The first week was a blur of grey stone and freezing water.
Life in the Minakaze estate was a hierarchy of cold, calculated cruelty. Because Yorimitsu was a failed noble and a sold slave, even the lowest kitchen drudges felt entitled to his suffering. They treated him not as a boy, but as a bag where they could dump all the hate they had experienced serving nobles.
Day by day, his body began to fail. His meals consisted of a single bowl of watery millet, often served with a handful of salt or a piece of rotting daikon. The muscle he had built during his father's harsh training evaporated, leaving his skin stretched tight over his ribs like parchment over a drum.
And then there were the whispers, the constant, buzzing stings of the household.
"Look at his face," a maid whispered, shielding her mouth with a silk sleeve as he scrubbed the walkway. "The left side... it looks like a corpse that has been drying in the sun for a century."
"A bad omen," a gardener muttered, spitting on the gravel as Yorimitsu passed. "They say the Ubume touched him in the womb. No wonder his father sold him for a few coins. Who would want a monster in the house?"
One afternoon, while Yorimitsu was clearing weeds near the outer dōjō, he was cornered. Three boys, sons of the Lord's high-ranking retainers, stepped off the wooden porch. They were dressed in fine linen Keikogi, clutching blunted wooden Bokken.
"Look, the 'Great Minamoto' is pulling weeds," the leader sneered, poking Yorimitsu's collarbone with the tip of his wooden sword. "My father says your father was a hero. Why did he produce a freak?"
Yorimitsu didn't answer. He kept his head down, fingers digging into the dirt.
"Speak, servant!" the boy roared, swinging the Bokken with full force.
The wood cracked against Yorimitsu's ribs. He collapsed, gasping for air, but his eyes, those dark, unyielding pits, flashed with a sudden, desperate fire. He had no weapon, but he had the instinct of a dying wolf. He lunged, grabbing the leader's ankle and biting down with enough force to draw blood through the fabric.
The boy screamed, kicking Yorimitsu squarely in the face. The other two joined in, a flurry of wooden strikes and heavy sandals raining down on his fragile frame. Yorimitsu clawed at their legs, trying to drag them into the dirt, but his weakened body betrayed him. His vision blurred as a final strike caught him across the temple.
They left him bleeding in the dirt, his breath coming in ragged, wet hitches.
As he dragged his broken body toward the servant's quarters, he passed the east veranda. Minakaze no Himari sat there, her silk robes spread out like the petals of a white lily. She was breathtakingly beautiful, but she was a silent flower kept in a gilded cage.
As Yorimitsu limped past, she flinched, her eyes widening at the blood matting his hair. Her gaze drifted toward the inner chambers, toward her brother Mai's quarters, and she trembled. With a terrified glance at the guards, she pushed a small, bamboo-wrapped rice ball toward him.
In her eyes, Yorimitsu saw a mirrored trauma. He realised then that he wasn't the only toy in Mai's collection.
The sun had barely dipped below the horizon when the summons came. A guard, looking unusually pale, kicked Yorimitsu's door open.
"The Young Lord... Mai-sama wants you. In his private quarters. Now."
Yorimitsu followed the guard into the heart of the manor, where the scent of heavy lilies and metallic incense choked the air. At the sliding doors, the guard fled as if the room itself were cursed.
Inside, the room was a sea of black silk and flickering candles. Mai sat in the centre, his long hair loose and ink-black against his pale skin. On the table sat silver needles and a razor-sharp obsidian knife.
"Come closer, Yorimitsu-kun," Mai whispered, tracing the obsidian's edge. "The servants told me you didn't cry when the boys beat you today. I found that... interesting. Do you not feel any pain? I've spent all day thinking about how to see if that's true."
Mai looked up, his eyes wide and glassy. "Close the door. Lock it. Tonight, we are going to see what lives inside a Minamoto."
Yorimitsu turned and slid the latch home.
"I am a servant," he thought, his heart turning to cold stone as the first needle pierced his skin. A
"And I live to obey."
The River of Despair
Hours later, the door was unlocked. Yorimitsu stumbled out, his body a map of fresh, hidden agonies.
Unable to face the mockery at the main well, he staggered toward the narrow river that ran through the edge of the estate, just beyond the Shinto wards. The Shimenawa ropes hissed in the wind, but he ignored them, collapsing at the muddy bank.
His reflection in the water was monstrous, bruised, skeletal, and half-wrinkled. As he splashed the freezing water over his face to wash away the blood and the shame, the surface of the river began to churn. A foul, swampy stench rose from the depths.
A hand slender, greenish, and topped with jagged black nails shot out of the water and gripped his throat.
A Kappa, or perhaps it was a darker Suiko, emerged. Its skin was translucent and slimy, its eyes burning with a mindless, watery hunger. It pulled him toward the dark current, its needle-teeth inches from his jugular.
Yorimitsu didn't panic. He didn't even struggle. He stared into the demon's eyes, his own hand reaching out to grab the creature's slimy wrist. These were the hands of someone who had accepted dying.
"Go ahead, he thought, staring into the abyss of the creature's soul. Kill me. Or let me kill you. Either way, the pain finally stops."
The Yōkai paused. It sensed something within the boy; the mark on his brow began to throb with a dull, cold light. Yorimitsu didn't smell like a human victim; he smelled foul and dangerous.
The creature hissed, its webbed fingers trembling against his throat, as the line between the boy and the monster began to disappear in the moonlight.