She loved you

No one said much after that.

The television stayed on, murmuring quietly to itself, but no one was really listening anymore.

One by one, they gathered their things.

"...I should head home," Yuna said, her voice smaller than usual.

Hikari nodded without his usual comment.

Sora simply hugged her knees tighter.

No goodbyes.

No promises to talk tomorrow.

Just quiet nods, and the soft click of the door as each of them slipped out into the night.

Eishin walked home alone, Mochi tucked silently inside his jacket, his tiny head peeking out just enough to watch the empty streets pass by.

The city felt different tonight.

Quieter.

Hollower.

He barely noticed the distance beneath his feet.

His mind had already wandered somewhere else.

Lysara.

How much did he actually know about her?

He tried to piece it together.

Fragments.

Small things he'd never really questioned before.

She lived alone.

Always had, for as long as he'd known her.

Her parents visited occasionally — rare, brief visits, always over just as quickly as they began. Lysara, on the other hand, used to visit them. Often. As though she were the one keeping the relationship alive rather than the other way around.

Sometimes, a family servant would come by instead, carrying small parcels, groceries, the occasional letter.

And whenever that happened...

Lysara would disappear for the rest of the day.

He remembered now.

There had been a sister.

Mentioned only once, in passing, months ago.

Lysara had gone quiet the moment her name slipped out, changing the subject before Eishin could even ask.

He'd never brought it up again.

Why hadn't he asked more?

Why had he never really asked anything?

The thought gnawed at him the entire walk home.

By the time he reached his apartment building, his legs felt heavier than they should have.

Almost out of habit, his eyes drifted toward the door across the hall.

Her door.

He stopped.

The nameplate was gone.

The small potted plant she always kept outside her window — gone.

Even the faint light that used to spill from beneath her door on quiet nights...

Gone.

Her apartment wasn't just empty.

It looked as though no one had ever lived there at all.

Eishin stood frozen in the hallway, staring at the vacant space where her life used to be.

"...Lysara?"

No answer came.

Of course it didn't.

He didn't remember unlocking his own door.

Didn't remember changing.

Didn't remember lying down.

Somewhere between confusion and exhaustion, sleep finally pulled him under.

The garden greeted him again.

Same golden light.

Same endless fields of flowers that shouldn't exist anymore.

Same quiet melody drifting through the trees.

She was there, seated by the pond exactly as before, though this time she didn't wait for him to circle around.

She simply turned her head.

Those amber eyes found him instantly.

"...You came."

Eishin's throat felt tight.

"...What happened to Lysara?"

The woman was quiet for a long moment.

Then, gently—

"Do you remember the board?"

He blinked.

"...The Echo Board?"

"Yes."

She rose slowly from the stone, her gown shifting like liquid silk in the breeze.

"Lysara played it."

Eishin's chest tightened.

"...What?"

"You remember, don't you?"

Her voice remained soft, patient, though the words themselves settled over him like stone.

"She invited you to join her. You said yes."

"She prepared the board."

"She wrote your name on it herself."

His breath caught.

"...But you never showed up."

The memory surfaced all at once — vague, distant, buried beneath everything else that had happened since.

A message he'd forgotten to answer.

A promise he never kept.

"She played it alone."

The woman's gaze lowered slightly.

"But the ritual has rules."

"Every player named upon the board must be present."

"You weren't."

"So it went wrong."

Eishin's hands curled into fists.

"...Why does that matter? What does that even do?"

She studied him for a long moment before answering.

"These boards were never meant for entertainment."

"They were made to harvest something far more valuable."

"Souls."

"...Mana."

The wind stirred the flowers around them, but everything else remained unnervingly still.

"Every person is born with a guardian."

"An angel bound to them, protecting them, tethered by something ancient."

"But sometimes... people do things. Choices. Actions. Things that sever that bond."

"When that happens, the guardian becomes unclaimed."

"Detached."

"And detached guardians..."

"...are collected."

Eishin's mind spun.

"...Are you saying Lysara—"

"When she completed the ritual alone," the woman continued, "something detached from her."

Her expression softened, just slightly.

"To be precise..."

"My chains were broken."

Eishin froze.

"...Your chains?"

She didn't explain further.

Instead, she looked toward the pond, her reflection rippling gently across the surface.

"Because you weren't there, both of us remained safe."

"This isn't supposed to happen this way."

"But it did."

"So that is simply how it happened."

Silence stretched between them, heavy and unbearable.

Then, quieter than before—

"...Lysara loved you."

The words settled over him like a weight he wasn't ready to carry.

Before he could respond, before he could even breathe—

The garden dissolved into light.

Eishin's eyes snapped open.

Morning sunlight spilled across his ceiling.

His heart pounded violently against his ribs.

Mochi sat silently on his chest, staring at him with unusually still eyes, as though he too had felt something shift in the night.

Eishin lay there for a long moment, unmoving.

Her words echoed endlessly in his mind.

Lysara loved you.

He forced himself upright, running a hand down his face.

The apartment felt colder than usual.

Quieter.

He got ready in a daze, his movements mechanical, his thoughts elsewhere entirely.

Outside, the city buzzed with unusual energy.

Groups of students huddled together near the school gates, phones out, voices hushed with excitement and unease.

"—did you hear about last night?"

"Masanori Shiba, seriously?"

"They said he attacked the police himself."

"Insane..."

"My mom said there was some kind of cult stuff going on in his house."

Eishin walked past them slowly, catching fragments of conversation from every direction.

Masanori's death.

The raid.

The strange symbols found inside his home.

Theories.

Rumors.

Speculation stacked upon speculation.

But nowhere—

Not once—

Did anyone mention her name.

No hushed voices whispering about the body found alongside Masanori.

No news segments replaying that fragment of blurred footage from the night before.

It was as though the entire city had unanimously decided to forget she ever existed.

Eishin's hands tightened around the straps of his backpack.

Something was wrong.

Deeply wrong.

He quickened his pace, weaving through the crowd until he spotted three familiar faces near the school entrance.

Hikari.

Sora.

Yuna.

He needed to see them.

He needed to ask.

To be continued...