Mirage of Blaze volume 1 | Prologue

By Kuwabara Mizuna (author), Toujou Kazumi (illustrator)
Translated by asphodel

The dogs were violently noisy tonight.

A tepid night wind stirred through the trees, and dim street-lamps illuminated the dark streets faintly.

A sleeping residential street in the depths of night. It held, at one point, a section like a small plaza.

An old modest shrine, surrounded by railings, stood at the center of this plaza. In its interior a large stone monument had been erected.

Two shadowy figures stood before it.

MaendukaMaenduka (魔縁塚)

Also called "Kasouduka" or "cremation mound" (火葬塚), this is the burial shrine of Takeda Shingen in Iwakubo, Koufu in Yamanashi Prefecture.
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...” murmured one of the two, a young woman with long hair.

“Our lord is sealed within?”

“—”

Her sailor uniform flapped in the wind. The young man standing close beside her spoke.

“The barrier from four hundred years ago is still in effect.”

He fixed his gaze upon it.

“Ah, I see. So spirits without corporeal bodies would not be even able to approach.”

“...”

“But if we three should combine our ”power“, this barrier would be child’s play. It is time to break the barrier and dissolve the seal upon the burial mound.”

The young man curved beautiful red lips bewitchingly. “I have already prepared the spiritual vessel. After we have released him, I shall guide our lord. Please follow us when you can. We have waited a long time for this moment.”

“—oh yes.”

So saying, the girl slowly turned her gaze back to the stone monument.

“After four hundred years, we shall finally be reunited. My Lord. I, Sanjou, will release you from this seal.”

As if they had sensed the sinister atmosphere, the nearby dogs howled all the louder, and a wild wind tore through the trees.

The young man quietly fixed his glare upon the monument. The girl likewise stared at it fiercely and concentrated her mind at the point between her brows.

The two began to glow with an eerie violet light. The atmosphere altered, charged with the aura of evil. That odd feeling induced a silence within all living beings in the vicinity. A dull sound came from the base of the monument. The small shrine began to vibrate as if in a violent wind.

With an awful CRACK a fissure ran through the stone monument.

The girl’s eyes glowed violet.

The sound of destruction reverberated through the silence of the night.