The path home felt shorter than it ever had before.
Perhaps because Amane no longer walked it with hesitation, but with cold, silent purpose. Her boots barely made a sound against the frost-covered stones of the Tsukihana estate's private road. The trees surrounding her swayed gently, but there was no wind. No birds. Even the moon seemed to keep its distance, watching her through veils of mist.
She was no longer the girl who had fled this place.
She was something else now.
And something else had come with her.
The guards at the gate recognized her only when she stepped into the light.
Their eyes widened. One reached for his sword.
"Miss Amane? You're alive—! Wait, stop right there!"
She didn't.
The one on the left screamed as his body twisted, folding inward at impossible angles before collapsing in a heap of broken armor and bones. The other shouted her name as he charged, blade raised—only to freeze mid-swing.
Literally.
His limbs crystallized in place, turned to blackened glass before shattering into a thousand pieces that sparkled in the moonlight.
Amane stepped through the gate, untouched by the blood, her face blank.
Inside, the manor had not changed.
The marble floors still shone, the paper lanterns still flickered with pale blue flames. Her family's sigil—three moon lilies in bloom—still hung above the entrance to the inner hall, pristine and untouched.
The irony tasted like rust on her tongue.
Her footsteps echoed as she moved down the corridors. Servants stopped and stared. A maid dropped a tray. Somewhere, someone shouted. Her father's voice boomed from the great hall, demanding answers.
She didn't blink.
Outside, hidden in the upper boughs of a gnarled tree beyond the garden wall, he watched.
Kagetsu no Jōka.
The Eternal Jester.
One leg draped over a branch, his arms behind his head, lounging as if he were sunbathing rather than observing the downfall of a noble house. His porcelain mask dangled from his fingertips, spinning lazily in the breeze. His white hair, swept back with meticulous care, gleamed beneath the moonlight like carved ivory.
He could feel her unraveling.
It was beautiful.
Like the final note in a tragedy.
He smiled—because he knew: this was not corruption.
It was clarity.
The doors to the great hall slammed open as Amane entered.
Her father stood at the center of the room, robes still half-fastened, his hand glowing with gathered mana.
Her brothers were already armed.
"Amane," her father snarled. "Explain yourself. Now."
She tilted her head, eyes dull and unfocused. As if she was hearing him from the bottom of a deep, black well.
"Is that all you have to say to me?" she asked softly.
"You dare—"
"I died out there," she said, louder this time. "I died alone. And none of you came looking."
"You shamed this family!" her mother screamed from the upper balcony. "You humiliated us—"
"No," Amane interrupted. "You humiliated me. You made sure I was nothing. You taught me that love is conditional, that failure meant I didn't deserve to breathe."
The shadows around her feet thickened, spreading like ink across the floor.
"I learned from you."
Her oldest brother stepped forward, sword drawn. "Whatever madness you've brought back with you, it ends now."
"No," she said. "Now is when it begins."
The battle lasted less than five minutes.
Spells exploded against invisible barriers. Walls crumbled. A chandelier fell.
But Amane moved like a puppet on invisible strings—graceful, erratic, unstoppable. She didn't chant. She didn't cast.
She commanded.
One brother burned alive, unable to scream as black fire ate through his lungs. Another's eyes rolled back as his own shadow strangled him. Her mother tried to flee, but the doors melted into stone.
Only her father remained.
He knelt before her, coughing blood, half his face scorched.
"You're not… my daughter," he spat.
Amane stared down at him, her expression unreadable.
"No," she agreed. "I'm not."
She reached down and touched his forehead.
He screamed.
Not from pain.
From realization.
He saw what she had become.
He saw Him.
And then there was silence.
Up above, Kagetsu finally placed the porcelain mask back onto his face.
Click.
That eternal, grinning expression snapped into place like a key turning in a lock.
He chuckled—low and delighted. The kind of laugh that made your skin crawl, like something ancient waking beneath the earth.
"She dances well," he murmured.
The Tsukihana estate lay in ruins, every window shattered, every soul extinguished.
The moon, full and pale, cast a ghostly light over the massacre. Blood soaked the stones in intricate shapes, as if the killings themselves had been a ritual.
Amane stood alone in the center of it all.
Breathing. Shaking.
Not from exhaustion.
But from the weight of self.
She looked at her hands, slick with blood. They trembled.
Her reflection stared back at her from a puddle of crimson. Her own eyes were empty, ringed with black veins that hadn't been there before. Her lips parted.
"What have I… what did I…"
Her voice cracked. It sounded small. Childish. Weak.
Inside her mind, Kagetsu's voice whispered like silk through broken glass.
"You gave them what they gave you."
"Isn't that fair?"
She screamed. The sound ripped through the night, full of grief and horror.
It did not go unnoticed.
They came for her before dawn.
Three of them. Veteran adventurers. The kind who didn't ask questions. The kind who'd seen demons and worse.
They expected resistance.
They didn't get it.
Amane stood still as they approached, her arms limp at her sides. Her mouth opened, but no words came.
One of them hesitated.
The other two did not.
A flash of silver.
A single cry.
And then…
Silence.
Kagetsu watched the whole thing unfold, perched on the branch like a bird watching the world burn.
No sorrow in his stance.
No anger.
Just… amusement.
"She broke faster than I thought," he said, almost wistful. "Pity."
He stood, stretching, arms wide as if embracing the night.
But the grin beneath the mask never changed.
Because this wasn't the end.
This was the beginning of act two.
He stepped off the branch and disappeared into the shadows, humming a tune no one alive remembered, one older than history itself.
And as the sun began to rise, its golden light could not quite reach the bloodstained stones of House Tsukihana.
Because the world had forgotten him once.
It would not make that mistake again.