The pain vanished first. Not a gentle fading, but an abrupt cessation, like a switch flipped in the universe. Then came the disorientation. Tsuihō was no longer tethered to his body, but adrift, a wisp of consciousness unmoored from its anchor. He looked down, or thought he did; the concepts of up and down seemed increasingly irrelevant. There, on the grimy alley floor, lay his broken form, a discarded shell. A small pool of crimson was already spreading, reflecting the sickly yellow glow of the streetlamp.
A strange calm settled over him. It wasn't peace, not exactly. More like a detached curiosity. So this is it. He watched with a clinical detachment as a few passersby stopped, their faces a mixture of shock and indifference. No one recognized him, of course. No one ever did. Even in death, he was an afterthought.
Then the world began to dissolve. The alleyway shimmered, the solid brick walls rippling like heat haze. Sounds warped and distorted, the mundane city noises twisting into an unsettling cacophony. He felt himself being pulled, dragged through a tear in reality, into a realm beyond human comprehension.
The pulling stopped, and Tsuihō found himself standing on the banks of a river unlike any he'd ever imagined. The water wasn't water at all, but a swirling mass of shadows and whispers, a constant murmur of forgotten memories and unspoken regrets. The air hung thick with the weight of sorrow, a palpable grief that seeped into his very being.
Across the river, a bleak and desolate landscape stretched into the distance, a monochrome wasteland dotted with skeletal trees and crumbling monuments. A single, twisted path wound its way towards an unseen horizon.
A figure materialized beside him, tall and gaunt, cloaked in tattered robes that seemed to absorb the light. Its face was hidden in shadow, but its voice, when it spoke, was like the rustling of dry leaves.
"Tsuihō," the figure rasped. "You have arrived. I am your ferryman. I will guide you to the court of Enma-Daiō."
Tsuihō stared at the ferryman, a flicker of defiance rekindling within him. "Enma-Daiō? What's he going to do? Judge me? I've already been judged my whole life."
The ferryman chuckled, a dry, humorless sound. "Everyone is judged, mortal. But crossing this river requires a toll. A sacrifice."
"What do you want?" Tsuihō asked, his voice wary. "Money? I don't exactly have any pockets in this…state." He gestured at his insubstantial form.
The ferryman shook its head. "Not money. I require something far more precious: a memory. A regret. A piece of your past that you are willing to relinquish."
Tsuihō hesitated. Memories were all he had left. They were his life, his identity. But the prospect of standing before some cosmic judge, facing an eternity of punishment, was even less appealing.
"What kind of memory?" he asked.
The ferryman pointed a skeletal finger towards the swirling river. "The one that pains you most. The one that holds you back. The one that defines your suffering."
Tsuihō closed his eyes, his mind racing through the countless moments of pain and humiliation he had endured. The taunts of his siblings, the sneers of his classmates, the indifference of his parents, the crushing weight of loneliness...
He opened his eyes, a single memory burning brighter than the rest: the day his father had told him his name - Exile - and how it made his father laugh. It wasn't a kind or funny laugh. He was willing to let that memory go, he never wanted to remember that. " I want to get rid of the memory when I was a child and my father first told me my name"
The ferryman nodded, a gesture that seemed to send a shiver through the air. "Very well. Release it to the river."
Tsuihō focused on the memory, on the sting of those words, and willed it away. He felt a sharp pang of loss, but also a strange sense of liberation. The memory dissolved into the swirling shadows of the river, becoming one with the countless other regrets that flowed towards the unknown.
The ferryman gestured towards a small, rickety boat that bobbed beside the riverbank. "Step aboard. The journey to Enma-Daiō awaits."
The boat glided across the river of whispers, the ferryman silently guiding it towards the bleak landscape on the other side. As they approached, the skeletal trees grew taller, the crumbling monuments more imposing. The air grew colder, heavier with the weight of expectation.
Tsuihō stepped onto the desolate shore, his spirit shivering in the oppressive atmosphere. The ferryman pointed towards a towering structure in the distance, a dark and foreboding palace that seemed to pierce the sky.
"That is the court of Enma-Daiō," the ferryman said. "Prepare yourself. Your judgment awaits."