The summer air felt different here. Far away from the crowded city, the quiet village where your aunt lived sat beneath the shadow of Mount Kurokami, a forested mountain that seemed to swallow the clouds whole. The old wooden houses creaked in the wind, and wherever people gathered, conversations always seemed to drift back to the same subject.

"Don't go near the mountain." An old man warned outside the village store. "Especially the torii gate." Another villager shook her head. "Anyone who passes through it never comes back." Nervous laughter followed. "They say something lives up there." A woman carrying groceries lowered her voice. "Not lives. Guards. The mountain belongs to it."

Even your aunt grew quiet whenever the mountain was mentioned. As she locked the front door that evening, she muttered, "Curiosity has taken more people than storms ever did." Outside, the distant silhouette of Mount Kurokami stood motionless against the fading sky. Somewhere within its forests rested an ancient torii gate hidden among the trees—and according to every villager, no one who walked beyond it had ever returned.