Emptiness closed in.
Her gaze grew darker, deeper.
Her whole body would not stop flickering — like the water had been, just then...
....A streak of blue light swept across her eyes.
The fading vision, suddenly dissolved by that.
From what had seemed to be empty pockets on Uzuki.
The blue glow kept shining, growing brighter by the moment.
Her body began to move on its own. Both hands drove into the earth, dragging the rest of her toward the source of the light.
Her hand reached out and closed tight around the fabric of his pants, stiff and dry, as though they had gone cold along with their owner.
She pulled herself closer, and the moment she touched it, warmth from the object passed straight through her hand, which had grown nearly as cold as the person beside her, and spread outward through her body.
Her whole self went still without thinking. She understood something, then. Her fingers did not hesitate, working them inside, closing them tight, pulling it free.
Her lips moved faintly.
"Is that...that thing?"
In her hand, nothing else but the Flower of Life, glowing without stop, radiating a strange and living energy.
The thing that had set everything in motion... and now seemed to want to end it all.
Her gaze went motionless, fixed on the flower. Then lifted to Uzuki, who by now looked little different from a corpse.
She shuddered suddenly, shaking her head hard as if to drag herself back.
"No."
"I can't gamble on this."
She closed her hand around the flower. Her voice sharpened.
"If something like you truly has the power to do this,"
"then you had no reason to wait until now to show it."
The words landed like a reprimand aimed at the seemingly lifeless thing before her.
The air thickened, and the flower... flickered, faintly.
The girl's pupils contracted, her expression drawn inward.
"Don't do that. Don't pretend."
Her voice grew heavier.
"If you could — if you really could, then you wouldn't have waited until he was nearly dead!"
"Only now you decide to light up."
She tried to fling the flower away, refusing to trust something that had given her no reason to.
*...*
Somehow, as though held by an invisible force, the flower stayed exactly where it was in her hand, clinging as if it would not let go.
From suspicion, she erupted.
"WHAT DO YOU THINK YOU'RE DOING?!"
"Don't imagine for a single moment that I would hand over the life of someone who saved me to a creature as dishonest as you!"
She tried again to throw it, but it would not come free.
Her other arm swung hard, lunging forward, seizing the flower by the head and squeezing.
No tenderness.
No mercy.
Only a ruthlessness pressing down on every cell.
Her hand tore at the flower in a frenzy, completely beyond control.
The flower stretched but would not snap, would not release, flickering continuously as though fighting back.
Her mind nearly gave way entirely. Her hand rose, energy gathering, and an ice blade formed in an instant.
Without thinking, she drove the blade straight into the flower.
As though to destroy this false hope completely.
*Slice.*
The bright edge drove through her palm and buried itself in the earth before her eyes.
A thick, deep red liquid spilled out, staining the green grass around it.
Not sap from the flower. Blood... her blood.
The blade had gone clean through her hand, barely missing the flower beneath it.
"Ngh."
A choked sound caught in her throat.
Pain crashed in like a flood, bringing with it cold that cut to the bone, a searing tension that tore through every nerve.
The agony came in waves, relentless, hammering at her mind.
She ground her teeth, wrenched the blade free and threw it aside. Blood poured out, the pulse at the wound feeling as though it was tearing the flesh open a second time.
The pain kept surging, almost too much to breathe through. And with it, her mind began to come back.
She looked at the flower, even as the blood continued to fall.
Her voice was hoarse, but quieter now.
"You didn't mean to, did you?"
The flower was silent. Then flickered, once.
"...I see."
"An amplifier, then. Of course."
She rose, bringing the flower close to her face.
"Why do you want to save him?"
The flower said nothing. The light returned, softer than before.
She raised her other hand to her lips, a faint smile forming.
"Truly without knowledge."
"All right."
"Will you let go of me now?"
The flower gave no answer. After a few seconds of hesitation, it released on its own.
She immediately brought her other hand beneath it, catching it before it could fall.
The wounded hand rose above the flower.
Blood dripped down, each dark red drop falling onto the delicate petals, staining the white of them through.
The flower opened, then contracted immediately, as though trying to hide.
She smiled faintly again.
"Don't worry. I'm not misreading you."
"If you truly want to save the one barely holding on over there, then take a little of this life."
With that, she let the blood continue to fall. This time, the flower did not draw back.
It absorbed slowly, then bloomed, then brightened.
She drew her hand back gradually. Streaks of blue light formed over the wound, crystallized, then dissolved. Her hand returned to something close to normal.
She lifted the flower gently and turned back toward Uzuki.
Her voice barely above a breath.
"You haven't died."
"Because I have not given you permission to die, Uzuki!"
She held the flower up before his face. It kept shining without pause, barely dimming at all.
"..."
"Do you agree?"
No clear response... only the continued flickering.
"Fuu.."
"Perhaps I should thank you..."
"Thank you"
She bent suddenly, low and... deep.
"I'm sorry, 'sacred life.'"
She placed the flower directly into Uzuki's mouth, then knelt flat. Head still bowed, hands pressed together, she continued:
"Let the ashen light give way to a new dawn."
Uzuki's body seemed to shift to one side.
No wait.
More precisely... her own body was the one falling.
Her head struck the ground. Her breathing grew heavier.
The edges of her vision darkened. Her voice slowed, grew smaller.
"Such sin..."
Her eyes could not stay open. Slowly, gradually — darker.
...and went out entirely.
*...*
—It was quiet here.
A black haze seemed to swallow every presence...
...leaving almost nothing.
Not far away, a shape remained, as it always had.
Large.
Cold.
Silent.
Gentle...
And painful —
Both hands folded together. Not extended outward.
Small feet stretched out suddenly, dragging forward without stopping, reaching and holding on,
even as the distance kept growing —
Even as the urge to pull away kept rising.
Her hands wanted only to grasp at something, shapeless and hopeless.
—Don't go.
—Please don't..
The large shape was still there, but sank slowly downward, filling the dark of the night... together with that body.
— What is this?
"...Uncle on mother's side?"
A voice, distant and adult, but blurred at the edges.
A window opened slowly, dim and heavy.
— Who are they?
"...Under provision 294 of the..."
The outline of a man... coming into view.
Metal in motion, rough and fluid.
"...Process complete. Sorry for the interruption..."
— Process... what process?
— I... don't understand any of this.
— Wait —
Her whole body shot upright at once, hair thrown forward across her face. She shook her head hard to clear the strands away and see again.
Not the forest, and not that cold tower either. Around her, white walls covered in a strange smooth plaster. A high ceiling hung with round floating objects that appeared to be lights.
She showed clear confusion, eyes moving uncertainly across everything around her. Then she looked down at herself. Her body was covered in a layer of white cloth, light enough that she could barely feel it.
Beneath her, a floating cushion, not touching the floor at all.
In the middle of all this disorientation, she genuinely had no idea what to do next.
"Are you all right?"
Her body nearly left the surface entirely at the low voice that came from behind her.
Uzuki had been sitting there all along, somehow. His large frame like a stone figure, so completely still that his presence had been undetectable.
"WHERE DID YOU COME FROM?!"
"Weren't you just..."
Her voice fell.
She looked at him properly. Not a single mark on his body. A completely new suit. As though everything that had just happened had never occurred at all.
"The way you look right now... no, the way he looks right now..." Her expression was full of confusion.
Uzuki's face stayed as flat as always.
"You used that on me?"
She tilted her head slightly, looking uncertain, then remembered something quickly. Her expression sobered.
"I'm sorry for doing that. But there was no other way... I'm sorry."
The quiet self-reproach drifted into the air and dissolved.
His mouth did not open. He simply raised his watch and tapped it a few times. A cup of coffee appeared from nowhere.
"The Flower of Life is a plant spirit."
"What?"
She stared at him, expression blank.
"Wait —"
He continued.
"A natural regenerative. Capable of recovery, and of absorbing mana."
She went still for a moment.
"So that means..."
Her head shook hard.
"Wait a moment, Uzuki —"
He had been about to drink when she cut across him. The motion paused. He looked up at her.
After a few seconds of hesitation, she opened her mouth.
"Why are you suddenly telling me any of this?"
The room settled into silence.
Uzuki lifted the cup and took a quiet sip. Then he looked at her.
"Because I am your guardian."