The thunder began before nightfall.
Low and brooding, it rolled through the valley like a drumbeat from something ancient. Reiko stood at the threshold of Otaki's prayer room, watching the horizon as clouds swallowed the last of the light.
Behind her, the doll bled silently in its warded circle.
The threads around its mouth had finally unraveled.
---
The storm broke as night fell.
Lightning carved veins across the sky. Thunder cracked loud enough to rattle the bones of the house. Wind screamed through the eaves like a voice long denied its scream.
And that was when the whispering began.
---
Koroe was the first to hear it. She stood in the bathhouse lighting protection wards when a voice—deep, rough, like cracked wood—spoke from just behind her ear:
> "She'll trade you for her mother. She always does."
Koroe spun, heart pounding, but the room was empty. The mirror behind her dripped condensation… yet she hadn't run any water.
---
Shin was on the second floor, checking salt lines, when a child's voice echoed through the hallway.
> "Help me, Shin. Please don't leave me in the dark…"
His blood turned to ice.
The voice was familiar.
It was the same one he'd heard the day his sister died.
He ran, searching room to room, but the halls twisted—elongating, reshaping themselves. A mirror cracked as he passed, splintering into the shape of a child's handprint.
---
Yukishiro sat quietly in the garden shed, trying to calm the pressure building in the spiritual wards.
He was mid-meditation when the storm seemed to stop around him.
Stillness fell.
Then a low, unmistakable voice whispered directly into his ear:
> "It's your fault she's cursed."
His body tensed. The voice was Jiroh's.
His eyes snapped open. The garden was wrong.
The trees were upside down. The ground was wet with hair.
---
In Reiko's room, everything broke.
The mirrors shattered one by one.
Hair began seeping from the floorboards like black vines. The wind howled inside the house, though no windows were open. The doll screamed—a bloodless, cracking sound like the shriek of torn silk.
Reiko dropped to her knees, covering her ears, but the voice seeped through her skin.
> "Reiko…"
> "Do you know what your mother gave for your breath?"
> "I held the voice of the dead. I sealed it in blood and ash…"
> "Now you will speak for me."
> "You will be me."
And then she heard it.
Her mother's final scream.
It pierced the storm. Not remembered—relived.
Reiko collapsed, sobbing, as the walls bent inward, the air growing thick and red.
Koroe burst into the room moments later, carrying a warding bell and a bowl of salt.
She began the purification ritual immediately—burning camphor, chanting the name of Amaterasu.
Shin and Yukishiro joined, their faces pale and drenched with fear. The shadows in the room shrank under Koroe's voice.
For a moment, it seemed to work.
The air calmed. The voice receded.
The doll fell silent.
And then—
The flame turned black.
Salt melted to blood.
Koroe stumbled, eyes wide. "No. That wasn't… that wasn't a ghost."
Shin backed away slowly.
Yukishiro's hand trembled. "Then what is it?"
Koroe's voice dropped.
"A resonance."
Reiko blinked. "What do you mean?"
Koroe's expression hardened.
"Sakuma Jiroh bound his voice to the house—not as a ghost, but as a living curse. His blood is in you, Reiko. He's not haunting this house."
"He's trying to possess you."
---
Yukishiro turned, alarmed. "That's impossible. Jiroh died centuries ago."
"Not entirely," Koroe said darkly. "Some rituals don't need a living body. Just bloodline. Just a name. Just… a key."
Reiko remembered the journal. The Seals—Hair, Voice, and Flesh.
Two were broken now.
She looked down at her hands.
They were shaking.
She opened her mouth and someone else's breath came out.
> "Let me in, child. I kept your mother safe. I can keep you."
The voice was not hers.
She screamed and fell to the floor, clutching her throat.
Shiki appeared, silent as ever, and knelt by her side. His cold hands pressed to her temples, forcing her to look into his glassy, spirit-eyes.
"I can hold him," he whispered, "but not for long."
Koroe stood, shaking. "Then we must find the Seal of Flesh before he does."
Yukishiro helped Reiko to her feet.
Her voice was hoarse.
"Where?" she asked.
Koroe looked toward the floor, toward the base of the shrine.
"Where blood was first spilled. Where Jiroh tried to become more than man."
---
The rain outside turned to hail.
And in the garden, the hair-rooted trees began to bleed.
---
To be continued…