The day after the memory of Osaka, the Book remained closed.
No dreams. No cranes. No visit from Izanagi or Izanami.
Just the faint echo of burnt petals.
Sayo walked Kyoto's streets aimlessly, each footstep guided by instinct rather than intent. Ren trailed beside her, equally silent, both of them waiting for the world to tip sideways again. It didn't.
Instead, it led them to a tiny alley off Teramachi Street—one neither of them remembered walking before. A paper lantern hung over the entryway, gently swaying without wind. The kanji written in faded ink read: 灯火の秘密 — "The Secret of Firelight."
Inside was a shop.
Not a bookstore, nor a shrine. This place smelled of wax and old wood, of forgotten things. Lanterns of every shape and size hung from the rafters, their soft golden glow casting strange shadows.
At the back stood a man with eyes like river stones.
"I've been waiting," he said.
---
They sat cross-legged as the lantern maker poured bitter tea into porcelain cups. The light shimmered strangely across his hands, as though he were only half here.
"You were once a lantern," he said to Sayo. "And you," to Ren, "were the wind that carried her flame."
Ren raised an eyebrow. "Cryptic much?"
The man smiled.
"Izanagi and Izanami are not the only ones who watch the thread of reincarnation. There are others. Guardians. Witnesses. Storykeepers. I am one of them."
He tapped the Book.
"It was mine once."
Sayo leaned forward. "What do you mean?"
The lantern maker gestured to a large crimson lantern hanging in the center of the room. Its paper was torn, its frame warped with age.
"That was your home," he said simply. "In Edo, in 1720. You were Midori then—a girl who painted lanterns for funerals. And you," he nodded to Ren, "were the son of a rival lantern family. You came to spy. You came to sabotage. But you fell in love instead."
---
The Book opened.
The lantern's torn surface glowed.
And then the room fell away.
---
Sayo was Midori.
She lived in the lower quarters of Edo, in a neighborhood filled with smoke and song. She painted the prayers of the dead onto lanterns, her brushstrokes so delicate that even monks came to her for their temple rituals.
Ren was Hiroto.
His father despised Midori's family—accusing them of black rituals, of stealing light from the gods. So Hiroto was sent to ruin them. But instead, he watched Midori work, and each night he returned, pretending to be a wandering musician, just to hear her voice.
"Why do you always ask about the dead?" Midori asked one evening.
"Because they speak more honestly than the living," he replied.
She smiled. "Then you must be very lonely."
---
They fell in love in secret.
They wrote poems in invisible ink. Folded lanterns with hidden messages. They burned their fingerprints into candle wax to leave parts of themselves in each other's lives.
But tragedy was inevitable.
Hiroto's father found out. A fire was set. The lantern house burned.
Midori died among the flames, her final lantern in her arms.
Hiroto lived—but barely. He wandered the countryside, painting lanterns with her name until the gods took pity and let him forget.
---
Back in the shop, Sayo clutched her chest.
"It was... beautiful."
"And sad," Ren added.
The lantern maker nodded. "But that love—fragile and forbidden—left a mark. It became part of the thread you now follow."
Sayo touched the crimson lantern. "Why do you still keep it?"
"To remind me," he said. "That even short flames can light the longest nights."
The Book shimmered again.
A new page turned.
---
As they left the shop, the alley behind them disappeared.
No lantern. No sign. No scent of wax.
Only memory.