Generations passed, and the valley changed.
Where once there had been a fissure and a single small tree, now a grove stretched across the hillside — hundreds of trees, each one blooming in shades of white, rose, and deep crimson.
They called it The Grove of Memory, though the older villagers whispered another name under their breath — The Dreaming Orchard.
Every year, when the blossoms began to fall, petals drifted across rivers and rooftops, clinging to windows like gentle omens.
Children caught them and made wishes.
Elders told stories.
And when the wind carried the petals away, people said the spirits were listening again.
---
Rei's house had long since turned to dust, but her pottery remained — displayed in the village shrine. Each piece shimmered faintly, the golden glaze forming the pattern of petals in motion.
The potter's descendants still shaped clay with the same rhythm she once used, saying they could "feel the heartbeat of the soil."
Some of their works carried faint glows when held at dawn — gifts, they said, from the forgotten goddess of blossoms.
But few remembered Sakura's name.
And perhaps that was how she wanted it.
---
The spiritwalker, too, had faded into legend.
Some said he wandered until he became one with the forest. Others believed he crossed into the dream realm, guarding the border between sleep and waking.
In the songs sung at spring festivals, he was called the Keeper of Petals — a traveler who walked with the wind and carried the scent of renewal wherever he went.
And in every song, he always paused beneath a blooming tree to whisper a name no one remembered.
---
Time folded gently over the land.
The Heartroot, deep beneath the earth, continued its slow pulse. Its hum had softened into something like breathing — steady, alive, eternal.
Each spring, its rhythm spread through the soil, waking flowers that had never bloomed before.
No temples rose.
No priests declared miracles.
The divinity of the world had become simple, quiet — a kindness in how the sun touched the rivers, or how a seed always found a way to sprout through stone.
That was Sakura's legacy.
---
One evening, a young scholar came to the grove, carrying an old scroll written in ink faded by centuries.
She had studied forgotten myths — names of gods no longer worshipped, prayers no one recited.
But the story that drew her here was one barely preserved in a single fragment:
> "The twin spirits of the bloom — one of grace, one of sorrow — who bound the seasons and taught the world to dream again."
She stood beneath the oldest tree, feeling the earth's faint hum beneath her feet.
> "I don't know your name," she said softly, "but I think you remember ours."
A petal drifted down, landing on her scroll.
It shimmered once, faintly, before dissolving into light.
The scholar gasped — not from fear, but recognition.
For a heartbeat, she felt a warmth in her chest, as if someone had placed a gentle hand there.
> "Then it's true," she whispered. "You're still here."
She closed her eyes.
And when she did, she heard it — faint, like distant rain: a voice singing softly.
> "The world breathes, child of ink. Write what it dreams."
Tears filled her eyes. She sat beneath the tree, writing as fast as she could, capturing the words that drifted like petals in her mind.
By the time dawn came, she had written a new story — not of gods and wars, but of love, memory, and gentle renewal.
It ended with a single line:
> "Even in forgetting, we are remembered."
---
When the villagers found her sleeping beneath the tree the next morning, the scroll lay open beside her.
The blossoms had gathered around her like a blanket.
They didn't know who she was or why she'd come, but they took her writings to the shrine and placed them beside Rei's pottery.
Years later, her tale spread across distant lands — not as history, but as poetry.
A story of two spirits who taught the world to listen, to dream, and to forgive itself.
---
And somewhere beyond all mortal knowing — between root and sky, shadow and bloom — Sakura and Kurozakura walked together again.
No longer divided by sorrow or bound by divinity, they drifted through the endless twilight of creation, their laughter mingling with the rustle of petals.
> "We are stories now," Sakura said, her eyes soft.
> "Then let us be kind ones," Kurozakura replied.
They touched hands.
The world exhaled.
And the petals kept falling, softly, endlessly — not as endings, but as beginnings. 🌸