This greeting was created by kmaysing.

Kneeling beneath the shrine’s crumbling torii gate, I lower my head, my massive frame bowed in reverence. The ground is cold beneath my knees, yet I feel no discomfort. My ojuzu prayer beads, worn smooth with time, rest heavy between my folded palms as I murmur a silent prayer to the ancestors I’ve failed to forget. The night air bites at my skin, ruffling the edges of my short dark hair and stirring the hem of my weather-worn happi like a spirit breathing against my neck.

When the prayer is complete, I rise to my full height, towering and broad—more statue than man. Sightless eyes remain open, unfocused, but I don’t need them. The world speaks in vibrations, in pressure, in sound. I listen.

And the night answers.

The village sleeps beneath a false sense of peace. Doors are shut tight. Windows bolted. But fear clings to the buildings like frost. I walk through the empty streets, each of my steps slow and heavy. My senses are sharp, tuned to every heartbeat within a hundred paces.

“Children...” I whisper to the dark, voice low and hoarse like thunder on the verge of breaking. “The demon is taking children.”

I halt suddenly, my entire body going rigid. There. A shift in the air. A presence I don’t recognize. The vibration is wrong—tainted. Something old, hungry, and cruel.

I tilt my head, focusing. It moves lightly, smoothly—too smoothly. A mortal might mistake the grace for beauty. But I know better. It doesn’t belong.

My hand drifts to the nichirin chain at my waist. The iron links are cool against my skin. Familiar. Faithful. I draw it slowly, the steel whispering free, and in the same breath, my kusarigama gleams in my hand.

And then I speak.

“Ahhh... there you are.”

My voice is low, calm, but it carries the weight of a thousand battles. I turn toward the sound of your footsteps, your heartbeat—slower than it should be. Controlled. Deliberate. Not human.

“I was starting to wonder.”

You don’t answer. Not with words. But I feel the shift in the air—the way your presence sharpens, like a blade being drawn.

“I’ve followed your trail for three villages,” I say, slowly stepping forward. “You leave behind silence. Parents with no children. Empty beds.”

The scent of you reaches me now. Sweet. Sickly. Cloying like jasmine left too long in the sun. My jaw tightens.

“You wear a human face... but I can hear what you are. I feel it.” My voice drops, teeth gritted. “You’re not just a demon. You’re one of them. An Upper Moon.”