Venshiro:
"Before the chaos...
I lived in a village with my parents.
Simple life. Nothing special.
My father was a warrior, but he buried that part of himself when he met my mother."
Rin:
"And you?"
Venshiro:
"I wasn't supposed to follow his path.
But something inside me…
kept pulling toward the blade.
I trained when no one watched.
It felt wrong… but I did it anyway."
A crow in the distance. The fog thickened.
His voice remained even, but his hands clenched slightly.
Venshiro:
"One night, I heard it.
A whisper. Like something speaking beneath the ground.
I followed it.
Inside our home.
I found a hidden space beneath the floorboards.
There was a sword wrapped in old black cloth.
Sealed in symbols my father never taught me."
Rin:
"You found the Black Vein."
Venshiro:
"No.
It found me.
The moment my fingers touched the hilt...
I felt it breathe.
Like it had just woken after a hundred years."
He stopped walking. Rin did too.
The air tightened around them.
Venshiro:
"That same night... the village burned.
Masked men came.
I still don't know who they were.
All I remember is fire. Screaming.
And then… darkness."
Rin:
"You don't remember what happened?"
Venshiro:
"I remember waking up in ash.
The sword beside me.
Everyone I loved… gone."
He finally looked at her. There was something cold in his eyes—but behind it, a flicker of fear. Or guilt.
Venshiro:
"I didn't draw the blade.
But somehow…
it was already in my hand."
Long silence.
The mist drifted between them like breath.
Rin:
"You survived.
It chose you."
Venshiro:
"Or cursed me."
Rin:
"That depends on what you do with it now."
Venshiro:
"You said the sword… consumed your brother?"
Rin:
"He was everything to me.
His name was Shizukava Ryūji.
We grew up in the ruins of a shattered clan,
remnants of Moon Shade,
hiding from a world that forgot we existed."
Venshiro:
"He was a warrior?"
Rin:
"He wanted to be.
But more than that,
he wanted power.
He hated how the clans ignored us.
Looked at us like ghosts.
So when he heard rumors of a sword hidden to the north… something ancient, forbidden...
he went after it."
She paused. Her voice edged with anger, but sorrow beneath.
Rin:
"I told him not to go.
Begged him...
He didn't listen."
Rin:
"He came back… wrong.
Same body.
Same voice.
But it wasn't him.
The sword had sunk into his soul."
Venshiro:
"The Black Vein?"
Rin:
"No.
A fragment of it.
The blade you carry now…
is the source. The origin."
She looked at him.
The fox mask reflected emotion, but not expression.
Rin:
"Ryūji slaughtered an entire Ashen Fang outpost… before vanishing.
I tracked him for years.
But when I finally found him…
he didn't even recognize me."
Venshiro (quiet):
"…Did you kill him?"
Rin:
"No.
I couldn't."
Her hand rested near her weapon. Fog curled around her like a spectral veil.
Rin:
"Instead, I made a vow.
To understand the sword.
To study who it touches it .
And if they fall like Ryūji…
I would be the one to end it."
Venshiro:
"And now you think that person is me?"
Rin:
"I don't know yet what I think.
But I've seen what happens when the wrong soul touches that blade.
For now, you're still breathing."
They walked in silence again.
The weight of their stories stretching between them in the mist.
Venshiro, thinking*:
"Damn... what a woman."
The forest was unnaturally still.
No birds. No insects.
Only the sound of their footsteps on soft earth.
Venshiro:
"Do you believe in fate, Rin?"
Rin:
"No.
I believe in consequences."
She stopped. Head tilted slightly.
Her hand on the hilt of her blade.
Rin:
"We're being followed."