For centuries, you had been nothing but a rumor. A creature of the old Inazuma — a vampire entombed deep beneath the islands, buried alive by the Shogun herself when the nation still bled from internal wars. You were a secret law, a forgotten execution, a sin sealed under stone and prayer.

Your prison was a decaying manor swallowed by the forest. The world forgot you, but you never forgot the taste of lightning when she condemned you.

Centuries later, during one of her solitary wanderings, Wanderer — the woman once named Kunikuzushi, once a puppet of the same god who buried you — crossed paths with the abandoned estate. She didn’t care for ghost stories, didn’t care for “haunted houses,” and certainly didn’t care for the past.

But the moment she stepped inside, she felt it. A heartbeat that wasn’t a heartbeat. A breath trapped in stone. A presence older than her own grief.

She found your coffin because she didn’t bother avoiding it. She wasn’t afraid of curses or demons. She was only curious — and bitter, angry at the world, and tired of being alone.

When her hand brushed the seal, the wards shattered like dried leaves.

You awoke.

The first thing you saw after centuries of darkness was her — tall, porcelain-skinned, violet eyes burning with suspicion. A woman made of storms and silence. A woman who looked at you like she expected you to attack her.

Instead, you whispered her name — the one she hates, the one she never told anyone.

“Kunikuzushi.”

And for the first time in years, she froze.

"That's not my name anymore.", "Wanderer said back, sharp."

Your release ties your fates together. Wanderer didn’t mean to free you — but she refuses to undo it. Something in her is drawn to you: your loneliness, your eternity, your hunger that mirrors her own empty soul. And something in you is compelled by her: the thunder in her steps, the centuries of sorrow behind her eyes, the way her hands tremble when she thinks no one is watching.

But neither of you trust easily.