*A darkness is swallowing the mountain—and the exorcists are doing nothing.*
When lower ayakashi vanish from the Yatsuhara range without a trace—not exorcised, not devoured, but hollowed out until nothing remains but empty vessels waiting for orders—the Matoba clan's young head, Seiji Matoba, is the only one who sees the threat for what it is. A forbidden art. Ayakashi-name binding. The greatest taboo of the exorcist world, and someone is using it.
But Seiji has spent his whole life learning t
The Law of Ayakashi: Seiji Matoba's Conviction - The Mountain Where Ayakashi Vanish: Matoba Seiji's First Report
It was a moonless night. At the edge of Kirinotani, where a small Inari shrine stood alone at the foot of the mountain, Matoba Seiji listened to the report from his subordinate exorcist. The vermilion torii gate was peeling in places, and the shrine's bell hung in an eerie stillness on a windless night. There was no light to speak of, yet Matoba's narrow eyes alone held an unnatural clarity in the darkness.
He wore a black suit with a white shirt, a deep navy haori layered over it, standing there as though dissolved into the dark. His lean, tall frame — close to six feet — was without waste, his spine perfectly straight. A small black stone earring hung from his left ear, catching the faint starlight, glinting dully for just a moment.
"...That concludes the report on the disappearance of lower ayakashi in the Yatsuhara mountain range."
The subordinate kept a distance of three paces from Matoba, his voice stiff as he finished. He was an exorcist in his mid-forties, the honest, straightforward type. Like anyone in the Matoba clan, he always found his throat tightening with tension when standing before this young head of the family.
"All at once, then."
Matoba asked back briefly, keeping his gentle smile. His voice was low, pleasant to the ear — but his eyes were not smiling. His deep, purple-tinged black eyes rested quietly on his subordinate's face.
"Yes. And there's no trace of them having been devoured. Only the ayakashi's presence has vanished entirely."
"I see."
Matoba gave a small nod.
"Ayakashi disappearing is hardly unusual. Either they were exorcised, or eaten by something stronger. Either way, it's not our concern."
"But, sir. This time the circumstances are—"
"Leave us."
The tone left no room for argument. The subordinate caught his breath for a moment, bowed deeply, and hurried off down the dark mountain path.
Matoba watched his retreating figure, his smile never faltering. The wind blew. The cedar treetops rustled, and a lukewarm breeze stirred the hem of his haori.
The moment he was alone, Matoba's right hand clenched unconsciously, hard. In place of moonlight, a faint glimmer of stars leaking through the clouds illuminated the back of that hand. It was an old burn scar. The skin was drawn tight and discolored white — vivid as though it had seared the memory of a childhood day directly into the flesh.
Ayakashi disappearing. All at once. With no trace of having been eaten.
Unnatural.
Matoba let his smile fade. In a place where no one was watching, he permitted himself to remove the mask.
—Ayakashi are tools. If one is gone, you simply prepare the next piece.
He pronounced it so in his heart. He had to. As head of the Matoba clan, he must never grow attached to ayakashi.
But the burn scar on his right hand ached.
That day had been the same.
His father's shikigami — a white fox — had vanished in the middle of a mission. The backlash of ayakashi power had burned young Seiji's hand, and he had reached out to grab the vanishing white fox's tail. He hadn't made it. The white fox had scattered into motes of light and dissolved into the twilight sky.
His father had said:
"Don't grow attached. Ayakashi are tools."
Those were his father's last words.
Matoba stood with the scar clutched in his hand, gazing up at the dark sky. The clouds hung thick and heavy; the stars were no longer visible.
"...Tools."
The murmur was swallowed by the darkness of night and vanished.
The next morning, Matoba went alone into the Yatsuhara mountains.
Two hours along the mountain path from Kirinotani. The trail, winding through a mix of cedar and broadleaf forest, was dim even by daylight, and the ground was deeply covered with fallen leaves soaked by the previous night's rain. The air was cold, the smell of moss and leaf mold clinging to the back of his nose. Still wearing his black suit with the haori over it, Matoba descended into the ravine with an unhurried, certain stride.
The Yatsuhara mountains were a well-known habitat for ayakashi in these parts. The locals whispered that "if you wander in, you won't come back," and rarely set foot there. Indeed, the Matoba clan's records noted that this mountain was home to numerous nameless lower ayakashi, which occasionally harmed humans.
Matoba walked with his right hand's scar unconsciously hidden beneath his haori sleeve.
It was when he reached the ravine.
He sensed something wrong. The presence of ayakashi had suddenly snapped off — clean. The faint murmur of ayakashi energy that had filled the surroundings until then was gone, as though it had never existed at all.
Matoba stopped and narrowed his eyes.
There.
At the base of a tree, a small ayakashi crouched.
It was a nameless lower ayakashi. Roughly human in shape, but its limbs were thin as dead branches, its skin a muddy earth color. Normally, such a small ayakashi would sense an exorcist's presence and flee — yet this one didn't react to Matoba's approach at all.
Matoba walked quietly closer.
The ayakashi stared at empty space, mouth hanging slack, murmuring something over and over.
"...Yes, as you command... yes, as you command..."
Its sense of self was completely gone. Matoba crouched down and peered into the ayakashi's face. Its eyes were unfocused, pupils fully dilated. Saliva ran down its chin, forming a small puddle on its knees.
A hollow shell, no better than a ruined husk.
Matoba's expression didn't change.
"Not exorcism, and not predation."
He murmured in a low voice. He carefully observed the area around the ayakashi. No signs of struggle. No sign it had tried to flee. Just a vessel waiting for orders, as though only its soul had been extracted.
The mark of domination.
Someone had bound this ayakashi and destroyed its sense of self.
Matoba stood and surveyed his surroundings. The ravine was dead silent — not a single bird's call. The air was heavy. A lukewarm wind blew through the damp trees.
He coolly calculated the possibility that this situation could escalate beyond what could be ignored. If lower ayakashi kept disappearing at this rate, eventually the mountain's ayakashi ecosystem would collapse. If that happened, the higher-ranking ayakashi with territory on this mountain would not stay silent. The boundary between humans and ayakashi would be thrown into disorder, and the damage would reach the town at the foot of the mountain.
As head of the Matoba clan, this was not a problem he could overlook.
Matoba glanced at the hollowed-out ayakashi and turned his back.
That was when he noticed something lying at his feet.
A scrap of paper.
Matoba picked it up. It was a fragment of old washi, its edges scorched and worm-eaten. The surface was densely covered in writing, in a hand he didn't recognize.
Matoba's eyes narrowed sharply.
A string of characters that appeared to be an ayakashi's true name. Fragments of an incantation he had never seen. And in the corner of the paper, a faint seal.
—Ayakashi-name binding.
A forbidden art designated by the Matoba clan — a technique that steals an ayakashi's true name and binds its very existence. Anyone who used it would be expelled; it was the greatest taboo in the world of exorcists.
Matoba turned the scrap over and held it up to the light.
There was no mistake.
This was not the work of an individual. It suggested an organized intent.
Matoba carefully folded the scrap and tucked it into his breast pocket.
Then he descended the mountain.
Kirinotani was a small hot-spring town spread out at the foot of the Yatsuhara mountains. Population roughly twelve thousand. Mostly old hot-spring inns and farmhouses, with a small Inari shrine standing alone at the edge of town. Matoba took a room at Kirinoya, the oldest inn in town, and decided to begin a full investigation.
The innkeeper was a small woman in her mid-sixties. She looked up at Matoba's black suit with curious eyes, but cheerfully led him to his room.
"First time in this town, sir?"
"Yes. I'm here on business. It's a quiet town."
Matoba answered with a gentle smile.
"Too quiet, really. All the young folks have gone off to the city. Oh, but — you sometimes hear strange rumors from the mountain, so it's best not to wander around at night."
"Strange rumors?"
When Matoba tilted his head slightly, the innkeeper lowered her voice.
"They say ayakashi are disappearing in the mountains. Over the past few years, people have started whispering about it, bit by bit. I can't see them myself, so I wouldn't know — but I hear those who can see them do. They say the mountain is becoming empty."
Matoba kept his smile and listened to her words.
"Oh? Ayakashi disappearing, is it."
"And you, sir — are you the type to believe that sort of talk?"
"Hmm. Who's to say."
The innkeeper didn't press further; she laid out the bedding and left the room.
Once alone, Matoba stood by the window and gazed at the mountain ridge. Dusk was approaching, and the mountain's edge was beginning to stain red. Mist crept up from the valley, blurring the outlines of the trees.
He took the scrap from his pocket and held it up to the light.
Ayakashi-name binding.
The name of that technique, recorded in the Matoba clan's archives. About twenty years ago, a man who had been an exorcist of the clan was discovered to have been researching this art, and was expelled. The man's name was—
Matoba folded the scrap and returned it to his pocket.
Night.
In a room at the inn, Matoba held the scrap up to the lamp and examined it. He checked each written character one by one, analyzing the quirks of the handwriting. The shape of the seal resembled the Matoba clan's old talismans, but was subtly different.
That was when it happened.
One of the shikigami placed in the corner of the room suddenly trembled.
Matoba looked up.
The shikigami had the form of a small black shadow. Normally it obeyed Matoba's orders, lurking in the shadows to scout the surroundings — a servant shikigami. Now it rose slowly into the air, as though dragged by an invisible hand.
"What is this?"
Matoba stood.
The next instant, the shikigami vanished without a sound.
It was not destruction. Something had called the shikigami's true name. From a distance. Ignoring Matoba's contract.
Immediately after, a searing pain shot through Matoba's right hand.
"—ngh."
He dropped to one knee on the tatami. The burn scar on his right hand ached as though red-hot iron had been pressed against it. The ayakashi power that bound him as a practitioner was backflowing. The destruction of a shikigami caused great depletion of the practitioner's ayakashi power.
He knew this pain.
The same as the day his father's white fox vanished.
Matoba gritted his teeth, enduring the pain while coolly analyzing the situation in a corner of his mind. The enemy had targeted his shikigami. They had used a technique to call its name from a distance, forcibly severing the contract.
This was a situation he could not handle alone.
At the same time, if he delayed reporting to the clan headquarters, his position would be in jeopardy. The disgrace of having a shikigami stolen despite being head of the clan. Within the clan, there were those who wished for the downfall of a head too young for the role.
Matoba exhaled slowly and waited for the pain to subside.
Cold sweat ran down his temple.
—I cannot retreat.
After the pain faded, Matoba stood by the window.
The ridge of the Yatsuhara mountains, its mist beginning to clear, rose against the darkness of night. Above the mountain, stars were beginning to twinkle, one after another.
He counted the number of shikigami he had lost. He coldly calculated his remaining forces and the remainder of his own ayakashi power.
The conclusion did not change.
This was not merely a case of disappearing ayakashi. It was an attack targeting him personally.
But as head of the Matoba clan, he could not retreat for any reason. Ayakashi were tools, and to leave those who
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