Location: Lumeris Riverside DistrictTime: One month laterCondition: mild sunlight / new flowers blooming after acid rain
The city hums again.
Cafés reopen, laughter threads through alleys that once echoed with alarms. Children splash through puddles that no longer burn. The air smells faintly of ozone and wet soil — the perfume of a world rinsed clean.
Kana works mornings at a small flower stall on the riverwalk.The owner, an old woman with hands like folded paper, calls her Kana-chan as if she has always known her.
Kana smiles on cue, the way you smile at the warmth that doesn't ask questions. She learns the names of flowers by their colors:white for peace,red for love,yellow for memory.
That last one always makes her chest ache — a phantom bruise where something used to bloom.
Ren visits every day at noon.He always brings coffee, even to a place that sells nothing but petals.
REN: "Still can't believe you talk to plants more than me."KANA: "They listen better."REN: "They don't laugh at my jokes."KANA: "Neither do I."REN: "Progress."
The laughter between them is small, but it fits perfectly in the space they share.
Scene — Quiet Afternoons
When the crowds thin, he helps her close the stall.The sun sinks low, washing the river in amber.Sometimes she hums without realizing, a melody no one taught her.
Ren doesn't tell her it's the same tune she once fought a war to.
When the wind slides across the river, petals lift and spin — six faint colors folding through the air.He watches them rise and thinks they look like ghosts that chose to dance instead of haunt.
Fragment Memory 1 — The Umbrella
The rain begins suddenly, gentle at first.Ren opens a red umbrella.She freezes.
Her eyes lose focus, staring past the street into something older.
KANA: "…Crimson."REN: "What?"KANA: "The rain. It used to be red."
Her voice trembles; she doesn't know why.
He covers her shoulder gently with his arm.
REN: "Not anymore."KANA: "…Good."
They walk home in silence, but her gaze keeps slipping toward their reflection in the puddles, as if she's waiting for six more shadows to follow.
Fragment Memory 2 — The Music Box
At a flea market, Ren finds a small wooden box carved with lilies.When he opens it, the tune chimes out — faint, tinny, haunting.
She gasps and presses her hand to her chest.
KANA: "It's… familiar."REN: "Then it's yours."
Inside the lid, etched in his careful handwriting, is a single word: Lycoris.
She traces it slowly, lips moving as if trying to pronounce a name she's half-forgotten.Something behind her eyes flickers, then softens.She doesn't ask what it means.He doesn't tell her.
Scene — Night at the River
Later, they sit by the riverbank. The city lights tremble across the water like quiet applause.
KANA: "Do you ever feel like you've lived someone else's life?"REN: "Every day."KANA: "Was I a good person?"REN: "You were six good people trying to be one."KANA: "…Then what am I now?"REN: "Whole."
She leans her head against his shoulder.The air smells of lilies and static — the ghosts of thunder, fading at last.
Diary Fragment (Ren's handwriting)
[Fragment Log #24 — Afterglow]Subject recovery: stable.Memory retention: partial, returning through emotional stimuli.Status: living quietly.
She forgets and remembers in the same breath.Every smile she finds is a memory I don't have to return.
He closes the notebook, leaves it beneath a vase of yellow blossoms, and watches the morning light catch on the glass.
Mindspace Epilogue — The Garden of Echoes
Inside her subconscious, the ruined cathedral is gone.In its place grows a small garden — wild, imperfect, alive.
Six faint lights drift above the blossoms. They no longer speak; their warmth hums through the petals.
"She doesn't need us to fight anymore.""Then let her love for us be enough.""We'll stay as light."
The door of the garden closes gently, and the air settles into one heartbeat — hers.
Closing Scene
Morning again.
Ren waits by the stall, coffee in one hand, a bouquet in the other. The city glows softly, its skyline reflected in calm water.
REN: "Any plans today?"KANA: "Thinking of taking a train somewhere."REN: "Where to?"KANA: "Anywhere that feels familiar."REN: "Then I'll go too."
She smiles —the same small, dangerous, beautiful smile that once made six souls wake up.
Petals lift on the wind, glowing briefly before fading into the sunrise.For the first time, there is no mission, no code, no signal — only life continuing quietly in color.
End of Diary #24 — "Afterglow."