Kizuki didn't answer.
He stood there, still.
Something about the man's voice… didn't feel ordinary.
"The most valuable thing I have…"
The phrase circled in his head.
Gold?
A manuscript?
Some forgotten treasure?
This hut didn't look like it held even a spoon.
And yet.
He didn't leave.
He didn't turn the handle.
He simply… sat back down in the corner.
His body moved on its own.
At night, the hearth breathed faint embers—
Glowing slowly, like they neither wanted to die… nor live.
The old man sat by the light,
pulling out worn scrolls and a slender bamboo brush.
He said nothing.
No explanations.
Just unfolded the paper, propped his frail arm against the table, and began to write.
Kizuki watched.
Thin lines crawled across the parchment, curving with discipline, rising, falling.
No tremor. No hesitation.
Even the scratch of ink on paper carried a kind of… peace.
Kizuki spoke, voice low, eyes still locked on the ink:
"How does a blind old man write like that?"
The man didn't look up.
"The same way you gave your body to the blade…
I gave my soul to the brush."
Silence.
Kizuki knew that tone.
The sound of someone who'd surrendered to something.
Every strike he ever dealt had taken a part of him.
He knew what it looked like—
someone who had forgotten who they were.
He spoke suddenly, without thinking:
"And how did you know I was a killer?"
The old man paused, lifted his nose slightly.
and smiled, as if inhaling something unseen.
"The scent of blood, son… It lingers in the air longer than anything else."
He said it like a fact. Not an accusation.
Then, without a word, he returned to writing.
The room quieted.
Wind scraped at the walls,
like something waiting just outside, listening.
Moments passed.
Then the old man spoke again, almost absentmindedly:
"You haven't told me your name… stranger."
Kizuki didn't answer right away.
His eyes followed the brush,
tracing the line that danced across paper like it had a will of its own.
Finally, he said:
"Kizuki… of the Takura clan."
The old man didn't flinch.
He reached for one of the scrolls, held it closer to the fire.
Faded characters glowed faintly—ashes in ink.
He blew gently across the surface and murmured:
"Shodō… is all I have left."
Then turned his blind eyes toward the voice:
"As you've mastered the taking of souls…
I've mastered giving them form."
Kizuki didn't reply.
But his chest rose.
and fell.
As if his body understood the insult before his mind could name it.
The old man sighed.
"You're no longer a killer," he said quietly. "Just the remains of one… wandering the earth."
Time stopped.
Kizuki looked away, jaw tense.
Something moved inside himsomething he didn't like.
And he never liked what he couldn't control.
The old man paused his calligraphy.
He blew softly on the ink, waiting for it to dry, then spoke-almost in a whisper, like he was talking to himself.
"Some men… weigh the earth down with things no one else can see.
Spirits don't lift that weight easily.
Some paths, Kizuki… only lead to one place, even if the roads change it's hell.
Kizuki turned sharply.
His eyes cut through the silence like a blade.
No shouting. No theatrics.
Just one step forward… and the quiet kind of fire that doesn't need to burn to be felt.
His voice came slow, like it was being pulled from a well.
"Hell?"
"I am hell, old man."
"I burned villages.
Hung heads from trees.
Walked through blood until it clung to my skin like a second soul.
You speak to me of spirits? Of unseen fates?"
He stepped closer, eyes darkening.
"Damn you…
I only believe in what bleeds.
And what bled… was always blood."
Silence.
The fire in the hearth pulled inward, shrinking.
Even the walls seemed to bow inward, like the weight of his voice bent the room.
But the old man didn't flinch.
He simply folded the parchment, carefully, gently.
as if Kizuki had been nothing more than an unwanted stroke of ink… erased.
He smiled.
Not warmth.
Something else.
A calm like the stillness before a storm.
And then, almost like he was reciting the death of something long buried, he spoke:
"You've spent your life silencing voices, haven't you?
Those who screamed… you buried.
Those who resisted… you ripped the breath from their throats."
He was quiet for a moment.
Then slowly, the old man raised his head. His dimmed eyes-empty, sightless—seemed to fix on something unseen.
"I don't scream," he said. "And I don't resist.
Yet still… you couldn't finish me."
It didn't sound like a retort.
It sounded like a handprint on the wall between them
unseen, but burning.
Then, in a voice steadier than his body had any right to hold, he added:
"So tell me, Kizuki…
If you did see the spirits.
would you still deny them?"
No answer.
Kizuki stared at him.
Not listening to the words, but watching the lips.
As if searching for a lie he wanted to find—
but couldn't.
But the old man didn't wait for belief.
Nor denial.
He simply reached behind him… and pulled something out.
An old instrument.
Wooden. Worn. Covered in faded carvings that had long forgotten their meaning.
Benzaiten.
With slow, deliberate hands, he unfurled a small scroll.
The ink had nearly vanished, like it had been written in a time before memory.
It read:
TheAttraction song
He did not play as musicians do.
He held no bachi in his hand, nor followed any traditional ritual of performance.
His fingers alone were enough.
As if the strings of the Benzaiten were made to be heard only through his touch.
It was not an instrument…
but a memory.
Then
without fanfare, without a word-he began to play.
He wasn't playing like musicians do.
There was no bachi in his hand, no reverent posture of a trained performer.
Only his fingers moved
calmly, deliberately.
As if the strings of Benzaiten had been made to echo only through him.
It wasn't an instrument.
It was a memory.
The melody… it was familiar. Uncomfortably so.
But Kizuki couldn't say why.
Just a strange feeling—like the tune had come not from the strings, but from his own heart.
At first, he felt nothing.
Then suddenly… he forgot to breathe.
Something stirred within.
The memories…
No. Not memories. Fragments.
A child's scream.
A woman's gaze as she died in silence.
The scent of burning wood.
A small hand tugging at his sleeve… just before the blast.
And then… the tears came.
One, then another.
Kizuki wiped his face quickly, as if it weren't tears, but blood.
As if his eyes had betrayed him.
"What… what is this?"
His voice was a whisper
angry, disoriented.
He looked up.
And in that moment… he was no longer alone in the hut.
Spirits.
Hundreds.
Transparent. Still.
Faceless, yet watching him.
They circled the old man from all sides, like they were waiting for the end of the melody… or guarding it.
Some looked vaguely human.
Some… not human at all.
Yōkai.
For the first time in his life, Kizuki saw them as they were.
No shadows. No illusions.
Just faces without faces. Presence without names.
And they were trembling.
As if the spirits themselves were playing in harmony with the old man, in a symphony beyond belief.
Then—something even stranger.
From outside the hut… from between the trees, the wind, the dark
the same melody began to echo.
Not a reflection.
A response.
It was as if the whole world was playing.
Kizuki pressed a hand to his chest.
He felt a heartbeat he hadn't known since he was a child.
His eyes darted in every direction, as if time itself had fractured.
He cried—
Not as a killer.
Not as a warrior.
But as a child who had died and been reborn in the same instant.
He whispered,
"What is this… what is this melody? Why does it feel like… I've always known it?"
He hid the tears.
Hid them the way a soldier hides a wound mid-battle.
But the face cannot lie.
The confusion. The awe.
The urge to run—then to stay.
The old man smiled, without lifting his head from the instrument.
His voice came as if carried by the wind:
"These… are my companions.
Lost spirits.
Forgotten legends.
I lit their path… and they lit mine."
Then he paused, letting the final note tremble in the air…
And in a quiet tone, one that seemed to mean nothing-yet carried everything-he said:
"It seems… I've won in the end."
The Perfumer slowly awoke beneath the sprawling shade of the tree, a single tear shimmering on his cheek like a trace of buried pain. His grip on the small pouch was tight-holding more than just ashes.
He glanced at his horse standing silently beside him, his voice soft as if speaking to himself, yet an unspoken vow:
"Kizuki… it seems your ashes forged this dream.
But wait—this is not the end."
Slowly, he drew out the ancient manuscript, its title inscribed in golden letters:
Ōgon no Megami (黄金の女神) — The Golden Goddess.
A sharp smile crossed the Perfumer's lips-an echo of sorrow and strength intertwined-like his true journey was only just beginning.
The horse breathed calmly, as if sharing a secret yet unrevealed, while a solitary tear slid down the Perfumer's eye… telling the story of a dream unfinished.
He opened the manuscript and recalled the melody.
That melody… would never be played just once.
The spirits… had gazed at him as if in a dream,
as though awaiting the reprise of an ending… but in a different form.