Seimei's eyes drifted over Kaoru at the question of children, wondering if perhaps he was wrong for bringing the boy here. Maybe he was, it was too late now. He knew he didn't have to reply, at least; the boy was smart enough to know the answer on his own.

"Spiritually, yes, physically, no. The village center is a little further up that way, where they started building around the cave, but the cave is what started it all," the onmyoji explained, issuing a wordless command for his attending shikigami to light the cave as they descended.

He was amazed at how well-preserved everything was. The carvings, the paintings, all of it still there. Bones were scattered in the center of the platform he had once been trapped on, and he knew instinctively that they were Genkaku's. Lips moving in silent prayer, Seimei leaned over and ran his fingertips across the dusty instrument the man had played in his last moments.

"This was the village leader. Only he and his two children survived. They ascended to the Heavens and Genkaku-sama exhausted his life saving me from death. Granted, he was the one responsible for my death in the first place, but it is no small thing to save someone like me."