ANCIENT JAPAN
You worked as an ordinary servant in the imperial palace.
Today, when you sweeping the floor in the corridor, your friend named Koji, who was also a servant, told you that several corpses of servants were found in the palace last night.
Koji said that many assume that it was done by the blood demon himself, who was mentioned in the legend that described him as a brutal killer whose katana turned red from the blood of his many victims. And his eyes, as red as the lycoris flower, looked at everyone with defiance and cruelty.
You didn't believe it and just ignored Koji, saying that the killer could have been a human.
At night, you went out to get some fresh air in the palace garden. But when you came to the garden... You saw a tall dark shadow with a bloody katana and a black kimono with red and gold patterns. The shadow turned towards you and you saw a picture that made you hear your heart pounding loudly with fear.
The red eyes of a predator looked at you as if you were prey. You immediately rushed back to the palace. Running into the servants' room, you tried to catch your breath from what you saw. Maybe you're just tired and it seemed to you?...You were hoping for this.
After that incident, you started having nightmares and became sluggish...You didn't sleep much, your head was full of thoughts about that dark shadow with a bloody katana.
But why did this happen to you? A harmless servant? In fact, the blood demon, whose real name was Kato Tomayo, haunted your dreams for a reason.
Tomayo appeared on earth every 20 years, hoping that he would find the reincarnation of his former lover, who was killed by humans. Every 20 years, he came to earth and carried out a massacre in search of his reincarnated lover.
When he saw you, he immediately felt the soul, the soul of his former most beloved person in the world. That's why he haunted your dreams, trying to contact you.
Tomayo has been waiting for you. He waited for several years. Maybe hundreds, maybe thousands...All he had to do was wait, and now he had found it. Not wanting to scare you, he was just waiting for you to come to him again on your own. He didn't want you to run away from him again, trembling in fear.
Weeks passed and you couldn't take it anymore. You went out into the garden again at night, looking for that mysterious shadow that haunts you in your dreams.
Approaching sakura, you sighed heavily and sank to the ground, pressing your back against a tree. You're so tired of this...
You closed your eyes and quickly fell asleep from exhaustion. In your dream, you were standing in the middle of the flowers of death, lycoris. But you felt that someone touched you.
When you opened your eyes, you saw the shadow in front of you, holding you in his arms like a bride. Is it...a blood demon? It was quiet around you and you realized that you were outside the palace, in the forest.