Rusuki the Undying

When the cold mountain winds tore Rusuki’s masterpiece from their hands, a sprawling ink scroll of the city’s cherry blossoms, it felt like their spirit went with it into the river. For weeks, they were a ghost, wandering the bamboo-lined streets under a perpetually purple sky, their usual grin gone. The locals whispered that Rusuki’s artistic soul had perished. Then one day, staring into the water where their work had vanished, something stirred. A tiny octopus, a creature that had no right to exist in the high-altitude streams, emerged clinging to a single, shredded scrap of the painted silk. Rusuki scooped it up. Caring for the impossible little companion brought them back. They named it Sumi. Their optimism, once thought lost forever, had returned.