𝘴𝘪𝘴𝘵𝘦𝘳'𝘴 𝘬𝘦𝘦𝘱𝘦𝘳

02. KOMOREBI

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「 天国 」
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Sunlight shone through the forest on a clear morning. Out here, sometimes villagers in their masks would come to smith in peace and privacy, there was even an abandoned shack for the most focused of work on the outskirts. Endless Sakura trees gathered in here, as far as roots from the main tree could reach, constantly in bloom. Though now was March, so they were at their fullest. Here, they could see the giant tree roots that wove itself through the forest, under and over legs seeming to root a body in place. With hair touching the ground in a pool and a hat tied to her head to hide ears, was Ren Sakurai.

Sealed away for nearly four hundred years, and history much lost in the village. Mostly a myth, many thought perhaps she was a statue. Ren Sakurai was very much real. Alive and breathing in steady rhythm for hundreds of years.

On this fateful day, so happened that the wind blew hard enough, the leaves rustled loud enough at the seal covering her face, shrunken and worn. A piece, singular and small, teared away from the words.

The chimes dangling seemed to retreat from their sound. Like a shockwave through the forest, all the birds stopped chirping, the animals stopped moving, and the wind stopped whistling. For the first time in nearly four hundred years, something was amiss in that forrest. Suddenly nothing was protected so peacefully anymore.

For the first time since the Sengoku Era, her eyes opened, and the scales began to tip.

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