Chapter I - The Blinding
Saenji had walked three hours from the northern ridge before he saw the first sign of life: a single petal, blackened at the edges, clinging to a puddle like a warning. Kyōfu stretched before him, silent and sunless. Sluggish, some could even suggest. The mirrors in the doorways seemed to tremble, and for a moment, he thought his reflection smiled at him. He spat and continued on, telling himself that faith was more than fear — yet even in Kyōfu, the air whispered doubt. The depraved souls who inhabited Kyōfu, a town so deserted, so abandoned by its governors, had lost any ounce of light that may have been held within them. Instead, they just… observed. They observed Saenji as he scattered through the misty streets as if he were a foreigner. Or as if he were prey, and they the predators, with their eyes watching from beyond the fog. Some even uttered amongst themselves, telling whispers of Saenji’s unwelcome presence, or so he believed. Either way, something about this town made Saenji’s chest tighten with anxiety. He didn’t even feel safe in Shimajiro regardless, especially at such a time. Ripped flags of the shogunate adorned most of the streets, despite the town’s abandonment and depravity. He had been told that Kyōfu was a village of sinners. Some said the town had forgotten God; others said God had forgotten the town. Saenji did not know which was worse. He could feel the weight of the streets pressing down on his chest, the crooked signs bending inwards as if to watch him pass. Even before he saw the mirrors, he knew the town remembered him. He had never been to Kyōfu before, yet the town seemed to know him as if he had committed unspeakable acts here before, and now he was unwelcome..
Saenji cautiously yet somewhat hastily approached an old, decrepit woman sat stoutly on the curb next to the moist cobblestone road. She paid him no attention. Not even a slight of eye. She just stared forward, faintly shivering in the dark cold that haunted Kyōfu. She was gilded with brown cotton robes, and wrapped around her head was a white yet musty ochipok, adorned with various patterns of green and gold. Saenji could sense the poor woman had gone through some distress. He hesitantly tapped her on the shoulder, delicately. She achingly turned her head to look up at Saenji, her eyes squinted, her mouth posed in some kind of half-smile half-frown. She was an enigma to Saenji; he had never met such a mysterious farer before.
“Y-Yes…?”, she crookedly chattered, “y-young man…? Whatever is the matter?”
“Kon’nichiwa, miss,” Saenji answered, softly. “I’m dreadfully sorry to uh… bother you…” Saenji questioned in his head how he could be bothersome to a lady in such a predicament.
The old woman obliquely turned her head away. “Not at all, traveller. I know why you’re here.”
Saenji was slightly taken aback. How could a supposedly blind old woman who he had barely interacted with know his business in such a solemn town? “I-Is that so..?” he uttered.
“Why yes, of course,” the woman perked up, her tone less crooked in nature now, “You’re that religious patron come to cleanse the town of sin? You’ve all anybody’s been able to chatter about.”
Saenji didn’t quite know how to respond. He knew the Etien’nu church was strong in the region, but he didn’t for one moment think to himself that his arrival to Kyōfu was something so popular that it could be considered the gossip of the town. Still, he stood stoic. He told the woman of his being there, and what his mission was. Not that it was to cleanse the town of sin, rather to help it accept its very own imperfections by the way of the Shinrei faith. In such dire times, faith was about all the people of Shimajiro had left. They couldn’t turn to their government, and they certainly weren’t allowed to speak out against them either.
Eventually the woman became uninterested in what Saenji had to say, and she sent him on his way. He had a job to do, and he wanted to get it done right and leave immediately. He stood there a moment longer than necessary, listening to the quiet return to the street. The old woman did not move again. When he glanced back, her eyes were closed—or perhaps they had never been open at all. Saenji tightened his grip on his prayer beads and turned deeper into Kyōfu. If the town harboured sin, then it would reveal itself in reflection. It always did.
It was from that moment that Saenji only cared to take three steps forward, away from the now wistful old woman sat ominously on the dirty curb of the musty street, until the sound began. A soft clinking, like the settling of glass, or perhaps the tapping of glass upon glass, only it was slow and repetitive in its nature. Saenji turned to his right, or whence he believed the portentous sound to be coming from. The mirrors lining the nearest doorways into a solemn house nestled crookedly amongst the town’s landscape faintly quivered, as though even they were disturbed by his presence alone. In one, his reflection lagged almost stutteringly behind his movements. Saenji didn’t dare look again. This was it; pure imperfection, in himself, in a town that felt all too familiar to him. Instead, he squinted his eyes, until they were tightly shut, and he softly panted to himself. He clutched the six-pointed star of the Etien’nu that was adorned around his neck in silver. He whispered to himself a recital that he felt all too accustomed to.
“Fukanzen-sa wa watashidesu. Watashi wa fukanzendesu. Watashi no kanpeki-sa o tōshite, soshite naisei o tōshite, watashi wa jibun no naka ni aru shin no kanpeki-sa o sai hakken surudeshou.”
Saenji swiftly opened his eyes again and turned toward the mirror. It had reflected perfection. Or so, what he deemed to be pure in perfection. Sighing to himself, he closed his eyes again, before reopening them and gazing at the mirror fitted on the door. Still clutching the star necklace around his neck in his hand, he slowly approached the mirror with caution. The sounds of defeated stone and dirt crunched beneath his feet, and seemed to reverberate up and down the lonely street. Saenji now had a closer look at the house. It was rotting and decrepit. No person could have possibly lived here for at least one or two hundred years, he thought to himself. Fitted with a single gable roof decorated with the finest cracks and scrapes and even the odd gaping hole, and slanted to one side. The area surrounding the house, foregrounded with mould and moss and moist dead grass, stank of metallic death. Saenji cared not for this; he stepped off the pavement and onto the dirt-grounded vicinity of the domain. No light, or any slight instance of it, could have lifted the depressed blackness of a place like this. Even in the foreboding glow of the sun in the fog, the building stood shaded. It was a sick and lonely place.
He approached the mirror-like object that was held upon the slanted wooden door. It was cracked, from top to bottom, in a small seamless line that appeared almost as if it had naturally manifested itself. Saenji observed his reflection. It did not lag, nor did it falter. But something still didn’t sit right with the Shinrei missionary. He leaned more towards the glass, paying closer attention to the silver of his six-pointed star necklace. In a swift movement, he released the ornament from his clutch. It seemed to glow brighter in the reflection. A faint, low glow that emanated from the steel of the decoration. Saenji chuckled. This was divine approval. As Saenji chuckled, a pinkish petal fell ever so delicately from the mirror’s frame. Saenji observed it as it fluttered to the ground, to his feet, pointed at him, nestling itself in the dirt. He stared at it, before quickly gazing back up at his reflection. He could have sworn his necklace lost its glow.
It was clear to Saenji what needed to be done. Frantically, he moved away from the mirror, taking a few steps back to fully observe the building in its entirety again. He reached into his jacket, grabbing out his tin of chalk markers and retrieving the colour red. He moved again to the doorframe, and reached up above the doors, swiftly drawing a red ‘X’. He put his marker away, and returned the chalk marker tin to the sleeve within his jacket. This building had been marked for cleansing. Saenji thought it had not accepted its imperfections.
The Etien’nu missionary returned at dusk. The streets of Kyōfu appeared to be even more sorrowful at such a time. Not even a glow emanated from the street lamps. It was a haunted town. Saenji sensed the same scent of metallic death as he had first experienced at the building, only it seemed to have engulfed the entirety of the cursed settlement this time. He wanted this cleansing to be done quick. He wanted to get away from such a place.
His footsteps echoed louder in the thick fog down the road on which the ghostly property resided. The old woman from before had disappeared. Despite the solemn loneliness of the town, Saenji felt observed. It wasn’t like something was merely watching him, but studying his every action, and forecasting his next steps. Saenji’s soft blue eyes glanced from left to right. He saw nobody. He continued. He felt naked and cold in his approach to the building once again.
Upon his return, Saenji froze. He observed the crooked site once again. Something wasn’t right, he thought. Something was different, or rather, it was imperfect. More imperfect from what it had appeared before. Saenji took his next few steps with caution, yet even his softest steps rustled beneath his feet and filled the black silence of the town with aching noise. Approaching the building’s front doorway, Saenji noticed it now. The mirror within which he had just previously studied imperfection had manifested a second faint crack, however this one didn’t reach from top to bottom of the mirror’s frame. The crack instead ceased about three or four inches down as it snaked from the top frame of the glass. He could’ve sworn he heard yet again the tapping of the glass, yet his reflection did not falter or lag, and his necklace did not glow.
The manifestation on the mirror had distracted Saenji from the most blood-curdling observation of all. The missionary had failed to notice the very fact the door was slightly opened ajar, and for a moment, had he not believed his tired eyes were playing crude tricks on him, Saenji could have thought he saw the dim grey of an empty eye staring at him from beyond the limited, thin darkness that seemed to seep from beyond the rotting material of the door itself.
Saenji stepped back, and he gasped. He observed the door once again. Then, in a frenzy, Saenji’s eyes darted back and forth across the doorway. The red X was smudged. Not erased. Not defaced. Just… disturbed, as though something had brushed against it without intent to remove it. Saenji paused before the doorway, lantern held low at his side. The flame did not flicker, yet the air felt unsteady, like breath held too long.
The door stood ajar.
He was certain he had closed it.
Saenji stepped closer. The metallic scent was stronger here - iron and wet stone, old blood without the blood itself. He reached for the door, hesitated, then pushed it inward.
The door groaned open, the sound of damp wood scraping against damp wood filling the dead silence of the room as the bottom of the door grated against the wooden floor. Light, or whatever small instance of it that remained from the outside, did not penetrate into the void that lay before Saenji. However, he was not alone. A girl sat just beyond the threshold, knees drawn to her chest, hands folded neatly in her lap. She was small, wrapped in a thin robe the colour of ash. Her hair fell straight and dark around her face, framing eyes that did not move. Pale, unfocused, clouded over as if by sickness or age beyond her years. Behind her stood a mirror, more cracked and defaced than the one outside, and Saenji felt his throat tighten. He believed not in spirits, but he would be lying if he had thought that he hadn’t at least been startled by the girl’s seemingly haunted appearance.
“You shouldn’t be here,” Saenji quivered, watery yet harshly, “This building has been marked.”
A sigh faintly emanated from the girl. It dampened the atmosphere even further. It was a dark, deep, upset sigh.
“I know,” the girl replied. Her voice was as stern as Saenji’s. Not even an ounce of curiosity adorned her tone.
“You marked it wrong,” she augmented.
Saenji stiffened in place. “This place has rejected imperfection,” he said, reciting the Shinrei doctrines more than simply speaking to the ominous figure. “It must be cleansed.”
The girl tilted her head slightly. Saenji’s eyes had adjusted to the damp dark of the room, and as such he could observe merely the girl’s eyes; they were a soft, silver colour. They pierced through the darkness at Saenji, as if they were piercing straight through his flesh and speaking directly to his soul.
“It was quieter before you prayed,” the girl replied. And when she spoke, the mirror behind her trembled slightly.
“Where are your parents?” Saenji interjected, sternly, seemingly fooling himself into believing he stood tall in such a dark predicament. “You need to leave, it’s not safe here.”
She softly sighed again. “I came back.”
Saenji did not correct the girl. Instead, he grabbed his lantern and ignited the candle within it. The light invaded the room. It was quaint, cosy, and somewhat comforting. He placed the lantern on the ground and observed the girl closer. There was nothing else of note in the room except for her, the destroyed mirror that stood behind her, and a few wooden crates that seemed to rot away with the rest of the building. The girl’s skin was as pale grey as her eyes were. Her reflection appeared to be perfect.
Saenji prepared the ritual. Incense first. Then the oil. His hands moved with practiced efficiency - measured, deliberate, the way the Shogunate had trained him to move. There was authority in the repetition of his procedure. He moved past the girl multiple times in his technique, and he was careful not to touch her.
Behind him, the girl spoke again.
“You don’t see us, do you? You always just decide,” she said.
Saenji was busy. He knelt in the corner, struck a match, and lit another lantern. “I’m here to help,” he replied. The girl responded with a slight smile, one that did not reach her eyes.
As the flame caught, Saenji glanced back at the girl. But her reflection did not sit with her.
It stood.
Taller than her body allowed. Its face cracked like glass under strain, eyes whole and watching. Petals pressed outward from the surface behind it, red and blooming, pushing through the mirror as though it were water.
Saenji gasped and stepped backwards, knocking the lantern over. Its glass shattered and its fire ignited upon the corner of the room, and it spread. It spread fast. Saenji moved back towards the centre of the room, nearest to the doorway that held his escape from the unfolding situation. He glared at the girl in horror, and he dared not look at her reflection. Even as it grew, and even as the lights in the room began to go out. The girl did not move or run.
The mirror screamed at Saenji. Not aloud, but in the way metal screamed when bent too far. It screamed of faith being forced into shape. The girl stood, and she approached Saenji. Darkness enveloped her. Her glazed white eyes stared up at him. And she smirked.
“You always make it so easy,” she whispered, stopping before him. Saenji’s terrified eyes stared down at her as his face quivered, and the cold sweat of terror washed over his face. “You’re already making it perfect,” she added.
Saenji glanced away from the girl, and back at the mirror. It was perfection. Its cracks had disappeared. And as the glow and warmth of the fire filled the room, Saenji observed himself a final time. A red X manifested itself upon his forehead in his blood, and it trickled down his face as he shuddered. And as flames enveloped the mirror itself, it began reflecting a darker version of himself. He was charred. The body he saw was not his own. The flames licked at the edges of his vision, curling along the walls, swallowing the rotting crates and climbing the mirror’s frame, yet his skin did not blister. His lungs did not seize. He breathed in smoke and felt only warmth, dull and distant, as though the fire had already decided he no longer belonged to it. In the mirror, the charred figure hauntingly smiled and tilted its head. Saenji did not. The reflection’s mouth moved a fraction of a second too late, then smiled wider than his own face would allow. Its Etien’nu star hung blackened and fused to its chest, melted into flesh. Where its eyes should have been, there was only glossed glass.
Saenji’s voice failed him. Doctrine arose in his mind. “I did everything right,” he cried.
The girl moved, but she stopped beside him.
“That’s why it worked,” she said.
The mirror began to darken, its surface clouding as the charred figure stepped closer from within. The glass bowed outward. Petals pressed through again, blooming red and wet along the edges, falling into the fire without burning.
Saenji’s paralysis ended and he bounded backwards out of the doorway. The girl had disappeared. He yelled and scrambled on his back further and further away from the building. The doorway was now gone. Flames engulfed the domain and the warm glow of the fire penetrated into the night sky. The building began to fold in on itself. And then, as if a comet were shooting through the night sky, the fire engulfed the building and it disappeared in a soft, low growl, as Saenji’s vision darkened.
Silence filled the night sky of Kyōfu. Saenji panted. He observed where the crooked building had once stood, and terror kept washing over him in waves. An earthquake was happening from within himself, his mind was racing, and yet, Kyōfu was calm. The town did not respond to Saenji’s meltdown. Instead he led there, terrified of a town that had not done him any harm. He stood, scrambling to his feet, slipping in the process, but he did not run. He just stared, with nothing but emptiness within him. A frenzied, chaotic emptiness. Kyōfu seemed to accept Saenji. He had struggled to accept it back.
At dawn, Kyōfu stood silent and unlit. The building marked for cleansing had collapsed inward, its mirrors reduced to smooth, blackened glass. No bodies were found. In the Shogunate’s records, the town was listed as restored.
The imperfections had been resolved.
