Chương 27: A Most Peculiar Heian-kyō

The moment the transfer light converged and my vision cleared, my sense of equilibrium was violently rattled once more. But this wasn't the gritty mud of PRINCE's domain, the bitter cordite of USHIWAKA's war zone, or the suffocating humidity of HIMIKO's era. It was something heavier, more viscous... Yes, it was the crushing weight of "Night" itself.

"... It's pitch black," I whispered, holding my breath instinctively. This was entirely distinct from the night of modern Tokyo. No streetlights, no neon signs—just raw, primal darkness. From the depths of that abyss, the scent of damp earth, the mildew of ancient wooden structures, and a cloying, heavy aroma of sandalwood and clove meant to mask the decay wrapped coiled around my nostrils.

As my eyes adjusted to the gloom, vermilion pillars and multi-layered shingle roofs thatched with cypress bark began to materialize like phantoms out of the dark. We were standing on a long, covered corridor.

"System check... Coordinates locked. A. D. 1008. Heian-kyō, the Imperial Palace—otherwise known as the Inner Court," Gennai's voice chirped through the comms. Gone was his usual upbeat cadence, replaced by a tense, static-heavy frequency.

"Watch your step, brothers. There's an invisible virus mutating in the atmosphere here. Breathe too deeply, and your lungs will rot."

"Stop trying to terrify me..." I shivered, scanning our perimeters. I had expected the elegant, shimmering world pictured in history textbooks, but the reality was a suffocating cage. Shadows clinging to the architecture, dense thickets in the courtyard, hidden voids behind the bamboo blinds—I could feel an omnipresent, clammy gaze boring into us from every single corner. Whoosh... low, groaning murmurs... From somewhere out in the dark, a sound that was half-gale, half-human moan echoed through the corridor.

"Eek! Was that... was that literally a haunted-house sound effect just now?!" I practically latched onto Naosu Yari's back. As a literary otaku, I harbored a deep fondness for ghost stories, but experiencing one in the flesh was a hard pass. My stomach acid was already rising in sharp spikes. Unauthorized duplication: this narrative has been taken without consent. Report sightings.

"It is merely the wind. Or perhaps the collective resonance of the nobility's sighs," Yari replied flatly, clicking on a high-intensity directional flashlight. The beam sliced through the dark, exposing decaying plaster walls and overgrown, neglected garden flora. The capital, which had once boasted supreme opulence, was now visibly drowning in an atmosphere of decadent decay.

"The humans of this era inhabit a society of absolute, crushing stress," Yari explained coldly, stepping forward along the wooden floorboards.

"Ambition, romantic intrigue, and untraceable curses. Negative emotional metrics are so saturated in the air that they trigger mass auditory and visual hallucinations. From a mental hygiene standpoint, it is a catastrophic environment." Right then, the rustle of silk garments signaled the approach of several figures from the far end of the corridor. They were aristocrats clad in formal kariginu robes. Yet, their behavioral parameters were profoundly unhinged.

Their complexions were a sickly, ash-gray, punctuated by deep, bruised rings under their eyes. Not a single one of them made eye contact with the others; instead, they stared into the void, continuously chanting fractured murmurs under their breath.

"... That bastard secured another promotion. Unforgivable."

"I'll hex him... I have his hair... The iron spikes... The hour of the Ox..."

"Tonight's poetry contest... defeat is not an option... to lose is an eternal stain on my lineage..." Shielded by Gennai's perception-blocking field, they passed right by us without registering our existence, moving like a procession of literal wraiths. As they brushed past, the words dripping from their lips seemed to condense into a physical, blackened fog hovering in the air.

"... What is wrong with them?" I asked, pressing a handkerchief against my mouth.

"Are they zombies? Or is this some kind of historical plague?"

"They are warriors who fight exclusively with waka poetry and whispered rumors," Yari said, his voice dripping with icy cynicism.

"In this era, professional advancement is dictated not by administrative competence, but by poetic genius, bloodline metrics, and the absolute mastery of reading the social atmosphere. A single verbal slip, a single mediocre poem, and your entire existence is terminated. It is a hyper-surveillance society that makes modern social media flame wars look like child's play." A violent chill traveled down my spine. This was the absolute inversion of HIMIKO's timeline—the society that had outsourced critical thinking.

Here, everyone was thinking too much. They were burning through their entire neural capacity trying to decode trivial variables—the hidden intent behind a poem, the subtle political alignment of a sleeve color, the latest court gossip. It was an elite hive-mind driving itself insane over symbols.

"The target is nearby. Move out," Yari instructed, pointing his beam toward a particularly dismal, shadow-choked wing of the Inner Court. It was the Tsubone —the private chambers reserved for the ladies-in-waiting serving Empress Shōshi.