Chapter 2:

  Rin was curled on the ground, slowly crawling backward,

  away from the young man who stood watching her in silence.

  He wore worn cloth trousers and a brown leather jacket, as though he were a farmer from medieval Europe. Rin did not notice—fear blinded her to such details. She looked up at him and asked, her voice trembling,

  “Who are you?”

  For the first time, his pupils moved.

  They slid down toward her thin, trembling wrists. He looked back at her and sat on the ground.

  “A peaceful person.”

  The shadow looming over her vanished, and the light of dusk brushed against her once more. Rin began to calm down, and his features grew clearer to her: a round, tanned face, messy brown hair, wide brown eyes, and a black earring hanging from his left ear. His clothes were wet and stiff.

  She spoke again,

  “What do you want from me?”

  He gestured toward the truck.

  “You are the one who approached our resting place.”

  Rin stared at him in disbelief.

  “You were sleeping inside the ice—!”

  She cut herself off in panic.

  “Wait… our? You—who… who are you?!”

  Calmly, he pointed toward the ceiling. Rin followed his gesture with her eyes.

  The story has been illicitly taken; should you find it on Amazon, report the infringement.

  There she saw him.

  Another young man—black hair, black leather clothing enveloping him from the soles of his feet up to his neck, a white earring hanging from his right ear. He sat cross-legged, eyes closed, hands clasped together, as though deep in meditation.

  Fear surged back into Rin’s chest. She spoke rapidly, words tumbling over one another,

  “I—I didn’t know… that you were inside the truck, or that you were there... at all. I’m sorry, I didn’t—”

  She was interrupted by the young man in front of her, his voice unexpectedly gentle.

  “There’s no need for all this tension. My name is Molinder Had. The one above us is Sez Kaigas.”

  She spoke, confusion plain on her face.

  “You don’t look Japanese… but you speak it fluently.”

  A heavy silence settled over her. Molinder opened his mouth, then closed it without a word—only to speak again moments later.

  “Do you know what magic is?”

  “Well… yes. I don't know.”

  Molinder lifted his gaze toward Sez. Without moving, Sez suddenly spoke,

  “I can sense crystal energy. But it’s so faint it makes me sick.”

  Molinder muttered mockingly,

  “What’s wrong with this age?”

  Rin stopped them, her voice rising.

  “What are you talking about?!”

  Molinder looked at her steadily, then turned his gaze toward the window behind them, half-hidden by tall flowering vines. He pointed at a symbol carved above the wooden frame—a single eye set within a two-dimensional pyramid.

  Without preamble, he asked,

  “Do you know what that is?”

  Rin lingered on the shape. A wide eye—one that felt as though it were watching you… no, watching everything. She lowered her head and said quietly,

  “My father said it’s one of Amaterasu’s representations. Though I never believed it… no matter how I look at it, it doesn’t feel like a mirror of a god.”

  “And what do you feel?” he asked.

  Rin looked at him in surprise. He added nothing—only waited. She gathered her thoughts, then dismissed them all.

  “I don’t believe in superstitions.”

  Molinder finally smiled—a faint, slightly mocking smile.

  “Really?”

  “What?” Rin asked, faintly unsettled.

  He replied casually,

  “You don’t believe in superstitions… but superstitions believe in you.”

  Rin’s chest tightened. Molinder continued,

  “You don’t believe in superstitions, yet the Bakeneko burned your house when you were little.”

  Her lips trembled. Her fingers rose to the small brown mark etched into her forehead.

  “You don’t believe in superstitions,” Molinder went on,

  “yet you can’t enter the forest at dawn, so you walk around it instead—because the Kappa sits on the ravine rock every morning, waiting to steal a wandering soul.”

  His voice rang with quiet menace. Tears pooled in her eyes but did not fall.

  “Do you really think superstitions care whether you believe in them or not?”

  She whispered, her voice breaking,

  “How do you know all of this?!”

  He answered with brutal simplicity,

  “Because I am a superstition.”