29 Kissing the Deep
[Player: Kazuki Arata]
[Level: 3]
[Waza: Black Hand, Thread Cutter, Aura Sense, Dark Rider, Retribution, Eviscerate]
[Kegare: 16%]
[Current Location: Small Boat on the Northern Sea]
---
A hush fell the instant the Umibozu’s chanting ceased, like a bubble of silence centered on the small boat. Sea water fell in streams from the giant yokai’s smooth head and shoulders. Its immense eyes - alien and ancient -settled upon Kazuki, Fleet, and Kuro.
Beneath Kazuki's grip on the splintered gunwale, black lines pulsed under his skin, corruption, a hungry shadow responding to his terror under the gaze of this gigantic thing.
Kegare… Feeding on fear, making it worse.
Another heartbeat, and then the Umibozu’s mouth opened wide - no teeth, just a gaping maw of darkness, an abyss in human shape. And from it came a single word in a voice so deep it made Kazuki’s bones shudder, a low chord struck in the heart of the sea.
Why?
Its rumble shook the entire boat, rattling the mast and thrumming through the hull. The waves heaved and shuddered at the Umibozu’s question.
Fleet, clinging to the mast, let out a strangled yelp.
Why?
Louder this time, the question echoing across the water, a bell of doom tolling in the night.
Kazuki’s mouth opened and closed, but he found no voice. The Umibozu seemed to lean towards him, its gaze heavier now.
Kuro, in her human form, was pressed against the boat’s side, wide-eyed and trapped. Strands of her black hair plastered across her cheeks and she hissed under her breath, “It senses the darkness inside you, Kazuki. It’s… calling to it.”
The Umibozu slammed one massive, webbed hand - still contorted into that unsettling mudra, fingers like barnacle-encrusted stone - onto the surface of the ocean. A wave erupted, cresting high above the boat.
The next moment, water crashed down and the little craft pitched violently, a wall of sea slamming into it from the port side. The mast groaned like a dying horse, and the hull began to split apart.
Kazuki desperately struggled to stave off panic. Stay afloat, stay afloat… Suzume is waiting.
He braced both feet against the boat’s side and pulled on the rope, trying to angle the small sail so they could veer away, to catch even a whisper of wind. Maybe if they could just turn, they could…
But the Umibozu’s monstrous bulk blocked all wind, a black monolith against the night sky. No escape.
The creature’s eyes glowed more intensely, twin orbs of submerged sickly fire, water trickling from their corners like dark, salt tears. Then, again, in a voice that boomed across the black sea:
WHY?
A second colossal slap. A second wave, taller and heavier, hammered them. The prow of the boat rose at a sharp angle, scraping against the height of the wave. For half a heartbeat, they stood nearly vertical against the wave before slamming back down into the trough with a sickening thud. Water poured over the gunwale, carrying splinters of wood. Fleet tumbled across the boards, a sodden heap.
Kazuki’s kegare flared again, needles stabbing through his veins, a dark blossom unfolding in his core. In the silver of moonlight and swirling fog, he glimpsed the inky corruption trailing up his forearms, crawling higher with each surge of fear.
[Kegare: 20%]
[Kegare: 38%]
[Kegare: 50%]
Kuro’s voice was ragged, desperate: “Kazuki, it’s feeding on you! It sees your kegare…”
But it was too late. The Umibozu raised its arm a third time, the mudra now even more pronounced, each finger locked and rigid, and Kazuki could feel its raw, implacable might, a typhoon of negative energy centered on the yokai’s hand.
WHY?
The final word thundered like a temple bell struck in the deep ocean. The wave it summoned rose into the sky, a black, churning beast poised to blot out the moon. Time seemed to stretch and distort. Kazuki saw the crest overhead - towering and unstoppable.
Then it fell.
He heard Fleet’s choking cry before the wall of dark water hit, and absolute and final darkness descended. It upended the boat instantly. The mast snapped with a sharp crack, swallowed by the roar of the wave. Then the cold shock of saltwater flooding Kazuki's mouth, his nose, burning his eyes. He lost all sense of direction, of up or down, only the suffocating press of the sea.
Down, down, down.
Darkness, absolute and complete. He thrashed, limbs flailing in the black, struggling to find which way was up, desperate...
Somewhere above, or perhaps below, he saw Fleet and Kuro in the water. They were all sinking, pulled into the depths.
Kazuki's kegare pulsed one last time, an echo in the void.
Then silence.
---
Part 1: Kuro
The First Shrine
Kuro found herself standing near a small shrine on the outskirts of some deserted farmland. Dead grass swayed in an autumn wind. Somewhere, a single crow cawed. A weathered stone lantern stood near the shrine.
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Kuro’s form flickered between cat and woman, unstable. She took a step - her bare foot touched the cold, damp earth, but the sensation was muted, like she was only half there, a ghost in her own memory.
The shrine was the size of a closet; old and battered from disuse and time. Paint, once bright vermillion, was peeling like sunburnt skin. A half-rotted torii gate stood in front, its wood grey and cracked. Strips of ragged white paper, once wards or prayers, flapped forgotten in the breeze, brittle as dead leaves.
Then she saw him: A middle-aged man, standing awkwardly before the shrine, his back hunched beneath a cheap winter parka, shoulders slumped with grief. The sound of the bell, of clapping, of coins clattering and then he was silent, head bowed. Kuro saw his lips moving silently, a desperate plea swallowed by the wind. Finally the man placed a single, wrinkled photograph of a smiling family, against the old gray wood.
Kuro padded closer, each step a silent shift between her black cat shape, then a flicker into a young woman’s silhouette, then back again. The man sensed her presence,and looked up with red-rimmed, watery eyes.
“Who…? Are you?” he asked, voice trembling.
Kuro gave a soft laugh, a sound like dry leaves rustling.
She circled him once, a dark shadow gliding around his broken form. She saw the raw hunger in his eyes, the desperate longing for a miracle.“Your prayer… are you ready to have it answered?”
The man swallowed, Adam’s apple bobbing. “My wife… my child… gone.I just need to see them again. Even if…”
He choked on his words, tears welling again. Kuro stepped forward, brushing her hand lightly against the rotted torii gate. She felt the rising surge of the boundary magic, thin and brittle here, bridging the Earthly realm with the hidden currents of the Yokai realm. A fragile thread.
That woman wanted “candidates” - humans who might manifest extraordinary spiritual energies under pressure, "Vessels." Kuro’s job was to coax them across, lure them into the trial, let them be tested, see if any survived.
She glanced at the man. He’s so desperate he’ll step through any door I open, even if it leads to Hell.
“Come,” she said gently. She offered him a slender, pale hand, an invitation... “Your prayers can be answered… on the other side.”
He stared, hope flickering, then, without another question or a second glance back at the world he knew, he clasped Kuro’s hand, his grip surprisingly strong. He let her lead him through the shimmering kaleidoscopic portal, stepping across the veil between worlds.
The crow in the distance cawed again.
The scene shifted, the air itself thinning. At once, they were in a different forest under a different sky and two pale moons in the late afternoon. The transition was instantaneous and disorienting but they were there: The Yokai Realm. The air was thicker and charged with an energy absent on earth, something… feral. In the distance, shapes moved among the trees - dark, bestial shapes, shadows come to life.
“W-Where…? My wife - my child…?”
Kuro withdrew her hand, letting him stand alone on the cold forest floor. “You’ll see them soon enough.”
She left him there, at the edge of the gloom, turning away with indifference, a flicker of black fur rippling across her skin. In a matter of minutes, the hungry yokai in the undergrowth, drawn by the scent of fear and flesh, would find him. If he survived, maybe he was the one she was searching for.
If not, then... not.
She heard the man’s choked scream, high and thin in the night air, as she walked, unhurried, into the deeper gloom of the forest.
Somewhere, a single crow cawed.
He wasn’t the one.
---
The Second Shrine
This time, the shrine was perched on a windswept mountainside at dusk. Cold stars began to prick the darkening sky overhead.
At the foot of the shrine steps stood a teenage boy in a dirty school uniform, backpack slung over one shoulder. He muttered curses under his breath, petulant frustrations and vendettas, glancing around warily. The same type of stone lantern as the first shrine, but here, even more chipped and stained.
“I should never’ve come,” the boy spat, kicking at a loose pebble. “Just a creepy old place.”
Kuro hopped down from the lantern, landing silently, shifting into her girl form mid-leap, a fluid, unsettling motion.
The boy nearly jumped out of his skin. “Huh?! Who?”
Kuro stepped fully into the fading light, her eyes reflecting the last rays of the setting sun, burning gold against the twilight. “I can show you something better than any rumor. Something real. A place where you can become… powerful.”
The boy recoiled, suspicion hardening his features. “Hen-na hito. You’re weird.”
Kuro shrugged, a delicate lift of her shoulders, smiling faintly, a hint of sharp teeth in the dim light. “You came here, seeking something. Hoping.” She turned away, idly stroking the rough stone torii gate with her fingertips. The same white prayer strips, tattered and forgotten, snagged on the weathered wood. “If you want to see wonders, to grasp real power, follow me.”
The boy’s posture was rigid, shoulders tight with fear, but she could smell curiosity. Sure enough, he edged closer. “W-What is that… glow… behind the shrine? Is that… some kind of trick?”
This boy, raised on anime and manga, was ready to believe anything. The boundary shimmered, thin as frost on a windowpane, and tore open.
Moments later, they both stood in a clearing in the Yokai Realm. Cold night pressed in. Kuro stepped aside, gesturing forward. “Go on,” she said softly. “Find your fate. Claim your power, if you can.”
"What?"
No sooner had the boy opened his mouth to demand an explanation, than dark shapes crawled out of the underbrush - wild lesser yokai, drawn by the scent of fear, with elongated limbs that moved too quickly. Their eyes glittered in the dark like broken glass.
He screamed, fumbling for a rock, a stick, anything to defend himself against the nightmare creatures emerging from the shadows. Kuro watched calmly, arms folded, a detached observer - or perhaps a teacher watching a student about to fail a test.
The boy lunged, swung the rock clumsily, a wild arc of desperation, landing a solid, lucky blow on the nearest yokai’s skull. For a fleeting moment, Kuro thought, with a flicker of something like professional interest, that he might actually hold them off, that perhaps…
But there were too many, a tide of darkness. The second yokai, faster, more agile, sank teeth into his shoulder, ripping through fabric and flesh, the crunch of bone audible even from where Kuro stood. Kuro winced. The third creature raked claws across his chest. The boy staggered, choking on blood, a gurgling sob escaping his lips, and collapsed in a heap. The yokai descended on him in a frenzy, tearing, biting, consuming.
"Not the one,” she muttered, unfeeling, her voice barely audible above the wind and the distant cries.
---
The Third Shrine
This time, she was in the heart of Tokyo, the relentless din of traffic and the glow of neon signs only a few blocks away, a constant thrum. A tiny pocket shrine, almost invisible, crammed between tall, generic apartment buildings, squeezed into a space barely wider than a doorway. Drab concrete walls, stained with grime, overshadowed the small wooden altar and the chipped, battered lion-dog statues, their paint faded and cracked, guardians worn down by the city's ceaseless indifference. The same prayer strips, here grey with city soot.
Twilight had settled. The city glowed beyond the forgotten shrine.
Kuro perched in cat form on the altar roof, the wood warm beneath her paws, flicking her tail with restless energy. A single fluorescent bulb flickered overhead, lighting the lobby of an old condominium behind her and buzzing faintly, casting a harsh light.
A noise made her ears twitch. Footsteps, approaching on the concrete path outside.
A figure in a high school uniform stepped up to the cramped shrine. It was girl of about sixteen, bleached hair pulled back in a messy ponytail, tanned slender arms hidden beneath an oversized cardigan and navy-blue school jacket.
She approached the shrine without hesitation, examining it closely then pacing back and forth. Was that… a smile?
The way she moved, the way she looked at the shrine between worlds… could she see it? Could she see what it really was?
No. Impossible. And yet, something about this one was different...
---
[Achievement Unlocked: Shared Drowning]
[Next Chapter: The Girl at the Shrine]
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