The morning was unusually quiet: not peaceful, just... expectant.
Yuzume stepped out with a half-eaten rice ball still in her hand, crumbs clinging to her lip, tail swishing in a lazy arc.
"Riku?" she called. "Did you steal my last peach again? Because if I find the pit in the garden again, I will end you."
No answer.
She pouted, bit off the rest of the rice ball, then wandered toward the river path. The sun warmed the stones. The lavender buzzed softly with sleepy bees. Everything looked normal, smelled normal.
But something itched.
Not her skin. Not her thoughts. Something deeper. Like the shrine was a song just slightly out of tune.
She found him crouched near the center path, shirt damp with sweat, sleeves rolled up, a small spade in one hand and a very guilty expression on his face.
"What," she asked flatly, "are you doing?"
"I was fixing the drainage near the path. Water kept pooling. Figured it would help the moss."
She blinked.
Then narrowed her eyes.
"You were... gardening."
"I had a spade."
"That's not how shrine maintenance works."
"You're making this up."
"You're making this worse."
Before she could launch into a full rant about structural integrity and sacred moss ecosystems, her gaze dropped to the exposed patch of stone at his feet.
And stopped.
There, carved deep into the foundation beneath the old walkway, was a symbol. Faint. Weathered. And glowing, ever so faintly, with the same silver-blue shimmer the veil gave off during full moons.
It looked like a blooming flower. Or maybe a star. Or a twisted knot.
Riku noticed her silence. "Uh… that was already there. I swear."
Yuzume crouched beside it, ears twitching, tail now absolutely still. She reached out but stopped short, fingers hovering just over the strange marking.
"It's… humming," she whispered.
Riku frowned. "I don't hear anything."
"I don't think it's sound."
She stared at it for a long moment. The light pulsed gently beneath the surface, like breath. Like memory.
Something tugged in her chest.
Like that night her master found her. The first moon she ever saw. The moment she heard her name.
Without thinking, she reached for it again.
This time, her fingers touched the stone.
Her vision blurred.
Lavender fields. Running water. A shrine buried in snow. A voice whispering her name, not as it was... but as it had been.
Then gone.
She yanked her hand back with a gasp.
"Yuzume?" Riku reached out instinctively. "What happened?"
She blinked hard. Swallowed. The glow had vanished.
"It… it was nothing."
"Didn't look like nothing."
"I said it was nothing."
She stood, brushing off her knees, trying to steady her tail — but it flicked sharply to the side. Her heartbeat felt uneven. The air too still. Like the shrine was watching her.
She turned before he could ask more questions.
"Cover it back up," she muttered. "Don't tell the spirits."
"What if they already know?"
She didn't answer.
That night, her dreams were full of lavender again.
But this time, she wasn't running through it.
She was lost inside it.
And the moon never rose.