The moon hung low in the sky, smothered behind a gauzy veil of mist. It cast a faint, spectral light over the gnarled trees of Aokigahara, transforming the forest into a monochrome sea of shadow and bone. The wind had long died, leaving the woods in a state of unnatural stillness. Not even the cicadas dared to sing. The entire forest felt like a held breath...waiting, watching.
Rei Kuzunoha stood before the forgotten shrine, his breath fogging in the cold, stagnant air. The path behind him had already vanished into darkness, swallowed by the forest's indifferent silence. This place… it wasn't marked on any map. The locals refused to speak of it. And the deeper he ventured into Aokigahara, the more it felt like the forest was rearranging itself guiding him toward this cursed destination.
The shrine rose from the earth like a tombstone, weathered and choked by creeping vines and moss. A ceremonial rope, now cut and frayed, hung limply across the entrance. The moment Rei had severed it, a chill had crawled up his spine, and the silence had deepened, as though something ancient had stirred from slumber.
He hadn't meant to desecrate anything. Not truly. But desperation was a cruel companion, and it whispered louder than reason. If there was even a sliver of truth in the rumors ,if this shrine held any clue to what happened to Haruki, he had to see it through.
His fingers, still damp with blood from the rope-cut, curled slightly as he stepped onto the creaking floorboards. The shrine's wooden doors groaned open like the jaws of some dormant beast. He entered.
Inside, the cold intensified. It wasn't the natural chill of altitude or time , it was spiritual, oppressive, as if the air itself was remembering grief. Dust clung to every surface. Paper talismans hung from the ceiling, yellowed and torn. The walls were carved with words in faded ink, but none he could read , archaic script, long since forgotten by modern tongues.
"This shrine… it's colder inside than it is out here," Rei muttered, voice nearly devoured by the stillness.
He walked further in, the floor protesting beneath his boots. Every creak echoed like a scream. The scent of mildew, soot, and something older coppery, faintly metallic.. permeated the air.
And then his eyes found it.
A grandfather clock.
It loomed at the center of the sanctum like a sentry from another time, tall, lean, almost skeletal in design. The wood was blackened by age, the glass casing smeared with cobwebs and fingerprints that shouldn't have been there. It stood motionless, its three clock hands frozen, almost defiant against time's pull.
Rei's heart skipped a beat. There was no reason , none at all...for such a relic to exist in a shrine like this. And yet, something about it felt inevitable. As though it had been waiting for him.
A pulse throbbed in the back of his mind. Faint at first, like the beat of a distant drum. Then stronger. Louder. In rhythm with his own heartbeat.... or perhaps not his own at all.
He swallowed. Took a step forward.
His body screamed at him to stop. Every nerve was alight with warning. But Haruki's face flashed in his mind ,smiling, carefree, just before. Before everything shattered. Before the lake. Before the silence. Before the disappearances.
"You're too quiet, Haruki…" Rei whispered, voice shaking. "I'd rather hear you scream at me than disappear like you never existed."
He reached out.
The glass was colder than ice. As his fingertips brushed it, a sudden sting shot through him... so fast, so sharp, it made him flinch. He looked down. A sliver of glass had nicked his thumb. Blood welled, dark and bright in the shrine's dim light.
One drop.
Then two.
The third hit the face of the clock.
Click.
The sound was deafening in the stillness.
The silence, once thick and immovable, shattered like crystal. The clock's three hands spasmed...once, then again ,before beginning to move.
The first hand ticked clockwise, smooth and steady like a beating heart. The second spun counterclockwise, erratic, frantic, like something trying to turn back time. The third shook violently before jerking forward in bursts, twitching like a trapped insect.
Then, the glass shimmered. Not with reflection.
But with memory.
Rei's eyes widened as the surface rippled like a pond disturbed by wind. An image bled through...a lakeside, shrouded in mist, soft and golden under moonlight.
And there.....standing on the water's edge... was Haruki.
Smiling.
His hair ruffled by a breeze Rei couldn't feel.
"Don't you want to know what happened that night?"
The voice was clear. Close.
Rei staggered forward, his boots grinding against old salt lines drawn on the floor , wards that once held something in. He didn't notice the black circle of soot forming beneath his feet, the way the walls pulsed as though breathing. He didn't hear the whispers begin to rise from the corners of the room:
"Vessel."
"You were always meant to carry me."
"Let me in."
The clock's glow intensified. His breath hitched.
Time itself began to fracture.
The air warped. The shrine darkened...yet the clock grew impossibly bright, a beacon pulling him inward. His limbs locked. He couldn't move. Couldn't run. His muscles had betrayed him, and his thoughts blurred into fog.
And still, Haruki smiled through the shimmer.
Rei reached forward again. This time, not with curiosity....but with sorrow. With need.
Crack.
The glass exploded.
But not like normal glass. No....it shattered in slow motion, fragments drifting through the air like constellations breaking apart. Each shard reflected a different face, a different scream, a different memory not his own.
From the hollow interior of the clock, a darkness slithered forth.
It wasn't a shadow. It was alive.
A mass of smoke and ash, coiling like ink in water, reaching toward him. The whispers crescendoed, forming a chorus of agony.
He couldn't scream.
He couldn't breathe.
The tendrils reached his chest, his arms, his face. Cold fire scorched him as they slid under his skin. He dropped to his knees. Ice crept across his spine. His bones felt like glass.
Then the voice came.
"REI KUZUNOHA."
A name. Spoken like a sentence. A prophecy.
His neck ignited.
Pain lanced through him....pure, soul-splitting pain... as something branded itself into his skin. The sigil carved itself like fire and iron: an ancient spiral, flanked by jagged lines and curling glyphs, a seal forged of curses older than language.
He screamed.
He screamed so loud the shrine itself seemed to shudder.
The mass pressed into him, through him. It wasn't just marking his flesh...it was marking his soul. He felt something inside him shatter. Felt something else take root.
His vision blurred.
He saw the lake again.
He saw Haruki standing just beyond the surface...this time, not smiling. This time, reaching for him with eyes full of sorrow.
And then...
Darkness.
---------------------------------------------
Funeral Rite Operation: The Wailing Bride
Location: Haizen Temple, abandoned mountaintop shrine
Mission Type: (Chinkon Sakusen) – Soul Calming Operation
Shisōkai Unit: Mikasa Sumeragi, Takeshi Aoba, and Veteran Shisōshi Commander
The scent of decayed wood and old incense hangs heavy in the air. Mist curls through the half-collapsed pillars of Haizen Temple, clinging to the soil like the breath of the dead. Somewhere deep within the structure, a woman weeps, soft, mournful sobs that echo like a broken lullaby.
Takeshi Aoba adjusted the strap of his talisman pouch with a nervous breath, eyes darting around the crumbling stonework.
"Man, this place gives me the creeps," he muttered. "Do all Soul Calming Ops start with ghost sobbing, or is this a deluxe experience?"
"Focus, Aoba," Mikasa said, voice low and sharp. She moved with precision, the hem of her cloak brushing against the moss-lined stone. "We're not here to admire the ambiance."
Their leader, an aging Shisōshi named Commander Gendo, knelt in the temple's central chamber, laying down an intricate array of hōin (封印 symbols) and sacred juzu beads. His face was weathered, lined by countless missions, but his hands did not tremble.
"The Wailing Bride's sorrow must be answered with peace," Gendo said as he lit a small censer of dragon's blood incense, the smoke coiling like veins of red through the silver fog. "We offer her a final rite. Should she reject it... we initiate Tōmetsu."
Takeshi swallowed. "So just like a normal job, but we get screamed at by a ghost bride?"
Mikasa cast him a glance. "Speak lightly again, and she won't be the only one screaming."
A hush fell over the temple.
Then...the weeping stopped.
And silence, unnatural and thick as wet velvet, swallowed the air.
.
.
.
.
A sudden whisper slithered into their ears.
"They left me... They promised... and left me to rot."
The temperature plunged. Frost crackled along the stone tiles. The incense sputtered, then extinguished.
And then...she appeared.
A slender figure in a tattered white bridal kimono floated from the shadows. Her veil was translucent, but beneath it was a grotesque visage...sunken, stitched lips twisted into a macabre grin, hollow eyes glimmering with grief-fueled malice. Her arms stretched unnaturally long, fingers trailing behind like loose threads.
Takeshi let out a strangled gasp. "That's her?! That's.....?!"
The spirit snapped her head toward him.
In one blink, she was there....hands wrapping around his throat, cold and suffocating.
"You'll stay… you'll stay with me forever…"
"Ritual Slash – Mourner's Severance!"
Mikasa's voice rang out with fierce clarity. Her blade shimmered faintly with ethereal light as she slashed diagonally, severing the Onryō's elongated arm.
The limb hissed into vapor.....but immediately, grotesque veins reknit it.
"Too late," Commander Gendo muttered grimly. "She's passed the threshold. She no longer remembers love or loss. Only vengeance."
He rose to his feet, voice solemn. "Abort the rite. 葬儀作戦 escalation approved—Tōmetsu Sakusen begins now."
Mikasa stepped forward, eyes steely. "Acknowledged."
Battle Begins – Tōmetsu Sakusen: Wailing Bride
The spirit shrieked....an ear-piercing, mind-shredding wail that cracked the temple walls. The fog coiled like tendrils, animated by her rage.
"Barrier! Now!" Mikasa shouted.
Takeshi threw down four ofuda in a square around the bride, activating a binding formation.
"Shikigami Seal – Four Pillar Binding!"
The spirit thrashed, her form contorting unnaturally as she fought against the restraints.
Mikasa charged, her blade humming with spiritual energy.
"Griefbane Arc – Dantan no Ko!"
She swept her sword in a wide crescent slash. The blade cut through the bride's veil and shoulder, disrupting the cursed energy with a resonant shinggg...like a bell being struck underwater.
The Wailing Bride screamed and countered, her veil unraveling into threads that slashed through the air like whips. One caught Mikasa across the arm...blood blossomed from the cut, but she didn't flinch.
Commander Gendo moved in with a binding incantation, hands forming intricate mudra signs.
"Spirit of sorrow, return to silence…" he chanted.
But the spirit roared, tearing through Takeshi's barrier with a surge of cursed energy. Statues cracked. Ceiling tiles shattered.
"She's going critical!" Takeshi yelled. "She's destabilizing the whole temple!"
Mikasa took a stance, breathing shallow and focused. Her sword shimmered with new glyphs along the steel.
"…Time to end this."
Final Attack – Silent Entombment (黙葬, Mokusō)
Mikasa whispered an ancient prayer, the blade's hilt glowing as the embedded talisman flared to life. She dashed forward, her movements like the flowing ink of a calligraphy brush....graceful, absolute.
She thrust the blade directly into the spirit's chest...not to kill, but to silence.
For one still moment, the Wailing Bride froze.
She looked at Mikasa, and for the first time.....her eyes softened.
"…I waited so long…"
Then she dissolved into silver dust. Her weeping stopped.
Peace returned to the temple.
Takeshi sank to his knees. "That was way above my pay grade…"
"You did well," Gendo said, voice gentler now. "The first soul you face always leaves a mark."
Mikasa cleaned her blade with a slow exhale. "She was already gone. We were too late to save the woman...but we stopped the curse from spreading."
She turned as her comm-crystal flared.
A voice crackled through....a Kanshisha alert.
"This is Command. Immediate priority alert. High-level Onryō unsealed near Kyōgamine Shrine. Curse signature matches… Shūen."
Mikasa's face darkened.
"…Time for another mission."