A Cold Wind Through the Door

The bell above the door of Tanaka Shodo jingled, a soft, familiar sound. Kaito looked up from his account books, expecting a rare customer or perhaps a delivery. The hour was late, the rain had softened to a drizzle, and the neon from outside cast long, distorted shadows across the tatami mats.

The woman who stumbled in was not a customer.

She moved in a burst of disorienting cold, a pocket of winter air invading the warm shop. She was slight, with hair as black as polished obsidian that seemed to absorb the light, and her skin was pale as moonlight. Her clothes were modern—a stylish, ripped jacket and jeans—but they were torn and smudged with grime. And she was terrified. Her eyes, a startling, crystalline blue, wide with panic, scanned the shop before locking onto Kaito.

“Please,” she gasped, her voice like the chime of ice crystals. “You have to hide me.”

Before Kaito could process her words, to demand who she was or what was happening, he saw her. Not just the physical form, but the truth beneath. She glowed with an inner light, a silvery, ethereal aura that was utterly alien and profoundly ancient. She wasn’t human. She was a tsukumogami—a spirit inhabiting an object. He could almost see the faint, shimmering outline of the hairpin she was, an elegant thing of silver and a single, perfect pearl, superimposed over her human form.

“You’re a…” he started, his professional detachment shattered.

“They’re coming,” she interrupted, clutching her arm. Where her fingers pressed, a faint, frost-like pattern spread across her jacket. “The Reapers. They can smell me.”

As if on cue, a sleek, black van with tinted windows slid to a silent halt across the street. Two men in identical, tailored grey suits emerged. They moved with a predatory, synchronized grace that was anything but human. Their eyes were hidden behind data-lens glasses that glowed with a faint, sickly green light. Kaito felt a chill that had nothing to do with the girl. These weren’t ordinary thugs. They carried a palpable aura of void, of absence. They were hunters of spirits.

The girl—the tsukumogami—flinched and ducked behind Kaito’s counter, her cold hand gripping his wrist. The touch sent a jolt through him, a flash of memory: a snowy garden, the scent of plum blossoms, a woman’s laughter from a century past.

“They want to harvest me,” she whispered, her voice trembling. “To take my story, my memory… to use it as fuel. Please.”

Kaito’s mind screamed at him to refuse, to push her away. This was exactly the kind of involvement he had sworn to avoid. It was dangerous. It was how people got killed.

But the fear in her eyes was real. And the men outside… their presence felt like a blasphemy, a stain on the world itself.

The decision was made for him. The two Reapers were already crossing the street, their movements efficient and unnervingly quiet.

“Stay down,” Kaito hissed, his voice low and tight.

He acted on an instinct he thought long buried. He grabbed a sheet of practice paper and a cheap, disposable fude pen, not his sacred brushes. He couldn’t use his real power, but he remembered the basics—the principles of misdirection and concealment that were the foundation of Inkjutsu. With frantic speed, he scrawled a series of simple kanji for “Unseen” (見えず, miezu) and “Forgotten” (忘れ, wasure) around the perimeter of the counter. It was child’s play, a parlor trick, but it would have to do.

He’d barely finished when the door jingled again. The two Reapers filled the doorway, their presence sucking the warmth from the room.

“Good evening,” the lead one said, his voice a synthetic monotone. “We are from the Kage Corporation Spiritual Affairs Division. A classified asset has entered these premises. You will hand it over.”

Kaito forced his face into a mask of confused annoyance. “I’m sorry? A classified asset? You mean a customer? I haven’t had anyone in here for hours.” He gestured around the empty shop. “As you can see.”

The Reaper’s data-lens scanned the room. The green light passed over the counter where the tsukumogami hid. Kaito held his breath. The cheap ink, the lack of spiritual intent… would it be enough?

The lens flickered. The Reaper’s head tilted. “There is a residual energy signature. The asset was here.”

“Look,” Kaito said, putting a note of nervous defensiveness in his voice. “I just run a calligraphy shop. I don’t know anything about assets or signatures. Maybe it was a power surge?”

The second Reaper took a step forward, his hand moving inside his jacket. Kaito’s heart hammered against his ribs. This was it. They weren’t buying it.

Then, the lead Reaper held up a hand. “Scan is inconclusive. The background spiritual noise is interfering.” He looked directly at Kaito, and even through the lenses, Kaito could feel the cold appraisal. “You are Kaito Tanaka. Grandson of Sora Tanaka.”

It wasn’t a question. A fresh wave of ice washed down Kaito’s spine. They knew who he was. They knew his grandfather.

“We will be watching,” the Reaper said flatly. He gave a curt nod to his partner, and without another word, they turned and left, melting back into the neon-drenched night as silently as they had arrived.

The van pulled away.

For a long moment, the only sound was the frantic thumping of Kaito’s heart and the soft, ragged breaths of the girl hidden behind the counter. He slowly sank to his knees, his legs weak.

She peered up at him, her crystalline eyes wide with a mixture of terror and awe. “You hid me,” she whispered. “With ink. You are an Ink-Mage.”

The words, spoken aloud for the first time in over a decade, landed like a physical blow. Kaito looked at his hands, at the cheap felt pen still clutched in his fingers. He had used the art again. And for a moment, just a moment, it hadn’t felt like a curse. It had felt like… protection.

The ice on her jacket was beginning to melt, leaving dark spots on the tatami. The cold wind she had brought in was already fading, replaced by the shop’s familiar warmth. But everything had changed. The quiet life he had built was over.