First Sign of the Wraith

The darkness was absolute.
Not the natural darkness of night, but something deeper—a void that swallowed light and sound and hope. Haruto couldn't see the sword in his hands, couldn't hear Tsukiko breathing beside him, couldn't feel anything except the overwhelming certainty that he was being watched.
Then the whispers began.
They came from inside the darkness itself, dozens of voices overlapping, speaking in fragments:
*"—should have saved her—"*
*"—blood on your hands—"*
*"—always your fault—"*
*"—three days you don't remember—"*
That last one cut through his terror like a blade. The three missing days. The blackness in his memory where his master's death should be.
The red slashes moved closer. Now Haruto could see what lay behind them—not eyes, but windows into something worse. Through those thin wounds in reality, he glimpsed a landscape of corpses and flowers, bodies piled like offerings beneath a crimson moon, and standing among them, a woman in bloodstained shrine maiden robes.
She turned toward him, and her face was Tsukiko's.
No—not Tsukiko. The maiden from four hundred years ago. The one his ancestor had failed to save.
Her mouth opened, and black water poured out, filled with drowning screams.
"Don't look at it!" Tsukiko's voice shattered the vision. Light flared—she'd lit a charm that burned with blue-white flames, driving back the darkness. The Wraith recoiled, its form becoming visible for the first time.
It was worse than Haruto had imagined.
The smoke that made up its body wasn't just black—it was the absence of color, of life, of everything. Within the churning darkness, he could see shapes moving: faces pressing against the smoke from inside, mouths open in silent screams, hands reaching out before being dragged back down. Souls. It was full of souls.
Its skeletal fingers were too long, each one ending in a point sharp enough to pierce reality itself. As it moved, it left tears in the air—small rips through which Haruto could glimpse that corpse-field, that red moon, that eternal dying.
"Ofuda!" Tsukiko thrust a handful of paper talismans at him. "Throw them! It can't touch blessed paper!"
Haruto grabbed the charms and hurled them at the Wraith. They struck its smoke-body and ignited, burning with that same blue flame. The creature made a sound—not a scream, but the audio equivalent of absence, a noise that was the opposite of sound. The faces within its smoke shrieked silently.
It retreated toward the wall, and for a moment, Haruto thought they'd won.
Then it split.
The Wraith's body divided like water around a stone, becoming two identical forms, then four, then eight. Each one smaller than the original but no less terrible. They spread out around the chamber, surrounding them from every direction.
"Shadow Split," Tsukiko breathed. "Grandfather said it could do this, but I've never seen—"
One of the clones lunged.
Haruto swung the sword on pure instinct. The blade passed through the Wraith's smoke—and to his shock, it cut. The creature's form parted like silk, and where the steel touched, blue light traced the wound. The clone shrieked that non-sound and dissipated into nothing.
"The sword!" Tsukiko's eyes went wide. "It was forged to fight demons! Use it!"
But there were still seven clones, and they were learning. They didn't attack head-on now but circled, feinting, testing, their red-slash eyes never blinking because they had no eyes to blink with.
One darted in from behind. Haruto spun, but he was too slow—skeletal fingers brushed his shoulder, and agony lanced through him.
It wasn't physical pain. It was deeper, colder. He felt something being pulled from inside his chest, drawn out like thread from a spool. Memories flickered past his awareness, too fast to hold:
*His mother's face, disappointed*
*His master, bleeding on the floor*
*His own hands, red with blood he couldn't explain*
*The three days of darkness*
*The woman singing in that dead language*
*"You killed him," the magistrate said. "Your own master."*
*"I don't remember," Haruto pleaded. "Please, I don't remember—"*
The Wraith was feeding on his guilt, his fear, growing stronger with every memory it absorbed. The clone that had touched him was larger now, more solid, its red slashes dripping faster.
"Haruto!" Tsukiko grabbed his arm, breaking the connection. "Don't let it touch you! It feeds on regret!"
He stumbled back, gasping. The sword felt heavier in his hands, or maybe he was just weaker. Around them, the clones were closing in, and the talismans on the walls were burning out one by one, their protection failing.
"There's too many," Haruto said. "We can't—"
A bell tolled.
The sound came from deep within the shrine, resonant and pure, cutting through the Wraith's presence like sunlight through fog. The clones froze, their forms wavering. The bell tolled again, and the creatures began to smoke, dissolving at the edges.
The chamber doors burst open. Priest Yoshimura stood in the doorway, holding a bronze bell in one hand and a staff adorned with paper streamers in the other. His aged face was grim.
"Back to your prison, failed one," he commanded, striking the bell a third time. "The hour is not yet come."
The Wraith—all its clones simultaneously—turned their eyeless gazes toward the priest. For a moment, nothing happened. Then, as one, they bowed their heads in what might have been acknowledgment or mockery, and melted backward through the walls, leaving only the smell of decay and that awful silence.
The priest lowered his bell. "Foolish children. I told you to stay in your room until dusk, boy."
"It came through the walls," Haruto said, still shaking. "How were we supposed to—"
"The shrine's wards are weakening faster than anticipated." Yoshimura entered the chamber, examining the scorched talismans with a critical eye. "The Wraith has grown bold. It shouldn't be able to manifest fully until the new moon, yet here it is, hunting in daylight hours." He looked at Haruto with something like pity. "It wants you specifically. You know why."
"Because of my ancestor. Because I'm his blood."
"More than that." The priest moved to the sword rack, studying the blade Haruto still held. "The Wraith was bound to the original maiden's soul when the seal was created. It exists in the space between death and life, neither fully one nor the other. It seeks completion—either to finally die, or to fully live. And the only way to achieve either is through the seal's resolution."
Tsukiko stepped forward. "Grandfather, please. There has to be another way. We can't ask him to—"
"There is no other way!" The priest's shout echoed in the chamber. "The same way there was no other way four hundred years ago, when the guardian chose love over duty and damned us all to this slow decay!" He turned to Haruto, his voice dropping to something almost gentle. "I don't blame you, boy. I don't blame your ancestor either. Love makes fools of us all. But intentions mean nothing against the weight of consequence. The seal requires a willing sacrifice of pure blood. Without it, the demon queen rises. With it, the queen sleeps for another four hundred years, and perhaps longer."
"Pure blood," Haruto repeated. "You mean someone from the maiden's lineage."
The priest smiled sadly. "Yes. Someone descended from the fifty maidens who created the original seal. Someone whose blood carries the resonance of that first sacrifice." He gestured to Tsukiko. "My granddaughter is the last of that line. The only one with blood pure enough to renew the seal."
The world seemed to tilt.
Haruto looked at Tsukiko, saw the truth in her eyes, the resignation. "You knew. When you told me about the sacrifice—"
"I've known since I was old enough to understand," she said quietly. "It's why I was raised here, trained in the old rituals. Why I've never left the village." She smiled, and it was the saddest thing Haruto had ever seen. "It's why I exist at all. My mother was brought here to bear a child for this purpose. She died when I was born, as if the seal itself demanded an early payment."
"And the guardian's blood?" Haruto asked, though he already knew the answer.
"Must wield the blade," the priest finished. "Must be the one to complete the ritual, as was intended four hundred years ago. Blood calls to blood, oath to oath. The guardian kills the maiden, the maiden's willing death strengthens the seal, the cycle continues."
Haruto's hands tightened on the sword. "No."
"No?"
"I won't do it. I won't kill her. Find another way—find someone else—"
"There is no one else!" The priest's composure cracked. "Do you think I want this? She's my granddaughter, the only family I have left! But if we don't act, if the seal breaks completely, the demon queen will reduce everything to ash and blood! Better one death than thousands!"
"Better no deaths at all!"
"That choice was lost four hundred years ago, when your ancestor's love proved stronger than his honor!" The priest's eyes blazed. "You inherit his blood, boy. Will you inherit his failure too?"
The question hung in the air like a curse.
Outside, the village bell began to toll. Once, twice, three times. Dusk had come.
"Your duties begin now," the priest said, his voice cold once more. "Tend the lamps around the shrine's perimeter. Keep them lit through the night. The light is all that holds the demons back when the sun sets. If even one lamp goes dark..." He didn't finish the sentence. He didn't need to.
Tsukiko touched Haruto's arm. "I'll show you the lamp route. It's easy once you know the path."
They left the chamber in silence, the priest staying behind to repair the damaged wards. As they walked through the shrine's corridors, now lit by the blue-gray light of dusk, Haruto couldn't stop his mind from racing.
There had to be another way. Some loophole, some alternative. He couldn't kill Tsukiko. Wouldn't. Even if she was willing, even if the whole world demanded it—
"I know what you're thinking," Tsukiko said. "And I appreciate it, truly. But you need to understand something." She stopped at a window overlooking the village. "Look."
The villagers were still gathered in the square, but now Haruto could see them clearly. Their skin had a grayish tint, like meat left too long in the sun. Their movements were jerky, puppet-like. And their eyes—all of them had eyes that reflected red in the dying light.
"They're already gone," Tsukiko said. "The queen's influence has consumed them. They're not human anymore, just shells being puppeted. In a week, maybe less, they'll be completely gone—transformed into demons themselves, or simply dead, their souls absorbed into the seal's cracks."
She turned to face him. "That's what happens when the seal weakens. It doesn't break all at once. It deteriorates, slowly, feeding on everything around it to sustain itself. This village is dying, Haruto. Has been dying for decades. And when it finally collapses, the rot will spread beyond these mountains. To the next village, and the next, until—"
A scream cut through the air.
Not from the village square, but from somewhere in the forest beyond. A man's scream, abruptly silenced.
Then came the laughter—high and sweet and utterly wrong. Children's laughter, dozens of voices, echoing from the trees.
"The forest demons are waking," Tsukiko whispered. "We need to light the lamps. Now."
She led him to a storage room where oil lamps hung on hooks—dozens of them, each one inscribed with prayers. They took as many as they could carry and began making their way around the shrine's perimeter, lighting each lamp post with flame from a blessed candle.
As they worked, full darkness fell.
And with it came the voices.
They drifted up from the village, from the forest, from the earth itself. Singing in that dead language, the same lullaby from Haruto's nightmares. The crimson chrysanthemums began to glow, their petals luminescent in the dark, creating a carpet of red light that made everything look like it was drowning in blood.
Haruto lit another lamp, watching as its flame pushed back the darkness. "How long?" he asked. "How long do we have?"
"Until the new moon. Five days." Tsukiko's face was illuminated by the lamplight, making her look like a ghost. "On that night, the seal will be at its weakest. If the ritual isn't performed then, it won't matter anymore. The queen will be free."
Five days until he had to choose.
Five days to find another way.
They continued their circuit of lamps, and with each one they lit, Haruto could feel the demons retreating—but only just. They were out there in the darkness, waiting, watching. And among them, he could sense the Wraith, its red-slash eyes tracking his every movement.
They reached the final lamp at the shrine's northern corner. As Haruto lit it, he saw something that made his blood freeze.
In the forest beyond the lamp light's reach, figures were gathering. Dozens of them, maybe hundreds. They stood perfectly still between the trees, their forms partially hidden in shadow. Children, adults, even animals—all standing in silent vigil.
And they were all facing the shrine.
All facing him.
"They're waiting," Tsukiko said quietly. "The queen's army. When the seal breaks, they'll be the first to rise. The villagers who have already transformed, the animals corrupted by her influence, the demons that have been slowly manifesting in the shadows. They'll sweep across the province like a plague."
One of the figures stepped forward into the lamp light.
It had been a child once. Now it was something else—its skin stretched too tight over elongated bones, its mouth opened too wide, revealing rows of teeth that went back impossibly far into its skull. The crimson chrysanthemums grew from its eye sockets like horrible tears.
It opened its mouth, and the woman's voice from Haruto's nightmares emerged:
*"Five days, my guardian. Five days to remember what you forgot. Five days to become what you were always meant to be."*
The thing tilted its head, and Haruto realized with horror that he recognized it. The girl from earlier. The one who had said he smelled like the maiden.
*"Tick tock,"* the girl-creature sang. *"Tick tock. The flowers bloom, the seal cracks, and the queen dreams of freedom. Will you grant it to her? Or will you finally complete your oath?"*
Haruto raised the sword, but the creature just laughed and retreated into the forest, melting into the shadows with the others.
Silence fell.
"Come on," Tsukiko said, her voice shaking. "The lamps are lit. We should get inside."
But as they turned back toward the shrine, Haruto saw something that stopped him cold.
There, in the window of his room, a figure stood watching them.
The Shinigami Wraith.
It raised one skeletal hand and pressed it against the glass. Where its palm touched, frost spread in crystalline patterns, forming words:
*REMEMBER*
*REMEMBER*
*REMEMBER*
"It's inside the shrine," Haruto whispered. "Even with all the wards, it's inside."
Tsukiko grabbed his hand. "Run."
They ran, but Haruto knew it wouldn't matter. The Wraith wasn't something you could run from. It was patient, inevitable, like death itself.
Because that's what it was—a death that had never been allowed to complete, a harvest that had been interrupted, a duty left eternally unfulfilled.
And it would follow him, always, until he either fulfilled the oath his blood had made—
Or died trying to break it.
Behind them, the lamps began to flicker.
One by one, impossibly, their flames started to die.
And in the darkness between each dying light, red slashes opened like wounds in the world.
The Wraith wasn't just hunting him anymore.
It was herding him.
Toward a choice he didn't want to make.
Toward a destiny written in blood four hundred years ago.
Toward the new moon, and whatever terrible thing would rise when it came.