Tokyo, Present Day – Before the Crash
The city never really slept—Tokyo only shifted moods.
In the early hours, just before sunrise, the streets hummed with the quiet efficiency of overworked dreams. Vending machines blinked in the corners like sentries. Salarymen with stiff collars and dead eyes trudged toward platforms. And Akiko Takahashi moved through it all like a ghost with a stethoscope.
Her shift at the trauma center had ended forty-three minutes ago, but she hadn't yet gone home. She couldn't—not with the silence that waited in her apartment, the half-eaten meals, the missed calls from a mother who pretended not to notice how rarely her daughter answered, and a boyfriend who hadn't said "I love you" in three months.
Instead, she sat in a 24-hour soba shop, still in her scrubs, her ID badge turned backward so no one would recognize her as the surgeon who saved a stabbing victim three hours earlier. The table before her was filled with untouched food. Her hands trembled slightly—not from fear, but exhaustion.
They called her brilliant. Cold. Exceptional. They called her heartless, too.
But none of them saw her in the bathroom stall with her fist pressed to her lips, muffling a scream. No one asked what it cost her to perform god's work with mortal hands.
Outside the shop window, the world was blooming into day.
Tokyo was a city of masks. Neon perfection on the surface, but hollow beneath. She had learned to wear her own: the stoic professional, the unshakable doctor. But it was cracking. In her dreams, she was drowning in sterile light, voices crying her name from operating tables she couldn't reach.
Her phone buzzed. A message from her boyfriend—"Dinner tonight? Or are you 'saving the world' again?"
She didn't answer. She didn't need to; something was changing within her, but she couldn't place her finger on it.
In the distance, across the road, she saw a figure. A lone girl in an outdated silk kimono, sleeves too long, hair loose, and eyes searching. She looked misplaced, lost, dressed in a way that didn't belong to this century. Barefoot. She didn't speak, only stared, as if hoping to be remembered.
Akiko blinked, her heart tightening for reasons she couldn't name. She should've called out. She didn't. She only stared back.
And just like that, the girl was gone.
Akiko lowered her eyes, breathing slowly. She couldn't explain the cold curl in her stomach or why her fingers felt unfamiliar. Something was changing. Something deep and buried and entirely hers—but also not hers at all.
She just didn't know it yet!
***
Old Japan, Present-Day
At the break of dawn, the bell tolled once, long and low, as if the palace itself exhaled. A mist rolled over the eastern pavilions, swallowing the garden paths and curling beneath the white marble arches. Kiyomi stood with the other six maidens on a stone terrace veiled in morning fog. No one had spoken since the guards escorted them out.
In the silence, the whisper of silk and the soft shuffle of feet were deafening. They were made to kneel before a long lacquered table, behind which sat three of the Crown's judges—men with ink-stained fingers, half-lidded eyes, and mouths sharpened by law. Between them, a single scroll rested, bound in crimson twine. Then, the King appeared.
He stepped onto the high dais above them—his robes a dark storm cloud against the morning gray. The wind did not touch him. His gaze passed over the kneeling women without pause, like one might observe a lineup of stones. He gave no greeting. No blessing. Just a gesture.
The eldest judge rose.
"By order of His Majesty, the first trial begins now".
"The Test of Insight."
A pause. Before you are seven puzzles. Riddles. Documents. Lies. Truths. You will each be presented with one. Solve it—reveal what others cannot. "Show the Crown you are not a decorated doll, but a mind sharp enough to rule beside him—or fall beneath him." The words rang clear, neither cruel nor kind, just final. A collective shiver passed through the audience chamber.
Nobles leaned forward, silks whispering like serpents. This wasn't mercy. This was war in silk and ink. A test of the mind—rare, yes, but no less deadly than a sword to the throat. There would be no clues. No second chances. Every maiden stood alone before the Crown and the seven judges, with nothing but her wit and knowledge between her and exile—or worse. The wrong answer could mean disgrace, dismissal, or quiet elimination. And all of them knew it.
Kiyomi's parchment was placed in front of her with quiet finality. She glanced at it. A genealogy scroll—layers upon layers of noble names, branching across generations. A few had been redacted in red. At the top, the seal of the House of Tsukimura. Below, the question is inked in black: "Identify the traitor." Her heart pounded. The scroll wasn't just a puzzle—it was a trap. A real name was hidden among the lines, one with consequences. False accusations could end lives. But refusing to answer could cost her own. She steadied her hands and leaned in.
Across from her, Ayaka worked in quick, neat movements, her brow furrowed. Another maiden was already in tears, her scroll untouched. Kiyomi scanned the chart. A name stood out—not because it was bolded or different, but because it didn't match a bloodline known to her from the court gossip she'd soaked in. A marriage date was wrong. A child born too soon. She caught it. A forged lineage meant to place a lesser noble in line for inheritance. Smart. Subtle. Dangerous. She wrote a single name and returned the scroll. Her hand trembled only slightly.
The judges passed through the line. Some maidens had scribbled something on their scrolls. Others scribbled uncertain guesses, their faces drained. When they reached Kiyomi, the judge paused longer than expected. He read. Then looked up at the King. No words were exchanged—but the moment stretched, thick and breathless. The King said nothing. His face did not shift. Yet somehow, that silence struck harder than any sword. The judges moved on. And the scroll remained in their hands. Not burned. Not torn.
One by one, the scrolls were read. The judges' faces shifted—some with approval, others with mild surprise. Yuna, always the quietest, had written a precise rebuttal to a falsified land claim, citing tax records from a decade prior. General Asami nodded once, sharply impressed.
Suzume had spun her scroll into a cunning political maneuver, redirecting blame onto an obscure cousin—Dowager Shizuka's smug nod said all. Even Reina, who rarely spoke above a whisper, had used metaphor to cleverly veil her answer, pleasing Minister Kurosawa. The judges whispered among themselves. No one had failed. And yet, tension buzzed in the air like an unseen blade.
Then they reached Kiyomi's scroll. Lady Mizue furrowed her brow as she read, her lips parting slightly in a breath of disbelief. High Priest Jirou remained silent, unreadable. General Asami's eyes narrowed in thought. But it was Lord Hisashi Mori who first scoffed—too loudly, too theatrically. "This is reckless," he said. "Accusation without diplomacy.
She implies one of the elder clans forged lineage to deceive the Crown." Minister Kurosawa leaned over and added, "And if she's wrong, it borders on treason." Dowager Shizuka sniffed disdainfully. "The girl is wild. Unfit." Prince Naoya, leaning lazily on one arm, smirked but said nothing—his eyes gleaming with curiosity rather than concern.
Lady Mizue Tachikawa raised a hand. "Her logic is sound. The dates contradict official census records. Only someone with knowledge of both noble history and temple archives could have caught this." High Priest Jirou gave a single, solemn nod. "Truth does not ask permission to offend," he said, his tone as calm as it was commanding.
But the atmosphere did not soften. If anything, it sharpened. Three of the judges—Lord Hisashi Mori, Minister Daisuke Kurosawa, and Dowager Shizuka—sat back in tight silence, expressions unreadable. Their reasons had nothing to do with family. Hisashi, ever the economist, saw Kiyomi as a threat to his influence over court finances. Daisuke, a reformist in name but a traditionalist at heart, bristled at her defiance of protocol. And Shizuka—old, sharp, and steeped in political intrigue—had already placed her quiet support behind Suzume Kanzaki.
The room bristled with held breath as the judges weighed their calculations, their power balancing on the edge of a nod. Still, the King said nothing. And Kiyomi, with every eye upon her, slowly stood. Her spine was unbending, her chin held high. She did not kneel. She did not beg. She did not flinch.
The King looked down at her. For a long moment, nothing passed between them but silence. Then, in a voice flat and clear, he spoke:
"She will not be removed."
Gasps rippled through the chamber. Even the judges stilled. No reason was given. No explanation. Just that decree. The King turned and walked away before her name was dismissed. Whispers exploded behind his back. That had never happened before. No maiden had ever survived outright disapproval from so many judges—let alone been spared by direct command. And not one had dared meet his gaze without trembling.
The answer had come to Kiyomi not through logic alone, but through a whisper—an echo—buried deep within the marrow of this borrowed body. As the question was posed, a flicker of memory surged up like a tide: old ink-stained scrolls, a silver hairpin glinting under candlelight, a whispered argument behind a lattice screen.
She had not lived those moments, yet they clung to her like smoke. Somewhere in the shadows of the real Lady Kiyomi's mind lay secrets—plans, betrayals, wants too dangerous to speak aloud. With every step deeper into this world, the present
Kiyomi was beginning to understand that her predecessor had not simply been a disgraced woman framed for lying with a married lord—she had been a threat. And threats were not simply shamed; they were erased.
Someone had wanted Kiyomi silenced, and now that she had returned—walking, breathing, speaking with sharper clarity than before—that danger stirred again. She was not as safe as she had begun to believe. Eyes were watching. And this time, they would not settle for scandal. They would settle for blood.
As the trial concluded, none were dismissed. The seven maidens were escorted from the terrace, the sun now fully risen over the palace. But the air between them had changed. Ayaka whispered something to Reina. Suzume glanced sharply at Kiyomi. It was Ayaka who finally broke the silence, her voice soft, but laced with venom.
"If he doesn't kill you," she said, without looking back,
"I might." The war had not ended with the test.
It had only grown sharper!