Chapter 1
The hands of the wall clock overlapped at three in the morning.
Eriri stared at her own reddened eyes in the reflection of her tablet screen. Her cursor had been frozen for a full ten seconds.
The cuffs of her green tracksuit were stained with marks from various markers. Her carefully maintained twin tails had long since come undone, and several strands of blonde hair stubbornly curled against her ears.
The manga layout on the screen was half-finished—a half-naked girl, but the background was still empty.
"Three more pages… just three more pages…"
She muttered under her breath, reaching for her seventh cup of black coffee. The bitter liquid slid down her throat, but it did nothing to lift her energy. The deadline was five in the afternoon, but she knew her editor would show up right on time at noon with that professional smile and those all-too-familiar eyes that screamed "hurry up with your manuscript."
Eriri Spencer Sawamura. Sixteen years old. Half-Japanese, half-British. Pen name: "Eiri Kashiwagi"—a well-known erotic manga artist in the industry.
It was a secret profession. No one at school knew about it except her parents and her childhood friend, Tomoya Aki.
When she opened the bathroom door, the mirror was covered in a thin layer of condensation—even though her last shower had been eight hours ago.
Eriri turned on the faucet and splashed cold tap water on her face. She gripped the edges of the sink, took a deep breath, and looked at herself in the mirror.
Pale face. Dark circles under her eyes. A few tiny soy sauce stains at the corners of her mouth from the instant noodles she'd eaten earlier that day.
What a mess.
Just as she reached for a towel, the reflection in the mirror blurred for a moment.
It wasn't the blur of condensation. Deep inside the mirror, next to her own reflection, there seemed to be an extra outline.
Eriri froze. She slowly leaned closer to the mirror and wiped it with her sleeve.
There was only herself. Baggy green tracksuit. Messy hair. Sleepy, dazed eyes.
"I've been staying up too late. I'm hallucinating…" She smiled bitterly and shook her head, then scooped up another handful of water.
"Don't bother looking again. It's not an illusion."
A clear male voice rang out in the bathroom without warning.
Eriri's breath stopped instantly. She spun around, her back against the cold sink, her eyes darting frantically across the tiny bathroom—toilet, bathtub, washing machine, shelf. No one.
But when she turned trembling back to the mirror, he was there.
Standing right beside her reflection. Unnatural. Wrong.
A teenager. Maybe seventeen or eighteen years old. But he was wearing an ancient outfit she had never seen before—layered indigo robes, silver cloud patterns embroidered along the hem, a dark leather belt at his waist, and wooden sandals on his feet.
His black hair was partially tied up with a simple wooden pin, the rest spilling over his shoulders. His face was striking—sharp eyebrows, a high nose bridge—but it was his eyes.
Those eyes were looking straight at her through the mirror.
Eriri let out a short scream and stumbled backward. Her calf hit the edge of the bathtub, and she fell. She instinctively closed her eyes, bracing for the pain and embarrassment of hitting the hard ceramic—
But she didn't fall.
A hand held her firmly.
Eriri's eyes flew open. The boy from the mirror was now standing in the bathroom. Right in front of her. Holding her with one hand.
She could feel the strange texture of the fabric on his sleeve. And his scent—not cologne. More like… old paper? Mixed with a faint, indescribable fragrance of grass and wood.
"Y-You—!" She stammered, then suddenly broke free and scrambled into the corner of the bathroom, grabbing a toilet brush as a weapon. "Who are you?! How did you get in?! This is a private residence! I'll call the police!"
The young man—Zen'in Genji—looked around, his eyes filled with open curiosity.
He reached out and touched the light switch. Click. The bathroom light went off, then on again. He looked at the shower, turned the faucet, and cold water sprayed out, soaking half of his robes.
"Hey!" Eriri shouted.
"Sorry. I forgot how to use this thing. I'm not used to it yet."
Genji stepped back unhurriedly and ran his fingers lightly over his wet sleeves.
Eriri's eyes widened—the water evaporated and disappeared at a speed visible to the naked eye. His robes were instantly dry again.
"M-Monster… monster…" Her teeth chattered.
Genji finally turned his attention back to her. The corners of his lips lifted into a smile. "Monster? That's not quite right."
He paced around the cramped bathroom—stepping sideways because the space was too narrow—and gave a strange, archaic nod.
"My apologies for appearing so suddenly in the middle of the night. I am Zen'in Genji. I was born during the Kōnin era of the Heian period. By the modern calendar… well, I suppose I'm over a thousand years old. No bad habits. I don't eat people. I don't kill. You can rest easy, girl."
The way he spoke was strange. Half classical, half modern. But his tone was calm and natural, as if he were commenting on the weather.
Eriri's brain completely shut down.
Heian period? Over a thousand years old? Undead?
She pinched her thigh hard. Hard. Pain.
Not a dream.
"How… how did you get here? Why my bathroom?" She forced herself to stay calm, though the hand holding the toilet brush was still shaking. "And why can I see you? Am I dying right now? Is this my soul standing here?!"
At that thought, her face went pale as paper.
No way. I haven't become a real manga artist yet. I haven't even fallen in love. I'm still a virgin. My parents would be so sad if I died…
Genji looked amused by her train of thought—though his amusement was subtle, barely a flicker in his eyes. "You're perfectly alive, girl. Strong yang energy, actually. But you stay up too late. Your liver is overworked."
He paused, then added, "As for why I appeared here… honestly, I don't know. It's strange. I was supposed to be the eleventh shikigami summoned by my own descendants. Someone might have tampered with my arrangement."
Eriri processed this. As a creator, her head was full of fantasy manga tropes. Time travel? Possession?
She glanced at her phone on the sink. 3:17 AM. If she could just reach it, she could call the police. Or at least call the Sawamuras…
"Calling the police won't help." Genji seemed to read her mind. His tone was gentle but direct. "I don't want others to see me. And they can't. They can't see me, and they can't touch me. When the police arrive, they'll just think a teenage girl is hallucinating from staying up too late."
He looked at Eriri with a hint of curiosity in his eyes. "It seems I've possessed you, girl. And you're the first person who can actually speak with me."
Silence filled the bathroom.
The exhaust fan hummed quietly. Outside the window, the distant sound of a tram passed by.
Eriri slowly lowered the toilet brush—holding it against a ghost who claimed to be a thousand years old did feel a bit ridiculous.
Genji didn't approach her. Instead, he seemed lost in thought.
---
Zen'in Genji. One of many travelers. He had been brought to the Heian period of the land of cherry blossoms by a golden holy relic on a national highway, reborn as a child of the Zen'in clan.
He thought he had traveled to ordinary ancient times. But when he awakened the Ten Shadows Technique at age five, combined with the teachings of his clan, he realized he had fallen into the world of Cursed Spirits.
A few years later, he met a certain guy with four arms, two faces, and a cleaver technique…
Sukuna.
And on top of that—he was a twin. In the jujutsu world, twins were counted as a single person, their talents split equally.
If things went badly, he'd just end up as a background prop for the King of Curses.
But fortunately, he and his twin were counted as two people. As the older brother, he inherited an overwhelming cursed energy reserve—twice the normal amount. That power shocked the clan elders.
His younger brother was a Heavenly Restriction user—no cursed energy at all, but born with an overwhelmingly powerful body.
With his immense cursed energy, Genji reached special grade combat power at fourteen under the clan's guidance. Working with his brother, by sixteen he had tamed his final shikigami—Mahoraga.
From then on, Genji was considered the invincible prodigal son of the Zen'in clan. Even Sukuna was hunted and beaten back by him.
In his old age, Genji developed his own technique. He turned everything he had into shikigami.
He became the eleventh shikigami of the Ten Shadows Technique.
Hoping to be reborn in the afterlife.
He slept within the shadowy realm of the Ten Shadows Technique.
But why had he awakened now? And why next to an ordinary girl?
Had no one been able to summon him in all these thousand years?
---
Genji's expression was contemplative.
Eriri suddenly blushed. She thought about the books she drew—the explicit ones she had to make for sales.
Had this ancient man from a thousand years ago seen her work?!
"Wait! You can't look at those—!"
"Don't worry, girl." Genji seemed to understand what she was thinking. His expression was slightly helpless. "I don't make a habit of prying into others' things."
He paused, then added more gently, "In the Heian period, painters, musicians, and writers were respected people. The ability to create a world with pen and ink—that's a great talent."
Eriri was stunned.
In the world she lived in, "erotic manga artist" wasn't exactly a profession you could say out loud.
For the first time, someone had called it "a great talent."
Even if that someone was a ghost of unknown origin.
"You…" Eriri hesitated. "You're really not going to hurt me?"
Genji became serious. He bowed slightly in that ancient, solemn manner. "By the name of the Zen'in clan, I will never harm you, not even by a single step." He straightened up. "On the contrary, you are the first person I've been able to speak with in a thousand years. I owe you thanks."
His figure in the moonlight grew somewhat transparent. "Actually… I do have an immodest request."
"What?"
"Would you let me stay here temporarily?" Genji spoke a little faster, as if he too felt the request was abrupt. "I need no food, no lodging. Just a corner of your home. In return, I will do whatever I can for you."
Eriri opened her mouth to refuse.
Letting a strange man—even a ghost—stay in her room? That was insane.
But her gaze fell on Genji's fading figure.
A girl's heart is soft.
"I…" Eriri took a deep breath. "I need time to think about it." She added quickly, "And even if I agree, you can't come into my bedroom, you can't look at my work, and you can't appear when my family or friends are here—"
She stopped.
Because she saw a real, bright smile bloom across Genji's face.
It made him look younger. Like a real seventeen-year-old boy, not a ghost who had lived for a thousand years.
"Thank you, girl." He said solemnly. "I will abide by your terms."
The bathroom clock showed 3:41 AM.
Suddenly, Eriri remembered something more important.
"My manuscript!" She ran out of the bathroom and dove for her tablet. "Three pages left… no, now I only have two and a half hours!"