The sky over the Miyazaki estate was blood-red at dusk, burning with an unnatural hue that no season could explain. Wind screamed through the hollow trees, and the shrine bells clanged though no one touched them.
Reiko stood barefoot at the threshold of the house, dressed in white ceremonial robes passed down from her late aunt Otaki. In one hand, she held the old black comb of Sakuma Ayame; in the other, the pendant pulsing faintly against her chest. She could no longer tell where her dreams ended and the waking world began.
"Are you sure about this?" Yukishiro asked quietly. His golden eyes, filled with ancient sorrow, never left her face.
"I was taught the rite in dreams," Reiko whispered. "Otaki showed me. This is the only way to end it."
Shin paced anxiously behind them, his fists clenched. "We could still leave. Burn the estate. Leave it to rot."
"It wouldn't die," Koroe said softly, clutching her purification charms. "The estate is bound to her blood. And to her choice."
Reiko stepped over the threshold. The house didn't resist. Instead, it welcomed her like a breathing, waiting thing. As her bare feet touched the old wood, the lights flickered and then extinguished. Shadows rose like fog.
The others followed, one by one. But soon, they were gone.
Reiko stood alone.
The corridor stretched endlessly, mirrors lining the walls. The images within twisted. One reflection wept blood. Another smiled too wide. One showed her face rotting, maggots eating through flesh.
Reiko didn't blink. She walked forward until she stood before the ancestral mirror—the same one Otaki used to pray before.
The glass shimmered, and the world shifted.
She was no longer in the real world. She stood in a mirrored version of the Miyazaki estate—everything reversed, but clearer, sharper, like memory made glass.
Before her stood three figures:
Ayame, pale and beautiful, hair flowing in endless rivers, weeping without sound.
Jiroh, mouth sewn shut, eyes filled with guilt and arrogance both.
The Child, faceless and crawling, wearing a stained ceremonial robe too large for its body.
Reiko bowed her head. "I know you now."
Ayame's lips quivered. "You forgot me."
"I was never allowed to remember."
Jiroh reached toward her, fingers trembling. "You carry what we could not contain."
"And you asked me to carry it in silence."
The Child tilted its head, emitting a croaking, warbled cry.
"Pain," Reiko whispered. "You are pain that was buried instead of healed."
The Shadows trembled.
Reiko stepped forward. She bled from her feet, cuts opening along the floorboards with every step.
"I cannot be your vessel. I am not your offering."
Ayame's hair writhed.
"Then what are you?" Jiroh rasped, his sewn lips somehow speaking.
Reiko raised the comb.
"A seal. A new one. With my name, my choice, my blood."
The mirror fractured behind her, each shard showing a different face—Reiko as a child, as Miwa, as Ayame, as the nameless girl who died screaming.
Yukishiro's voice pierced the silence. "Reiko!"
She turned. He stood on the other side of the broken mirror, reaching.
"You are Reiko Maizono. Not them. Not a tomb. Come back!"
Shin's voice followed. "You're not alone! I don't care who you were! I care who you are now!"
Koroe's voice, calm but fierce: "Anchor yourself. Focus!"
Reiko raised her voice, steady now.
"Ayame. Jiroh. Child. I name you. I mourn you. But I do not belong to you."
She slit her palm with the comb and pressed her blood to the ground.
The house screamed.
All three shadows surged toward her—but stopped, inches from her face. The mirror behind her mended itself, piece by piece.
Reiko fell to her knees.
Yukishiro caught her.
Shin held her shoulders, breathless.
Koroe knelt and placed a warding charm on Reiko's chest. "She's stable."
The house... quieted.
The heartbeat in the walls slowed.
The old wood sighed. The scent of incense faded. The mirror dimmed.
Outside, dawn broke.
Reiko sat up slowly.
"Did it work?" Shin asked, voice raw.
Reiko nodded. "For now. I didn't destroy them. I gave them names. That's how you end a curse. Not with fire. With truth."
Yukishiro looked to the window. "The estate still holds them. But now, it holds them gently."
Reiko closed her eyes.
She had lived once as Miwa.
She had lived again as Reiko.
And now… she would live as both.
The girl who lived twice had finally become one.
TO BE CONTINUED.