Ashes of the Written Word

The journey back to the Scriptorium was quieter than usual. It was heavier than the silence that Shion carried in her hands, a suffocating quiet that weighed on each step. Mizuchi had guided them to the edge of the village before turning back to tend to the newly awakened waters, leaving Shosei, Yahata, Hikari, and Shion to continue walking the rest of the way.

Hikari, who often hummed nonsensical tunes under her breath or mimicked Shion’s sign language when she thought she was not being watched. Instead, she clung to Shion’s sleeve and made no noise. Shosei, however, was murmuring nonstop. Under his breath, he made lists of texts that he meant to consult and tomes he wished to restore with Shion’s help.

As they drew closer to the Scriptorium, Shosei’s pace began to falter, and his eyes kept flitting to the horizon where dark smoke billowed and slowly dissipated, leading behind an acrid and bitter stench that clung to Shion’s throat.

When they came over the hill, the Scriptorium came into view – or what remained of it. Shion froze; the air shimmered faintly with heat from a fire that no longer burned. The proud Scriptorium, once filled with tall shelves and scrolls fluttering like autumn leaves, was nothing but a pile of charred rubble. The stone archways were cracked open like broken ribs and coated in thick ash. The breeze stirred flakes of ash softly, carrying them away like brittle snowflakes.

“No…” Shosei’s voice broke as he stumbled forward and fell to his knees. “No, no, no…” Shion’s heart twisted as she watched him claw at the soot and wreckage desperately with bare hands. His robes, usually a pristine white, were quickly smeared black as he pulled aside broken fragments of shelves, shards of stone, and scraps of parchment – looking for anything that might hold a trace of what was lost.

Shion’s brow creased with sadness; Shosei had been so excited to restore the rest of the texts together. He had already lost all of his library before, but there had been hope, at least. Shion wanted to reach for her friend immediately, but Yahata’s hand briefly brushed her arm, stopping her. His crimson eyes searched the shadows of the ruins, fully expecting danger to still be lurking. It was only when he gave a faint nod of his head and she moved forward, knelt beside Shosei, and placed a gentle hand on his back.

His search did not stop; his fingers trembled, and his breathing grew ragged. “All of it… Everything is just…gone. Centuries of work. Every prophecy, every single verse, every history restored. All that remains of us,” his voice broke, and he pressed his forehead to the ashy ground, tears rolling down his face. “It’s like we never existed at all.”

Shion touched his shoulder, but he did not look up. She pressed her palm atop his hand, halting his frantic movements and finally catching his attention. With slow, deliberate actions, she moved her fingers in front of him. “Not gone and not forgotten.”

Her fingers were graceful and steady, even as her chest felt tight. For a moment, he did not react, just stared at the young woman’s hands. He blinked at her a few times, expression blank, but her signs seemed to have calmed his heart.

It was then that his fingertips brushed something firm buried in the soot. His breath caught, and with trembling fingers, he pulled free a scrap of parchment, blackened at its edges, but the ink was still visible and fresh looking. The words shimmered faintly, stubborn against the ruin.

“…the hands of silence shall awaken. Not to destroy, but to teach the gods anew.”

With a faint light, the text pulsed, as though reawakened in Shion’s presence.

Shosei gasped softly and clutched the scrap of paper to his chest, holding it as though it might crumble if he breathed too hard. Tears pooled at the corners of his eyes, “A verse…a true verse. It survived. Shijima left us this,” he whispered softly, “and you, Shion, you breathed life back into it.”

Shion’s throat tightened again, and she reached forward, making sure her hands were visible to him. “This is the truth you sought, right? The proof.”

Before Shosei could answer her, a smaller pair of hands tugged at Shion’s sleeve. Hikari, her red eyes wide and cheeks smudged with ash, had moved close. She mimicked Shion’s movements with surprising accuracy. “True…proof.”

Her tiny fingers trembled, but sparks of faint light danced on her own signs; the parchment Shosei held glowed somewhat brighter, its ink looking alive.

Shosei’s breath hitched, and his eyes darted between Shion and Hikari before he glanced up at Yahata. “Do you see this?”

Shion gently brushed soot from Hikari’s tangled hair, smiling at the girl as something stirred inside her once more. It was the protective, fierce, and maternal need to care for Hikari in ways that her own mother had never cared for her. Hikari’s trust, though babbled in broken sentences, was fragile but unshakable.

Shosei repositioned himself to sit cross-legged, cradling the small scrap of paper still as though it were his last relic of hope – the last relic of hope for all of them. Shion settled beside him in the ash, one hand resting gently on his arm. The other moved with slow certainty as she reassured him.

“You are not alone.”

“You…not…alone,” Hikari told him softly, as she copied the signs, sparks shimmering again in her little hands. “You are not alone.”

For what seemed like an eternity, none of them moved. The Scriptorium and its centuries of rich history lay in ruins around them, but in the midst of its ashes, a delicate truth glowed brighter than fire.

Yahata’s eyes drifted around the ruins as he clenched his fists at his sides. His eyes finally landed on the glowing scrap once more, and then on the child, causing his posture to stiffen. His expression, unreadable to most, looked pained or perhaps even fearful to Shion. He stood as still as the statues inside the Great Temple just behind them. The faint light from Shion’s signs painted across her face, softening her features in a way that made his chest ache.

In that moment, he saw Miori in her – the same gentle eyes and patient hands and the same fiery determination buried beneath her quietness. And beside the young woman was the child that could have been…the family he had once been so bold to dream of.

His throat burned, and he swore he could taste copped once more, a sharp reminder of the scream that had silenced him two centuries ago. Shion’s gaze fell on him once more, and he quickly looked away, not before she caught a strange shadow across his expression. She took note of the tension in his hands, balled tightly as if he were holding something back. The pang in her chest was uncertain.

‘Why does he look at me like that?’ She thought.

Yahata’s crimson eyes did not meet hers again. But Shion tucked the image away, the weight of his silence pressing into her as much as the ruins around them. Her silent question echoed unanswered in the vastness of her thoughts, ‘Am I the cure, or the curse?’

For a long time, none of them moved. The Scriptorium lay in ruins around them, but in the midst of its ashes, a fragile truth glowed brighter than fire.