At this moment, Rie stood with her back to the rising sun. Golden light painted delicate hues across her cheeks and long red hair. She bit down hard on her lower lip, her gaze fixed on Shion, brimming with a profound sense of indebtedness and guilt.
“What’s wrong?” Shion asked, looking at Rie’s expression with a somewhat dazed air. The white-haired girl tilted her head, seemingly waiting for an answer that her small brain could comprehend.
“Shion-chan, I… I need to apologize to you.” Rie pressed a hand to her chest, as if steeling herself with immense resolve before uttering the words.
“Why… would you need to apologize to me, Senpai?” Shion pondered, mentally reviewing the various events of the past few days. “Last night, your snoring was a little loud, it did wake me up… Wait, you probably didn’t know about that!”
“What?! I snored last night? How could I possibly snore in my sleep? No, no, that’s impossible… Wait! That’s not it at all!” Rie’s face flushed crimson. “It’s… something that happened even earlier.”
Outside the Celestial Outlook Corridor, a few small birds occasionally streaked across the distant, azure horizon, their fleeting shadows dancing across Shion’s face as the sunlight fell.
Four hundred years ago, a daimyo from the East led his troops, claiming to act under the mandate of the world’s sovereign, to conquer the Igarashi family’s domain. The then-lord of the Igarashi family likewise mustered tens of thousands of soldiers, building earthen walls along the borders of his feudal territory, determined to repel the enemy beyond his lands.
It was an exceptionally brutal war. The Eastern daimyo had once broken through all outer defenses, dragging the battlefield into what was then a flourishing market town.
That town was trampled under the iron hooves of armored warriors, and flames scorched nearly every house. Life was so fragile in the face of war, whether for the armored soldiers or the common folk scattering in terror.
As the war spread, many strange occurrences began.
More than once, the Igarashi family head heard reports from his soldiers that they had seen black monsters at night. These creatures, though human-shaped, lacked human faces or features, their entire bodies stained black. Neither fire nor blade could harm them, and their appearance instilled immense terror in the night watchmen.
“My lord, please, you must find a way! The fallen soldiers, the deceased commoners—evil spirits are being born from their bodies. Their scale is so vast that even the gods themselves cannot suppress them. If this continues, your domain, your people, will be utterly destroyed by these evil spirits!”
A Miko, clad in white, once urgently pleaded her case to the Igarashi family head during an audience. The Igarashi family head had listened to the Miko’s words; he now knew precisely what those black monsters reported by his soldiers were.
But by then, the war had grown desperate. The Igarashi family head was already struggling immensely to defend his domain and his title as daimyo, leaving him no energy to deal with these so-called “evil spirits” the Miko spoke of.
“Disturbing military morale! Guards, escort her out!” the Igarashi family head commanded.
The Miko in white could only sigh and choose to leave. Yet, she still had to fulfill her duty as the shrine’s Miko; she had to protect this town.
Perhaps, from a purely military standpoint, the Igarashi family head was fortunate. The Eastern daimyo’s large army required provisions and supplies that were difficult to procure locally. The Igarashi family head’s steadfast defense yielded a victory.
However, the appearance of evil spirits not only affected the Igarashi family head’s soldiers but also those under the Eastern daimyo. Especially for these foreign soldiers, the black monsters likely carried an even deeper, more ominous meaning.
Soon after, even though the once-prosperous town had become a ruin, the Eastern daimyo could no longer sustain such a large-scale war and ultimately chose to withdraw his forces.
Ultimately, the Igarashi family head had preserved his domain. But at the same time, within his territory, no one remained who could suppress the rampaging evil spirits. In those days, everyone lived in extreme fear of the night. The wandering evil spirits would utterly devour any life they encountered. Though the war had ended, people’s hearts were even more adrift and bewildered than during the conflict.
When the Igarashi family head recalled the Miko who guarded the shrine, he brought a lavish gift and visited the shrine, hoping to find a method to suppress the evil spirits. However, all he found was a message written on an ema, hung in the most prominent spot in the main hall.
“By this seal, evil spirits are suppressed. For a thousand generations, it shall not falter.”
It is said that at the time, the Igarashi family head also acquired numerous ancient texts detailing sealing methods and the history of evil spirit generation. However, today, only the sealing methods have been passed down through generations of Igarashi family heads via oral instruction, while the other ancient texts were lost in the tides of the Meiji Restoration.
The Igarashi family’s legacy has endured for generations, and though the war is long past, evil spirits continue to emerge ceaselessly. Successive Igarashi family heads have performed the sealing ritual, suppressing the power of these evil spirits within the seal. Yet, as the tradition continues, the seal’s power ultimately has its limits. The seal, which has contained four hundred years of evil spirits, is now on the verge of collapse. And the Igarashi family possesses almost no means to destroy evil spirits, relying solely on this “sealing” method.
Therefore, the new generation’s Igarashi family successor, Igarashi Rie, made a mistake during the “pressure release” process the day before yesterday, unleashing a vast multitude of evil spirits.
“I’m so sorry… I’m so sorry, Shion-chan… It’s all my fault…”
On the Celestial Outlook Corridor, the red-haired girl leaned weakly against the glass curtain wall, tears streaming incessantly from her eyes. Large drops of tears splattered onto the glass, blurring the Tokyo skyscrapers visible through the parts moistened by her sorrow.
“If you hadn’t held on back then, Shion-chan, I might, I might have lost you forever!”
Rie’s throat was already hoarse; she was on the verge of collapsing to her knees.
“Shion-chan, I can’t hope for your forgiveness, but I still…”
A pair of hands gently embraced Rie, as if an angel had descended from the sky.
“What are you saying, Igarashi-senpai? There’s no such thing as forgiveness or not forgiveness,” Shion said softly. “You’re simply fulfilling your duty now, Senpai. There’s nothing to apologize for, truly.”