"The past is a forest. You may walk forward, but the roots never let go." – Sayings of the Crimson Veil
The bamboo forest greeted her with whispers.
They were not the rustle of wind through leaves, nor the soft creak of stalks swaying in the morning breeze. These whispers came from within—the breath of memory, threading through the silence like smoke through a screen.
Ayanami stepped lightly between the tall, green pillars that formed a living labyrinth. Her path followed no road, only instinct and the lingering sense of purpose given shape by her master's final words. The dawn was grey, and though sunlight reached down in spears through the canopy, the bamboo swallowed it before it could warm the ground. The forest floor was cold. Damp. Uneasy.
It felt like returning to a dream she had tried for years to forget.
She paused at the edge of a small clearing, where the mist pooled like water in a basin. Her breath caught, unbidden, as she recognized the stone steps leading down into the basin. Half-buried in moss and earth, they led to the ruins of what had once been a shrine.
Her shrine.
No one had spoken of it in years. It had been scrubbed from maps, forbidden in training halls, even expunged from the temple records. But Ayanami remembered. She had been six years old when the fire came.
She descended the steps slowly, almost reverently, like a mourner returning to a grave. Charred beams and collapsed walls still remained, overgrown with vines. The scent of ash had long faded, replaced by the sweet rot of wet wood and time. But in her mind, the fire still burned.
She knelt at the cracked stone altar, fingers brushing a faded engraving—two phoenixes in flight, circling a sun. Her clan's original sigil, before it was changed. Before the fire.
A child's voice echoed in her ears.
"Aya, don't be scared! I'll protect you!"
Her brother's voice.
She closed her eyes, and the memory took her fully.
---
The fire had come in the night.
She remembered the heat first—hot enough to wake her, hot enough to steal breath from her lungs. Then the screams. So many screams. And the smoke, choking and thick, curling into their chambers like a living thing.
She remembered her brother Kenji pulling her from her mat, wrapping her in his arms and carrying her through the corridors as the shrine burned around them. He was fourteen, already in training. Strong. Brave.
They reached the courtyard, only to be met by masked figures—blades drawn, eyes like coals. Kenji fought. Gods, how he fought. But he was just a boy, and they were trained killers.
The last thing she remembered was being thrown into the koi pond by his bloodied hands, his last act. The water had taken her, pulled her under, muffling the screams and the heat. When she surfaced, the shrine was gone. Her brother was gone. The world had changed.
---
Ayanami opened her eyes. Her hand trembled where it rested on the stone.
"I couldn't save you," she whispered to the empty ruins. "But I remember."
She stood, brushing dirt from her knees. The past was a fire she could not douse—but she could shape what remained from its ashes. Every ghost she carried had made her what she was.
She left the shrine behind and returned to the forest path.
---
By midday, she reached the river that marked the forest's far boundary. A rope bridge spanned the chasm above the waters—old but intact. She crossed without hesitation. On the other side, the terrain grew rougher. The bamboo thinned, giving way to craggy rock paths and low shrubs.
This was no longer territory she knew by heart. She had entered the wilds of the eastern pass—ancient lands once patrolled by the Crimson Veil's border scouts, now left abandoned in peace or fear.
The air turned colder. The wind sang differently.
As she approached a narrow gorge, a figure stepped from behind a twisted pine.
"I wondered when I'd find one of you."
The voice was smooth, dry—almost amused.
Ayanami didn't react, but her hand slid to her blade.
The figure wore dark robes not unlike a monk's, but too carefully tailored. A mask covered his lower face, and his eyes were the color of dried blood.
"You walk like a ghost," he said. "But the ghosts don't carry steel like yours."
Ayanami said nothing. She watched the man's hands. Empty, for now.
"Let me guess," he continued, circling slowly. "You came from the Crimson Veil. Or what's left of it."
Still, she said nothing.
The man nodded, as if pleased with her silence. "They're looking for you, you know. You and whatever your master left behind."
"I'm not hiding."
"No. But you are outnumbered."
He reached for his sash—and in a breath, Ayanami moved.
Steel flashed.
The man was fast. But she was faster. His hand never reached the blade at his waist. Her strike caught his robe, slicing through the cloth and grazing his side.
He leapt back, laughing softly. "You've got fire."
"You bleed too easily to mock me."
He bowed, mockingly. "We'll meet again, little flame. And next time, I won't be alone."
With a swirl of black cloth, he vanished into the rocks.
Ayanami stood still, listening.
Nothing but wind and silence.
---
She continued toward the Silver Peak.
That night, she made camp in the lee of an ancient tree, gnarled and shaped by time. A small fire crackled. She boiled rice from her pack, though she hardly ate.
Instead, she unrolled the scroll her master had given her. It contained a map—hand-drawn, marked with sigils and paths long forgotten. At its center was a red ink circle: Lady Sayuri – the Keeper.
The Silver Peak was only days away, but the road would not be quiet.
She thought of Kiri, still wounded back at the compound. Of the apprentices who had died without ever tasting battle. Of Yugiri. Of Kenji. And of the fire that had begun her life in blood.
Ayanami folded the scroll. Her eyes turned toward the stars beyond the canopy.
The ghosts were always with her. They did not scream anymore. But they watched. They waited.
She would not fail them.
She would burn away every lie, every betrayal, until only truth remained.
And beneath it all, perhaps… she would find who she was—what she had always been meant to become.