The Shrine Archives

The seventh day rose beneath a shroud of fog that draped the mountain like a white funeral veil.

Yuki slowly pushed herself up from her futon.
The room was bathed in milky light, hushed and motionless.
Akari was still asleep — peaceful, unmoving, the talisman clinging perfectly to her forehead.
Her breathing was soft, like the tide of a sleeping sea.

Seven days left, Yuki thought. Seven days until the end of the trial.

She had spent half the night staring at the ceiling, unable to close her eyes.

Why condemn her to this oblivion?
There was nothing monstrous about Akari — nothing of the creature her master had described.
Why must she be sealed? Or worse… erased?

In six days together, Yuki had seen no anger, no malice — only a lost young woman, condemned to be reborn each day without a past.

Something’s missing, she thought.
A reason. A story.

She slipped on her white hakama and stepped out onto the veranda.
The morning air tasted of wet wood and mist.
The moss-covered steps glistened with dew.
In the distance, a crow shattered the silence with its harsh cry.

The fog clung to the trees like a memory refusing to fade.
And behind that veil, Yuki could just make out the dark silhouette of the auxiliary building — the shrine’s library.

The archives.
If answers exist, they’re there.

***

The door groaned open, exhaling a breath of dust and stale ink.
Yuki’s lantern cast a warm halo into the gloom, revealing shelves burdened with scrolls, books, and sealed wooden boxes.
Everything seemed frozen in time — a world of shadows and silence.

Her footsteps echoed softly across the boards.
She brushed a finger along cracked bindings: Rites of Purification. Chronicles of Tsukikage Shrine. Treatise on the Spirits of the Forest.

All texts she already knew by heart.
None spoke of a god cursing a yōkai with a talisman of forgetting.

She searched for hours — moving stacks aside, blowing off layers of dust, leafing through pages so fragile they threatened to dissolve beneath her touch.

And then, hidden behind a worm-eaten box, she saw it.

A journal.

Bound in brown leather, yellowed by time.
Its edges were chewed, its cover cracked.

Yuki opened it carefully.
On the first page, cramped and trembling handwriting read:

Journal of Priest Takemura Kenshin — Shōwa Year 28.

Heart pounding, Yuki sat cross-legged on the dusty floor and began to read.

15th day, 4th month, Shōwa 28.

Today a young woman from the village came to pray. Her name is Hana, the cloth-merchant’s daughter.
She offered rice and white lilies, then wept for a long time before the altar.

Yuki turned the pages, breath suspended. The priest wrote of daily life at the shrine, repairs, harvests — until one entry stopped her.

3rd day, 6th month.

Hana returned. She comes every week now, always alone, always with white lilies.
Today she met Akari near the torii.
Hana was laughing. It was the first time I had ever seen her laugh.

A shiver ran down Yuki’s spine.
The lilies… That’s why Akari always gazes at them with such sorrow.

She kept reading, her chest tightening.

20th day, 7th month.

Akari and Hana meet often now.
Akari, who usually avoids humans, seems to have found more than a friend.
She weaves crowns of lilies for Hana, and their hands brush together.
Hana always brings something — mochi, candied fruit, white lilies that they offer together at the altar.
Today I saw them by the stream.
Hana had laid her head on Akari’s shoulder.
They held hands.
I don’t know what to do.
If the villagers find out… such love is already frowned upon between women — but between a human and a yōkai?
They look so happy.
How could I ever intervene?

Yuki closed her eyes for a moment.
She could picture it — the forest bathed in light, two young women laughing softly, their fingers entwined.

A friendship that became something more.

Just like Akari and me, Yuki thought. Always with those lilies… never knowing why.

The next pages grew darker.

5th day, 9th month.

Disaster!
The villagers discovered them.
Men came shouting, torches in hand, spitting their hatred and disgust.
I couldn’t calm them.
They dragged Hana from the forest. She cried, begged.
Akari tried to protect her, but they struck her down.
Hana screamed her name.
I could do nothing.

7th day, 9th month.

Hana was banished.
Rumor says she threw herself into the river.
Poor child. May her soul find peace.
Akari searches for her day and night.
She leaves lilies everywhere, silent prayers scattered through the woods.
I see her wandering in the mist, calling Hana’s name again and again.
I no longer know how to help her.

10th day, 9th month.

The storm.
Akari lost her mind.
She unleashed a furious tempest upon the village.
The wind screamed: Give her back! Give her back!
There were injuries.
She wept tears of fire — literally. Flames ran down her cheeks.

The words blurred through Yuki’s tears.

12th day, 9th month.

The gods intervened.
A blinding light engulfed the shrine.
When it faded, Akari was there — kneeling, frozen, a talisman upon her brow.
It was their judgment.

Yuki closed the journal for a moment, breathing shallowly.
Then she opened to the final entries, her pulse hammering in her ears.

14th day, 9th month.

The talisman erases her memories of Hana.
When it holds, Akari is nothing.
When it falls, she is reborn — but remembers nothing.
Not Hana. Not herself.
It is the gods’ punishment: to forget the one she loved, and to lose herself again and again.
What crime did she commit, except to love?

15th day, 10th month.

I am leaving my post.
I can no longer endure this place.
To watch Akari awaken and forget, over and over, is unbearable.
I leave this journal for whoever comes after me.
If you read these words:
Know that Akari was no monster.
She simply loved in a world that forbade it.
She deserves better than this prison of oblivion.
But beware — the talisman hides a trap. I can feel it. It frightens me.
May your heart be stronger than mine.

The last pages were blank, stained with mold.

Yuki sat there for a long time, unmoving, clutching the book to her chest.

Fifty years of forgetting Hana.
Fifty years of forgetting herself.

A slow, burning anger rose within her — against men, against gods, against the world itself.

“Who decides that love is a crime?” she whispered.

In Yuki’s eyes, a spark was born.

She knew the ritual of release by heart — the incantations, the symbols, the gestures.
It was the first thing a miko learned.

But the trap.
What kind of trap? Was it real? How could she know?

It didn’t matter.

She stood, clutching the journal tightly to her chest.

Outside, the fog had lifted, revealing a sky of brilliant blue.
White lilies glimmered by the old well, still and solemn, like souls waiting to be named.

Hana… You loved these flowers. And Akari still remembers, even without knowing why.

Yuki returned to the main hall.

The fox girl lay asleep, her russet hair spilling across the pillow.
Yuki knelt beside her.

“I’m sorry,” she whispered, brushing a strand of hair from Akari’s face.

Her gaze fell upon the talisman.

“I won’t seal you. I refuse.”

She pressed her hand to the cursed paper, feeling its rough, ancient texture. It was warm — as though alive, pulsing faintly under her palm.

“I’ll set you free.”

The talisman trembled at her touch.

“I promise.”

In the abandoned library, Priest Takemura’s journal lay open on the floor — its last lines half-erased by the dust of time.

A silent witness.

To a love no one had truly forgotten.

Except the one who had lived it.