Within the monastery's salt-carved halls, silence had weight.
Kazuki wasn't allowed to speak for three days.
No spells. No training. No pressure washer.
Only salt baths, breathwork, and the stillness of ancient stone.
Then came the Soul-Washing Rites.
What Must Be Cleansed
Brother Klenz stood before him with a bowl of sacred brine and a cloth of woven prayers.
"You've scoured cities," the elder said.
"Now you'll scrub the lies from yourself."
These rites weren't cast with gestures or chants. They were inward journeys—rituals of the spirit that exposed mental rot, emotional residue, and the ghosts of unwashed decisions.
As the first rite began, Kazuki's vision blurred.
He was pulled into a dreamscape—salt-white one moment, sewage-black the next.
The Illusions of Decay
One by one, fragments of his past rose from the mist:
His childhood self, scrubbing floors while others trained in blade and spell.
A memory of Sir Elrin, grinning, handing him a hygiene medal—only for the face to rot away mid-laugh.
A crowd of plague victims chanting "Saint Kazuki!"—then coughing blood as he walked past them, unable to help all.
And then:
Lila.
She stepped from the shadows, eyes empty, face cracking with mold-veins.
"You chose the world over me," she whispered.
"You sanitized everything… but us."
He tried to speak, to explain, to say her name.
But salt filled his throat.
He fell to his knees in that illusion of failure, the taste of guilt bitter on his tongue.
The Realization
When he woke, drenched in sweat and salt, Kazuki didn't reach for his gear.
He just stared into the still brine pool beside him.
"This isn't just about soap anymore," he muttered.
"It's about redemption."
About what he'd become.
What he could still be.
End Scene
Thus begins Kazuki's transformation—not just of magic, but of meaning.
The rites are far from over.
But the cleansing has truly begun.