Otogi no Hako no Reto

A raging blizzard rakes the frozen landscape as a lone figure staggers toward the scattered lights of an Ainu village. He is Reto, a young boy dressed in a coat drenched with blood, drifting through the wilderness with no destination in mind—no home to return to, no road to follow, only the will to keep moving as the storm closes in around him. The villagers who find him take in the weary child, offering the shelter and warmth he so desperately needs. Within their snowbound settlement, Reto at last finds respite from the elements—but the glow of the hearth cannot melt away the shadows he carries with him. For all that the boy has lost, only two things remain: the haunting memory of his mother dying before his very eyes, and an ancient hunting knife stripped of its blade. Between the weight of that tragedy and the enigma of the edgeless weapon he clings to, Reto's story begins in the heart of a village buried in snow.