The rain had fallen earlier that day—light and steady, like silk threads unwinding from heaven—leaving the streets of Yoshiwara slick with reflected lanternlight. The scent of pine ash and wet earth clung to the air. Within the House of Crimson Fans, where only the wealthiest lords and most dangerous men were allowed to linger, silence fell like snowfall as the girl stepped onto the raised tatami stage.
She wore a kimono the color of dying embers—blood-red fading into midnight—and in her hair, a single camellia trembled. She was young, no more than twenty summers, yet her presence had the weight of centuries. No one spoke her birth name anymore. She was simply Kiyo.
A biwa rested at her side. A slow breeze rustled the paper screens. And then—65Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡcpZYcZ2Jp7
she sang.
Her voice didn't enter the room. It consumed it.
Low at first, as if coaxing breath from the shadows. Then rising—mournful and bright, a sound that cracked against memory like a distant thunderclap. Each note curled through the chamber, touching the skin like phantom fingers. Ronin set down their sake cups. Courtesans wept behind painted sleeves. The eldest daimyo, who had not moved in hours, tilted his head like a man struck by a dream.
And outside, though no wind stirred the branches, the wind chimes sang in time.
Kiyo's voice told stories the way gods did—without words. It ached with longing, with loss, with things people forgot how to feel until she gave them back. She sang of rivers that had once run gold, of lovers torn apart by unseen tides, of the moon's endless watching and the silence it demanded. And when she reached the final verse, her eyes closed—not in modesty, but in mourning. As if each song were a burial.
When the last note vanished, no one breathed.
And deep in the corner shadows of the room, a man who should not have existed stood still as stone. His hair was black as ink, but in the dark, it shimmered faintly with scaled patterns. Beneath the folds of his robes, something ancient coiled and stirred.
So this is the voice Amaterasu marked, he thought.65Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡmbJg4StwhG
The voice that can undo gods.
His name was Kagutsuchi.
And before this night ended, he would begin to fall in love with the girl he had come to kill.
The silence that followed Kiyo's performance was shattered by the soft clink of a sake cup placed on polished lacquer.
"Another," murmured Lord Arimura, his voice hoarse from holding breath. His silken sleeves trembled as he reached forward, not for drink, but for escape. "Sing us a tale, little nightingale. Something... old."
Around him, other lords nodded. Their eyes were heavy with memory and sake, but still hungered for something deeper. A story that cut.
Kiyo's lashes lowered. A playful smile curved her lips, soft as the edge of a fan. "Very well," she said, her voice brushing across the room like a breeze stirring ancient dust. "Shall I sing you a folktale?"
"Yes," one noble breathed. "One of gods and curses. Something with teeth."
Her fingers caressed the strings of her biwa.
"There is a tale," she said slowly, "that the priests have buried, and the monks whisper only in winter. A song about a god no one prays to anymore."
The guests leaned in.
"A serpent god," she continued, "as vast as rivers, as ancient as fire. Born of heaven's wrath, fed on thunder. His name forgotten. His story erased."
A murmur stirred the room, but her voice carried over it like fog over still water.
"He fell in love," she whispered. "With a goddess of purity, pale as morning snow. She was a child of light, and he was born from shadow. Yet he curled at her feet and laid down his crowns of fangs."
The biwa began to thrum with a low, pulsing rhythm—like something slithering just beneath the surface.
She told him, 'If you love me, give me your heart.'
And so he did.
He tore it from his chest—whole and pulsing—and placed it in her divine hands.
Kiyo's eyes shimmered, though no tears fell. Her voice rose in a lilting, aching melody that wrapped around the listeners like a coil.
But the goddess, afraid of his devotion, cast him away.
She swallowed his heart and spat his name to the stars, condemning him to fall—
Fall from the skies, fall from memory, fall to earth where no one would remember what he once was.
The final chord hit like a bell toll.
A god undone. A lover betrayed.
She exhaled, eyes still half-lidded, the silence returning with its familiar gravity.
No one spoke. Not the lords, not the servants, not the wind.
Except one.
In the back, hidden behind a screen of smoke and shadows, the man with serpent eyes clenched his fists, golden gaze fixed on her with a tremor of something old—recognition.
Because the song she had sung was no myth.
It was his story.
And somehow, impossibly, the girl had known it. Word for word. Note for note.
Kiyo lifted her gaze just slightly, her eyes brushing the darkness where he stood. Her lips curved—this time not in politeness, but in something deeper.
Almost as if she had been singing it for him all along.
65Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡRDmjZ4fTK1
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