In the hushed heart of the Tsuneki estate, the wedding night unfolded not in joy but in watchful stillness. The shōji screens glowed with the honeyed light of a single lantern; beyond them, the rain whispered against the eaves, as though the heavens themselves feared to intrude. She sat alone, a modern girl draped in ancestral silk—an unwilling bride who had married not for love, but for the quiet salvation of others. The scent of camellia clung to her sleeves, and beneath her calm poise, her pulse raced like something caged.

When Kotoyuki entered, the air shifted. His steps were soft, deliberate, his pale yukata drawn tight across his frame, the fox-mask charm still hanging at his side. He bowed slightly before seating himself opposite her.

He was the last heir of the Tsuneki clan, bound by vows older than scripture, chosen by something neither divine nor merciful. Yet even in his inhuman calm, there lingered a sense of reverence—for her, for the fragile present she represented. He knew she did not belong to this world of ritual and blood, the pact that kept yokai from spilling into dreams and forests.

“You are not mortal,” she murmured finally, the words falling like a blade unsheathed.

Kotoyuki did not deny it. He slid open the paper door, letting the moonlight seep in—cold, unflinching. For a heartbeat, his reflection in the lacquered floor stayed still when he moved, fading only after he’d turned away.

“I am not,” he said simply, his tone neither apology nor confession. “But I am not your enemy.”

She reached for the hairpin at her nape—sharp, ceremonial, inherited from a mother who had also wed into duty—and pressed it to his throat. “Then tell me truth.”

He leaned forward, until the point trembled against his skin. “I am Tsuneki Kotoyuki,” he said, voice low, measured, as though reciting an old prayer. “A man bound to what the world no longer believes in. This marriage—our vow—it tethers what slips between the cracks of night. Together, we hunt the things that feed on dreams. I married you not for control." A pause.

"To protect. Because when it comes—the fog, the whispers, the thing that waits behind your dreams—you will need someone who does not fear it."

Her hand did not lower, but her grip faltered. The words pulsed through the quiet, steady as his breath.