The sun rose weak and pale over the ridge, casting a cold, grey light across the valley. It made the ruins of the Sando Estate look even more desolate.
Up on the ridge, the high tension of the first night had soured into heavy, grinding boredom.
Gojo no Kenji sat with his back against a mossy rock, his telescope discarded in the damp grass beside him. He wasn't even pretending to watch the estate anymore. He was lazily cleaning dirt out from under his fingernails with a small knife, eyes half-lidded.
"Forty-eight hours," he muttered. "We're sitting in the mud, eating dried rations, watching that thing do absolutely nothing. Are we sure this Vengeful Spirit is even active anymore? Maybe the village was its last meal and now it's just… off."
The Zenin scout was sprawled on his side in the grass, shielding his eyes from the weak sunlight.
"I'm so bored I actually caught myself hoping it would do something. Anything. Even if it's just standing up."
The Kamo scout leaned against a tree, arms crossed, staring blankly at the treeline.
"The cursed energy hasn't changed at all. No spikes, no dips. It's completely flat. Honestly, I've seen Grade 4 spirits with more personality than this thing."
The Abe onmyoji gestured tiredly toward the estate below.
"Look at the courtyard though…"
Down in the ruins, the Vengeful Spirit of Himiko sat perfectly motionless on her throne, looking like a discarded porcelain doll. Around her, dozens of fly-head curses buzzed in a slow, brain-numbing rhythm. Every few minutes, more pathetic little curses crawled out of the forest and settled at her feet like loyal dogs.
Kenji finally glanced up as a weak ray of sunlight hit his face.
"She's a garbage fire. She's not doing anything, so the small fry think she's safe. We're basically watching a graveyard grow."
The Zenin scout groaned and rolled onto his back.
"I'd honestly rather be doing literally anything else right now."
The camera slowly pulls away from the bored sorcerers on the ridge. It drifts down through the thick cloud of fly-heads circling Himiko. The buzzing grows louder… then abruptly cuts to complete silence.
[SFX: All sound drops into a dead, ringing silence.]
The view stops just inches from her unblinking, cracked porcelain eyes.
Inside Her Mind…..
She had been wandering here for what felt like eternity.
Only endless white. No sky, no ground, no time. Just perfect, blinding nothing stretching forever in every direction.
Then, without warning, the White began to change.
A low, distant rumble rolled through the void.
Suddenly, black shards started raining down from above.
Hundreds at first — then thousands.
They fell like jagged obsidian rain, slicing through the emptiness with sharp, whispering sounds. shhhk… shhhk… shhhk…
None of them touched her.
Every shard that came near Himiko simply bounced off her porcelain body with a sharp ting-ting-ting, falling harmlessly to the ground around her feet.
The shards that hit the white floor did not disappear.
Instead, they began to rise.
Right in front of her, black shards started fusing together, slowly forming the base of a throne. The seat took shape, then a tall, jagged backrest rose behind it. One armrest formed cleanly, but the other twisted and cracked halfway through, refusing to match.
The structure kept trying to complete itself, but it was wrong — uneven, broken, struggling.
More shards rained down, piling up in messy heaps that tried to become walls and steps, only to collapse back into scattered piles of black glass. The entire space around her was a chaotic, half-formed attempt at a throne room that simply couldn't hold itself together.
Himiko stood motionless in the middle of the failing construction, watching the black shards desperately try — and fail — to build her a proper throne room.
A warped, unfinished throne sat crooked before her. Broken pieces of what should have been walls lay scattered everywhere. Shards kept raining down, clattering loudly as they tried again and again to finish what they had started.
Her low, rasping voice echoed through the struggling white void.
"…It's not right."
She slowly stepped forward and placed one hand on the crooked armrest of the unfinished throne.
The black rain continued to pour.
But the room still refused to become what she wanted.
The moment her fingers touched the warped surface, memories flooded out like blood from a wound.
Her mother — Yuna.
Kind, gentle, always smelling of fresh rice and lavender. She remembered being held in those warm arms as a child, Yuna's soft voice singing lullabies while stroking her hair. Even when she became a young woman in her twenties, her mother was still there — always patient, always loving, never raising her voice.
Then the sickness came.
She remembered the way Yuna grew thinner and thinner, the way her once-bright eyes became dull. She was twenty-three when her mother finally passed. She remembered holding Yuna's cold hand, whispering "Don't leave me…" over and over while her father — Lord Kenji, the clan head — stood beside her, still wearing his formal robes, trying to remain strong even as his shoulders shook.
The black shards reacted violently to the grief.
The rain grew heavier, falling faster — SHHHK-SHHHK-SHHHK! — slamming into the ground with force. The crooked armrest beneath her hand began to straighten. The twisted backrest started to smooth out. Steps formed more clearly beneath her feet.
She didn't stop.
More memories rose.
The funeral.
Her father, Lord Kenji, stood beside her as clan head, performing the rites with rigid, hollow dignity. She remembered feeling completely alone despite the crowd of clansmen around them. Then a quiet carpenter from a nearby village arrived — Haruto. He had come to help repair the shrine after the funeral. He didn't speak much at first. He simply stood beside her at the grave, offering silent company while the others slowly left.
When everyone else had gone, Haruto finally spoke — soft, steady words that somehow fit perfectly with her grief. They talked for hours that day. Something about the way he listened, the way his quiet strength matched her pain… it felt like two broken pieces sliding together. Soulmates. They flowed together so naturally that even her father noticed it.
From that day on, Haruto was always there. Two years later they were married.
When she turned thirty-six, everything began to crumble again.
Her father, Lord Kenji, started getting sick. The old clan elders saw their chance. They began plotting in secret to remove her from succession — they wanted a man to lead the clan. They had already chosen their candidate and started training him.
That same man she had fought the day she first awakened — the one accompanied by the girl with the soul-sentence technique. He had used the basic version of Soul Fracture, those black chains, against her.
And then came their son — Ren — born when she was thirty-six. A tiny, chubby one-year-old with his father's quiet eyes and her smile. She remembered rocking him to sleep, singing the same lullabies her mother Yuna once sang to her, all while knowing the elders were sharpening their knives behind her back.
The shards answered with even greater fury. The throne grew taller, stronger. Walls began to rise around her, still crooked, still broken, but forming faster now. The black rain intensified, pouring down like a storm as the incomplete throne room struggled to take shape.
She stood in the center of it all, hand still resting on the throne, voice barely a whisper.
"…I remember you all."
The rain answered with a deafening roar.
And the White kept trying — violently, desperately — to build her a throne room worthy of a vengeful spirit.
More memories crashed over her like a wave.
After Ren was born, the elders moved faster.
They began spreading rumors throughout the clan. Whispers that she was "too weak to lead." That she cared more for her carpenter husband and their infant son than for the clan's future. That a woman who had married a man from outside the bloodline could never be trusted with the title of clan head.
They twisted every decision she made into proof she was unfit.
When she chose mercy over harsh punishment, they called it softness. When she spent time with Haruto and Ren instead of attending their long council meetings, they said she was neglecting her duties. When she tried to help the lower families of the clan, they claimed she was buying loyalty to seize power faster.
They even planted evidence.
Missing clan records, altered letters, and forged documents that made it look like she was plotting to remove her own father and take the position of clan head before he was even dead.
The final lie they spread was the worst.
They told the clan she had grown tired of waiting for her father to die naturally and was secretly planning to kill him herself.
That was what finally turned the entire clan against her.
She remembered the night they came for her — dozens of clansmen dragging her from her home while Haruto tried to protect her and little Ren screamed in his crib. She remembered the cold chains around her wrists as they marched her to the execution ground.
And she remembered the face of the man leading them.
The same man they had trained to replace her.
The black rain turned into a violent storm.
The half-formed throne room shook and cracked as the shards slammed together with savage force. The walls rose higher, jagged and angry, while the throne beneath her hand grew sharper, darker, more vicious.
Her voice came out as a low, venomous rasp that echoed through the collapsing White.
"They took everything from me… and called it justice."
The shards screamed in response.
And the broken throne room kept trying — furiously, violently — to finish itself.
Himiko's porcelain hand trembled on the throne.
Her jagged maw opened, and for the first time in decades, her real voice came out — raw, broken, and small.
"I'm sorry… I'm so sorry…"
The black rain hammered down harder, shards clattering against the half-formed walls like accusations.
"I was going to kill you… I had my hand around your throat, ready to crush you… but you looked at me and said 'Please don't do this, my love. Let us live. I will take our son and never speak a word of this. He will grow up normal. So please… if you're still in there… let us live, my love!'"
She hunched forward, voice shaking.
"You were holding Ren in your arms the whole time… our baby was right there, crying against your chest. Even though I couldn't speak, I turned my head away and opened my hand. That was all I could do."
Cracks spread further across her porcelain face.
"Haruto… you ran into the forest with our son that night. It's only been a month… Ren is still just a one-year-old baby. You're probably hiding somewhere far away in some random village, raising him quietly, never telling him what happened to his mother."
Her voice cracked completely.
"You'll raise him well… you always were the gentle one. You'll make sure he grows up normal, never knowing his mother became a monster. Never knowing she almost killed him…"
She clutched the throne so hard the black shards cut into her fingers.
"I'm sorry I couldn't come with you… I'm sorry I turned into this thing… I'm sorry you have to raise our son alone because I stayed behind…"
Her voice dropped into a broken whisper, repeating like a curse.
"I'm sorry… I'm sorry… I'm so sorry…"
The black rain answered with a deafening roar, shards slamming together in chaotic fury as the unfinished throne room shook violently around her.
The guilt fed the shards. The throne grew taller, darker, sharper — every ounce of her regret making the black structures rise faster.
Himiko stayed hunched over the throne, porcelain shoulders shaking, whispering the same broken apology into the storm.
"I'm sorry… I'm so sorry…"