The bruises started like flowers.
Soft, blue blossoms under her skin. One on her shoulder. One across her hip. A handprint bloomed on the back of her neck though no one had touched her. They were warm when she pressed them, as if something beneath her skin pulsed to be let out.
Reiko stared at her reflection in the broken mirror.
The bruises weren't the worst of it.
Symbols—crude, spiral-like glyphs—began appearing across her body. One beneath her ribs. Another behind her ear. Written in some hand that wasn't hers. Not ink. Not paint.
Flesh.
---
Koroe tried cleansing them with cedar smoke and salt water.
They faded under her chant but reappeared the next morning, darker than before.
"They're not curses," Yukishiro murmured. "They're instructions."
---
Reiko didn't sleep much. But when she did, she dreamt of stone floors and a pale girl in a black kimono—hair covering her face, body slick with river water.
The girl's eyes never opened.
But her mouth moved.
> "You look like her."
> "You were never meant to leave."
---
It was Saika who broke the silence.
They found her in Otaki's room, lighting incense and whispering to a faded photo—an old black-and-white of two girls standing by the temple steps. One was clearly Miyako, bright-eyed, in her teens. The other girl was frailer. Pale. Her smile looked like it had been taught.
Reiko saw it and felt her skin crawl.
"Who is that?" she asked.
Saika didn't answer immediately. Her hands trembled around the incense stick.
"She was called Himeno," she said. "She was… your birth mother."
Reiko froze. "What?"
Saika finally turned. Her eyes were full of old pain. "Miyako never wanted to lie. But you were so young. And the truth was…"
She shook her head.
"She thought it would kill you."
---
Himeno. That name echoed through Reiko like a cracked bell.
Saika took a long breath and began to speak:
"Himeno was chosen before she turned sixteen. By the Sakuma elders. For the Spirit Vessel Ritual. They said she was perfect—born under the Blood Lantern Moon, untouched by the mundane, with a spiritual core open as a gate."
Reiko felt her blood turn cold.
"She was supposed to contain Jiroh's voice," Saika continued. "The second seal. It was meant to preserve his legacy. His will."
"But it failed."
"She screamed for hours. And then… she stopped."
Reiko couldn't breathe. "She died?"
Saika nodded slowly.
"Miyako tried to stop them. She ran into the ritual hall and pulled you from Himeno's body. You were… already covered in blood. Crying. Alive."
Tears streamed down Saika's face now. "She stole you from the Sakuma shrine and ran for three days, hiding you in the woods. Otaki took her in. They said it was blasphemy, that you'd carry the curse. But Miyako didn't care."
"She said—" her voice broke, "—she'd already lost her sister. She wouldn't lose you too."
---
The room spun.
Reiko sat down, clutching her sides, shaking.
She saw flashes of memory she didn't recognize—a hand over her crib, blood dripping down.
A woman's voice, humming a broken lullaby.
The feeling of drowning.
She whispered, "All this time… I thought she was my mother."
Saika touched her hand. "She was your mother."
"She died to protect you. Again and again."
"But the house doesn't forget, Reiko. The house wants the ritual completed."
---
That night, Reiko didn't sleep.
She fell.
Into a memory not her own.
---
A dim hall lit by paper lanterns. Shadows on the walls, whispering incantations.
A girl—Himeno—stood naked in a chalk-drawn circle, glyphs painted down her spine in vermillion. Her eyes were glassy. Her mouth sewn shut.
Elders circled her, holding bells.
And in the center stood Jiroh—or something wearing his face.
Reiko saw him lift a curved blade and press it to Himeno's chest.
The girl never screamed.
But her blood sang.
---
Reiko awoke screaming.
Shiki held her arms down. His glassy eyes wide. His body cold against hers.
"You're close," he whispered.
She tried to speak, but her voice came out in a stranger's tongue.
"I saw her. I was her."
Koroe entered, dragging salt across the threshold.
"The third seal is opening," she said grimly. "Flesh."
Reiko looked at the bruises on her body.
They'd begun to shift.
They were forming a circle.
---
The house groaned beneath them.
Boards cracked.
The walls seemed to breathe.
Somewhere deep below, a heartbeat echoed—not hers.
---
Later that morning, Saika came to Reiko's room with something wrapped in silk.
It was Himeno's comb—blackwood, like Ayame's, but cracked through the center. Carved on the handle was a symbol identical to the ones on Reiko's spine.
"She used to sing while brushing her hair," Saika said quietly. "When she was still allowed to speak."
She held it out.
Reiko hesitated—then took it.
When her fingers touched the comb, her vision blurred.
And for a moment, she wasn't in the room.
She was in the old shrine.
Standing beside Himeno.
The girl looked up at her, eyes full of water.
> "He's inside the house now," she whispered.
> "You carry the final piece."
---
Reiko dropped the comb.
"I know where the third seal is," she whispered.
Yukishiro looked at her, brow furrowed.
Reiko's voice was hoarse.
> "He was never sealed in death. He was sealed in flesh."
> "Mine."
---
To be continued…