Da-da-da-dam...
Shion felt her chest violently contract, an agonising tightness seizing her core as if an invisible wire was being wrapped and pulled taut around her heart. She squeezed her eyes shut, forcing slow, deliberate exhalations until the sharp, piercing pain gradually subsided into a dull ache.
'What was that just now...? It felt like... pure, suffocating dread,' Shion realised with a shiver, pressing her palm firmly against her sternum.
Across the table, the bald, decaying girl continued her haunting chant, entirely indifferent to Shion's suffering.
"To the young girl's relief, the lord she was arranged to marry appeared gentle," the girl spoke softly, half of her kimono sleeve shredding into loose threads that floated upward into the dark air like ash. "Though decades her senior, the man possessed a warm smile and a kind heart. Thus, at age sixteen, she came to embrace what she believed was her destiny... only to learn the true depth of hell."
The creature broke into a faint, melancholy smile.
"Dance... dance, little snail... do not let your legs stop. For the moment you freeze, you shall be discarded..."
The tempo of the room grew heavier, the air turning thick and frigid.
"To her horror, the innocent dancer was chosen for one purpose alone: she was a sacrifice to be harvested in a ritual," the girl whispered, her eyes clouding over with sorrow. "And so, the pure maiden was bound in heavy iron chains and dragged down into the darkest pit of the lord's castle—"
Clang!
The moment those words left the creature's lips, a heavy, suffocating weight slammed down upon Shion's forearms.
Her breath hitched as ghostly, cold iron shackles manifested around her wrists, locking her arms down toward the tatami mats with phantom weight. The story was no longer just a memory; it was taking physical hold of her soul.
"Born in the shadow of the mountain clan... she was the eldest child," Shion spoke, her voice raspy as she fought against the phantom chains binding her wrists. "At age three, she came to understand the world around her—and learned the bitter burden of failing her father simply by not being born a son. At age five, she came to know her role as a tool of death... and at the age of six... she came to know blood."
As the forced confession escaped her lips, a torrent of long-buried memories surged back with violent clarity.
Shion's heart seized as she vividly recalled the suffocating heat of fresh, warm blood dripping down her small hands. She remembered her young fingers trembling violently as her short steel blade remained lodged deep inside the chest of another young girl—a child she had once called her friend.
Through the haze of her childhood memory, she remembered slowly turning her head to gaze up at her father. Though the rest of his figure remained a dark, shadowy blur, one feature stood out with agonising permanence: the cold, unyielding look of utter disappointment etched across his face.
A crushing wave of ancient guilt, horror, and grief washed over Shion's heart, threatening to drown her spirit entirely.
Across the table, the bald, unravelling spectre leaned forward, her sunset-red eyes gleaming with dark curiosity as one full sleeve of her ceremonial kimono completely dissolved into floating black mist.
"And how... did that make the young girl feel...?" the pink-haired girl whispered, as the threads on her remaining sleeve began to flutter and snap.
Years of brutal shinobi training had left her soul almost completely numb. Whenever she witnessed atrocities, a small part of her felt a distant, instinctual sympathy... but the core of her spirit felt absolutely nothing. She had been forged into a ghost who simply executed orders.
"Huffff... Huffff..."
Her breath was cut short as the invisible tether wrapped around her heart yanked backwards with agonising force!
"I told you," the bald, unravelling girl spoke, her voice echoing through the darkening hall. "There is no way someone like you, someone who doesn't even know who she truly is, can tell a story without falsehoods. You might believe you aren't lying to me... but have you ever dared to ask yourself: Am I lying to myself?"
'Tsk... What the hell is she talking about?!' Shion's mind panicked, her thoughts moving frantically as cold sweat dripped from her chin. 'I was terrified, wasn't I?! That's why my hands were shaking! I was heartbroken that I had just killed a friend I cared about...!'
Suddenly, a hidden memory burst through the wall of her repressed trauma with blinding, excruciating clarity.
The young girl she had run through with her blade wasn't weeping or screaming in betrayal. She was smiling.
With her last remaining strength, her friend had raised a trembling, blood-drenched hand, gently brushing her fingertips against six-year-old Shion's tear-stained cheek.
"I hope... you live a wonderful life..."
The moment those whispered words echoed in her mind, Shion's world went completely numb. The realisation hit her like a physical blow—she hadn't turned cold because her father broke her; she had frozen her heart to escape the unbearable warmth of her dying friend's final blessing
'Ah... I remember now...' Shion thought, a harrowing chill racing down her spine. 'I killed Ozawa because I desperately wanted to prove to Father that I was a worthy heir. I killed her because I wanted him to love me... But because I didn't strike quickly or cleanly enough, he looked at me with nothing but cold disappointment. I murdered my closest friend for a scrap of approval... and then I erased her death from my mind so I wouldn't have to carry the shame...'
The suffocating weight in her mind began to align.
'That emotion I felt standing over her body... it wasn't just fear. It was... it was...'
"Greed," Shion spoke aloud, her voice hoarse and trembling, yet utterly devoid of lie.
The moment the truth was spoken, the agonising tether clamped around her heart instantly snapped loose! She gasped, drawing in a sharp lungful of air as a subtle, electric tingle washed across the back of her neck, as though a heavy seal on her soul had just fractured.
Across the low table, the pink-haired girl maintained her sinister, unreadable grin.
'Yes... just like that,' the spectre thought, her crimson eyes gleaming in the shadows. 'I will unearth them for you one by one... every single hidden, ugly emotion they ripped away from your heart.'
Without breaking eye contact, the girl leaned forward, her voice dropping into a dark, rhythmic whisper as the story resumed:
"The innocent young girl... was locked inside a giant wine pot by a travelling monk."