Hito-mane Extermination: Memento Mori lll

"Feel pain, accept pain, and know pain. 

And now... this world shall know-."

Pain, from Naruto.

                               ...

Ryuzuki didn't remember leaving the house. 

One moment he was kneeling beside her, and the next he was running. The transition from the small, quiet room to the frantic rush of the street was a blank space in his memory, a gap torn away by shock.

The note remained clenched in his hand so tightly that the paper had begun to tear between his fingers. The sharp edges of the thick vellum cut into his palm, but he didn't feel it. His entire universe had shrunk to the rhythmic, agonizing beat of his own heart and the desperate need to put distance between himself and the horror he had just witnessed. His lungs burned and his vision blurred, but he kept running.

The streets of Kokohama passed in streaks of color and rain. A sudden storm had rolled in from the mountains, bringing the first real rain in nearly a year and turning the dry dust of the roads into a thick, clinging mud that threatened to pull his sandals from his feet with every stride. The sky was the color of a bruised plum, the heavy clouds hanging low over the tin roofs. People shouted after him. Someone called his name. He didn't stop, for he couldn't stop.

Every time he blinked he saw her: the blood, the apology, the way her hands had trembled, and the way she had looked at him, as if she already knew she was dying, and as if she was the one apologizing for it. He had come home early from the market, carrying a fresh loaf of white bread and a small wooden doll he had bought for Sato’s upcoming birthday. He had expected to find her sitting by the window, her fingers moving rhythmically across the loom. 

Instead, the door had been unlocked, swinging slightly in the damp wind. Inside, the loom was shattered, its heavy oak frame split in two as if struck by a massive force. And there she lay, his wife, the girl he had met at the well five years ago, the one who had agreed to share his strange, quiet life. The floor beneath her was a deep, terrible crimson, the color spreading through the grain of the wood like ink on parchment.

A choked sound escaped his throat, half sob and half scream. He didn't know anymore. The sound was raw, stripped of all human dignity, a noise made by an animal that had been caught in a steel trap and could see the hunter approaching. The wind tore at his clothes as he sprinted through the town, past markets, past alleys, and past people who had known him his entire life. He saw the blacksmith look up from his forge, his face clouding with concern as Ryuzuki bolted past. He saw the old women at the vegetable stalls stop their bartering, their mouths dropping open as they watched the young man run through the mud like a demon was chasing him.

Nobody could help him. Nobody could fix this because deep down he already knew. This wasn't random. This wasn't a robbery. This wasn't some madman with a knife. This was connected. It was connected to the notes, connected to the jobs, and connected to that man, that horrible man with the stitched face whose handshake had felt like chains closing around his wrist.

The realization made his stomach twist, a cold, oily wave of nausea rising into his throat. Fourteen years. Fourteen years. Fourteen years he had done exactly what they asked. Fourteen years of carrying messages, posting bounties, and running errands, never asking questions and never looking deeper. And now his wife was dead. The math had finally caught up with him. The debt he had incurred as an eight-year-old boy on a freezing desert porch hadn't been paid with silver. It had been accruing interest in blood.

His grip tightened around the bloodstained paper. The edges dug into his palm. Good. He deserved it. Maybe he deserved worse. The thought wouldn't leave him alone. The physical pain was a distraction, a tiny fire compared to the roaring conflagration that was consuming his mind. He wanted the paper to cut deeper. He wanted it to sever the tendons in his hand so he wouldn't have to carry the weight of his own compliance anymore.

What if every missing person had been connected? What if every bounty poster led to someone else's death? What if he had been helping monsters this entire time? The flyer he had posted three weeks ago, the one listing the location of an old merchant’s estate outside the capital, had that merchant been murdered too? Had he been the one who guided the blades to their targets? Had he been the scout for a guild of executioners, a silent accomplice who cleared the path and marked the doors?His breathing became uneven, his chest hitching as he struggled to draw air into his burning lungs. "No." The word came out broken. "No..."

He wanted to deny it. He wanted to believe there was another explanation. He wanted to wake up on his straw pallet, eight years old again, with the smell of his mother’s turnip soup in the air and his father’s boots by the door. He wanted the world to be simple again. But deep down he already knew there wasn't. The note in his hand proved it. The paper was damp, the blood from his wife’s fingers smudging the elegant black calligraphy, but the words were still perfectly legible. It was the same handwriting from fourteen years ago, written with the same sharp, flawless strokes. They had never cared about him. They had never cared about his family. He had been useful, nothing more. 

The moment he became inconvenient they showed him exactly where he stood. He had asked too many questions the previous week. He had hesitated before delivering a heavy black iron chest to a warehouse near the northern gate. He had asked the recipient what was inside, his voice showing the first signs of resistance in over a decade. This was his punishment, a swift, brutal reminder that tools do not ask questions of the master.

Ryuzuki stumbled, nearly fell, and caught himself against a wall. His chest heaved violently. The rough timber of the building scraped against his shoulder, tearing his shirt, but he barely noticed. He stood in a narrow alleyway while the rain poured down from a broken gutter above, drenching his hair and running down his neck in freezing rivulets. For several seconds he just stood there shaking, trying not to collapse, trying not to scream, and trying not to think. The world was spinning, the gray walls of the alley tilting at an unnatural angle. He could feel the cold mud seeping into his sandals, the weight of the water in his clothes pulling him down toward the earth.

Then he looked toward the western edge of town, toward the house where his mother lived. And suddenly he was running again, faster than before. The panic returned with a renewed, terrifying force. If they had targeted his wife, if they knew where he lived, then his mother and brother were not safe. The entity that had given him the silver could just as easily take their lives to complete the cycle.

The world became a blur. His sandals slapped against the stone roads. The sun dipped lower overhead, and the sky burned orange. The rain was stopping now, the heavy clouds parting to reveal a fierce, bloody sunset that stained the wet streets in shades of crimson and gold. To Ryuzuki, it looked like the whole town was bleeding. But all he could see was blood. When he finally reached the house he nearly kicked the door off its hinges. The small wooden barrier slammed against the interior wall with a sound like a thunderclap. The familiar smell of food drifted from inside. It was the smell of roasted onions and stewed lentils, a warm, comforting scent that had signified safety for his entire life. His mother stood near the stove, stirring a pot, completely unaware, completely normal, and completely alive. She was older now, her hair almost entirely white, her shoulders stooped from decades of labor, but she was there. She was breathing.
For one horrifying second Ryuzuki felt his knees give out because she was still there, still breathing, still smiling, and still safe. The relief was so sudden and intense that it felt like a physical blow to his stomach, threatening to empty what little contents remained there. "Ryuzuki?" Nanako turned. 

Concern immediately appeared on her face. "What's wrong?" She set down the wooden spoon, her eyes taking in his disheveled appearance: his torn clothes, his muddy face, and the wild, frantic look in his eyes.

He couldn't answer. His throat wouldn't work. Words refused to come out. He opened his mouth, but the only sound that escaped was a dry, clicking gasp, his vocal cords paralyzed by the sheer volume of terror that filled his chest.

His mother took a step closer. "Ryuzuki?"He saw Sato sitting nearby, playing with a carved wooden toy and laughing to himself, completely unaware. His little brother was fourteen now, a tall, lanky boy who looked remarkably like their father had at that age. He was sitting on a low stool by the window, carving a piece of soft cedar wood with a small pocketknife. His little brother looked up. "Big brother?" Sato’s voice was changing, cracking between childhood and manhood, but it still held that same lighthearted rhythm that had always kept the family’s spirits up.

Ryuzuki's vision blurred again, not from exhaustion or running, but from fear, pure fear. Because now he understood the note. He looked down at the paper in his hand, his eyes finding the final line written beneath his wife’s bloodstains.

Run.

His stomach twisted. If he told them, if he stayed, or if he did anything wrong, they would die. His wife had already proven that. Her death wasn't just a punishment. It was a warning, a demonstration of what would happen to the rest of his family if he failed to maintain his role, or if he brought his troubles to their doorstep.

Nanako stepped forward. "Ryuzuki, talk to me." Her hand reached out, her fingers warm and gentle as they brushed against his arm.He couldn't because the moment he opened his mouth he knew he would break. He knew he would tell her everything about the man, the money, and the blood on the floor of his own home. And the moment those words left his lips, the black umbrella would appear over their roof, and the white fire would consume them too. Instead, he backed away one step, then another. His feet slid against the wet floorboards, his hands raised in a defensive gesture as if he were trying to keep her away from a contagious disease. He was the curse. He was the one who carried the infection.

Confusion crossed her face. "Ryuzuki?" Her eyes widened with a sudden, dawning terror as she realized that whatever had broken her son was beyond her ability to mend.He turned and ran again. He didn't look at Sato, who had stood up from his stool, the wooden toy dropping to the floor with a hollow clatter. He didn't look at his mother’s outstretched hands. His mother's voice followed him into the distance, calling his name, asking what happened, and begging him to come back. The sound tore through his chest, a physical pain that felt like his ribs were being pried apart one by one. He never answered because he knew if he looked back even once, he wouldn't be able to leave again. And if he couldn't leave, they would die.

The desert stretched endlessly before him. The town of Kokohama vanished behind the first ridge of dunes, its lights swallowed by the immense, creeping darkness of the wasteland. Hours passed, then more. The sun disappeared, and stars appeared overhead. The sky became a glittering field of cold, silver dust, completely indifferent to the tiny, broken human running across the sand below.

Still he ran. His legs should have given out, and his body should have collapsed. The muscles in his thighs were knotted with cramps, his lungs raw from breathing the dry, freezing night air, but a strange, dark adrenaline kept him moving. It was the energy of a man who had nothing left to lose except the lives of the people he had left behind. One step, then another, then another. The sand was cold now, freezing through his thin sandals and numbing his toes until he could no longer feel where his feet met the earth. Eventually the lights of Kokohama vanished completely. 

Only darkness remained: darkness, sand, wind, and grief. The wind had returned, stronger now that he was out on the open flats, throwing handfuls of sharp grit against his face and cutting through his torn shirt like iron filings. He welcomed the pain. He wanted the desert to scour him clean, to erase the fourteen years of comfort he had bought with the lives of strangers. By the time dawn arrived he barely recognized where he was. The horizon began to lighten, a pale, sickly yellow breaking through the eastern sky, illuminating a landscape of endless, shifting dunes that looked like the frozen waves of a gray ocean. His feet were bleeding, his lips were cracked, and his eyes felt hollow. The blood from his feet had dried into a dark crust, mixing with the sand until every step felt like walking on broken glass. His throat was a desert of its own, so dry that he could no longer swallow. Yet somehow he continued forward.

Then he saw him, standing at the edge of a dune, waiting. It was the stitched man, exactly where he had first appeared fourteen years ago. The figure stood perfectly still against the pale yellow sky, the black umbrella held high above his head despite the lack of sun or rain, as if he had known Ryuzuki would come. The umbrella still hid most of his face, but the crack was larger now, far larger. It split down his cheek like shattered porcelain. The white skin seemed to be coming apart at the seams, the thick black threads strained to their absolute limit as if something immense and dark was trying to force its way out from beneath the fragile shell of his face.

Ryuzuki stopped. Every muscle in his body screamed, not from exhaustion, but from rage. The fatigue vanished, replaced by a sudden, violent surge of heat that turned the freezing desert air to steam in his lungs. The sorrow that had weighed him down for the last twelve hours crystallized into a single, sharp point of pure hatred. The man simply watched him, silent and calm, like nothing had happened, and like somebody hadn't just murdered his wife. The umbrella tilted slightly, the single pitch black eye fixing onto Ryuzuki with the same vacant, terrifying intensity it had possessed when he was a child.

Ryuzuki's hands trembled. "You." The word came out barely above a whisper. It was all his dry throat could manage, a raspy, broken sound that was immediately swallowed by the wind. The man didn't respond. He didn't blink, he didn't move, and he didn't offer a single sign that he heard the boy he had broken. "You did this." Nothing. "You killed her." Still nothing.The silence only made it worse. It was the silence of an executioner who didn't care about the feelings of the condemned, the silence of a force of nature that simply operated according to its own inscrutable laws.

Something inside Ryuzuki finally snapped. The final remnants of his sanity, the small part of him that had kept him compliant for fourteen years, dissolved into the sand. He charged forward, screaming and swinging. Years of fear, years of confusion, and years of obedience all exploded at once. His boots kicked up clouds of pale dust as he scrambled up the steep incline of the dune, his fingers curling into claws, his teeth bared in a snarl that belonged to a wild animal.

His fist shot toward the man's face. He wanted to feel the porcelain skin break beneath his knuckles. He wanted to rip the black threads from his jaw. He wanted to see if this monster could bleed the same red that covered his own kitchen floor. The stitched man didn't move. He didn't dodge, and he didn't react. And yet somehow, Ryuzuki missed. His fist cut through empty air. The momentum carried him forward, his balance ruined as his hand met nothing but the cold wind. He stumbled over the crest of the dune, his knees giving out as he slid down the opposite side, his face burying itself in the loose sand. The man wasn't there. He scrambled to his feet, turning around frantically, his eyes scanning the ridgeline.

The dune was empty. There was nothing: no footprints, no presence, and no sound. The man had vanished, gone just like every other time. There were no marks in the sand where the stranger had been standing. There was no shadow cast by the rising sun. The desert was as empty and barren as it had been before the first stone of Kokohama was laid.

A cold wind swept across the desert. It carried the scent of ozone and wet earth, a lingering remnant of the stranger’s presence that vanished within seconds, leaving behind nothing but the dry, metallic tang of the salt flats. Then Ryuzuki noticed something. A single crow perched atop a weathered stone, watching him. The bird was unnaturally large, its feathers an oily, iridescent black that seemed to mimic the texture of the stranger’s umbrella. Its eyes were not the bright beads of a normal animal. They were flat and dark, holding a terrifying intelligence.

The bird tilted its head once. A sharp, clicking sound came from its beak, identical to the sound the stitched man’s neck had made fourteen years ago. Then it spread its wings and flew north toward Phoenixis, toward the Royal Capital. The Great Capital was a city of stone and iron, a place where the king sat upon a throne built on the bones of a hundred conquered provinces. It was the center of the world, the place where all the threads of power converged.

Ryuzuki stared at it. He watched the black shape grow smaller against the pale yellow sky, a tiny speck of darkness moving with absolute purpose toward the northern horizon. He looked down at his own bleeding hands, then back at the empty expanse of sand that lay between himself and his home. There was nothing left for him in Kokohama. His wife was gone, and his presence was a death sentence to the only people he had left. The only path forward was the path that had been chosen for him fourteen years ago, a path that led directly into the heart of the kingdom. And for some reason, he followed.