Chapter Text
In another world, there comes a strange man. Nobody knows where he came from, where his destination might be. He is a soft-spoken stranger, a man of few words. Like a looming omen clad in black, he travels everywhere on foot no matter how treacherous the journey.
He passes through tall grasslands and foggy swamps. Dark forests, golden paddy fields, small towns, and even smaller villages. He climbs snow-capped mountains, leaving prayers at the shrines of the old gods. He crosses a great many rivers, and passes through the many little fishing villages that keep growing on their banks like duckweed. Leaves behind a trail of hushed whispers that keep the fisherfolks entertained for days.
On the third day of the first month of a new year, he arrives from the north of the Lake Biwa—a name that wouldn’t be coined for another five centuries. He circles the Fresh Water Sea for days on end, searching for what only he knows. Seasons change, but his search doesn’t seem to come to an end.
Then summer marches in with the heavens’ fury and dries up half the lake, but the monsoon rains compensate, restoring the lake's shores with young bamboo thickets. Leaves change colors—sun gold petals, apple red blush, dewy pearls. By the time the last leaf falls off of a bare peach grove, the stranger disappears. Whether he ever found what he was looking for, and whether he reached his destination at all, only he knows.
In another world, the sacred Lake Biwa hasn't been known as the Fresh Water Sea in a very long time. While a pack of the fisherfolks' children make mud pies on its shore, they make curious observations of a tall, cloaked stranger staring off into the lake's depths. From morning till noon, he stands there as if rooted in spot. Even to their juvenile minds, it is quite a strange sight. But at dusk he is gone, and for the rest of their natural lives, never do they see him again.
In another world, the stranger arrives from the east on the longest night of the coldest month, trudging through heavy snow while battling the icy wind.
The Fresh Water Sea has fully frozen over. A naked peach tree stands alone with its spindly branches shivering like a bird's broken wings. A broken little body is slumped against its trunk, frozen half-stiff, and restrained by thick ropes. The stranger stalls at the sight, then soft, warm laughter escapes him.
"There you are," he says, his voice soft with exhaustion, thick with unnamed emotions.
The stranger crouches down, heels digging into the snow as he looms over the little body even at half his height. His eyes remain hidden under the hood of his cloak, but the rueful smile on his lips paint a curious picture. Though it soon twists into a grimace as he eyes the ropes digging into bruised, purpling skin.
Wordlessly, he raises one hand, and a barrage of invisible blades swiftly cut them up into hundreds of tiny pieces. Despite being in the center of such destruction, the body remains relatively unharmed, without a single fresh cut. It falls forward lifelessly, and gets immediately engulfed by waiting arms.
The stranger wastes no time dallying. He dusts off the body and wraps it up in that overlarge cloak of his. The body is then nestled in the crook of his arm, just under his heart, cradled like a babe.
How strange. How very curious. Such terrifying power housed within those hands. And yet, they hold that stiff little body with such tenderness. As if it were something precious. Something worth protecting.
As if it were anything other than a half dead miserable wretch. As if it held any greater value than the innumerable wretched souls haunting the realm with their arms outstretched in despair.
Why? What makes this one any different, any more deserving to have someone reach back?
Perhaps, only the owner of that hand would know the answer. And said owner is a soft-spoken stranger, a man of few words. His feet don't cut or bleed despite his long, arduous journeys, and by just one flicker of his hand he can turn any obstacle into smithereens.
He gathers up that half-frozen body within his arms, and stands as if the weight of the world rests upon his shoulders. His gaze brushes past the peach tree, across the frozen over lake, through the naked bamboo thickets surrounding it, over the many little fishing villages growing on those banks like duckweed. His gaze, hidden by his hood, unreadable, unfathomable, lingers there for the briefest moment. Then he turns around swiftly and retraces his steps back to the east, where the dewy meadows and golden fields promise of warmer days.
In this world, no one witnesses the stranger's arrival, and none see him leave. All except for that lonely peach tree; the last of its grove, who shall whisper of that night to the chilly northern wind for many more nights to come.