Blood on the Lips of the Firefly

"A single flame may be snuffed, but the poison it leaves will linger in the shadows forever."

— Letter from Hotaru no Yakusha

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The night breathed cold, pressing in like the weight of a thousand forgotten sins.

Kamakura's streets, once alive with whispered prayers and drunken laughter, were now choked by silence thick enough to drown a man's soul.

Shindō Motsura sat cross-legged on a broken stone beneath a gnarled cherry tree.

His eyes — dark wells of shadow — stared at the letter before him.

The black wax seal had cracked, like a wound barely healed, and inside lay a single phrase, written in ink so dark it seemed to drink the light:

"To burn the world, one must first learn to bleed for it."

Blood. Pain. Sacrifice.

These were not words to a man who had long since buried his humanity beneath corpses and ash.

Yet, as the moon hung low, casting a sickly glow on his hands, Shindō felt something stir.

Not hope. Not peace.

Something far more dangerous: a thread pulling him toward a destiny darker than the night itself.

---

From the shadows, footsteps approached.

Soft. Deliberate. The kind of steps that know every crack in the earth.

A girl emerged — no more than thirteen — her face pale as moonlight, eyes blind yet glowing with an eerie calm.

She moved like a ghost, silent and sure.

"Shindō," she said, voice barely a whisper, "the firefly waits for no one."

Shindō's fingers tightened around the letter.

He had never met her before.

And yet, in her presence, the cold inside him trembled.

---

"You seek purpose," the girl continued.

"But purpose is a blade with two edges. One that cuts flesh… and one that cuts the soul."

She knelt beside him, placing a small jar in his hands.

Inside, a single firefly flickered — blue as the lantern's flame he had seen once before.

"Keep it close," she said. "It will light your way… or burn your heart."

---

Before Shindō could respond, a scream shattered the night — raw, desperate, filled with agony.

The girl's eyes flared with sudden pain.

"Too late," she whispered.

"Already the shadows have moved."

---

Shindō rose, nodachi drawn like a sliver of moonlight slicing the dark.

Tonight, the game had begun.

And there would be no turning back.