I will always follow

The beginning and the end

There was no pain, no sound.

Only a stillness that felt too complete—like the world had stopped breathing.

Giyuu stood in a place that wasn't a place, beneath a sky that held no stars, no moon, no color at all. Just an endless softness, like the edge of sleep. Time meant nothing. He wasn't cold, but he shivered. He wasn't wounded, but he felt broken.

Then, the wind changed.

Soft footsteps approached from behind. A smaller hand found his—warm, familiar, sacred.
Giyuu wanted to cry.

Cyan eyes looked up at him, clear and steady. Not misty. Not lost.
Fully focused on him and nothing more.
Muichiro stood barefoot in a short yukata, a small smile on his face, gentle but certain. He looked younger than Giyuu remembered him. Or maybe just lighter—like he'd let go of something heavy.

Giyuu couldn't find his voice. The words clung to his throat and refused to come out.

"You don't have to," Muichiro said gently. "I understand."

"Mui..."

"I'm thankful," the boy continued, his voice soft but sure. "Even if I didn't remember you then... I remember now. You were kind to me. You fought beside me. You saw me."
He smiled, and it felt like the mist lifting at sunrise, and squeezed Giyuu's hand tenderly. "That mattered."

Then he stepped back. His fingers began to slip from Giyuu's, and Giyuu felt it too late—the sudden hollowness, the ache of touch breaking.
Like losing someone twice.

"I have to go now," Muichiro said, almost in a whisper. "My brother's waiting. And they're waiting for you."

Before Giyuu could answer, the wind shifted again.
He didn't walk, but he was moving.
The world slid beneath his feet, and Muichiro faded behind him like fog swallowed by light.

"Ara ara, Tomioka-san... what are you looking at back there?"

Shinobu.

She didn't walk—she drifted. Graceful and sharp, like a falling petal that could cut. The scent of blooming cherry blossoms, magnolia, and rose clung to her like a memory he could never quite hold onto. Her eyes sparkled with that dry, knowing glint, and her hands were folded neatly in front of her, as if she had been waiting.

Giyuu choked on a sob that never quite made it out.

"You look like hell," she said lightly. "But I suppose you always did."

His throat tightened. He opened his mouth—but the words caught, tangled in grief.

She waved him off gently. "Don't worry about me. I'm exactly where I'm supposed to be."

And for once, her sing-song tone wasn't grating. Her smile wasn't forced. It wasn't bitter, or weaponized, or worn like armor.
It was soft. Honest. Just hers.

Giyuu blinked—and for a moment, he forgot the battlefield. The smoke, the blood, the broken weight of his body. All of it dissolved. There was only her—like sunlight through water, warm and unreachable, gone before he could hold it. The stillness here wasn't empty. It was full. Full of things he hadn't yet understood.

"You've carried more than your share, Giyuu."

He knew the voice instantly. The sound of it cracked open something raw in his chest, and his heart broke all over again. Then two small hands wrapped around his right—Hinaki and Nichika, standing side by side, their grip delicate but certain. They looked up at him with that quiet, childlike solemnity that always made him feel like he was being seen for exactly who he was.