I didn't sleep.
Even after the ink dried. Even after the whispers faded. Even after the reflection settled into something that looked like me again.
I lay awake long after the others drifted off.
And the longer I stared at the ceiling, the more certain I became.
Something was watching us.
Not through the windows. Not through the door.
Through the hours.
By morning, I had made up my mind.
"I'm going," I told Shuji as I wrapped a few things in cloth and tied it tight with a worn furoshiki. "To see Genzo."
He didn't ask why.
He just nodded.
And said, "Don't take too long."
***
The walk to Genzo's house felt longer than before.
Not because the road had changed, but because the world had. The trees leaned slightly in the wrong direction. The river split in two where I remember only one path. And a wooden post near the forest's edge carried two shadows when it should've cast one.
The thread didn't pulse.
It shivered.
Genzo was waiting when I arrived.
He stood outside the house with his arms crossed, watching a single pine needle fall in slow, unnatural motion.
"You felt it," he said.
"It's not just me."
"No," Genzo replied. "It's never just one of us."
He moved inside, leaving the door open behind him.
***
Nothing had changed in the clearing. Same training stumps. Same scattered leaves. But I noticed a faint line carved into the dirt, like someone had dragged a blade in a perfect arc around the entire house.
"A ward?" I asked.
"An experiment," he said. "It worked for a while."
We sat by the hearth. Genzo poured hot water into a cracked teapot—no gourd this time.
Then he looked at me.
"Things are breaking." I said.
"I know."
"Faster." I added.
He stood, walked to the back wall, and retrieved a cloth-wrapped scroll. He unrolled it on the floor. It was a map—not of roads, but incidents. Marked in ink, red lines, and calligraphy.
"Every place a shikigami appeared. Every time I felt the thread twist."
I knelt beside him. "They're spreading."
"No," he said. "They're converging."
I stared at the ink. At the center of the red lines. It was—
"Shuji's shop," I whispered.
Genzo exhaled through his nose, eyes still on the map.
"That's where the thread began."
***
We didn't wait for the storm to come to us.
Within the hour, Genzo had wrapped supplies in a layered furoshiki, and tied them tight against his side. I did the same, sliding mine across my shoulder.
No farewell. No fire left burning behind us.
Only a fading thread and the scent of pine sap in the wind.