Raizen buttoned the last button with hands that felt too steady.
That was what bothered him most.
He stood in front of the small mirror in their temporary house and stared at his own reflection like it belonged to soone else. Elegant black shirt. Clean collar. Black pants that sat straight on his hips, no wrinkles, no dust, no blood. He looked like he was going to a formal event.
Not a death.
He adjusted the fabric at his wrist, then paused, as if his body expected the sa old routine - blades, straps, gear. His ribs still ached when he breathed too deep, but it was getting better every day. Just a constant reminder that yesterday and today were not separate things.
Outside the door, footsteps shifted. Soone exhaled softly.
Saffi was waiting for him.
Raizen opened the door and stepped out.
She stood near the railing, hair tied back, hands clasped in front of her. She wore a black dress that suited her surprisingly well. It was simple, fitted, and formal in a way.
But her eyes weren’t composed at all. Her gaze stayed slightly unfocused, like her thoughts kept drifting away from the platform and into sowhere she couldn’t quite reach.
Raizen shut the door behind him carefully. "I’m ready."
Saffi blinked once, then nodded. "Yeah."
Raizen looked past her at the wet air and the dripping leaves. The rain still fell yesterday. It fell all night. It felt like Ukai had decided it would never stop raining again.
Ukai’s Ruler died this morning.
It had been exactly three days since he was freed. Three days since the contract snapped. Three days since that quiet room with ancient music, teary eyes, and the weight of a truth nobody else got to carry.
Three days since he let go.
Eiden’s voice ca from behind them, calm and low. "Are you two done?"
Raizen turned.
Eiden stepped out in his own formal clothes, neat as always, coat dark, hair combed, expression unreadable. Kenzo ca after him with a grim face that looked forced into place. He wore black too, but the color didn’t make him look solemn. It made him look restrained. Like he was holding a joke in his throat.
And behind them, a shadow moved, half-hidden.
Atman.
Raizen caught a glimpse of him, like he didn’t want to be seen. His face looked tired in a way that wasn’t like yesterday. He didn’t have his usual chaotic bounce or just grumpy face.
But Raizen didn’t question anything. He slept too well to ruin the day with questions.
Kenzo stepped onto the platform and stretched his neck, watching the streets below. "So they even canceled Echelon etings for this?"
Eiden’s mouth twitched. "Apparently the entire city did."
Saffi looked between them like she wanted to say sothing and couldn’t find the right shape for it.
Raizen knew why.
Everybody was told the sa thing.
Ukai’s Ruler died of old age.
Peaceful. Quietly. Natural.
They didn’t know about no tragedy. No hidden fragnt. No contract. No sacrifice.
Raizen was the only one around who knew the whole truth. Not even Atman knew everything that Raizen knew.
He kept that truth in his chest like the two black lotuses he’d left at the preservation shop - small, delicate, and too strange to show anyone without breaking sothing.
Professor Eiden stepped forward and offered his arm in a half-mocking gesture. "Shall we go mourn with dignity, then?"
Kenzo rolled his eyes, but he followed.
Raizen followed too, with Saffi beside him. She walked close, but she didn’t look at him. Her gaze stayed ahead, face completely blank.
They walked down the street together.
At first, Ukai looked the sa as it always did – sa high platforms, sa thick branches, sa drones quietly moving, buildings carved from wood and shaped with Eon. Rainwater dripped from everything. Leaves swayed with the damp wind.
Then Raizen frowned.
The rain didn’t hit his hair.
A few drops still fell from the leaves and things above, but they stopped almost imdiately.
Raizen slowed, instinctively looking up.
The clouds were still there. Endless gray. But the sky looked... Wrong. The cloud layer had a subtle distortion to it. Patterns rippled faintly, spreading in invisible circles.
Raizen stared.
It was beautiful in a way that made his skin crawl.
Eiden noticed. He slid closer, like they were sharing a joke. His voice lowered so Kenzo and Saffi couldn’t hear over footsteps and distant city noise.
"That’s not natural" Eiden murmured.
Raizen didn’t look away. "Woahh, are you serious? I wouldn’t have figured."
"It’s an Eon field" Eiden explained. "Remote controlled. Self-sustaining. No manual input, even!"
Raizen’s eyes widened. "Wha- You can do that?"
Eiden’s tone stayed casual. "One of the Echelon mbers has been working on it. You’d be surprised what people build when their only goal is to look smart."
Raizen swallowed. The idea of soone casually editing the weather over a whole city made his stomach turn in a quiet way.
He forced himself to keep walking.
The closer they got to the center of Ukai, the louder it beca.
At first, Raizen expected wailing. Bells. The kind of grief that shakes walls.
But the sound wasn’t grief.
It was... Joy?
Soft instrunts drifted through the air - strings, flutes, sothing rhythmic and warm. Voices rose in murmurs that didn’t sound like lantation.
It sounded like celebration.
Raizen’s steps slowed down again.
Kenzo frowned too, like he couldn’t decide if he should laugh or be offended. "What in the... Is this a festival?"
Saffi’s gaze sharpened, finally focusing. "No. It’s... for him."
They turned a corner, and the city looked like it opened up.
A broad central platform spread out in front of them, wide enough that Raizen felt small just looking at it. Bigger than even the platform in front of the Ruler... The forr Ruler’s ho.
Massive tree trunks ford pillars around the edges like a natural cathedral. Lanterns hung in long rows, but they looked like new, fancier lanterns.
And people.
So many people.
They filled the platform, packed close, moving in waves. But they weren’t dressed in black.
They were dressed in white.
Everyone.
White robes. White shirts. White dresses. White scarves. Even children. Even elders. So had white branches in their hands - thin, delicate, almost celebratory. So threw petals into the air, and the petals fluttered down like snow.
Raizen stopped
White clothes.
Joyful music.
Smiles all around.
He didn’t understand it at all.
In Neoshima, black ant mourning. Black ant loss. Silence. Respect. Darkness to match the hole death leaves behind.
Here, white flooded the streets like a wave of light.
And the people’s faces...
So were crying.
But they were smiling through it.
Tears ran down cheeks and disappeared into soft laughter. People embraced. So held hands. So whispered songs.
Kenzo’s expression flattened into sothing more contained. Like he was putting on his official face, the one he usually uses in Neoshima, when he has to run a check on the nearby buisnesses.
He stepped forward and stopped an older man carrying a bundle of white petals. He spoke in a polite tone Raizen rarely heard from him.
"Excuse " Kenzo said. "Why... Is this?"
The man blinked as if Kenzo asked why trees grew. Then his eyes softened.
"Our Ruler has finally rested!" the man said, voice calm. "After everything."
Kenzo’s brows drew together. "But shouldn’t you be grieving?"
The man’s eyebrows bent. "But we are!"
Kenzo looked even more confused.
The man glanced toward the crowd, toward the music, toward the white sea of people.
"Death is not a cage" he said. "It is freedom. It is release."
"Freedom? Release? From what? They can’t possibly know about the contract, right?" Raizen thought.
The man lifted the petals slightly. "He did his duty very well. He held Ukai together. And he died peacefully. That is... A gift."
Kenzo didn’t respond right away.
Raizen didn’t either. Because he knew the truth.
The Ruler did not die of old age. He died because he anchored a fragnt of sothing that should not exist.
He died because he chose to hold it back for as long as he could, until he could pass it on.
Peaceful, yes. But not natural. Not simple.
Not the kind of death people imagined when they smiled through tears.
Saffi watched the crowd with a quiet, uncertain expression.
Eiden stood behind them with hands in his pockets, observing like he always did, face composed, eyes sharp.
Kenzo finally nodded at the old man, respectful. "Thank you."
The man bowed slightly "As the cycle of life goes on, you will realize that sotis... The easiest way to lose a person is death." and moved on.
Kenzo exhaled once. "No, that’s... different-"
But the man was already gone.
Nobody paid attention to their black clothes. Not in judgnt. People were too focused on the ceremony, on the music, on the atmosphere of release that hung over everything.
After all, respect cos in many forms.
And the closer they got, the more Raizen saw the small details.
So people wore white paint on their cheeks, in thin lines or patterns
So tied white ribbons around their wrists.
So carried branches with tiny blossoms, waving them slowly like they were greeting soone.
It didn’t feel like denial.
It didn’t feel like pretending death wasn’t real.
It felt like a culture that learned how to keep living without letting grief rot inside them.
Raizen couldn’t decide if it was beautiful or terrifying.
Kenzo mumbled "Well... When I die, I wouldn’t’ mind having sothing like this..."
The music shifted - slower now, deeper.
A ripple moved through the crowd.
People turned their heads.
The voices lowered.
A huge crowd moved forward from behind a corner, flowing like a river through the white-dressed people. n and won walked in organized lines. So carried lanterns. So carried branches and petals.
And in the middle of them –
The coffin.
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