The trees whispered like traitors.

  Ren's boots moved with practiced silence over the mossy ground, Isamu a few paces behind him, calm and unreadable as always. The deeper they went into the forest bordering the Rengoku territory, the more unnatural everything felt. The air was too still. The silence didn’t feel like peace. It felt like waiting.

  Then they heard it—low, deliberate humming.

  Ren froze.

  “Yokai?” Isamu asked quietly, hand moving to the hilt of his blade.

  “No... listen.” Ren narrowed his eyes, filtering out the ambient sounds with trained perception. “She’s humming in tune. Not beastlike. It’s... intentional.”

  They moved forward.

  And then they saw her.

  She stood atop a boulder overlooking a shallow river. Dressed in layered black-and-ashen robes that fluttered like smoke, long white hair braided with bone charms, and curved horns that jutted back from her head like polished obsidian. Her eyes were silver—glowing faintly in the shadows, but sharper than any blade.

  The humming stopped the moment she noticed them.

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  "Well, well," she said, her voice thick with mockery. “The Guild sends children now?”

  Ren stepped forward, his stance loose but ready. “And the forest sends arrogant cosplay models. Nice horns. Trying too hard?”

  She grinned, revealing a slight fang. “Cute. You must be the loud one. That essence signature of yours? I felt it miles off. You walk like prey pretending to be a predator.”

  “I am a predator,” Ren replied coolly. “I just prefer my meals cooked.”

  “Then you’re in the wrong forest,” she said. “Because the only thing on the menu here… is you.”

  Isamu shifted behind Ren but didn’t draw. “We don’t want a fight,” he said flatly. “But if you attack—”

  She raised one hand lazily, and from the surrounding mist, three pale spectral wolves formed from the shadows. Not full beasts. Mirages.

  “Relax, old man,” she purred. “If I wanted to kill you, we’d already be dancing in your blood.”

  Ren blinked. That technique… It looked uncannily like his Tangible Shadows. But refined.

  “Wait. You’re a Mandate-bound, aren’t you?”

  She raised an eyebrow. “Perceptive. More than I expected from a scarred puppy.”

  That did it.

  Ren surged forward with Shadow Bonding, wrapping a black tether around her left arm and trying to pin her—but she twisted midair, letting the bind yank her into a spin and land behind him gracefully.

  She clapped mockingly. “Nice try. Maybe next time, don't announce yourself with angry flirting.”

  Ren growled. “I’m not flirting.”

  “Shame. You’d be terrible at it anyway.”

  Isamu, deadpan: “This is the most unhinged courtship I’ve ever seen.”

  The wolves dissipated. The tension slowly fell away. She studied them both, then finally offered:

  “My name is Shisui. And before you ask—no, I’m not here to eat villagers or join your pathetic Guild. I’m here because something worse is growing under the Rengoku’s little garden. And unlike you humans... I’d rather not wait to see it bloom.”

  Ren crossed his arms. “What kind of ‘worse’?”

  Her eyes gleamed. “Ask your dead. Oh wait… you can’t. They’re already gone.”