The mirror shard burned cold in Riku's palm.
As the silent tide surged closer, Ren grabbed his shoulder and pulled him backward toward the cliffs. The water stopped inches from Riku's boots—hovering, trembling—as if waiting for permission.
Or recognition.
"Look into it," Ren said urgently, nodding at the shard.
Riku hesitated. Every instinct screamed not to—but instinct had failed him before. He lifted the shard.
The reflection that stared back was not his own.
He saw a younger version of himself, maybe ten years old, standing on a rain-soaked pier. His clothes were too big. His hands were shaking. Beside him stood another boy—older, broader-shouldered, with the same eyes.
A brother.
Riku's breath caught."I don't… I don't have a brother."
Ren's grip tightened. "You did."
The memory shifted.
A storm. Screaming wind. Two boys running along the dock as waves crashed like walls. A rope snapping. A body slipping into black water.
Not his father.
Someone else.
Riku staggered, dropping to one knee as the truth slammed into him with crushing force.
"I remembered my father," he whispered. "I remembered losing him. But this—this was before."
Ren nodded grimly."The sea didn't just take your brother's life. It took your memory of him. You were too young. The grief would have broken you. So the ocean… simplified you."
The faceless figure in the water shuddered violently, reacting to the shard's glow.
Riku's chest burned as a name tried to surface—slippery, resisting language.
"Say it," Ren urged. "If you remember him, it can't erase you."
Riku squeezed his eyes shut, forcing the memory to solidify. The older boy laughing. Teaching him knots. Shielding him from the storm.
A name rose from the deep recesses of his mind.
"Haruto."
The moment the name left his lips, the shore screamed.
The cliffs cracked, shedding sheets of stone into the sand. The faceless figure recoiled, its hollow visage fracturing as ripples tore through its form.
The sea surged—this time loud, furious, alive.
Riku gasped as the connection snapped back into place, stronger than before—not grief-bound, but chosen.
"I remember you," he said aloud, voice breaking. "I remember you, Haruto."
The mirror shard shattered into salt and light.
The figure dissolved, collapsing into nothing but foam and memory. The reflectionless water rippled again—and for the first time, showed the sky.
Ren exhaled shakily."That was the name Kurohama never returned," he said. "And you just took it back."
Riku stood slowly, tears streaking his face, heart pounding with both loss and relief.
"I lived half a life," he murmured.
Ren shook his head."No. You survived one."
The hum beneath the ground faded. The cliffs stilled. The shore fell quiet—not empty, but settled.
Riku looked out at the now-reflective sea."So what happens now?"
Ren gave a thin, knowing smile.
"Now," he said, "you decide whether you're done letting legends define you… or whether you become one that remembers."
Far offshore, a distant current shifted—subtle, deliberate.
Other forgotten places were stirring.
And this time, the sea was watching again.