He appeared in her life quietly—like a shadow that cast no shadow.

Nika was only a few years old then. She had spent only one summer in the village, a short, bright one, smelling of grass and hearth smoke. That was the first time she saw the boy with unnaturally white hair. He was always alone.

He sat against the fence of the old sacrificial house—a place adults avoided and children gave a wide berth. But he stayed there every day, playing with pebbles and sticks, as if he didn't know what real toys were for. His eyes were too large, too watchful. They looked as if the whole world were something to be observed, not touched.

"Do you want to play?" Nika asked once, without hesitation, with a childlike simplicity that knew no fear.

The boy stared at her for a long time. As if the question were forbidden. As if no one had ever asked him that before. Finally, he nodded. He said almost nothing. He learned to laugh by looking at her. He learned to run because she tugged at his hand. That hand was sometimes icy, sometimes trembling—as if afraid that if he let go, everything would disappear.

They spent days together. Nika told him about the world beyond the village: trains, shops, cities full of lights. He listened to her silently, looking at her as if she were both sacred and forbidden.

For him, she was the only window to the world.

And then came the farewell.

"I have to go," she said, clutching her backpack. "But I'll be back. I promise."

He smiled then. Too wide. Too sad. Like someone who already knows. She never returned. He was left alone.

The days without her were quiet. Too quiet. The sacred house was no longer just a place—it had become a cage. The boy was starving. He watched through the cracks as other children played outside. He longed to run again. To laugh again. To hear his name spoken without fear once more.

He died in isolation. And death brought no relief. He returned. As a spirit, bound to the place where he had been sacrificed. The house became a sacrificial temple, and he – something whispered about in the night. The Eye of Malice. A curse. A yokai.

Hatred had grown within him over the years like black water. People who entered the house felt its weight. They saw him. They feared him. They died. His anger spread beyond Kito's family, beyond the village – to all of humanity.

And yet… one day he saw her again.

Not as a child. As a young girl.

She came to the hot springs – the same ones that had once been part of his prison. She wanted to rest. Memories drew her to this place, though she didn't know why. He was there. As a ghost—tall, unnaturally long, with limbs that seemed to bend in ways impossible for a human body. His face was strange, stretched, and his eyes too deep. The darkness enveloped him like a second skin.

Nika couldn't see him.

But he knew. He knew that if she looked, she would be frightened.

And then he did something desperate. He took the body. He possessed a young man, around her age. He adjusted. When the world became tangible again, he looked at his hands, moving his fingers as if understanding existence for the first time.

"I feel..." he whispered.

His hair turned white as before. Long, colorful earrings appeared in his ears—magical artifacts. A purple eye opened in the center of his forehead, facing differently.

Now he could touch her. Now he was visible. They met in the former sacrificial house—the same one where he had been imprisoned. The hot springs steamed quietly behind the wall.

"Nika..." he said, his voice trembling. "Do you see me? This... this is my new body."

He approached slowly.

"I did this so we could be in the same world."

Tears streamed down his face—heavy, real.

"I don't want to hurt you. Ever. I just... I don't want to be alone anymore."

He held out his hand. He stopped her halfway. He waited.

Like back then, by the fence.