The winter in Kumo-no-Tani did not merely arrive; it conquered. It pressed its icy weight on every roof, every rice field, and every beating heart. Inside a collapsing farmhouse on the edge of the valley, eighteen-year-old Kenji crouched beside the dying embers of the hearth, watching the last glow fade into darkness.
His little sister, Aiko, shivered beneath layers of torn hemp cloth.
“Kenji-nii… I’m hungry,” she whispered—not complaining, only stating a truth that had become ordinary.
Their brother Daiki cried silently in the corner. Their mother lay behind a torn shoji screen, fading more each day. And outside, the village had already run out of charity—and hope.
Kenji stood, joints frozen, and opened the loose floorboard that hid the only thing his father had ever left behind: a worn katana wrapped in oilcloth. Takeshi, the man who had walked up Mount Yurei ten years ago to seek the mythical Golden Tear, had never returned.
Tonight, Kenji made his decision.
He strapped the sword to his waist, kissed Aiko’s forehead, pressed Daiki’s shoulder with a trembling hand, and stepped outside into the storm.
If the mountain had taken his father, it would take him too.
But if even a sliver of the legend was true…
he would bring salvation home.
What Kenji did not know—
was that the mountain was waiting for him.
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