After an hour of shuffling through darkness, Tsukiko finally found an end to the low, dark tunnel. Her arm had screamed in protest every step of the way, and the makeshift bandage that she'd tried to make out of the remaining scraps of her haori had already been stained red. She'd forgotten what pattern had been sewn into it. She silently apologised to the village elder, who had been the one to gift it to her.

The village elder.

Tsukiko wondered if her body had been one of the charred remains...