There are spirits within water. This basic truth has spread across Ikaiguchi, but beyond that, it is water that gives and takes life, water that connects mountain and ocean, and water that connects past and present.
This gives Jikan no Genshin its legend: to bathe within this wellspring is to bathe within time itself, to be granted images of past lives lived and lost, to experience once again what has gone before. No legend, however, is that some never return from their visions; their hollow eyes and incoherence leads people to believe they are forever severed from the present.
The Chūkūkeibi, or Hollow Guardians, protect the wellspring. They have earned their name because, to the naked eye, they appear to be no more than empty, hooded cloaks that linger on the periphery, watching. Some believe they are demons, others that they are lost souls who choose to protect the memories of the land in penance for whatever ills they wrought during their own lifetimes. The guardians can, it is whispered, drain the remaining years out of an intruder, banishing them to a single memory where they are locked in an inescapable prison of the mind, forced to relive that memory over and over for eternity.