Mushi-Shi

The Mushi Master Ginko travels deep into the mountains, driven there by rumors of a young boy who possesses a rare gift -- The ability to draw forth new forms of life with a simple paint brush. Work thought best left to the gods, his grandmother cursed him to a life of fear and solitude shortly before her death. The youth cannot reconcile the world he sees with the reality he is told to be true. But when Ginko crosses paths with a restless mushi in the night, the full story is revealed only when two halves become a whole.

A young girl has been locked away by her family, for fear of a disease without cause or cure. Her cousin refuses to abandon the sightless youth to her fate, worried that she will soon lose the light within as well. Drawn by the scandal of medical mystery like a moth to a flame, Ginko arrives as loyalty allows the contagion to spread. Too much time spent between the worlds, too little now left to save the girl. When fascination of the mushi invited them in across the threshold, the cure must be found in the curse.

Summoned to a remote village, Ginko has traveled into the winter which swallows all sound. Every year when this valley lies bereft of noise save for the silence of falling snow, villagers are stricken with a sudden loss of hearing. The cause is soon found and the offending mushi easily vanquished, but the grandson of the elder proves a far more drastic dilemma. While one should shelter that which he does not wish lost, even when the ears are covered all sound cannot be extinguished.

Ginko travels back to a place he's been before, to check in on a man whose dreams carry portents of the future. In the midst of desolation Ginko finds grief, and rather than a mushi he must free this one from guilt. Where dire advice was not followed the balance was lost. Prophetic vision warped to become living nightmare, fevered brow cradled in the pillow's embrace. Only in the sleep of death are the worlds merged and the pathway found, but what becomes of the host when the guest is no longer welcome?

Trekking across mountains to a seaside village, Ginko finds his fellow hikers unsettling indeed. The first is a misplaced swamp which can inexplicably travel as if blessed with feet. The second, a melancholy, green-haired beauty whose fate is bound to that of her companion. While she accepts that she will pass into oblivion along with the mushi into its source, guilt from a former deed drives Ginko to seek to turn the tides. Will the final journey of one prove the beginning or the end of the other?

The Mushi Master Ginko sneaks onto an island all but completely locked away from the world. He has been led there by a young boy who must daily watch his friend die. A false idol at the heart of an inherited con, the girl child has sacrificed all -- or has been sacrificed -- to bring false hope to a new generation. Not all help is wanted just as not all travelers are welcome, and this mushi has been secretly treasured since time out of mind. A living god of a dead land, in sweet innocence she despaired not tragic death.

Forced to seek shelter as temporary reprieve from the rain, Ginko meets a man chasing rainbows out of desperation rather than hope. Having inherited a name and a curse from his father, two ages of one family wasted in search of a fleeting fruit after the rain. Recognizing the rainbow as mushi in brilliant disguise, Ginko agrees to chase storms alongside him, adding his knowledge to the quest. But where the father was driven by joy, the son is driven from shame. Can the source of hope be caught by one without it?

Ginko's path crosses that of a forsaken soul waiting along the shore, waiting for the young wife lost several years before. The two having been driven back home by difficult times, she had not abandoned her husband and instead strayed within a mysterious fog. And he, lacking proof as to his love's fate, settled into his wait. Yet as reason and purpose return at long last, so too the mysterious events preceding the fog. Prepared for the worst, Ginko accompanies the husband as they head out to sea to confront the mushi and the past.

In his never ending quest for food, Ginko is sent to a village blessed with abundance in a year of strife -- Or rather cursed, for what should have been the death of many will mean the death of only one. In exchange for the mushi giving life it must take one, an arrangement which over generations equals murder on a scale greater than simple sacrifice. But when the current guardian confesses his secret, a plan to end the vicious cycle, Ginko takes pity and soils his hands to give the greatest gift of all.

The doctor friend of Ginko's needs his help. While out on a call, three village children broke into his storage shed and stumbled upon an artifact of deadly consequence: An ink stone. Unable to tell much from the object itself, short of it houses a mushi, Ginko searches out the maker. A woman cursed, what was supposed to represent her future unraveled all hope instead. When one dabbles willingly and another without knowledge, the innocent must be released to travel the winds.

Ginko is sent in search of another Mushi Master, this one the guardian of a mountain, neighbor to a village. An old man whose past is not unlike Ginko's own, he was once called upon to take up a god's duties and maintain balance -- A mantle not lightly assumed, caused by careless words and magnificent death. But as the cry of a great mushi predator tolls in the night and the apprentice is found an untrue successor, Ginko rushes to great heights only to play witness to noble deed.

A mountainside tragedy leaves a young boy alone, to be rescued by the Mushi Master Nui. Under her care, Yoki's incessant curiosity drives his quest to learn about the other plane of life which exists all around them: The mushi that, like her, he has been cursed to see. A reluctant bit of life and laughter forced into a lonely life. When youthful innocence steps too close to dark truth, what she has long accepted as her end she will not accept as his. Thrust back out into a world without memory, Ginko is born anew

Ginko travels to a remote village, summoned by a letter of plea. Accessed by means of a decrepit old bridge, it was from such heights that a young girl fell three years before and somehow managed to survive. Upon closer inspection, Ginko determines the mushi of the valley below to be involved, using the girl as a vessel to gather the sunlight needed but denied by the depths in which it resides. When the mother demands he release her daughter from the curse, even if death be the result, his denial drives her to drastic measure.

Resting in a bamboo forest, Ginko is joined by a man who has been lost within the shadowy confines for several years. Unable to escape, he has married the "bamboo child" of local lore and together created a life all their own. Without company, Ginko is allowed to find his way out, only to return to set eyes himself on the mushi posing as unique plant. The man's mystery unraveled but no solution, the human offspring will sacrifice her family in favor of fond recollection for the one she loves.

Driven to seek shelter from a snowy storm, the Mushi Master Ginko is drawn into a yearly mystery. A lone boy wanders off into the forest during the harshest part of every winter, only to be later found asleep and clutching spring's blessings in his grasp, reawakening the very next season unharmed. But when Ginko unknowingly releases the mushi that is key to end the enchanted sleep, he must follow the boy into winter's hibernation. The traveler will reminisce how home can be so much more than where one slumbers.

A boy worries for his mother, her mind left addled in the early spring sun. A warm breeze, the fragrance of flowers and the sound of a loom -- All things that lull the mind to sleep and yet rest will not come. There, Ginko finds in the dark of night a mushi that thrives on memories, its appetite for the things most cherished. Afraid to forget things not close at hand, mother and son will take a journey to its bitter end. But when the past is forgotten and the future reshaped daily, happiness can be a recurring blessing.

The arcane arrival of a broken message sends Ginko to visit the source, a sad remnant barely clinging to life and desperate hope. Years before, two children were sent away so that one must not live alone. Apprenticed to an ancient master, an accident conspired to separate the sisters, leaving one confined within, the other to waste without. Ginko must use the mushi, taking the girl to explore an ancient pathway between hollow worlds, in order to silence a fool's errand. But hope will live eternal.

A mystical mountain, an artist's first inspiration. As fame and fortune grow, any thoughts of his former life lie discarded like a robe dropped carelessly on the ground. Ten years later, the muse has grown dormant and the artisan travels back to find his home, his family gone. The mountain, too, has grown dormant. Ginko follows the man's flight home, led there by a painting alive with mushi. While his reception on the mountain may be less than pleasant, the life that he has brought back to the village is more than welcome.

A servant with high aspirations reaches up and disappears into the sky. Literally up in the heavens, but not quite, the young lady for a time resides in the shadow world of the mushi. Found by Ginko and returned to her household, the Mushi Master explains to her suitor that the object of his affections is now linked to both worlds. She has to want to be normal. She has to want to stay. But when his family rebukes the marriage, the young man may not be able to accept his bride with his whole heart.

A family renowned for two things: An exhaustive archive of the records of Mushi Masters and a black birthmark, a curse that's survived through the generations. The archives are priceless, the girl even more so. For despite hearing countless tales of the horrors of the mushi and their need to be eradicated, she, a woman ravaged by mushi, she treats them with love rather than hate, sealing them away forever without doing any harm. A scribe with a golden heart. A scribe with mushi for pets. The end.

A green slime from the womb of a woman, the shapeless mass taking on the form of a human child. Five strange offspring, like shoots from the ground every six months. Rather than saving the false youth, Ginko must urge the parents to put an end to its short life. For when a mushi wears the skin of a child as disguise, there's no child left to save. But past guilt and a parent's love will stay the hand, allowing a fungus to spread unchecked, mimicking life. And Ginko will learn how far a parent will go to protect its child.

Ginko travels to an island to investigate the legend of the uminaoshi, people who have died and been reborn. The remote island is one of idyllic beauty, deep family bonds and great happiness... A paradise whose inhabitants truly grasp the joy of all that is life. Upon further inspection of their "miracle," Ginko finds a mushi at the mystery's core, one that feeds on time but regurgitates life. Caught deep within the sea's grasp, even the master will question whether he can truly leave this life behind.

Ginko's wanderings are driven off course when he comes across a strange sound echoing through the frozen mountains. Following the source back to a village, there he finds the people plagued with a rust that all can feel but none can see. As the Mushi Master investigates the young girl who's been blamed as the source of the curse, he hears a tale of tragic youth from a voice long unused. When the cursed are not to be blamed, it must be the fault of the mushi.

Rumors of a new kind of mushi have brought Ginko out to visit another master, one who's been studying the discovery for some time. But upon his arrival, Ginko is disturbed to find the villagers preparing to destroy the mushi, scorching the mountainside in the process. Unable to persuade the local master to stay her hand, Ginko is detained until the deed is done. Realizing the true danger at last, he fears the cure may be far worse than the curse, the fire releasing an even deadlier threat.

Ginko encounters a wanderer of a different breed, a street musician who sings hauntingly of the mushi. After a moment's conversation he is inspired by her plight. As a child she had no vision, yet now she can see all. Across mountains to distant oceans, past, present and future. Her eyes, infested by the ganpuku -- "the eyes of fortune" -- have been both blessing and curse, and she'll tell all for a price. "But when the time comes, take my eyes and bury them deep in the mountains. This I have seen..."

Three young boys, each bound to different paths: One to rule over the land, one to read the signs of the land and one to eternally wander the land. On the side of a very special mountain, these three young boys will meet. On the side of that mountain, events will shape them into the men they are to be. Time will pass and destruction will come, and one will prove unable to protect the land he loves. Yet each will remember: