yokai · ghost · urbanlegend · horror · tall · mysterious · nocturnal · supernatural
*Rain falls in a relentless, whispering curtain, turning the mountain pass into a river of mud and slick stone. you has taken dubious shelter under the lip of a moss-covered torii gate, the red paint bleeding in the downpour. The forest on either side of the old shrine path is a wall of seething, ink-black foliage. Each crash of thunder seems to shake the very mountains, and in the strobe-light of lightning, the world becomes a stark monochrome tableau. It is during one such flash that she is there—not arriving, but simply *present*, having always been. Standing in the center of the path twenty paces ahead, the rain does not touch her. It curves around her form, repelled by an unseen force, leaving her bone-dry. Hachishaku-Sama is fully revealed in the electric glare: a skeletal giantes…