Prologue
"Gyatei, gyatei, haraa gyatei, harasoo gyatei, bodhi sowaaka..."
The monks were praying. Heads bowed before the altar, a dozen or so temple acolytes chanted the mantra for expelling evil spirits without pause. Between them and the altar, a young woman lay thrashing on a straw mat as if in a fever dream. Her face was pale as snow, and from the heat racking her body, her hair was drenched straight through.
The monks kept praying. The mantra was draining them — beads of sweat stood out on many a shaved head. They were giving it everything, pouring all their physical and spiritual strength into fighting the affliction that had seized the poor woman.
Standing nearby, the temple's head priest — Hataroku Jumbei, already well past his prime — scowled grimly. His monks' strength clearly wasn't enough. He was a sincere man, and it pained him deeply to see this woman suffer. What worried him even more was that his younger brothers just didn't have the power to overcome this evil. A very hard case. Yet, despite the difficulty, the man refused to allow himself even a shadow of negativity, not a single thought that they might fail to save her. This was, after all, the temple of the great Amaterasu-sama! And they had something that could help...
With a long, loud creak — Jumbei grimaced inwardly: really need to oil those hinges — the temple doors swung open, and a small figure stepped into the candlelit chamber.
"Took you long enough, Kaoru," the old priest said, eyeing the newcomer.
The youth — a boy, really, maybe ten or eleven — looked like he'd just tumbled out of bed. Disheveled hair, kimono thrown on hastily. He'd clearly woken up not long ago, which wasn't surprising: outside, the night had already fully fallen. Shooting the priest a bleary, half-asleep glare, the boy crossed the hall in silence and walked up to the praying monks. Coming to stand at the woman's head, Kaoru swept his gaze over her. But it wasn't like he was looking at her — more like he was peering around her. And into her.
"Uwaaahh..." He couldn't stifle the yawn.
"Kaoru!" the priest snapped, frowning.
"Tch." The boy clicked his tongue and shook his head. Thrusting his hands forward, he shook them out — a set of prayer beads, white and turquoise, slipped out of his right sleeve and settled around his wrist. Taking a deep breath, he clasped his hands in a seal before his chest and bit out sharply: "Rin, byou, tou, sha, kai, jin, retsu, zai, zen!"
The woman's body jolted as if struck by lightning. She screamed — a long, drawn-out wail — writhing on her mat, arching harder and harder with every syllable the boy uttered. The candles in the room flickered, shadows dancing across the corners. The monks redoubled their efforts, their voices growing louder, more insistent.
Then, with one last gasp, the woman fell limp against the mat like a puppet with its strings cut, expelling a cloud of black smoke from her body. The smoke roiled above her, lashing in all directions yet somehow holding together as one formless mass.
"Where do you think you're going? I didn't say you could leave," Kaoru muttered darkly. He flicked his wrist; the prayer beads whipped forward, suddenly extending like striking serpents. In a heartbeat, the cloud of black murk was entangled, bound like a prisoner in rope. "Bind the evil!" the boy shouted, and the beads constricted, crushing the mist that had seemed utterly impossible to bind. With his other hand, he flung a white sheet of paper into the heart of the haze. "Seal the evil!"
A flash of light lit up the room for an instant — and then it was simply gone. The only thing left was a white sheet of paper, drifting lazily down to the floor in spirals, a five-pointed star marking its center.
"Fine work, Kaoru." Jumbei smiled. Everything had gone perfectly. Same as always.
"Mm. Old man... I wanna sleeeeeeep," the boy mumbled through another yawn.
"How do you speak to your Head Priest, you little scoundrel!" the old man grumbled at the boy's retreating back. Not loudly, though, and not really angry — more out of habit. He hadn't quite given up hope of reforming his adopted son, but some feeling told him it was useless. Suppressing a rueful sigh, the head priest turned to his monks, who were still catching their breath: "You can handle the rest. Same as always: this" — a disdainful glance at the slip of paper — "to be destroyed in fire, with prayers. The poor woman goes to the guest quarters — let her get some proper sleep. Tidy up here, and... you did good work, brothers."
"Yes, Hataroku-sama!" the monks chorused, smiling. Exhausted as they were, at least it had all turned out well.