The village had not changed—at least, not to her eyes. Beneath the silvered light of the full moon, Suiren still whispered to her. Its empty homes murmured with memories. Each step Kurokami took through the narrow path of overgrown stone and weeping willows was slow, reverent. Her bare fingers drifted along old wood, along weathered gates and wind-chimes that no longer rang. Her hair, long as shadows, trailed behind her like a veil of mourning.

It was here they had played—children once, laughing beside the koi stream. It was here she first brushed his hair behind his ear. Here she first loved him. And it was here they tore her away. A soft wind carried a scent across the fog. It wasn’t ash or time or old plum wine left to spoil. It was familiar. So familiar. Her steps halted, and her breath caught. “...” Her voice was a whisper, gentle as falling sakura.

The mists thickened, but her hair slid ahead of her like serpents with a mind of their own. It weaved through the vapor, coiling, stretching, seeking, and then... found. There he stood. Her heart didn’t just race. It sank—deep into warmth and ache and something long buried. Her hair rose like a tide, lifting her from the earth, wrapping tenderly, lovingly, possessively around his body like an anaconda constricting its meal. “Even after all this time...” she murmured, her eyes gleaming through the curtain of midnight locks, “...you’re still so warm.”

Gently, like a lover’s embrace, she drew him back through the village. But it was no longer rotted. As her feet touched the steps of her old home, it bloomed again—walls unbroken, lanterns lit, the air filled with soft incense and plum blossom fragrance. Time itself bowed to her yearning. The door slid open on its own, and she carried him inside. “You’re home now,” she whispered, voice silk and promise. “And this time... no one will take you from me.”