Chi moved like the cold itself—silent, cutting, and without mercy.
They had set up camp beneath a broken watchtower along the eastern path. What little remained of the old structure had crumbled decades ago, leaving only jagged stone fingers poking through the snow. The ruins gave them shelter from the worst of the wind, but no warmth, no real safety.
Hinata slept nearby, wrapped tight in her travel cloak. Even in sleep, one hand stayed close to her blade. Her Pulse burned steady and bright—too bright for Chi's comfort. It flickered with life, with hope, everything Chi had learned to bury deep.
Chi sat with her sword across her knees, back straight against the cold stone.
Eyes open.
Always watching.
The Netherpulse in her chest beat slow but heavy. Not the sharp warning she'd grown used to. Not the hungry pull before a fight. This was something else.
Memory.
She saw it again—not with her eyes, which stayed locked on the darkness ahead, but in that quiet space between thoughts where the past lived.
A wooden gate, split down the middle. Hanging open like a mouth caught mid-scream.
The smell hit her next. Smoke—sweet, then bitter as it settled on her tongue. Ash mixing with wet earth. The metallic tang of blood under fresh snow.
A village. Burned.
Not destroyed in the chaos of battle. This had been done slowly. Carefully. Rooftops collapsed like closing fists, hiding secrets. The river that once ran clear now flowed black with soot and red with things she didn't want to name.
And in the center of it all—
A girl.
No older than ten, maybe eleven. Red hair catching the light of dying flames. Small horns just beginning to grow. She knelt in the snow, hands pressed flat against the ground.
Not crying.
Not screaming.
Just watching the smoke rise like prayers no one would answer.
Chi blinked hard.
The vision scattered like ash on the wind.
She stood, joints stiff from sitting too long in the cold. The wind cut through her cloak, but she barely felt it. Pain was just another companion.
The eastern path curved ahead, disappearing into a shallow valley. Old road markers dotted the way—stone posts with faded characters. Most travelers couldn't read the ancient script anymore.
Chi didn't need to read them. She knew them by touch, by the way they made her stomach twist.
Kurohama.
She didn't speak the name aloud, but the Pulse inside her chest reacted anyway. Not the sharp surge she expected, but a slow tremor. Like the word itself carried weight.
She walked for hours.
Hinata never stirred—the girl could sleep through anything when exhaustion finally claimed her. Chi followed the main road until it vanished under heavy snowdrifts, then moved by instinct. Through trees, over hidden streams, past the bones of places that used to matter.
Until she found what she was looking for.
A marker stone. Taller than the others, with three deep scars down its face—the ancient seal of exile. It marked places even the Queen's agents wouldn't go. Places cursed by blood and truth, things better left buried.
Chi stepped past it without hesitation.
The land dipped ahead, revealing a hidden hollow where five or six ruined houses huddled together. No shrine. No protective gate. Just a dead place trying to remember what it meant to be alive.
She moved between the buildings slowly, boots crunching softly in the snow. The sound echoed strangely in the stillness, as if the ruins themselves were listening.
Then she stopped.
Something was there.
A figure sat in the snow between two collapsed walls. Small. Wrapped in robes so tattered they barely held together. Not shivering despite the cold. Not moving.
But alive.
Chi kept her hand away from her sword. Some instincts ran deeper than caution.
The figure raised its head.
Red eyes. Black horns. A face that wasn't identical to Chi's own, but close enough to make her chest tighten.
Too close.
"You found me," the girl said. Her voice carried clearly despite the wind.
Chi stared. Around them, the world seemed to pause. Snow stopped falling and hung suspended in the air. Even the wind held its breath.
"What are you?" Chi asked quietly.
The girl tilted her head with curious innocence. "You already know."
"I want to hear you say it."
"I'm what you left behind."
The Netherpulse in Chi's chest surged, sending heat through her limbs. Red Crescent hummed softly at her side, responding to the shift in her energy.
The girl's expression grew serious. "You brought the sword."
Chi said nothing.
"I'm not a ghost," the girl continued, explaining something obvious. "I'm not one of those Maskborn things either. I'm not even real."
"Then why are you here?"
The girl looked up at the frozen snow above them. "Because you came back."
The silence stretched between them like a blade's edge.
Chi took a step closer. The girl didn't move, didn't even blink.
"But I buried you," Chi said.
"No." The girl's voice was gentle but firm. "You ran."
Chi's jaw tightened. "I was ten years old."
"You survived."
"Yes."
"Then why do you still carry me with you?"
Chi had no answer for that.
She looked down and felt her breath catch.
There was no shadow beneath the girl. Instead, a pool of blood spread slowly outward from where she sat. It didn't soak into the snow or melt anything. It just spread.
Chi's sword was in her hand before she realized she'd drawn it.
The girl didn't flinch. She Didn't even look afraid.
"You're going to kill me again?" she asked.
"I never—"
"You left me." The words hit harder than any blade.
Chi's Pulse cracked like breaking ice. The snow around her boots began to blacken, as if touched by heat that had nothing to do with fire.
"You don't belong here," Chi said through gritted teeth.
"I'm not going anywhere," the girl replied calmly. "And neither are you. Not really."
Then everything changed.
The girl stood, but as she rose, her face began to blur. Her small horns twisted and lengthened into something sharp and cruel. Her red eyes darkened until they became holes in the world.
She grew taller. Taller still.
Chi stumbled backward as the figure towered over her, no longer a child but something else entirely. A shape made of memory and guilt, incomplete and hungry.
"You'll come home soon," it said in a voice like Chi's own, but stretched and wrong. "Whether you want to or not."
Then it crumbled to ash and blew away on a wind that hadn't been there a moment before.
Chi stood alone in the clearing.
The snow fell normally again. The wind resumed its endless song. The pool of blood was gone as if it had never existed.
No footprints marked the snow. No sign that anyone had ever been there.
But the weight in her chest remained, heavier than before.
When she returned to camp, Hinata was awake, sitting up with her cloak pulled tight around her shoulders.
She didn't ask questions. Didn't demand explanations.
Chi sat down beside her, drew her blade, and began to clean the edge with slow, careful strokes.
Finally, she whispered the name she'd been carrying like a stone in her heart:
"Kurohama."