February 6, 2019
10:00 p.m.
Hazakura Temple
It was dark in the room I was in, a modest part of the temple with creaking floorboards, dusty walls, and a thin mattress to sleep on. Quite an appropriate place for spirit mediums-in-training, but tonight the ambience only served to worsen my senses, my eyes sore from tears and my hands numb from the icy winter cold. And yet all these I had to endure, every pain that I face contributing to the powers I would use now, those that this temple has been dedicated to.
A concerned voice was outside, constantly knocking and asking if I was alright. She was right in being concerned, I knew as much. I had just seen my own grandmother, lying dead on the pale snow, stained with her blood. The only family I had in the world, or so I thought. But I could not be bothered at the moment; I had other matters to handle, matters concerning the spiritual world which, until that point, I was almost totally shielded from, and were only meant to be bedtime stories, nothing more. And yet I knew, from the way she acted, to the simple decorations and jewelry around the house, that it was all too real.
Tonight, there was only one person that I wanted to see, one who could explain everything. One that I had known only as a child, yet the most important one of all. One who had tried to shield me from the world and family I was born into, yet one who knew that if I were to live, I had to be prepared in the spiritual ways. And tonight, I would call her into me, just as her own mother had told me in the legends of Kurain. Mother, please...hear me...