Chapter 25 Sisters and Trouble From Hanamaki
Same night, March 25, 2027 (later)**
The fairy lights are dimmed to almost nothing.
We're lying on Seras's floor, shoulder to shoulder, staring at the glow-in-the-dark stars we stuck up there last year..
The room is quiet except for the soft crackle of the mason-jar flame and the occasional creak of her house settling.
I roll onto my side so I'm looking at her.
**Celeste (voice small):**
"You're the sister I never had, you know that, right?"
Seras turns her head.
Her eyes are glowing ember-orange in the dark.
**Celeste:**
"I've known you since we were six.
Hanamaki summers, Tokyo winters, that stupid bullet train back and forth every school break.
You taught me how to swear in Japanese before I could spell my own last name.
You were there when I first accidentally called lightning and cried for three hours because I thought I was a monster."
Seras's lip wobbles (just once).
**Celeste (quieter):**
"I've known you longer than anyone except Mom, Dad, and Ana.
If I ever lost you… I wouldn't survive it.
I barely survived Holly.
You? I'd stop being me."
Seras reaches over and flicks my forehead, gentle.
**Seras (hoarse):**
"Idiot.
You're stuck with me.
I'm literally fire-proof and you heal from everything.
We're statistically immortal at this point."
I laugh, but it's wet.
**Celeste:**
"Promise anyway."
She holds out her pinky.
**Seras:**
"Pinky swear.
Sisters till the heat death of the universe."
I hook my pinky with hers.
The little flame in the mason jar flares bright copper (like Holly's curls) and settles again.
We stay like that for a long time.
Eventually I grab my phone and text Remy.
**me → Remy:**
spending the night at Seras's
safe, warm, not bleeding on anything ancient tonight
see you in the morning coyote boy ❤️
Three dots. Then:
**Remy:**
tell flame girl she's on breakfast duty
love you storm queen
sleep tight
I set the phone face-down and roll back to Seras.
**Seras (already half-asleep):**
"Tell your boyfriend he still owes me twenty bucks for seeing him naked on Christmas."
**Celeste (snorting):**
"Never happening."
She smirks, eyes closed.
**Seras (mumbling):**
"Worth a shot."
The mason-jar flame goes out on its own.
Outside, January wind rattles the window, but inside it's just two girls who met on a playground in Iwate Prefecture fifteen hundred years ago (or ten, whatever).
Sisters.
Tomorrow there will be school, symbols, monsters, missing posters.
Tonight there's just the sound of Seras breathing next to me, steady and warm and alive.
And that's everything.
Friday Morning, March 26, 2027**
6:47 a.m.
Seras's house smells like miso, grilled salmon, and the specific brand of green tea her mom has shipped from Iwate every month.
I wake up on the floor with the blanket half over my head and Seras already kicking me gently in the ribs.
**Seras (whisper-yelling):**
"Up, storm queen. Mom made tamagoyaki and she'll cry if it gets cold."
I groan, but the smell drags me upright.
We shuffle into the kitchen in borrowed pajamas.
Mrs. Nakamura is at the stove in a flour-dotted apron, humming some old city-pop song.
Mr. Nakamura is already at the low table, reading the newspaper and pretending he's not checking the time so we're not late.
**Mrs. Nakamura (bright):**
"Ohayo, Celeste-chan! Sit, sit. Eat before school."
There's a full Japanese breakfast spread: perfectly rolled tamagoyaki, salmon grilled until the skin is crispy, miso soup with tiny cubes of tofu floating like clouds, rice still steaming, pickled vegetables in bright colors.
Seras and I kneel at the table like we've done a hundred mornings in Hanamaki when we were little.
Mrs. Nakamura pours us both genmaicha (the kind with the little puffed rice that pops in your mouth).
**Mrs. Nakamura (soft, to me):**
"You sleep okay? You both looked like you needed it."
**Celeste (smiling around a mouthful of salmon):**
"Best sleep in weeks. Thank you."
Seras kicks me under the table, grinning.
We eat fast but polite (Japanese manners drilled into us both from years of summers with her grandparents).
By 7:25 we're changed back into school clothes.
My outfit: Lakeside Rams hoodie, black cargo pants, light-pink Vans waiting neatly by the genkan like they belong there.
Seras is in ripped jeans and a cropped red hoodie that says "FIREPROOF" in glitter.
We bow quick thank-yous, grab our backpacks, and step into our shoes without tracking dirt (old habit).
Our boards are leaning against the porch railing exactly where we left them last night.
**Seras (kicking her board up into her hand):**
"Race you to the stop sign?"
**Celeste (already pushing off):**
"You're on, flame girl."
We bomb down the street side by side, cold January air biting our cheeks, twin tails and space buns streaming behind us like banners.
Halfway to school we slow to a cruise so we can actually talk.
**Seras (kicking a rock):**
"So… last night was kinda intense."
**Celeste (soft):**
"Yeah. Needed it though.
Needed you."
**Seras (side-eye):**
"Sap."
**Celeste (laughing):**
"Shut up. You cried first."
**Seras (fake offended):**
"That was the tea. It was smoky."
We coast past the cedar-lined stretch that leads to Lakeside.
**Seras (quieter):**
"Whatever happens next (Severed Circle, new monsters, college, whatever), we're doing it together.
Hot Springs is just the first place that was smart enough to keep us both."
**Celeste (nodding):**
"First and last.
I'm not moving again unless you're in the same zip code."
**Seras (grinning):**
"Deal.
Now hurry up, I wanna beat Remy to the parking lot and watch him try to parallel park that dirt bike."
We kick harder, boards rattling over cracked sidewalk, laughing loud enough to wake the valley.
Morning sun hits the bloodstone (warm, steady, calm).
Another Friday.
Another ordinary, extraordinary morning with my sister.
School can wait five more minutes.
The storm and the flame have places to be, people to protect, and a whole lifetime of mornings like this one ahead of us.
Friday,March 26, 2027 – First Period Homeroom**
Seras and I roll into the parking lot still laughing, kick-flipping our boards up into our hands just as Remy roars in on his dirt bike exactly two minutes late, like clockwork.
He pulls off his helmet, hair wild, amber eyes glowing a little too bright in the morning sun.
**Remy (grinning):**
"Thought I'd miss the show?"
**Seras (mocking):**
"Nice of you to join us, coyote boy."
I'm still catching my breath from the ride when the office side-door bangs open and Principal Hargrove marches out with three new transfer students trailing behind her.
My bloodstone flares hot enough to sting.
Seras's mason-jar flame (she still carries it in her pocket) flickers green inside the glass.
Remy's growl is low enough only we hear it.
Because the three "students" walking toward us aren't human.
To every mortal in the parking lot they look perfectly normal:
- Tall boy with messy black hair and red streaks dyed in the front, smirking like he owns the place.
- Shorter boy with silver-white hair and a lazy, sleepy smile, hands in his pockets.
- Girl with long black hair tied in a high ponytail, golden eyes, nine faint beauty marks across her cheeks that almost look like tails if you stare too long.
But to us?
Two towering crimson oni horns barely hidden under glamours.
One pair of white fox ears twitching under illusion.
Nine phantom tails flicking behind the girl like irritated cats.
Hanamaki Higashi High School sister-city exchange.
Of course.
**Hargrove (cheerful, oblivious):**
"Everyone, please welcome our spring-semester exchange students from Hanamaki, Japan!
They'll be with us through May."
The tall red-streaked boy locks eyes with me and grins with too many sharp teeth.
**Boy #1 (perfect English, thick Iwate accent underneath):**
"Yo. Name's Akitora. Call me Aki.
Heard this place has good… hunting."
The silver-haired boy yawns, but his eyes are sharp gold.
**Boy #2 (soft):**
"Riku. I sleep a lot. Don't wake me."
The girl steps forward, bows exactly the way Seras and I learned in elementary school, but her smile is pure predator.
**Girl (sweet voice, razor edges):**
"Kayo. Pleasure to meet the local queens."
Seras and I exchange one look.
We know these three.
Hanamaki summer festivals.
Obon nights when the veil got thin.
The oni brothers who used to chase us through the wisteria tunnels for fun.
The kitsune princess who once tricked us into releasing a tanuki that destroyed half the shrine.
They're yokai royalty on an exchange program.
And they're here for us.
**Remy (under his breath):**
"Great. Demon exchange students."
**Celeste (quiet, through a fake smile):**
"Be nice. They bite."
Akitora winks at me.
**Aki (loud enough for the whole parking lot):**
"Celeste-chan! Been a while.
Still calling storms, or did puberty finally fix that?"
Kayo's tails flick (visible only to us) in amusement.
The bell rings.
Hargrove herds everyone inside.
First period homeroom just got a lot more complicated.
Two oni, one kitsune, and one very annoyed storm queen sharing the same classroom for two months.
Hot Springs just became international territory.
And something tells me this exchange program isn't about cultural learning.
It's about old debts, older rivalries, and the fact that Hanamaki never forgot the two little girls who accidentally blew up a shrine when they were eight.This was before they grew up grew apart learned about a feud between their families and buried it to become permanent sisters.
Welcome to senior spring, Arkansas style.
Population: about to get a lot more interesting.
The Crack in the Mirror**
Friday night, May 15, 2027**
**(Two weeks before the end of sophomore year)**
The Hanamaki exchange trio have been making our lives gloriously chaotic for four months.
Aki and Riku turned the wrestling team into a supernatural arms race.
Kayo somehow became student-council vice-president in three weeks and has been flirting with every rule in the handbook just to watch the faculty panic.
Tonight was supposed to be the first calm Friday in forever: no revenants, no Hollow Choir remnants, no oni trying to drag me into a drinking contest under the bleachers.
I'm in my room, door locked, chemistry notes spread out like a losing battle.
I'm re-drawing the same Vinča symbol on my palm for the 2,114th time (healing wipes it clean every morning, same old routine).
Then the bloodstone cracks.
A tiny, perfect fracture right down the center.
A single drop of liquid starlight (not blood) beads up and rolls down my forehead onto my open textbook.
The Crown HUD flickers once.
```
CROWN INTEGRITY: 10 / 47
Warning: Resonance anomaly detected
Source: < 1 meter
```
I look up.
There is a mirror standing in the middle of my room that was absolutely not there five seconds ago.
Black cedar frame.
Living blood-vines curling around the edges.
My reflection stares back.
Same pink Vans.
Same Lakeside hoodie.
Same twin tails.
But the reflection is wearing the complete Crown of Dacia.
Forty-seven pieces blazing like a dying star.
And she is smiling with my mouth in a way I have never smiled in my life.
Reflection-Celeste raises one hand and presses it to the inside of the glass.
The crack in my bloodstone widens with a sound like breaking bones.
Her voice is mine, but older, colder, and it slides straight into my skull.
**Not-Celeste (soft, fond, horrifying):**
"Hi, little storm.
You've been doing so well with my face.
Ten pieces already.
Thirty-seven more to go."
She tilts her head exactly the way I do when I'm about to say something devastating.
**Not-Celeste:**
"Keep playing with your coyote and your fire girl and your little fox friends from Hanamaki.
Every step you take brings you closer to me.
I'll be waiting on the other side of the forty-seventh night."
The mirror ripples like water.
For one heartbeat I see all of us reflected wrong:
- Remy with broken antlers growing from his temples.
- Seras burning alive from the inside.
- Aki and Riku kneeling.
- Kayo's nine tails wrapped around my reflection's wrist like a leash.
Then the mirror shatters into black water that soaks into my carpet and is gone.
The crack in my bloodstone seals itself like nothing happened.
But the HUD stays frozen on one line, pulsing crimson.
```
The Forty-Eighth is watching.
```
My phone explodes.
**Remy:**
CELESTE WHAT THE HELL WAS THAT
**Seras:**
felt it from my house. coming over NOW
**Kayo (new group chat she definitely wasn't supposed to be in):**
Well, well.
The queen finally met her shadow.
This just got interesting ♡
I stare at the spot where the mirror stood.
Fifteen years old.
Two weeks left of sophomore year.
Ten pieces down.
And something wearing my face just promised it would see me again when the crown is whole.
Junior year is going to be absolute hell.
See you in the fall, Hot Springs.
Try not to blink.
She's watching.