I thought I’d seen it all.

We were called to a remote, grassy plain outside Kyoto. Locals reported a shadow taller than a tree moving at night, swallowing the moonlight, accompanied by the sound of bones grinding together. Bodies had been found, completely drained, nothing left but shattered skeletons. Word spread quickly: the Gashadokuro—the giant man-eating skeleton born from the unburied dead of war—was roaming again.

Morizumi didn’t flinch. “Large prey leaves a large signature,” he said. “We’ll find it. And it will know fear.”

We arrived just after midnight. The plain was bathed in silver moonlight, and the tall grass swayed like waves. The air was unnaturally cold, and silence stretched further than it should. Not the peaceful kind of silence, but the hungry kind.

Then came the sound: a low, rattling clack-clack-clack that shook the earth beneath our feet. I looked up—and saw it.

A skeleton taller than any building I’d ever seen, its bones cracked and fused into jagged lengths, glowing faintly in the moonlight. Its empty eye sockets burned with hunger. Every step it took left the grass flattened and smoking. The sheer size made my stomach turn.

“Stay back,” Morizumi said, voice calm. “Do not let it notice you. I’ll draw its attention.”

I wanted to argue, but the instant Morizumi stepped forward, the skeleton froze, head turning unnaturally to follow him. Its jaw opened in a soundless scream, and I could feel the hunger radiating off it like heat from a furnace.

Morizumi knelt, fingers tracing patterns in the grass. The air shimmered as he whispered words that made my teeth ache. The Gashadokuro lurched forward, swinging a massive arm, but the energy around Morizumi held it back like a cage of light.

“You feel that?” he asked quietly. “That’s its rage. Its hunger. But it’s afraid. Afraid of being unmade.”

I watched in terror as Morizumi chanted steadily, glowing runes wrapping around the skeleton like binding chains. The massive bones rattled, grinding together as if screaming in protest. One hand swiped at him, shaking the ground like an earthquake, but it could not break through.

Slowly, the enormous figure bent in on itself, bones folding like paper under invisible pressure. The air filled with the sound of crumbling rock and splintering wood, though nothing else was around. And then, with one final pulse from Morizumi’s hands, the Gashadokuro shattered into dust, scattering across the plain, leaving nothing but flattened grass and a lingering chill.

I exhaled shakily. “It’s… gone?”

Morizumi stood, brushing dust off his coat, expression calm as ever. “Not gone. Just returned to where it belongs. Until the dead forget, it may rise again.”

The plain was silent once more, moonlight washing over the flattened grass. I could still feel the echo of its hunger in my chest, a pulse like the beat of a massive heart.

And I knew, as we walked back to the car, that some monsters are too big to be defeated by fear alone. Only someone like Morizumi can face them—and survive.