As the last notes of the Night Parade's music dissolved into the cool blue of early morning, Yuto lingered beneath the flickering lanterns with Koma and Rin. The city beneath Tokyo, always steeped in dusk, now shimmered at its threshold a new day pressing gently against the veil that separated spirit from human.
The plaza glowed with the remnants of joy and longing. Yuto watched as lantern after lantern floated toward the city's invisible sky, carrying prayers and promises higher than any hand could reach. The mask and crane still rested at the heart of the memory shrine, now joined by dozens of tokens new bridges built by a hundred spirits and souls.
Koma stretched, paws splayed on the warm stones. "Festival's over. Which means the Assembly will want to see you. The real tests of a Mediator happen after the parties, trust me."
Rin's eyes reflected the lingering festival fires. Her tails swayed, brushing lightly against Yuto's arm. "You gave this city something rare hope that endures past a single night. But bridges, even magic ones, need care to stay strong. There are old debts and older dangers still awaiting you."
As the crowd melted away, a hush descended. Yuto caught a shifting in the distance a sprightly, familiar figure weaving through the receding dancers. Haruka.
She wasn't supposed to be here, not in this world; he knew it before he knew how. But there she was, her usual grumpy concern replaced by wide-eyed marvel. Unlike the spirits, her outline rippled in and out of focus, as if she were stitched from the space between dreams.
Haruka rushed to Yuto, voice hushed and urgent. "I don't know how I got here. I followed the lanterns and… suddenly everything looked different. Is this the place from your messages? The one you kept forgetting to explain?"
Yuto's heart leapt with astonishment and worry. "It is. You… you shouldn't be able to see this."
"I saw you during the Festival of Lanterns back home. And then, for a second, it was like I was walking into a story you'd only half written."
Rin and Koma exchanged anxious glances. Koma muttered, "Friends crossing the veil without an invitation… that's a sign of thinning boundaries, or something stranger."
Yuto reached for Haruka's hand, and their fingers touched solid, yet shimmering fleetingly, like two halves of a spell meeting in the middle.
"The Assembly must know about this," Rin said quietly. "The world above and the city below are not meant to overlap so easily."
Yuto nodded, but before he could answer, the air in the plaza cracked like ice underfoot. A chill swept in; lanterns flickered. A pulse of shadow moved along the ancient stones, coalescing at the very center of the city.
Out of the darkness stepped a spirit, taller and more regal than any other antlers crowned with webs of silver, eyes deep as midnight lakes. The Assembly's eldest. Their voice, when it came, was the chime of a wind moving through ancient trees:
"Mediator. The line between worlds blurs, and not by chance alone. Your journey brings light, but also draws things once confined to shadow. A reckoning comes. Bring your friend. Stand before the Assembly at once."
Around them, the dawn's hush deepened, and even the festival embers seemed to listen.
Koma nudged Yuto, his mischief replaced by a rare solemnity. "Time to see the high table, bridge-builder. And this time, you're holding more than just your own fate."
Yuto tightened his grip on the lantern, the memory of all he'd seen, learned, and risked burning bright in his chest. With Haruka at his side, and his companions close, he stepped out of the dying festival and toward the towering stairs that led to the Assembly's sanctum uncertain of the path, but sure that, for the first time, he would not walk it alone.
End of Chapter 15